Three groups of hyenas were searching around the southern forest, searching for their missing comrades.

Sniff Sniff

The Mid-Grade Hyena sniffed for the trails as it continued forth, the first group had already gone to many places in the forest so the scent trails were all over the place, these trails were only possible because the Mid-Grade Hyena from the first group left them, they were trails infused with mana so the others would be able to follow. The problem for this group was that the first group’s trails crisscrossed all over the place, so they had to separate into 3 groups.

The Mid-Grade Hyena suddenly moved its ears as it heard creatures travelling through the trees.

Hahahahha

It made hyena noises to alert its allies.

“The first group”

Aeron said, he had already become comfortable leaping from one tree to another so he was already able to travel quickly through the trees, although the monkeys had to accommodate his speed.

“Arthur go!”

Aeron ordered, right now he was still unable to join the battles because of his weakness, but this group of hyenas weren’t that hard for Arthur and the other 5 monkeys to handle. The first time they met the hyenas, Arthur was a bit cautious and Aeron had wanted to see how the hyenas fought. Now that they already had a rough understanding of the fighting style of the hyenas, Aeron was already sure that his pets would be fine, he had Alexander join Lancelot’s team and Richie with Gwaine’s team, this was so they had more security. Aeron understood that in this world, Gaia, things would never accommodate you however much you think your plans were full proof.

“Kiii!”

Arthur ordered the other monkeys, the five brown monkeys suddenly bulked up a bit as they used their skills to reinforce their bodies, they scattered in the trees while surrounding the hyenas. Arthur taunted the Mid-Grade Hyena as it got nearer to which the Mid-Grade Hyena responded.

Boom!

The Mid-Grade Hyena used [Sonic Bullet] as expected, Arthur dodged and the branch that it leaped out of got hit instead, sending splinters of wood flying around.

“Kiii!”

Arthur screamed as it threw the golden staff it had created.

Sikk! Whimper

The Mid-Grade Hyena dodged, but the hyena behind it didn’t, its thigh was pierced leaving a hole and large amounts of blood gushing from its wound. Arthur repeated its actions dodging before countering and hiding behind the trees. Aeron could only see a golden shadow from afar leaping and throwing golden spears, Aeron was confident of Arthur’s close combat skills, but he wanted to improve Arthur’s other skill, this was the main reason Arthur made use of its speed and agility instead of just directly facing the group.

Hahahhaha

The Mid-Grade Hyena had enough as it activated the berserk activating skill it had, but this was a big mistake. Aeron had already seen this action and he observed that it took more than 3 seconds to fully activate berserk.

Rustle!

As the Mid-Grade Hyena activated its skill, five brown shadows leapt out of the trees near the hyenas.

Boom!

The five hyenas were smashed unto the ground as each of them got hit with an [Empowered Strike] from above.

“Kii!”

Arthur screamed as the five monkeys disabled the hyena’s limbs.

Whimper! Grr!

The four hyenas were successfully disabled but the Mid-Grade Hyena suddenly bit the brown monkey’s arm before slamming it on the nearest tree.

“Kii!”

Arthur got enraged as it saw the brown monkey being slammed on the tree. But before the monkey fell down from the tree, Aeron had already unsummoned it and casted [Heal Pet]. Arthur rushed to the Mid-Grade Hyena smashing its golden staff to it, the Mid-Grade Hyena was still unsteady on its feet, but it was still able to leaned sideways while firing a [Sonic Bullet] at Arthur.

Bang!

The Mid-Grade Hyena was smashed into a tree, the place where it was hit caved in, as it slowly slid down from the tree. Meanwhile Arthur was also sent flying on the opposite direction as it got hit on its shoulder, but the armor covering its shoulder only had a scratch and a small dent. As quick as the Mid-Grade Hyena was reacting, Arthur was still able to adjust the thickness of its armor by decreasing the other areas thickness, thus the impact was only able to send it flying instead of piercing through.

“Kii!”

Arthur stood up then raised its staff to finish the Mid-Grade Hyena off.

“Stop!”

Aeron ordered, finding Mid-Grade Beasts were hard, only in places where beasts lived in groups and were led by High-Grade Beasts would you find a number of Mid-Grade Beasts. Otherwise it would be like the bears in this forest, there was a number of Low-Grade Bears but only one Mid-Grade Bear.

“Ursa kill it”

Grrrrr!

Aeron said, Arthur stood aside while looking at how Ursa smashed the Mid-Grade Hyena’s head.

