The forest was dark with little to no light touching the forest floor, the canopy was large and thick such that even the two daunting suns could not be seen.
Thick roots rose from the ground like waves and tides on an oceans surface, vines hang from long winding branches reducing visibility and increasing the already predominant green.
The trees were large and tall, their barks were either bare or covered in jungle green moss.
The chirping of birds, and fluttering of wings echoed throughout the forest along with the buzz of insects and occasional growls and roars of predators.
Ahmed walked stealthily within the forest, mindful of his every step, his breaths were controlled and his presence was heavily suppressed like a stalker following it's prey.
His eyes never stopped moving looking anywhere and everywhere, this wasn't his first time in a forest as a hunter and he knew it wouldn't be his last, it was however his first time going against a magical creature.
In all of his hunts, his father and brother had only ever taken him to hunt mortal beasts, despite the existence of magical ones he had never laid eyes let alone faced one, he was only hoping that they were not too different from what he was used to.
Around ten minutes into the forest he finally spotted his first prey, a seemingly young deer that was enjoying its grassy meal.
Ahmed held his breath, he was ten meters away from the beast hidden behind one of the many tall trees, he knocked an arrow to his bow and pulled the string with controlled strength.
He had tried using his full strength but the bow nearly cut his fingers, so he knew control was even more needed when using artifacts than normal items.
His sapphire blue eyes glowed dimly as he released his held breath along with the arrow aimed at the deers eye.
He timed the deer with expert aim, the arrow pierced through its eye when it raised its head.
The deer couldn't even bleat in pain as it fell lifelessly to the ground with a silent thud.
Ahmed made his way towards the deer with a smile, he made his bow turn into a knife which he used to dismember and dismantle the deers corpse.
He worked fast not wanting to be assaulted by predators who would soon pick up the sent of blood.
He stored away the deers thighs still attached to their bones, he then took out one of the many empty vials of nutritious solution and stored away it's blood along with it's heart.
He had been taught by his sister about the crafters who used various materials to make things, beast parts were a needed material he therefore hoped it would be worth something.
He quickly scaled one of the nearest trees and hoped onto another and patiently waited, his thought process was pretty simple really, if normal beasts can smell blood from distances away, then why can't magical ones?
He therefore waited wanting to see which beast would be his next target, he didn't have to wait for so long as a fox cautiously approached the remainder of the deers corpse.
Its nose twitched as its head snapped in Ahmed's direction, he had just released his shot and was shocked at the foxes nasal sensitivity.
'It traced my sent in less than a minute? Or did it perhaps feel the threat of death?' He didn't know but he knew he had to leave, he left the fox's corpse and leapt from tree to tree as fast as he could.
In his hurry he had forgot to be mindful of his steps, his foot stepped onto a slippery branch that shook his balance, he instinctively reached out to grab a vine only to be hissed at by an overly large snake.
He cursed his luck as he still holding on to the snakes body swung away to the nearest branch where he stabilized his footing as he quickly tried to aim his bow.
The snake however didn't give him the time to, using the momentum of his swing the snake lunged at him wanting to plunge it's poisonous fangs into his flesh.
He willed his bow to be a short sword which he used to desperately fend off the snake.
The clang of metal of fang echoed out and to Ahmed's shock he hadn't sliced through the snakes mouth but had mearly chipped it's fangs.
He tightened his muscles and swung a his short sword in a wide arc pushing the snake away and creating some distance between the two.
He quickly willed his sword into a bow and knocked an arrow, his eyes cold and breath held as he released one after the other without pause.
The snake dodged the first and the second and the third with nimble movements but upon dodging its seventh it became aware that it's body had been constricted, it could no longer move as freely as it wanted.
It hisses at Ahmed but before it could spit its venom at him.
Swish.
An arrow pierced it's eye pining it to the tree behind it, Ahmed took panted as he finally relaxed, he stared at the snake briefly as his eyes glowed with understanding.
'Strength isn't everything, skill and intellect is also a major decider during fights.'
He knew the snake was stronger than him, if he had made even the slightest mistake then he would have died long before thinking about constricting it's body with arrows.
He jumped down towards the ground and willed Aldram, his artifact to retrieve it's arrows, this was something he had learnt to do after his first kill when the arrow magically returned to his quiver.
The snake's corpse fell onto the ground with a loud thud, he had no desire to catch it lest he would be buried by it.
Now staring at the dead snake Ahmed could see it's full length, it was long around three meters long with it's head the size of a basketball with four inch long fangs.
He dismantled the snakes fangs from its mouth, harvested it's poison sack and skinned it of its scales, he then dissected the snake wanting to compare it's internal with those of a normal snake.
It was then that he saw it, a small rock glistening with ethereal light, he had found his first target, a Beast Core.