Not too long after leaving Laune and Korah to their task, Shadow began to explore the desolate forest while keeping her scent hidden.
Her movements were light and without a sound as she made use of her surroundings to avoid any beasts on her travels.
With her current strength she had confidence to travel alone within the desolate forest, if she came across an enemy she could not defeat she knew she had a high success rate in escaping.
Wandering and exploring for some time she came to a sudden halt.
"Human!!!" Roared a nearby spirit beast filled with rage.
Unfortunately the human paid no attention to the roar of the beast and fired another arrow towards the beast.
Coming to witness this scene Shadow decided to observe for a while.
The spirit beast was a young sun bear with black, short and sleek fur and a crescent-shaped pale cream patch on its chest.
The sun bears sickle like claws dug into the tree which it had climbed up and had already made its way towards a spirit fruit hanging high up in the tree.
Unfortunately he had been spotted by a human and shot with an arrow in his bottom...
After the human fired a second arrow he let go of the tree and fell down to the ground barely avoiding it.
The human male looked very experienced when exploring the forest, Shadow could tell that he had used a similar method as her to hide her scent.
He also wore messy and dirty clothes showing that he had not returned home for some time.
Judging from his attire he must work for a clan of humans in gathering supplies and scouting the forest, although dirty the fabrics used would not be able to be bought by the average person.
The man let out a sigh upon seeing his second arrow miss the target, he had to admit his archery skills were not the best.
Thinking of where he hit the bear with his first arrow he blushed with shame, he put away his bow and took out a sword and pointed it towards the sun bear.
His eyes flashed with greed and happiness upon seeing that the bear was unsuccessful upon obtaining the spirit fruit.
The sun bear however recovered from its fall and looked at the human with caution, he could not detect the human until he was hit by the arrow so he did not look down on the human.
Watching the bear Shadow showed a look of appreciation. 'This bear is good, he is very cautious and quick to avoid danger however if his opponent had been more skilled in archery he may have died from the first arrow with his back exposed. Although he was too distracted by the spirit fruit to notice the humans presence he did manage to avoid any fatal injuries or death by choosing to abandon his plans to get the fruit.'
Both bear and man were not too far away from each other, both eyes locked onto their enemy.
Neither willing to make the first move but after some time the bear grew bored and snorted.
He withdrew his body closer to the tree closely guarding the path to the fruit with a smug look on his face.
Seeing this Shadow smirked. 'So he noticed the man was after the fruit.'
The bear continued to monitor the man but he quickly gave up and withdrew his sword staring at the bear with anger.
Letting out a humph he began to back away.
His mission was to scout the forest and mark on a map the locations of different fruits and herbs available in the forest.
He also recorded any other information he found out, for example herb located at x guarded by lion spirit beast estimated 5th spirit gathering.
Luckily he came across the spirit fruit but it was found first by the sun bear...