Whimper

The other hyenas whimpered when they saw the Mid-Grade Hyenas gruesome death, Hyenas were cowardly beasts to begin with, now that they weren’t in berserk mode and they didn’t outnumber the enemy, their true nature showed. Aeron looked at them as he approached each one before piercing his spear into them. Each of these hyenas were at least a level 4 beast, killing four simultaneously wasn’t an easy task, of course discounting the fact that Aeron had an army of monkeys.

Aeron checked his pet space first. He saw the silver wolves lying down the grass, this was the only position they were comfortable in, in about two more weeks then they could probably stand and walk safely.

“There you are”

Aeron said as he saw the brown monkey already up and about, the damage the hyena’s attack dealt wasn’t as serious as Aeron thought, of course the brown monkey’s resilience was only second to that of the silver monkey. This fact had eluded both Arthur and Aeron since this was the first time, they saw the brown monkey get hit by an attack from a Mid-Grade Beast. The scene of Arthur becoming enraged also made Aeron remember that Arthur was still too young, even though Arthur had more maturity than other beasts in terms of intelligence and attitude, this sort of reaction had to be controlled.

Of course, this was not something Aeron could teach by just speaking to Arthur, the best way Aeron could think of was just letting Arthur get accustomed through battles. “Experience is the best teacher”, although Aeron knew this saying wasn’t entirely reliable as knowledge was broad and experiencing everything wasn’t a possibility, it still held more merit especially in battles.

‘Of course, you could end up dead before even learning anything’

Aeron mused.

“Now let’s go see how the others did”

Aeron said, he unsummoned Ursa before traversing the forest to where Lancelot’s group was at, he had the remaining four monkeys bring the Mid-Grade Hyena to their temporary base. This one was a peak Mid-Grade Beasts, Aeron was sure of this as Arthur also confirmed, unlike the Black Bear which was much slower than Arthur, this one had reacted to Arthur’s attacks, and not only that, it was much bigger than the first Mid-Grade Hyena they faced. A normal hyena stood at about two meters tall, the first Mid-Grade Hyena they fought was about three meters tall, this one almost reached four meters.

The monkeys were much smaller than the other Mid-Grade Beasts that Aeron had seen, but their speed and power were no joke. Seeing them smash the hyenas down were proof of how powerful they were. The Mid-Grade Hyena was only able to stand again so fast because it was already at its peak state, it would probably take about three more hits to seriously injure this Mid-Grade Hyena.

“Kiii”

Alexander met them first as it had been watching the other monkeys and the surrounding from a distance.

“Good job, let’s go”

Arthur relayed that Lancelot’s group was able to take care of the hyena group.

Whimper!

Whimpering sounds were all around as four hyenas slumped on the ground, their limbs were broken. The Mid-Grade Hyena in this group had its limbs cut off and was bleeding profusely, Lancelot was on the Mid-Grade Hyena holding its mouth shut so it won’t be able to use its skill.

“Ursa go kill it quick”

Aeron summoned Ursa before ordering it to hurry, Ursa even used its skill to move faster. This Mid-Grade Hyena wasn’t much bigger than the other Hyena, but Aeron still had some monkeys carry it to the base, they could still cook it, so it won’t be wasted. There was almost no beast known to mankind that could not be eaten except for spiritual ones and those that were poisonous.

“Good!”

Aeron could already feel Ursa strengthening to a large extent, if it was able to kill one more Mid-Grade Beast, then it should be able to evolve into a Mid-Grade Beast.

Grrrrrr!

Ursa also felt happy, so it purred like a cat which cracked Aeron up. To see this giant beast purring like a cat really made Aeron amused. Aeron quickly killed the other hyenas, in truth Aeron was still not accustomed to killing, even if they were just beasts, but things were as they were, even in his past, the ancient men hunted for food, even in the modern era, people still needed meat for consumption.

“Alright, let’s hurry to Gwaine’s group”

Aeron said as he unsummoned Ursa again before heading off to Gwain’s direction.

“Kiii!”

Richie suddenly appeared on a nearby tree, there were other black monkeys in other direction.

“Well, aren’t you learning fast to be an assassin, or maybe a ninja”

Aeron said, he was surprised how quickly Richie and the Black Team’s actions were starting to form into that of assassins.

