Now Aarav was sitting on top of the canopy again, it had been a few hours and the daylight was fading away. The winds were slowly blowing stronger and stronger as time went on. Soon he would need to get below the leaves and use them as a bit of shield.

For now, his “fly 70m up and glide down” pattern had given him a decent idea of the layout of the surrounding area. Nothing but forest really, but he should have known, the anthill and clearing nearby with small signs of life already emerging as they foraged for food once more and his internal compass showed that the river was to the north and beyond that the pastured farmlands of the village. Everything past the first 46m was a blur but it was still possible to make out the larger structures.

Strong Insectoid Wings has increased to Level 14!

Strong Insectoid Wings has increased to Level 15!

Tough Slime Skin has increased to Level 13!

The hours and Talent had paid dividends but also Aarav had been working on his eyesight at the same time because, why not…Piercing Eyes, his Talent for sight was the only reason he could see forty-six metres instead of just twenty-three and the experience boost was good as well. Everything was just taking so damn long to get stronger. If he concentrated everything he had on eyesight then it would take over two days to level up the Skill. It was clear that some major change happened to the Skill at level ten and then again at twenty-five; however what changed varied vastly from Skill to Skill. Also, it seemed that his thought and understanding played some role in the eventual final result.

Back to the drawing board for pushing his eyes, this time going through the process of analysis, focus and improvement. It got him the upgraded version of the Talent Piercing Eyes now became +1.

Your Talent Piercing Eyes has grown to Piercing Eyes +1, each minute you focus on your hearing you will gain an additional +2% Exp up to a maximum of 300%. In addition, you will gain a 2% sight range per minute up to a maximum of 300%. Evolve this Talent to get greater bonuses. No other Active Skills can be employed while using this Talent, all your attention must be focused on your Eyes or Sight Skill.

Not a great improvement but still better than before. Seeing 69m now compared to 46m. Something was better than nothing but it was going to take a while to improve this. The experience boost was better though. Continuing to work on it was the only way and concentrating any harder was going to give him a brain aneurism.

Achieving Piercing Eyes +1 meant he could see more of the grey world around him. With confidence, he could start making his way over to civilization or a semblance of it, the village close by. That would have more clues as to what was going on in this world and therefore what he would be able to do to get a human body back. Once he got a body back he could figure out other things, right? He had read several stories where people were reborn and then just started living in an animal body…total crap as far as he was concerned. He liked being human and he wanted that again. This time around he would be better at it.

Time to do some exploring to try to understand this world a little. He had been very isolated from it so far. During his digging to get to the ants he had travelled quite far from the river and so it took a while to get back to the river. Once he got there though he was hesitant to move further forward. It would have to be an incognito scouting mission this time around and then from there, he would decide what to do next. No sense in taking too much of a risk.

You have just received +5 Luck!

Strong Insectoid Wings has increased to Level 16!

With a major boost to luck, he was sitting at +40 and Wings getting stronger and stronger Aarav did feel much more confident in his plan of what to do next. The only thing that would have made him feel even more confident would have been if he had his full recoveries back, playing around with his various healing related talents had not only wasted time, it had yielded no useful results. He needed a healing spell, all his healing was dependant on enhancing his natural healing ability and when that was crippled like now there was not much he could do. If he had access to society or shop or something then maybe he could have got some kind of tonic that would do the job but as things stood now…

There he sat on a branch in the top of a tree overlooking the river and then on the other side of the string made of water was a small settlement. How he longed to go over there and meet people. But how would they react to his current disgusting form? Even stuck as he was with this body, he was finding it hard to accept and he didn’t have to keep looking at his own shapeless body and face.

The only choice left to him right now was to go in as invisible and in his case that meant camouflaged. He would fly in from the tree to the rooftop of a house, that large building in the distance looked good, then he could see if he could pick up some of their languages and if they spoke English or any other language he knew then…yayy! If not then he would need to learn slowly and figure it out as he went.

The only remaining problem was how to get across the river and to the closest building roof as it was far beyond his current range. With very little stamina left it was going to take him days to recover enough to get to full and even that would not be enough. He was going to have to cross further upriver and hope that no one noticed him flying in. Circling and coming in from the East was going to take him a while perhaps half a day if he wanted to conserve stamina in case things got dangerous.

His quiet short flights had not been getting any attention from any of the creatures living in the canopy. Aarav liked it that way having learned to keep a low profile after a very deadly encounter with the Panther. With Camouflage and Odour Alteration it was easy to do though.

Flying up towards one of the clouds sailing overhead Aarav tried to get into the fog of the cloud but it was simply too high up and the winds that were buffeting him were too strong now. The turning weather was becoming a bigger and bigger problem. Hour by hour the wind speed slowly and steadily increased in speed. It was nothing that he would have noticed as a human and the trees would have cut the wind inside the forest. Out in the open space above the river was a very different story though. It was much more noticeable especially with the river’s slight valley funnelling the wind in that direction. Aarav was no expert in aerodynamics but he would need to be very careful not to get sucked in the air currents there. For something as small as he was right now it might not be the best news, especially wings out.

Higher up the winds were not as strong as these and so if he could make it to a higher altitude it would be much easier to simply fly across and not be overly concerned with the air currents. After a few attempts, Aarav managed to balance height above the river with the range that was required to get to the river without completely beggaring himself of stamina. It was close and he ended up landing on the wrong side of the river. Sighing with frustration and his tiny and uncooperative body Aarav waited an hour for the time to elapse so he could once again try to climb above the air current. The winds buffeted him out in the open and closer to the ground but he managed to make it up and over while Camouflaged as water. Not the best disguise bit considering his alternatives were grass or mud it was the best choice. He switched to grass as he touched down. At least water was clear and so less likely to be seen.