Stalking through the trees, one could find a black blur silently creeping around in search of prey. Examining it closely would reveal a pure-black wolf around 2 meters in lenght, and although the wolf was not particularly strong, it was almost invisible to the naked eye. Obviously, that's me.

2 years had passed ever since my first hunt. I won't go into detail, since you know, all a wolf really does is hunt and sleep. I barely even sleep anymore due to my constant hunger.

As I said before, I already reached 2 meters in lenght in almost 3 years. My siblings are all only 1 meter in lenght, and they have way less trouble then me in finding food. Size doesn't always help after all.

Life has not been easy at all on us poor little innocent squirrel-eating puppies. Around 4 months ago, our mother went out on a hunt and never returned. After that, our father didn't bother bringing us anything, leaving us to starve.

Me and the ruby wolf were especially in a tricky bind. That guy doesn't grow as fast as me, but in turn eats as much. I suspect he is developing his inner pool or something, else where does all of the food that glutton go?

Out of the starting 8 of us, only 4 remain. Me, the ruby wolf and two grey ones. When mother didn't return, they all spent a night howling and weeping as wolf's would. It was incredibly dumb, as we had to run away real fast from the spot to avoid predators.

I considered simply abandoning them, but decided against it. They could serve as good bait or cannon fodder, so why waste them?

To survive, I had to slowly rank up from simply hunting squirrels onto bigger preys, like the occasional bird. One time, the ruby guy found a deer and we all came together for the first time to hunt it down.

That day, we lost two grey wolves. One got his skull caved in by the deer's legs and the other one had a horn rammed down his throat. We did take it down though, and that day I had a huge breakthrough.

I have been thinking about 'the pool' for as long as I have been a wolf, but I never truly knew what it actually was. When I ate that deer, I felt it. I could feel the strange feeling where my heart is, almost as if I had a single droplet of water there, just hanging out. It's honestly a mystical feeling, very different from mana.

However, no matter what I did I couldn't use it, but that wasn't particularly disappointing since the next day, I found myself a little bit stronger and faster then before, so I didn't mind.

From what I discerned from the ruby's intentions, he probably felt it too since he immediately wanted to go out and hunt other deers. I considered joining him, but decided that we weren't ready and made my intentions clear. Luckily, he agreed with me and didn't go and waste my fodd... siblings.

That was a month ago, and now I finally decided that we were ready. I hadn't been idle these 2 years, and I have been in many life-or-death situations. I once fought against a small boar and almost killed it, but it's pack arrived making me run away with my tail between my legs, one of which was broken.

Luckily, as a wild beast, we recuperate rather fast. It didn't take longer then a week for me to heal, and although I was starved, I survived and learned a lot.

By now, I'm confident I could kill the past me with ease if I didn't use any magic. However, killing a real, seasoned warrior is another matter. Mother probably could, but I expect the 'seasoned warriors' of this world to be much stronger then my other world, so don't quote me.

Now, I was returning to our small cavern. Once I got there, I howled out, signaling to my siblings to return. Normally, we would all separate and each go in a different direction in order to not steal each other's food, but now, I had found a group of deers, and we would all benefit from taking one or two out.

Thus, I waited. I knew that making noise in the forest isn't a good idea, but by now, we were big and strong enough to contend against hunters in this region. Naturally, if we were to go further and further in the forest, stronger and stronger beasts appear. I had even found the exit to the forest, and it's quite close. I imagine that at the center of the forest there should be some pretty god damn strong animals, so we kinda have to avoid it.

After a dozen or so minutes of waiting, the first siblings began to appear. We rubbed noses a little to make sure we recognized each other and waited for everyone else to appear. After 20 minutes, everyone was here with the ruby guy coming in last.

Although wolves don't talk, we can still make our intentions known to others. Be it growling, movements of the tail, how we act or simply nudging each other, it's not impossible.

Ruby was the first to understand what I tried to tell them, and his tail quickly began to shake happily. Although it was cute, the idea that he would be happy about killing animals still was somewhat strange, but by now I had rid myself of all human ideals. I am no longer human, so why bother even trying to maintain the idea of me being one? If I was to meet a human, I would no doubt tear it apart and eat it. That's just how life goes.

I may sound crazy, but consider this. I'm a wolf now, and I think I'm still human. I see a human going around and I approach it. There is a 90% chance the human will instantly attack me and a 10% chance it will flee. Then, if it attacks me, I will not attack it back, which will either end with me being killed or the human getting more friends to come over, which will kill me. It's dumb. I need to kill to survive both as a human and as a beast, and humans are animals too, so why even classify them in different categories? It's outright hipocritical, why would I feel more remorse killing a human then killing a squirrel? They both have lives and both have families, so just why is it wrong to kill a human but it's okay to treat other animals like dirt?

