Hunter walked on the ceiling of a tunnel and thought of home. They had been gone a long time, and wanted badly to go home. There was a problem though, and it was that they did not know the reason they wanted to go back. Home was a place where another controlled them, made decisions for them, and that was very bad. It was dangerous. But it was home, and felt safe, even when Hunter knew that it was not.

Why did home feel safe? Why did they want to return? There was no thinking reason that explained it. It was instinct, but not Survival Instinct. Probably all kin felt that way, even those who were not clever as Hunter was. Probably all kin knew always where home was the same as Hunter did, could feel in what direction was the swirl of mana that spawned them. Probably kin all wanted to go home too.

Hunter could think, and had Will. They chose a different way, and it was the way they had already decided upon. They would go to the big water where it was safe. There they would practice Mana Shaping until they grew hungry and had to hunt and eat. They would do those things. Then they would go back to the water and practice Mana Shaping more.

[Advanced Survival Instinct (II) has reached level 2]

That was interesting. Maybe home was even less safe than they had thought.

The trip back to big water was long, but nothing that mattered happened on the way. They saw monsters of kinds they had seen before. Maybe they could have hunted a few of those safely, but they were back to level 4, and would evolve when they reached level 5 again. They did not want that to happen until they had practiced Mana Shaping as much as they could. It still seemed right that better evolutions would be available to a centipede who had many levels in such a difficult skill that was so hard to get.

Their Tomosvary organs found the big water first, then their eyes and finally their antennae. Nothing changed since they had been there last. There were still monsters of different kinds who rested by the water, and a few who rested in it, but none were of new kinds.

It was time to practice.

When Hunter purchased the Mana Shaping skill, their mind had filled with complex patterns and knowledge of what to do with them. They had to make those patterns in their mind, hold them in place, then move mana out of their core and through the patterns until the patterns were made of mana and not of thought. There were many patterns to learn, and none looked easy. Hunter chose the one that seemed the smallest amount hard. It reminded them of the body of a huge, long centipede that someone had twisted in the middle and then pulled into a circle where the mouth bit the tail and made a loop. There were smaller patterns on both sides of the long centipede, only there was not really a top and a bottom because if one followed the top far enough it would reach the twist and become the bottom. It was a hard shape to understand. It was hard to build out of thoughts and hard to hold in one's mind once built.

Hunter tried very, very hard to make the pattern. They tried very, very hard for a very long time until their mind ached. Just when it felt like their mind would break if they did not enter torpor to rest, after they failed many, many times, the pattern snapped into place.

Hunter knew elation.

When they tried to hold it and draw mana out and into the shape though, it shattered into a great many pieces.

It was terrible. They had worked so, so hard.

It was terrible, but it was fine. Hunter was safe, had time, and would try again. They drank mana water and entered torpor.

When Hunter woke, their mind felt better and their MP was full. It was time to try again.

They tried. They failed. They rested. They tried, failed, rested. Tried, failed, rested. Tried, failed, rested. Tried, failed, tried, failed, rested. Tried.

[Mana Shaping has reached level 2]

That time it almost worked. Hunter formed the strange pattern out of thoughts, and moved mana into the shape of it until the pattern was almost made of out of mana. They still failed in the end, and the shape broke into pieces, but apparently they got close enough to increase the Mana Shaping skill. It was progress.

This was good, because mana shaping was harder than anything Hunter had ever done. It was harder than they thought anything could be to do, unless that thing was not possible at all. They had still failed, but gained a skill level anyway. So even if making those patterns out of mana was not possible yet, they could still gain power that was new skill levels in Mana Shaping. That should make it easier to shape mana, which would help them gain more skill levels, until finally they would succeed instead of fail.

Hunter kept at this for a long, long, long time. They built the twisted ring out of thoughts. They drew in the patterns that covered it. The pulled mana out of their core and gently tugged it into the right shape. They got closer and closer, but each time it still shattered.

It was fine. There was progress.

[Mana Shaping has reached level 3]

This level of the Mana Shaping skill helped. It was now very hard, rather than very very hard and maybe not possible. Hunter thought they might be able to make the whole pattern out of mana. It would not be soon, and most times they would fail, but it could be.

[Mana Shaping has reached level 4]

They succeeded. The whole thing, made of mana now and not just thoughts, swirled inside of them. They had to let it go. Soon. If they did not release the mana construct or let it fall apart and flow back into their core, it would hurt them. It was not possible to launch it near monsters when next to water. No monster could harm another by mana water. Hunter knew of no monsters far out into the water though. There were only some who liked to stay in the shallow part near land. Hunter aimed for a point in the distant blue and let go. A bolt made of mana shot out and made a very large splash when it hit water. Monsters near Hunter looked on with alarm, but soon calmed down. By water was a place that was safe, always. Only, now rabbits who had been near Hunter moved a little further away. It was safe, and they would know that, but perhaps now they also felt unease near Hunter.

