Salem pov
It was early morning hours and I got out of my tree and saw that Mr. Ivory was in his sleeping bag but it looked like he was in minor stress and shivered while in his sleep. I mean I wouldn't blame him it's not like I sleep peacefully here either, the sun wasn't even up so it must have been close to 5 in the morning. I looked around to see if there was a threat of animal or monster attack and everything looked okay. I left to do some morning exercise or training not too far away from the area.
I used some tree veins to tie some rocks on my hands and feet as I began doing my pushups, sit-ups, long run, side steps and tree hopping. I was not a gym expert so this was all I could do till I find a book or someone willing to train me. After my body training it was time to look at my magic.
I just laid on the ground in a relaxed position as I naturally found this more comfortable as I wasn't the monkish type so lotus position meditation won't do it for me.
From this position I could easily relax ad better tune the ethernano around me and my environment.Now I wasn't a master at this but it was a good start in control as I didn't want my magic being out off control or something even if I didn't have that much magic power yet.
"Beast soul: Were-cheetah." I than transformed in my were-cheetah. In this form my body grow taller, I grew cheetah fur and spots, tail, my green eyes were more animalistic, my white hair a bit longer wilder and mixed with gold and for some reason my shorts came with the form but not shirt.
I began running around at high speeds and began slashing tree brunches and rocks with and also jumped around acrobatically. Like I said I had gotten this form under control on the third day but it was only for twelve to sixteen minutes at max as after that I could feel the cheetah soul slowly trying to get a hold of me plus my magic gets depleted. But it gets me a huge boost in speed, agility, durability, a little in strength.
After about ten minutes I reverted back to my base form and sat down breathing heavily with my magic a little on the low but still enough for a transformation and looked up and saw many winged creatures flying over the skies.
"Well, I should probably head back if a strong creature comes by." I than went to my tree but not before picking up and washed a few fruits. Carrying them on a large piece of wood tied together tightly by a strong vein.
I was ambushed by some of those over but these guys were taller, five in numbers and each of them had four arms and all of them carried one big club.
"WOH WOH ARGH!!" They all began monkeying around and they circled me obviously the greedy after my fruits.
'Fuck I just finished exercising I don't have enough energy or magic to fight these guys.' If I was at 100%, I would have thrown hands with them no problem even though it would be a slightly hard fight due to their numbers. They rushed towards me but thanks to my quick reflexes and jumped high being careful with their fruit and transformed to my owl harpy form with my low magic power and flew at high speeds my talons holding the veins keeping my fruit on the wood but I didn't fly directly to my tree not lead them there so I flew in a circle to lead the off as they chased me like Tarzan on steroids.
I lost them and head directly for my area and saw the Mr. Ivory up and looking frantically in his bag. He didn't hear me coming as owls are very silent flyers so I just remained in the air looking at what he was doing in slight curious in what he was looking for.
'Thank god this form consumes less magic power.' I thought as watched Mr. Ivory in the air as I he just looked down sighing and just took out a book and began writing down something.
He than took out his bottle and drank out of it and looked at his book again. I got bored and just throw flew down to the ground and landed softly and the guy was so engrossed in his book that he still didn't notice me.
"Morning." I said to him causing him to jump at he just looked at me in slight awe as I was still in my owl harpy form.
"You have animal take over magic!" He said in surprise.
"Yeah, but why are you in awe don't you teach a magic university don't you see more impressive stuff than this?" I mean shouldn't he be more experienced in this kind of thing.
"Well y-yes I have sort off but for some one your age to pull off such control is impressive." I was a little sheepish.
"Alright I got some fruits as breakfast." I turned back to normal and he just looked at me in surprise. "Like I said dude am not a some lunatic but if you something dumb that's a different story." I said giving him some fruit to eat now as I said I wasn't the friendliest or social but I was not a complete asshole.
"Thank you, l." Mr. Ivory thanked me and began eating some fruits and so did I. "Sorry to bring this up suddenly but I had a compass and map I did you perhaps take them." He asked and I simply nodded. "Well can you please give them back to me. That compass contains a special spell that lets my colleagues know where I am." He explained to me.
"Why in a compass then?"
"The compass also points out to my co-workers so please I need them back." He begged and clasped his hands together and bowing.
"Geez man your desperate what got a girl waiting for you at home?" I took a bit out of the banana I was eating and I saw his face in slight surprise making raise my brow.
"N-no no you see am still single and all but that doesn't mean ther-..."
"I really don't care." I sighed and took out the compass and folded map from my pockets. "How about I cut you a deal Mr. Ivory." I said spinning the compass on my finger getting his attention and also, he seemed a little on edge. "Nothing major don't worry so listen." I calmed his nerves and but I wouldn't blame him I mean what normal person wouldn't be on their toes in this situation.
