I remembered how starved I was from using [Intimidating Screech] only a few times in a single night. So I decided to spend the rest of the night hunting and building up a small storage of food in a little cave on the south side of the valley. I wanted the food to last for the day and not go bad in the sun.

After a good rest, I finally tackled my practice. Concentrating on the skill was easy and I tried to feel what it did. A tiny trickle of energy formed up in between my feathers. It shied away from the dim daylight shining into the cave. The next moment it was gone and small shadows floated out beneath my feathers. I did not feel them with any of my mundane senses but I knew somehow exactly where they were.

Lifting my wings drew smoky lines through the air that quickly dissipated once separated from my body. I noticed a small coat of darkness spread across my body and wings. Trying to focus even more did not help. I was completely oblivious to where the energy came from. But it kept spreading and slowly getting thicker.

Next, I tried moving the shadows without moving my body. First slowly, then with increasing speed. A small whirl of darkness coated my body. It was not really dark, more like light grey. I was unable to create enough shadows to make them as dark as father had.

With a heaving breath, I let go of my control. To my surprise, the shadows did not just disappear. They slowly drew into my feathers and temporarily coloured them a dark grey. I felt nothing going into me and as fast as it had begun it had stopped. My plumage quickly returned to its original colour.

After catching my breath and having a quick snack I tried again. This time I wanted to go as fast as possible. A puffing cloud of dark smoke exploded from my wings and body. It went almost as far as my body was tall before slowly dissipating. I was unable to control most of it, only a few tiny trails close to my wings conformed to my will. Stopping the skill only pulled the shadows close to my body in. The puffy smoke cloud stayed around for another few seconds before dissipating into nothing.

This time I needed a longer break. The quick exertion was far more exhausting even though I had moved the shadows around at a far higher speed before when creating my whirl. I wanted some numbers. But this dumb system was not giving me anything. Well, it did say my [Owl’s Shadow] reached level two, but that was it.

I spent the rest of the day alternating between rest and experimenting with my shadow. I found using it created some kind of magical darkness beneath my feathers. I could then move that darkness around using my imagination. My will, as the system called it. It would dissipate after a short time once it was too far from my body, but other than that it seemed to cost nothing but a bit of concentration once created.

When I moved my body close to the shadows further away, I was able to retake control over them. And once I cancelled the Skill, all the shadow close to my body would seep into my feathers and temporarily turn them darker and monochrome.

I had also learned through experimentation that absorbing these shadows returned some energy to me. Practise sessions ended with most of the swathes close to my body had me recover a lot quicker than those where I got as much distance as possible.

Although, when it came to combat I had few ideas to apply it. The shadows might help me hide and get off a [Surprise Attack] but after that, they were mostly useless. Maybe as a sort of last-resort smoke bomb.

I was also imagining myself sticking some liquid shadow on my opponent's eyes to blind them but I was confident it would not stick. Unless I managed to level up my skill a whole lot and create as much darkness as father could, blinding my enemies mid-combat would be a pipe dream. And even if I could create a field of darkness, I was unable to see through it as well. Relying on my hearing should still give me a big advantage but that kind of fighting style was still far in the future.

Testing my skill served one more function: I was now convinced I had to put some points into Wisdom and Intelligence. It felt awesome to control a swirl of darkness around my body with nothing but my will. I wanted to do more. I would still get Dexterity and Perception up to twenty. Then it would be magic time!

By now night had started to settle in and I was wide awake. It was time to get stronger!

Hunting had become easy for me. Only about a third of my targets escaped and most of those I killed never saw me coming. By the middle of the night, I had my cave filled up with enough food to last me another day of magic practice. I had also gained another 2 levels in Assassin. My status looked like this now:

Species: Great Eagle Owl (fledgeling)

Age: 0

Name: -

Gender: female

Status: sapient, healthy

Level: 4

Class: [Assassin lvl 7], -

Strength: 8

Constitution: 8

Dexterity: 15

Perception: 18

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 9

AP: 0

Skills: [Owl Senses lvl 3], [Preening lvl 3], [Owl Stomach lvl 3], [Solid Grip lvl 3], [Soundless Flight lvl 3], [Intimidating Screech lvl 2], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 2], [Aerial Combat lvl 2], [Maths lvl 4], [Identify lvl 2], [Sneak lvl 3], [Surprise Attack lvl 3]

[Solid Grip] and [Surprise Attack] had both reached level three now. I was starting to think it was some kind of limit that I had to break through but [Maths] had been pretty easy to get to four. I was confused. As I promised myself to pay more attention to my Skills a howling interrupted my thoughts.