‘I’ll probably have to make some daggers, swords, and shields when we get back’

Aeron thought, daggers weren’t much different than making the spears, it was just that he didn’t find the need for them earlier. But seeing the black monkeys slowly specialize in stealth made him realize the need for other weapons. Shields were probably the hardest one to make, the difficulty was finding ore essence large enough to mold into shields, of course he could use other methods to combine ore essence into a shield, but just using the flame from [Ignite] won’t make it possible, the other method needed a mage to use a fire spell, to quickly connect two or more ore essence.

This was because the method to combine ore essence needed a quick cut using a fire element attack, the slow process wouldn’t trick the ore essence into thinking that the other ore essence was a part of it, of course this was also only possible using metallic ore essence.

“Alright let’s go”

The black monkeys vanished again, as Aeron and the others proceeded.

“Looks like Ursa could really level up now”

Aeron said as he saw the same situation on Gwaine’s group, only this time the limbs of the Mid-Grade Hyena wasn’t cut off, Gwaine was sitting on its back while its silver staff was piercing through the Mid-Grade Hyena’s mouth.

“Ursa go”

Aeron said as he summoned Ursa again, this one was the last one before Ursa could evolve. Ursa accelerated as it quickly killed and devoured the Mid-Grade Hyena.

GROAAAARR!

Afterwards, Ursa roared to the sky as Aeron unsummoned Ursa hastely.

“Phew, I almost forgot”

Aeron said aloud, according to his memories, a Beast that was leveling up would attract all sorts of beast to its position. It wouldn’t be a problem if Aeron wasn’t in the forest, but since he knew there were at least two High-Grade Beast just in the Western Area, then it would be a bad thing if they were attracted here by Ursa’s promotion.

“Good thing pet promotions could be done in the Pet Space, if not then I’ll be in big trouble”

Aeron said as he looked in the western area, the knowledge of letting tamed beast level up in the pet space was known to everyone, the first to discover didn’t monopolize the situation and shared it as quickly as he could to every tamer, thus this had become a common knowledge upon the Tamers.

“Let’s go back”

Aeron said after he killed another four hyenas, he could feel at most 20% of his mana being filled, that was only after killing 12 level 4 hyenas. Aeron doubted that the hyenas would still send more scouts without their leader coming with them. After eating and resting for a bit, Aeron proceeded through his training routine.

“Arthur have the monkeys rotate patrolling and guarding”

Aeron ordered, it was already dark when he finished his meditation, his mind still wasn’t at the right place so it took longer than usual. Losing Spirit, the thought of two threatening beasts near him made him even more worried, he also couldn’t go back since the Grey Eagle might chase him, and the Hyena’s pack leader might just come to his area, if that happens, Aeron was already ready to hide above the trees.

Since Ursa was inside his pet space, Aeron went and found a hollowed area on the trees. There was no beast living inside and it looked to be abandoned already, so there wasn’t much chance for the original owner to return. Aeron and Arthur slept inside, though Aeron was in deep sleep, Arthur was only half asleep, it was guarding Aeron, Lancelot and Percival were outside the trees sleeping on the branches, while Gwaine and Elyan lead the patrol. This was the reason Aeron could sleep well even though he was in the wild right now.

“Nnngg”

Arthur quickly looked to Aeron’s direction.

“Ahhhhhhhh”

Aeron woke up screaming as another nightmarish events visited his dreams.

“Kiii?”

Arthur called worriedly.

“haaa, this is probably from worrying too much, don’t worry”

Aeron said as he shook his head, it was the same figure, and the same scenario, just before the black figure could turn around, a noisy sound appeared. Unseen to everyone’s eyes was a black smog disappearing in the distance.

“huuu”

Aeron took a deep breath, he cleared his mind and forced himself to sleep. In the distance, a black figure looked at Aeron’s direction, none of the monkeys noticed anything as the black figure disappeared into the darkness.

Early next day, Aeron woke up.

“Strange dream huh”

Aeron said as he stretched his body.

“Arthur, did the monkeys spot any hyena?”

Aeron asked, Arthur was already standing near the entrance.

“None huh, that’s good then, continue having them patrol, inform me immediately if there’s anything suspicious happening in the forest”

Aeron said after Arthur relayed that there was no sighting of hyenas in the forest. Aeron continued his weapons training today, if no hyenas or beasts invade then he would finish the day just training. He didn’t want to go on the eastern part of the forest, knowing there were already two on the western area scared him, if he somehow provokes some beast in the eastern area, then he would probably not escape.