It takes a long time for Raiz to settle down and feel alive again. When he does his curiosity takes over and he starts to figure out what that sort of power that shard gave him. It feels almost intrinsic, the knowledge coming to him in an instinctual manner. To piece it together and describe it, only a single word came to Raiz’s mind; Insight. It allows him to see into the existence of things. To go beyond the shallow surface a person can view and pry through the barriers of secrecy to see what’s beneath.

Raiz turns his eyes to the crystal ground. If you observed closely you would see his yellow eyes glowing ever so slightly. When Raiz looks down into the crystal he finds himself peering into its structure, its makeup of particles and strange building blocks. He can feel the way it had been crushed, condensed from a different form to create the clear structured nature it now encompasses. He can understand the process and trace backward to when it had begun.

Quickly, however, pain fills Raiz’s eyes and he is forced to look away. The further he pried into its history and its structure the more pain he felt. Closing his eyes Raiz lets the ability fade away, returning him to normal. Still, it is hard to contain his excitement. Such an ability feels as if it is made for him. Raiz’s thoughts can’t help but drift back to the strange cave he had seen with the words scrawled across it. He knows now they’re not words from the common language. Perhaps his new ability could help him decipher them?

With the decision made Raiz immediately sets to head out, not forgetting to grab the small crystal knife he has been using to hunt. Often he simply uses his claws but when that doesn’t work he’ll resort to the knife. There were many such strange things in this place - odds and ends that have no reason to be there. Perhaps Lorvane thought they’d be necessary. A justified thought as it turns out.

After exiting the building and treading beyond the crystal ground Raiz starts to tense up. He’d learned from experience that nothing would step beyond the edge of this place, but he is fair game once he’s past it. Raiz immediately steps between the edges of the volcanic land the forest and starts to walk across it. It isn’t long before he encounters a creature, a small monkey with thick green fur curiously watching him.

With a single bound Raiz is upon it, his claws digging into its skin as he watches the life drain out of its eyes. His eyes watch coldly onward as he waits expectantly. It doesn’t take long before the gray energy wisps itself out of the monkey’s body. Raiz, however, doesn’t take it straight away. Instead he uses Insight and looks at it.

A small gasp escapes him as he peers at the energy, its depths roiling around him. He feels madness, desirous never-ending consumption and the desire to indulge. Raiz feels these ugly, sickening concepts like a fog covering something beneath, something far into the past. He can already feel the pain onsetting but pushes further regardless. The gray fog slowly starts to give way as he studies the energies history bit by bit, but the pain quickly becomes unbearable and when Raiz feels his head splitting itself open he is forced to relinquish his pursuit. Raiz is only able to watch as the fog quickly settles back into place.

Just as Raiz intends to finish using Insight something catches his eye. He stops and looks at the energy again. A tiny sliver, barely noticeable to his eyes, shaves off of the energy and slowly floats upward. This energy isn’t pure however, and when Raiz peers deeper into it he realises he’s seeing fragments of memories and emotions of the beast all swirling together inside that tiny piece of energy. Casting his eyes up Raiz sees similar frail pieces of energy floating out from the forest, presumably from other dead creatures, and flying higher and higher into the sky until he can see no more.

Raiz watches for a while, ignoring the energy dissipating near him, the pain from overdrawing Insight barely registering. Then he closes his eyes and lets the glow recede from them. Without a word he continues forward, his excitement quelled. The forest is incredibly dense and the overgrowth is thick enough that Raiz finds himself sinking as he steps onto it. In these parts of the forest it is hard to maintain a stable footing, and it’s precisely when Raiz felt himself slip slightly that he was ambushed.

His instincts screaming at him, Raiz dived out of the way, feeling a burning pain as a claw rakes across his chest. Rolling away he flips himself up and twists around, clutching tightly onto his knife. In front of him stands a huge leopard. Its body is covered by a strange black-purple almost gelatin-like coat, similar to obsidian in color. Something felt off about it but Raiz had no time to question it as the leopard launched itself at him again. Prepared this time Raiz was able to barely dodge to the side, its speed almost faster then he can track.

Without any hesitation he uses Insight and immediately information explodes inside of him. He feels his intuition working in tangent and instantly knows where the leopard is going to jump to. He moves out of the way at the same time it jumps allowing him to easily dodge to the side. Without hesitation the knife comes slashing down and tears across the Leopard’s coat. The gelatin parts around the knife and a deep wound bleeds across its stomach. However the leopard completely ignores the pain, its half-crazed eyes locking onto him as it launches itself on top of him.

Forcing its head away from him Raiz stabs again into this stomach, burying his knife deep into its gut. Still the leopard hardly notices, no pain registering in its eyes. Instead it becomes even more aggressive as its mouth snaps toward his head, its claws tearing across his chest and deeply wounding it. With one hand Raiz just barely keeps the creature away from himself as his knife continues to stab into it. Yet it still ignores its injuries and Raiz finds his own wounds deepening as he fights against this strangely suicidal leopard.

It is in that desperate moment that a strange feeling embeds itself into Raiz. Looking at the leopard he feels himself drawn to a certain part of its stomach. With a straight stab Raiz buries his knife deep. Still the leopard doesn’t react but Raiz can immediately feel its attacks weaken. His eyes lighting up he sinks the knife further into that location and then does all he can to resist its attacks.

Slowly but surely the leopard weakens and then, finally, the light dies out of its eyes. Immediately Raiz throws its body away from him and takes a deep breath, grabbing the energy to help heal his wounds. This time it really was a close call and he can feel it will take some time before his body fully recovers. Staring down at his body he feels the need to berate himself. He was too careless. He felt with his legs he could run from anything. He should’ve learned after the first time he got ambushed and been prepared. With a shake of his head Raiz sits down and starts to recover. From now on he should more cautious.