Aeron woke up with the sound of birds, the treetops were filled with them, though none of them were particularly strong, no beast would waste their time eating such creatures. Aeron quickly got ready as the monkeys who stayed up to guard them went to sleep.
"Right, we're already in the Endless Forest."
Aeron said as he shook his head to further wake himself up, he took several fruits from one of the branches and ate them slowly, the other monkeys also did, the new base Aeron got was like a natural garden, fruits weren't a problem, they had also stocked more fruits from other areas so food was not a problem at all.
"Arthur, have the monkeys get ready, we should finish with the flooring today."
Aeron said to Arthur who had been awake much earlier than him, Aeron had actually thought to start hunting for his level, but he considered that he'll at least be staying here for almost a year, he didn't have any extravagant goal, just so he could reach level 6, or if he was lucky enough, level 7. The levels after level 5 weren't so easy to break through, even those geniuses need a lot of time to break through till level 10.
"Here Agila, you'll have to stay inside for the following days, we'll have to make sure that there are no High-Grade Beasts near our area before I can let you roam for a bit."
Aeron said as he fed Agila, there was enough room in the Endless Forest for Agila to fly in, there was at least a 20-meter to 30-meter distance between trees, even Aeron can't do his acrobatics on the lower areas of the Endless Forest, but the higher areas were different as they had branches for him and the monkeys to jump on.
'Even the Grey Eagle wouldn't be able to cut through these trees with one attack.'
Aeron thought. The whole day passed by without a hitch and Aeron had finally finished the floor of his new base, it was not something he thought he'd be doing in Gaia, but it didn't bore him at all, he kind of enjoyed it instead.
"Arthur, do a more thorough search within 10 kilometers of our base, bring this mapping stone with you."
Aeron said, this had been one of the things he prepared for this trip, with the help of Gerard, he was able to get one. He learned how to use it first before he taught Arthur what to do, it had been an unpleasant thing to learn, but it was essential. The way the mapping stone works was that it'll have a grid within it, those grids will be filled with your memories of the area, unlike the normal memory stone which would just copy the memory you choose, the mapping stone will directly access your memory to match the area already saved within it, which was very disorienting.
Even so, the mapping stone was one of the most important innovations of humanity, with it, humans were able to make a clearer vision of their surrounding areas, without the need to make a miniature map on the ground, or weaving them into cloths with different colors to make a map, not to mention the strings used were produced from High-Grade Beasts like the Frost Silk Worms, which made them rather luxurious, or through different colored vines which were far too big to be brought into the wild, the memory stone was one of the most important discoveries of humanity, but the mapping stone became one of the cornerstones of humanity.
The mapping stone was created by the famed Mage Larry Ghal, his use of the skill [Memory Draw] was almost perfect. He was also the first to use the skill to make skill slots, which was a technique to cast skills through memory which could then be used at a later time. As long as a Mage could fuel the skill with enough mana the Mage will have an instant-cast skill on his/her arsenal. There had actually been other research projects led by the strongest Mages of humanity, to make use of the memory stone to do more complex processes, but the only thing they were able to create was the agreement stone, and better ways to save memories inside the memory stone, other attempts resulted to the memory stone shattering.
"It's a good thing Monkeys have the same way of seeing things as humans do."
Aeron thought out loud, at first, he had thought of going out with Arthur, but the idea of teaching Arthur to use the mapping stone suddenly arose. It was a good thing Arthur's vision was almost the same as humans, the memory saved into the mapping stone was perfectly the same as the those from humans.
"Yes Master."
Arthur said before leaving the base, Aeron continued his training, it took him half a day to complete the floor so he couldn't start his hunt, thus he just decided to let Arthur explore the area and mark the areas where the beasts lived. Aeron had opted from sparring with the other monkeys as the force produced from their fight might break the floor he had painstakingly made. After Aeron's meditation Arthur returned.
"Let me have a look."
Aeron said this as he placed the mapping stone on his forehead. Inside his mind, a 3D map looking just like the one he had seen on Eva the Memory Beast in the City of Una, but its content was a huge forest instead. The center was the big umbrella tree, from the outside the umbrella tree looked like a typical tree with its size being the only odd thing, but the giant trees beside it hid the difference, Aeron zoomed out of the map and saw the marker Arthur had placed, they were animal-shaped markers.