"Here's the deal my guy. I want out of this place so I'll make this simple you do the compass and map reading and I'll protect you if any beasties pop up." I explained to him and he just seemed in thought. "So do we have a deal Mr. Ivory." I wasn't asking for anything absurd just a way out of here plus it was a win win deal.
"Well of course that sounds like a great idea!" He said with an exited smile and I just nodded.
"Great will leave in about an hour and by the way what time is it?"
"It's 9:36." He answered looking at his watch. "Why do you ask?"
"Just wanted to know. Tell me after a hour as gone by." I answered climbing up to a big branch and began relaxing and refuel as I felt my magic recharging fast.
An hour later
One hour has gone by and we started our journey out of the blood feather forest. I gave mister Ivory his map and compass back while I just followed hi while keeping alert of any creature which might come our way.
"Get down!" I yelled quietly as I pushed us into a nearby bush as a big monster bird past us. To be honest it looked like a long-tailed pterodactyl with green feathers. After it walked past us and it was a good distance away, we come out of the bush.
"My goodness a green Mernos!" Mr. Ivory said in awe as he took a picture with his camera for research, I guess. And luckily the thing was far away from us.
We than continued on than my senses kicked in to than transform in my combat hare form and used my powerful legs to kick the incoming threat hard to its neck and good thing it wasn't armored. The kick sent it flying breaking two trees. It was one of those bastard four armed chimps
"Hm a Vulcan." Mr. Ivory said taking a picture. He then pointed his camera in the sky as more winged creatures passed above us and he proceeded to take pictures.
"Hey bird watcher lets move." I said turning back to normal and I didn't want to waste time before it gets dark.
"Sorry sorry I didn't have time to take pictures or recordings yesterday." He said sheepishly.
"I don't care man lets go." I said a little impatiently as we continued on following his compass.
"Thank god we're in the green zone of the forest other wise this journey would have been extremely difficult." He mumbled to himself getting my attention.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Acknowledging my question, he then began explaining.
"Well, you see the was marked in three zones green, yellow and red. Right now, we're in the green zone a little closer to yellow, the green zones have regular animals and relatively weaker monsters with strong ones been few on sight plus the green sights are closer to villages and towns." He explained and least I know that I was dropped a little closer to a town.
"Next the yellow zone this area has more dangerous creatures like high leveled wyverns, a few ware animals and so on. Finally, the red zone this is most dangerous part of the forest so much so that it contains creatures that rival and surpass s-class mages and rumor has it that there is some sort of dragon god there." He finished his explanation to which stoked my interest.
'Hm maybe when I get stronger, I'll come back here to get some cool take-overs for aerial uses.' I thought of the possibilities.
"Now I ask you some questions?" He asked me.
"Depends." I shrugged my shoulders.
"Well, um first what's your name?" Oh, right I haven't told him my name but I saw no harm in telling him.
"Salem Shupiwa." I stuck to my previous name and last name.
"Okay Shupiwa-san." Oh, right I forgot people do that in these types of worlds. "What is a kid like you doing in the forest. I tell you have as a lecturer that you have some form of education especially after you understood my explanation on the blood feather forests zones which means you probably have parents or guardians right?" He asked and just looked at him but not in a threating my mind you.
"Don't know just woke up here and been here for 13 days now as for the last one no comment." I answered simply to which he just looked at me in pity.
We traveled for about three more hours and we ran into a lot of creatures and most it took care of using my ware-cheetah form and hare battle form but and some we had to hide and ran form using my owl harpy form as I wasn't strong to deal with them and watch the man. Then Mr. Ivory's compass glowed mean we were close to something.
We than entered an area which had a camp set up and saw 5 people, 3 of which looked battle ready
.
"George-kun you're alive." A woman about Mr. Ivory's ran up to and hugged the dude. She had fair skin(white) black hair reaching her shoulder blades, blue eyes and she was very pretty. She wore a grey sweater, grey shirt, black pants, and black hiking boots.
"Y-yeah Lily-chan am all right." Mr. Ivory said blushing a bit.
"Glad to see you're okay Ivory-san." A plumb man said. He had short brown hair and brown eyes, and was dressed in classic explorer clothes.
"Thank you, Locknut-san." Ivory said still hugging the lady.
The other three just looked at me curiously. First was a tall lady in her twenties with long black hair tied to a pony tail, red eyes, and really great body. She wore a grey vest, brown combat pants and boots. She had a sword behind her hip and a gun in her hand. She also snake tattoo on her left arm.
Next was a big buff man with short blonde hair and golden eyes. He wore a black muscle shirt, black combat pants and fingerless gloves with a giant axe behind him.
The last I couldn't tell the gender due to he/she being covered buy a cloak and had a hawk ask covering them. He/she also had a sniper in the hand.
At least they weren't attacking me.