Aariv didn't have any other choice except to look for the dumb horse. He needed the big bags to store the latex from rubber trees, but the horse had run away with them.
Aariv used his full strength to bunny hop through the jungle. Every time he kicked the ground he would jump 20 meters high in the air. He was trying to find the horse but his hard work was not giving him any fruits.
[BAM] once again, he kicked the ground.
He was in the air for about 5 seconds before falling back. He saw some birds in the sky and had an idea.
"Juno, is your puppet master ability only limited to humans?" he asked Juno.
"Ummm, I don't know. I never tried it on animals" She replied uninterestingly.
Although she was watching some movie right now, she still helped Aariv whenever he asked her. She had changed and didn't act too unreasonable anymore.
"What's your current range?"
"The holographic display says it's 5 kilometers(3.1 miles)" She said as she looked at her stats hologram.
"Hmm... Try to use your puppet master skill on that Falcon," Aariv pointed at the Shaheen falcon(Indegineous to Indian subcontinent) in the sky.
It would be lying if Juno said that she wasn't interested. She always wanted to see the world from the sky, but neither she nor Aariv could fly yet.
"Okay, I'll try," she said and focused on the bird.
At first, nothing happened, he waited for 4 more minutes and was about to stop her because he saw the falcon going out of range. Then suddenly, Juno screamed with excitement. "Oh my god, It's so beautiful up here... weeeeeeeeeeeeee"
"Haha... can you control its body?" he understood that she was successful.
"Ummm, let me try"
Aariv kept looking at the sky, for some time and didn't see any change, but then he noticed the falcon turning towards him and coming close.
"I can not completely control its body but still, I can give it commands like where to go and stuff. It's like I am using a remote control to send different instructions to it." Juno explained.
Aariv was happy that she could at least make the falcon move as required. Falcons had a top flying speed of 390 km/h(242 mph), and he wanted to use it for reconnaissance.
"All right, try to find that dumbass horse in a 5 kilometer(3.1 miles) radius. He must be somewhere grazing grass," he told Juno.
Aariv himself went near a tree and sat down. He changed his view to Juno's perspective. She was currently looking for the horse or any other clues. When Aariv saw the view from the sky, he felt mesmerized.
~I wish I could fly~ he thought to himself.
"hehe" Juno chuckled as it was very rare that Aariv was jealous of Juno.
He then focused on the ground and looked for clues. It was very hard to find anything as the forest was very dense.
After 2 hours of searching, they finally thought about giving up but then Aariv noticed something on the ground. It was hard to differentiate as it was brown in color, just like tree trunks. He told Juno to take the falcon closer.
...
"That Imbecile dropped all the bags there and ran away, that's it, I will not try to find him anymore. I have my bags now and I can easily carry them as the bags only have the capacity of 200 kilos. 200 kilos is like a child's play, I can even carry 15,000 kilos easily." Aariv said, boasting about his strength.
"huh... Narcissist" Juno interjected.
...
Aariv moved his vision back to his main body and started to move towards the bags. Juno was making the falcon turn circles around the bags to help Aariv find it. Aariv was moving very fast, about 50 km/h(m/h) even in the jungle, he was parkouring his way through trees, bushes and branches.
It took him 4 minutes to reach the place and when he reached the falcon came down and landed on Aariv's shoulder.
Juno also left the falcon's mind and returned to Aariv. He wanted to keep the falcon so he used telepathy to imprint his image in the Falcon's mind to make it his pet.
"Jojo will not leave so from now you can fly with him anytime you want, and I've also named him Jojo," Aariv told Juno.
"Whaaaaat, Yes! It's gonna be so much fun," she cheered.
Aariv petted Jojo and used his biokinetic powers to heal him of any disease and also strengthen its gene limit. With better genes, the falcon was bound to grow and live more than any other bird. Aariv also wanted to experiment and see how far he could push an animal's genes.
"Jojo is family from now on," Aariv said.
"Yes, Jo...." Juno was speaking but stopped midway.
"Oh my god, who's there?" Juno exclaimed, making Aariv alert.
He looked back and saw a little boy around 8 or 9, standing beside a tree, looking at them. He had black hair, a healthy face, and normal commoner's clothes. Aariv was surprised that he could not sense the boy as he could feel changes in energy around him due to his powers.
Aariv suspiciously looked at the kid and said "What are you doing here, kid? Are you lost?"
The kid looked at Aariv with a curious expression and said "No!, I live here. What are you doing here?"
Aariv doubted that kid was lying, why would someone live in the forest.
"I was looking for my horse," Aariv said.