"There are Lykois here?"
Aeron murmured as he saw a pack of felines. Lykois was also known as wolf cats, not just because of their looks but also because of the way they lived being reminisced to that of wolves. They had a grey coat of fur and no undercoat. Most cats have undercoats but Lykois didn't, what was scarier about Lykois were their claws, their claws retain poison inside them, but they were not inherently poisonous, instead they use the poison of plants or beasts around them.
"They'll be troublesome to deal with."
As Aeron looked around, he saw the usual jungle dogs, fanged boars, jungle cats, snakes, and there were even bears, though Aeron noticed a large number of snakes on the map, what really caught Aeron's attention was a bunch of black cats.
"Panthers."
Aeron said, he didn't expect to see Panthers here, they were very rare creatures, Panthers were so rare not just because of their numbers but because of their ability to hide their presence. But to Aeron's knowledge, Panthers were solitary creatures, but now there were at least 4 of them in one spot.
"A family!"
Aeron realized, there was only one reason why Panthers would gather, and that was to breed.
"Panthers should have a strength related skill If I'm not wrong."
Aeron thought, one of the people in the Ironbull Family had tamed a Panther before. The skill the panther gave him was [Unnatural Strength]. Most big cats who specialized in dwelling on trees had this skill, if Aeron wasn't wrong then the skill was an acquired skill done from practice. The big cats on Aeron's past world were also like this, they had monstrous grip and could even drag their prey weighing as much as they do, up a tall tree.
"Arthur, have two of the black monkeys observe the panthers, follow the male one, if it goes further than 5 kilometers, then notify me immediately."
Aeron instructed, he didn't want to lessen the protection of the young cubs, but according to his knowledge of panthers, the male would not stay together to raise the cubs. If he could, then he would consider getting a panther as his 5th pet.
"Yes Master."
Arthur nodded as the Black Monkey Erick and Richmond appeared out of nowhere. This wasn't an effect of an active skill but effective use of the terrain and mastery in hiding presence. Both the black monkeys and the brown monkeys grew up differently, the black monkeys have become leaner and faster, while the brown monkeys became buffer and stronger. They had also mastered their skills to an amazing level. Aeron had also felt that the brown monkeys could do better on their spars though it wasn't necessarily holding back, the familiarity they had bred made them unconsciously hold back. Aeron was actually thankful for this, he didn't want mindless pets, and the Brown Monkeys' performance was more than enough for Aeron's purpose.
"Ki!"
This time Aeron became more astonished, Erick and Richmond had slowly disappeared in front of him, though he could see it visually, he felt both Black Monkeys presence wane, which was followed by the disappearance of them both.
'Sigh, why can't I master skills like those?'
Aeron thought, in truth, Aeron could have had Arthur teach him the skill if he wanted to, the problem was that Aeron didn't have the time to master another skill, for now, he was already busy with mastering the spear, incorporating the skill [Accelerated Strike], and meditation. It was like wanting to buy something because it looked nice, then realizing you don't have the time to make use of it. Of course, Aeron was determined to master the presence hiding skill in the future but unknown to Aeron, it wasn't Arthur who taught him how.
"Alright then, we'll settle down today, the hunt begins tomorrow."
Aeron said, there were a lot of jungle cats in the area, they were the targets set by Aeron for himself, they were very hard to handle because they were fast, they also lived alone, and would fight anyone who approach their territory. Most important of all, they were level 5 beasts, which was the same level as Aeron, and the perfect target for leveling up. Aeron slept dreamlessly as he felt time quicken when he woke up, a dreamless sleep was always a wonder. Aeron ate breakfast steadily, though it was only fruit, the different flavors helped alleviate the lack of meat. Aeron had also fed his other pets, there was also the little turtle looking for attention with its big pitiful eyes, it really acted more of like a puppy at this point. Aeron played with Terra for a bit before departing.
"Arthur! Let's go."