I can understand if I was still a human, but as a wolf, it's just dumb to continue to think like that. It simply will lead me to death, thus making my eternal death still further away then it already is.

Grumbling internally, I lead the pack over to where I last saw the deers. Since I am the biggest of them by quite a margin, I plan on first getting them to lead a single deer to my direction then pouncing on it, followed by the others quickly tearing it into pieces. It's a decent plan, but it's not perfect. I only accept perfect plans... usually.

When we finally found our prey, we quickly split up and surrounded them. They all sort of understood what to do based on instincts: Split them up and hunt the old and weak. Lead them into a trap, then profit. It's simple really, but it's much, much harder then it sounds if the prey actually defend.

Luckily for us, the pack only consisted of 8 deers, 2 of which children. This time though, we weren't going for children, no. We were going for the biggest and strongest of them, which will in turn provide a much better nourishment then the children.

Since I stayed where the ambush will be laid, I couldn't see most of the action. However, I knew that they had succeded since the deer were all running and one of them was coming my way. The other 3 wolves were on it's tail and all of them were running after it, but not actually catching up to it on purpose. They knew of my plan.

Abusing my natural color, I was very hard to see, especially in the shadows like I was. So, when the deer passed right in front of me, I pounced on it's sides, tearing my claws onto it's side and grabbing it's neck in my mouth. The deer is stil bigger then me by a bit though, but the momentum made it lose balance and slam into the ground.

Just as planned, the others all jumped onto it. Ruby grabbed one of it's legs and the other two helped me finish it off.

Ultimately, we only got a couple of injuries from the final moments of it's struggle, but we were otherwise fine and with a bountiful harvest. Honestly, running away was the dumbest thing it could possibly do, considering that we as wolves do not particularly rely on strenght, but on speed, numbers and cunning, a strange combination but deadly effective.

When it finally died, I had a small idea. I quickly tore onto it's chest and ate the heart whilst the others ate whatever they found. I searched and searched until I found a miniscule, almost liquid thingie. I somehow knew that this was it's core, not still fully formed.

A flood of information somehow invaded my mind. I have no idea why I didn't gain this knowledge before, but later is still better then never.

[Forgive me for infodump, but I have no idea how else to introduce this to a non-speaking beast other then through random instincts... I'm a bad writer]

The liquid thingie is indeed the core of every beast, only humans don't posses one. For a beast to be classified as a rank 1 beast, it will need a core. Some creatures will slowly create their own even without doing anything, some will even reach the final rank 10 without doing anything, others will never develop. It's all a matter of race.

There are 10 ranks for beasts, and it naturally goes 1-10. Humans give names to these ranks, but it's easier to understand if kept simple. The difference between each rank is huge, especially as you progress further and further. A rank 7 can easily kill 100 rank 6's, not to speak about a rank 8. Each rank also has low, middle and high subclasses, but they are less defined and easier to overcome.

Only rank 1 beasts can actually use techniques based on their attribute, and even then, they are quite weak. Only rank 3 beasts can truly use techniques and rank 4's can manifest their Qi outside of their bodies. Qi is the resource I always referred to as 'pool', so there's that.

For a beast to grow in rank, they can do so in different ways. By simply living, they can slowly gather Qi in themselves or they can eat other beasts and take their Qi. Naturally, only a miniscule part of what a beast eats can be taken as theirs due to compatability. There is also the last method, which is to siphon Qi off of a master, but this requires the beast to be a 'contracted beast', which is not fun sometimes, especially if you have an abusive master.

With this revelation, I felt as if a whole world was opened to me. I was so blind before, only hunting small and weak preys. That's not how one grows fast in this world. I was wrong, but I can fix myself now.

No longer will I hunt the weak, I will hunt those on par with me. Only then will I truly grow. Oh, don't give me the bullshit about hunting those stronger then me, I'll just die! There's a fine line between stupidity and courage after all.

But now, I shall dine on tis fine meat. Maybe working as a pack isn't such a bad idea after all? Probably isn't, but the idea of sharing doesn't sit well with me.

I take a look at my companions. The grey wolves are both quite weak, and whilst the ruby wolf is stronger then them, he's still a lot weaker then me. However, if we can grow together, it'll be much easier in the future. I don't expect the two grey ones to survive, but making sure the ruby one lives should be a priority. Yes, a good slave would do good.