While Aariv was talking to the kid, he was also having another conversation with Juno in his mind.
"Juno, I have some doubts about this kid. Try to use your puppet master ability on him"
Juno focused on the little kid and used the puppet master skill, but she was surprised when she noticed something weird. She was not able to feel the kid's mind.
"O my god Aariv, He doesn't have a brain, I cannot sense anything," Juno said with a scared voice.
When Aariv heard her his doubts solidified.
"The kid didn't have a physical body and that explained why I couldn't sense him," Aariv told Juno.
"Waaa... Does that mean... he... he is a g...ghost?" Juno said while stuttering.
Aariv himself didn't know what the boy was. he looked at the boy.
"What are you?" He straightforwardly asked.
Listening to that, the boy smiled.
"Oh, not only can you see me but can also tell that I am not a human. You are not a normal man, are you?." The boy said while walking towards Aariv.
Aariv stood in his place, he wasn't scared of the boy, but that couldn't be said about Juno. She was screaming crazily in his mind.
"Run Aariv run, run for your life... It's a ghost... why are you not running stupid, " she really sounded scared and seeing that Aariv was not running she closed her eyes. Just like kids do when scared.
If you can't see the ghost then the ghost can't hurt you.
"Are you a ghost?" Aariv asked.
The kid looked at Aariv's complicated face and started laughing. "Hahaha... you thought I was a ghost?"
Aariv nodded.
"I am a Yaksha, not a ghost, human," he said.
Aariv searched for info about Yaksha in his memories, it took him about 3 seconds before he finally found it.
Yaksha was the name of a broad class of nature-spirits, usually benevolent, who took care of the natural treasures hidden in the earth and tree roots. They appeared in Hindu mythology, Jain and Buddhist mythology.
But he also found out that not all of them were nice and benevolent, many of them were mischievous and sometimes plain evil.
Aariv put his hand on the hilt of his sword and asked with a serious voice "the bad one or the good one?"
The Yaksha kept on walking towards Aariv as if he didn't hear Aariv's words. There was a lot of tension in the air. Aariv took a step back and pulled out his sword.
Yaksha suddenly sped up and made a leap on Aariv. Aariv also kicked the ground and jumped towards him. Yaksha looked a little surprised as he was not expecting a human to have this much strength.
[Clank]
The moment they collided, a sudden blast of air spread throughout the forest within a 100-meter radius.
Aariv was surprised because he heard a metallic sound when he slashed his sword, he looked carefully and noticed the Yakshas nails, they looked like steel.
He understood that if he wanted to defeat the Yaksha then he needed to go full power. He started to channel the natural energy around him into his body and started running towards the Yaksha.
Yaksha noticed the change in Aariv's body.
"Wait, wait... I am a good one," he said with fear and excitement.
Aariv, who was at full speed heard the words and tried to stop himself but at that speed, it was not possible. There was not enough space and he stumbled into a tree, however, he didn't stop there, the tree was smashed and his body started rolling towards other trees. Like a bowling ball, he rolled and Knocked some dozen trees before finally stopping.
His body laid down on the ground with his eyes facing the sky.
Just then Juno peeked a little to check what was happening outside and saw Aariv's body lying motionless with eyes open.
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooo,... The ghost killed him, What do I do now... I'll be stuck here forever and his body will rot away...Stupid, I told him to run away...oh well, I guess I'll watch some mov..." She started to mindlessly mumble.
*Sigh*
"Shut up Juno, I am still alive," Aariv said grumpily.
"Hehe... Yaaaaay, my favorite human is alive... hurray" She cheered, she clearly knew that he was alive and was probably just messing around.
Aariv's eye twitched, "What was that about my body rotting ha?"
[pheeee phoooo phooo] She ignored him and started whistling.
...
Aariv got up and checked his clothes, they were not harmed as his body was covered with natural energy at the time he fell and it worked like a shield.
He walked to where he fought the Yaksha, he saw him sitting near a tree, probably waiting for him.
"So why did you attack me if you are a good one?" Aariv asked. He was still on alert as he knew nothing about Yakshas except the general definition written in history books.
The Yaksha stood up and came close to Aariv and did a namaste with a bow, "My name is Neer and I am the caretaker of this jungle and its inhabitants. I just wanted to see how strong you were, which is why I attacked you. I meant no serious harm."
Aariv looked closely at the Yaksha named Neer, he couldn't feel any evil in him so he believed that he must be speaking the truth but he still had doubts.
"And why did you want to check my strength?" He said while putting his sword back in the holster.
Neer showed a cheerful smile and said "because I have a proposal for you"