Aeron said. Arthur had about 2 silver monkeys, ten brown monkeys, and the hidden black monkeys following him, the rest was on guard duty, as there were monkeys who were resting on the base from guarding them through the night, and there were Aeron's other pets too.
"Master, which creature should we go to first?"
Arthur asked, the nearest beast from this area was a fanged boar, next was a jungle cat.
"Let's first go to the fanged boar."
Aeron decided, though fanged boars were at most level 3 or 4, they were still enough to help increase his level. Other people weren't even afforded a choice and would kill every beast they saw to increase their level. This time, Aeron didn't ride the silver wolves as they took another route, the tree branches. Aeron followed Arthur as they leapt from branch to branch, this was a skill Aeron liked to practice, it came naturally for him which made it enjoyable. It was probably influenced by watching anime characters leaping about looking nonchalant as they did.
The area around the branches was also not that dark so the only fear danger would've been brittle branches, but in the Endless Forest, there were no brittle branches.
'Welp at the least there aren't any branch that would snap on my weight.'
Aeron brought his emerald spear, while the other monkeys had spears and bows on them. Though he could just take one of their bows if he needed to.
"Master, we're almost there."
Arthur said, though Aeron had also been observing carefully as they traveled through the trees. He had also determined that they were near the target. Arthur stopped followed by Aeron as they looked below them, this had been the place, but they were too far to see the burrow.
"Alright let's go down."
Aeron said as they started climbing down. And as expected, a fanged board rested just outside the burrow.
"Arthur? Are you sure there aren't any other fanged boar inside the burrow?"
Aeron asked, this had been one of Aeron's bottom line, beasts with children was not something he would attempt to kill, the baby beasts wouldn't even help with his purpose as they were probably a Level 0 or 1 at most. As is said, if there were other people on the scene, then they would probably decide to kill all the beast that they could rather than let them breed. Though this was the case, Aeron didn't judge them as they were only doing what was natural for them, as humans killed beasts, beasts had also killed humans, it was probably only Aeron that treated them as animals and not as enemies. Though things would change if his life was threatened.
"Yes Master."
Arthur looked intently at the burrow before answering. Hearing Arthur's answer, Aeron leapt down. Aeron felt gravity bring him down as he landed heavily on his fee, it was something he wanted to do as he pointed his spear towards the surprised fanged boar. He had even wanted to say something but held off instead.
Squeeel!
The Fanged Boar charged at Aeron, but Aeron easily dodged the charge, there was an audible thud as the Fanged Board charged unto the tree behind Aeron which made it dizzy enough to pause and shake its head. But that was it.
Siiik!
Aeron's spear pierced through its eyes as his figured blurred and appeared beside it. Aeron took a deep breath as it had already been some time before he had killed another beast. In the past he wouldn't even go near one as he was too weak to do so, the only beast he had hunted properly then was a lone jungle dog, this kill had made him realize how far he had grown.
"Alright, let's go to the jungle cat."
Aeron said as they climbed the trees again, the jungle cat wasn't that far from the Fanged Boar's burrow. Aeron and Arthur climbed down for a bit before they spotted the Jungle Cat, it was currently resting on one of the tree roots. It was grooming itself with its tongue as its ears flicked for a bit before it looked at the tree next to where it was resting. Its eyes narrowed into slits as it saw a lone creature climbing down from a tree.
'Luckily Arthur was quick to hide.'
Aeron thought, if the Jungle Cat saw Arthur then it might just run away instead. He jumped down from the tree, his jumps were measured as he still wasn't strong enough to do it recklessly.
"Master! Careful!"
Arthur warned, Aeron looked in front of him as he landed. The jungle cat was nowhere near its resting place and was already in mid-air, its claws were out as it pounced at Aeron, it was so near that Aeron could already see the ferocity and killing intent from its eyes. Arthur's fight with the Jungle Cat in the past had made Aeron underestimate the Jungle Cat's speed. It was said that Jungle Cats were even as fast as some High-Grade Beast.
Arthur burst with strength and speed, metal blades suddenly appeared around Arthur, but the Jungle Cat was too far, he would be able to kill the Jungle Cat, but not before the Jungle Cat's attack landed on Aeron.