Hunter was pleased. It was good to be scary.

-----------------------------------

The pups should have returned by now. It was the first unsupervised hunt for the three of them, but they'd been well cared for. The pack had trained them, fed them plenty of biomass and XP. They were ready. There should not have been anything that could seriously threaten the pups in the tunnel or the cave where they would drink mana rich water and condense their cores. It should have been safe this near the surface, where mana concentrations thinned and monsters spawned weak. They should have returned, proud and eager to grow.

But the pups were still gone. The Alpha worried, and so the two Dragon-Wolves were dispatched to investigate. There were three scents in the entrance to the cave. A Juvenile Emerald Monitor had come or gone, and that scent was fresh. The other two scents were of hatchling Claw Centipede, possibly a single individual who had come and then gone. Curious, and thus suspicious. Centipedes did not commonly travel alone until they reached maturity. The larger of the two wolves sniffed carefully at the scent trail on the ground, then sniffed the air. The second trail was on the ceiling. Both scents were of similar strength. The smaller wolf waited. It had invested less biomass in its nose, more in its eyes. A clipped conversation of barks and chuffs later, the pair continued up the tunnel.

The next thing of interest was the faint scent of cricket biomass. Again, it smelled like a single individual, which was once again odd. Clearly it had run into the monitor, or perhaps the centipede, and lost the battle. If the fight had been more recent, it may have been possible to pick out whether the centipede or the monitor had been the victor. A bit later the two smelled monitor biomass. This was also strange. Juvenile Emerald Monitors were not the most powerful monsters in the area, but they were far from the weakest. More importantly, they were smart, fast, and had sharp eyes. They weren't a type that commonly picked fights they could not win. Both wolves glanced at each other, and began to move with greater care. They came quickly to the spot where the smell of biomass was strongest. One other scent was stronger there too. Centipede? Had a single hatchling managed to defeat a monitor? It was very strange.

The rest of the way to the cave the only scent trails were of the unfortunate cricket and two of the centipede, one on the ceiling and one on the floor. The trail on the ceiling smelled very slightly different, and both were of similar strength, but both also smelled like a single individual. It was strange that one trail did not smell notably more recent than the other. Too much was strange, and pups were missing.

As the cave mouth drew near, the larger wolf smelled Piercer Snail biomass, co-mingled with monitor biomass and, sadly, with pup biomass. The scents were faint of course, just echoes of the recent past left to hang in the air. The big wolf barked a quick warning to its sibling. There were mysteries to solve, and the Alpha would want answers - and if possible, vengeance. What were piercers doing so close to the surface? Such monsters belonged to tunnels much further down, close to where shadow beasts began to appear. Mana had grown thicker in the air of late. Could a spawn point somehow have formed this far up? That was the first mystery. The second was that the scent was not of Piercer Snail, but of Piercer Snail Biomass. Those were not easy monsters to kill. Even if the pups had come across them on the ground, after an ambush, piercers would have been too well protected for pups to fight. So not only were piercers in a cave they had no business haunting, something that could and did kill them had also made its way here.

The wolves growled, low and rumbling. They stalked into the cave with eyes and noses focused above. Piercers could threaten even them if they were careless. The site of the battle was easy to find. It was a stew of scent, and it took time to pick the smells apart and reweave them into a scene. There were scents of piercers, piercer biomass, pups, pup biomass, monitors, monitor biomass, and centipede... but not centipede biomass. The battle was easy enough to reconstruct. Piercers killed the pups. The centipede killed the piercers. It must have had a powerfully mutated stinger to penetrate their hard shells - none of the other types of monsters they could sense would have had a chance. Monitors had come, drawn by the smell of biomass, and the centipede killed those too. An unusual specimen indeed.

They searched the cave carefully for more piercers, or a piercer spawn point, but found none. Weaker monsters scattered and hid at their approach, but none were worth the time to hunt. So many evolutions below them, such weak game was almost useless for biomass or XP. The only thing left to investigate was the strangely capable centipede hatchling. The smaller of the two paused in thought and sat on its haunches. After a moment, it quietly barked a question.

Sibling, one centipede scent trail was on the tunnel ceiling. Could it have learned of piercers here, then traveled back to the expanse on the ceiling to avoid an ambush by others of the kind?

The big wolf considered, then answered.

Let's see if we can't find this monster. The Alpha may find it of interest.