Wolves. Their howling was unmistakable. From the entrance of the valley, they closed in, most likely hunting something. I was just about to make myself scarce when I had an idea. What if one of the wolves straggled behind and I could take it out in a quick strike? That had to be a massive amount of experience, right? I just had to wait for the right moment. This was the perfect chance to grow stronger quickly.

I scouted from the air. Their target looked to be a sole deer. They probably isolated it from its herd and chased it down into the valley. It stumbled along in hopes to survive somehow but there was no chance.

Next, I looked for the wolves. Three of them were following the deer in a line to make sure it could not turn around. Two more ran along its flanks and scared it away every time it tried to escape sideways. The last one, presumably the alpha, since it was a lot larger, followed the line of three within a few steps. He looked lazy to me but maybe he was making sure to cover up any mistakes of his brethren.

They were going fast. Birds flew into the air from their resting spots whenever they cracked a branch or howled. I thought about using [Identify] on one of the line wolves but it would have given me too little information to be worth the risk. Instead, I set up near the bend in the valley and covered myself in shadows.

I would aim for the wolf south of the deer. If I took him out, the deer would have an easier time escaping as the valley bent southward as well. That should busy the other wolves enough for me to get out.

And so I waited. Seconds seemed like minutes as the chase approached my position. The deer came out from behind a tree and tried to jump towards the south side, another desperate attempt to escape. In the same moment, the wolf shot forward and landed right in front of the tree I sat on, growling and barking to scare the skittish animal away.

Lucky me!

As the wolf was occupied with growling I let myself drop silently. Only as I extended my talons toward its head did I wonder how my small owl talons could kill a wolf in one strike. I aimed for the wolf’s neck with one foot and its eye with another. As I ripped through the fur my feet sunk deep into flesh. Deeper than they ever should have.

My right foot held onto the eye socket of the wolf as I pushed my left foot downwards even more. Tearing through flesh a veritable fountain of blood shot to the ground. The beast barely had time to let out a yowl before it collapsed.

~ding~ You have taken out your chosen target. Experience awarded.

~ding~ [Assassin] reached level 9. 2 Attribute Points awarded.

Wow. I had not expected that to go this well. And two whole levels? That was a great kill! I had notifications turned on to see what I get in case of success. A great decision.

As I put my Points into Perception bringing it up to 20 a low growl brought me out of my thoughts. A wolf was approaching from the front. Another growl and two more emerged from the trees to my left and right. Then the alpha stepped up into my vision and it was pissed.

My claws were still stuck inside my target’s eye socket. Thankfully I avoided getting my left foot stuck under the wolf’s body. Otherwise, this would have surely been my end. I still panicked a little. Okay, more than a little. I let out the loudest [Intimidating Screech] I had ever screeched and simultaneously made shadows explode out of my body.

The wolves flinched and hesitated for just long enough to let me free my right foot from the wolf’s body and I took off as a streak of swirling shadows leaving a pack of stunned wolves behind. Their angry howls only served to spur me on.

As I reached my little cave on the mountainside I finally managed to calm down a little. Adrenalin was making my heart beat at a definitely unhealthy rate and my feathers were ruffled from the panicked flight.

Slowly [Preening] my wings I finally started to calm down. A snack or two from my stash might have helped along.

Now, what had I really gained from this?

Species: Great Eagle Owl (fledgeling)

Age: 0

Name: -

Gender: female

Status: sapient, healthy

Level: 4

Class: [Assassin lvl 9], -

Strength: 8

Constitution: 8

Dexterity: 15

Perception: 20

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 9

AP: 0

Skills: [Owl Senses lvl 3], [Preening lvl 3], [Owl Stomach lvl 3], [Solid Grip lvl 3], [Soundless Flight lvl 3], [Intimidating Screech lvl 2], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 3], [Aerial Combat lvl 2], [Maths lvl 4], [Identify lvl 2], [Sneak lvl 4], [Surprise Attack lvl 3]

Two levels in [Assassin], resulting in two points in Perception. And one level each in [Owl’s Shadow] and [Sneak]. My second level four skill. As the wolves howled and growled down in the valley only one thought was on my mind: I had to do this again!