"Follow me, I'll show you how to track animals." said Dyrus's father.
With all the years of hunting he had under his arms, showing his son how to track animals was quite a simple task, especially since the physical rabbit they were tracking was young, and had yet to learn how to cover it's tracks.
He carefully showed Dyrus how to analyze in depth the tracks and recognize what kind of animal, how old and how big it was. This entire process took about 15 minutes of detailled explanations and questions, once they felt like there wasn't anything else to learn, they finally got up and started following the tracks.
As they got deeper in the forest, they started noticing other traces of the young rabbit, including half eaten leaves of the low hanging plants and feces. These feces were another great source of study, as they could now tell approximatively how far the rabbit could be.
With a careful analysis, Dyrus's father could tell that their prey was close-by, he then told his son to bring out his bow.
"Since this is your first time hunting, I will only be watching from the side and giving you some advice, so get ready, we're going to keep moving."
Fortunately, as Dyrus was a training maniac, he already knew how to handle a bow, as he had practiced shooting at trees ever since he was five. This was, however, his first time actually using it on a living target. And so, gripping his bow tightly, Dyrus quietly walked forward, following the freshly made tracks, his father close behind.
Soon after, they heard a noise, steps. The father son duo immediately ducked down, hiding behind some bushes trying their best not to make a sound while still moving forward. They then reached a small clearing, where a brown rabbit was softly munching on some grass. Even though the rabbit was quite young, it was already the same size as a couple months old baby, largely surpassing the standard sizes of centuries ago.
"Get your bow ready, you're going to need to aim for it's chest to kill it, as your stone arrows won't be able to pierce it's head." Dyrus's father whispered.
As the rabbit was an internal energy user, it's body was already quite strong, way stronger than its centuries old predecessors. As such, the mere stone tip of the arrowhead would most likely not be able to pass through its skull, making it useless to target the head.
Dyrus took his bow, nocked one of the pitifully made arrows, and drew the vine string, trying to take aim at his target. Unfortunately, it seemed like the thought of taking a life for the first time was affecting him more than he thought, his arms shaking profusely, sweat dripping down his forehead.
"Relax your arms, you are going to have trouble aiming with how much you are shaking."
Dyrus followed his father's advice and took a deep breath, trying his best to reach a more stable state, his shakign arms slowly returning to their normal calmness.
"Good, now aim at the chest, and let go."
The young boy slowly positioned his bow towards the small rabbit, pulling the vine string to the maximum that his frail arms would allow.
He then quickly let go of the string, letting the arrow fly through the air, leaving with a whistling noise. Unfortunately, be it by luck or some other variable, the rabbit moved by just enough for the arrow to graze one of its paws, scaring it into running away.
Having missed his chance, Dyrus slowly got up, feeling down due to his failure.
"You don't need to worry too much, this was only your first try and we still have enough time to find another prey. Go pick up the arrow you used and we will try to follow the rabbit to see if we can find it again."
Quickly picking up the arrow, Dyrus and his father shortly followed after the escaping creature.
Fortunately for them, as the rabbit was quite young, it did not seem to have much of a concept of safety, and so, they were easily able to catch up to it and get ready for another round of shooting.
Once again having the bow drawn, Dyrus was much calmer this time, being his second try at taking a life. Having taken aim, he let go of the arrow, which once again left whistling.
This time, the rabbit did not seem to be able to react to the arrow, as it went right through its skin and pierced its small body. However, as Dyrus was lacking in strenght and the bow was quite small, the projectile lacked the power needed to directly kill its target, making it scream and flail in agony.
"Quick, take out your dagger and finish it off."
Following his father's advice, Dyrus quickly took out his newly acquired bronze dagger and slit the throat of the dying rabbit, freeing it of its pain. They then took their hunt prize back to the village, where they skinned it and made themselves a nice meal.
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After a couple of weeks of practice, Dyrus was now able to hunt much more efficiently, being able to now kill young adult physical rabbits, he was still accompagnying his father to learn more and be careful of possible predators.
This day was like any other, the young boy woke up at the brink of dawn, got ready and left the village with his father. Like they usually did, they went through the outer parts of the forest searching for possible tracks of animals.
Once again, they quickly found traces of paws in the soft muddy pathways of the forest, this time however, there was a difference. The footprints were a lot smaller and did not reach as deep as they usually did.
"It seems like we are pretty lucky today, these traces are from a magical rabbit, they are usually much harder to find since they have a higher intelligence than their physical counterpart, making them learn much faster how to cover and avoid leaving tracks behind them. Their meat is also much better to eat, since they tend to avoid doing anything too physical, making them more tender."
It had been years since Dyrus's father had been able to successfully bring back a magical rabbit, mostly due to how hard it was to find one.
"It seems like I will have to take the lead on this hunt, magical creatures are able to sense the energy of living beings within a certain reach, and so we cannot get close enough for you to be able to hit the target this time, I will show you how experienced hunters take care of it."
The tracking process was the same as they usually went through, follow the footprints and look for other traces left behind, after an hour, they reached a large clearing, where a couple of rabbits were softly eating away.
"Look, the small one right there should be the magical."
Dyrus's father pointed at a much smaller rabbit, barely half the size of the others and much less muscular.
"Since magical creatures have quite a bit of intelligence, they usually are leaders of small groups, making them much harder to hunt."
The middle aged man brought out his bow, that was more than twice the size of his son, and nocked an arrow on it. Since they were more than 20 meters away from their prey, it wasn't able to sense their energy, giving Dyrus's father ample time to aim properly.
Once he felt ready, he let go of the arrow, who whistled much louder than when his son did. Within the blink of an eye, the small rabbit was hit and let out a cry before dying. The other alerted rabbits went running in all directions, trying their best to find where the danger came from to run the opposite way.
Once the chaos calmed down, they quickly went and claimed their prize, heading back towards the village, where they did the usual skining and preparing the nicest meal they had in a while...
...a meal that would possibly be their last.