Before dawn had actually arrived, Siu was already awake. He dressed quietly, double-checking and fastening the leather bracers over his forearms, testing the hooks before covering his arms and tying the cloth sacks at his belt. The rope was looped twice around his torso, the bitter herb powder secured beneath a flap of cloth so it wouldn’t spill... Everything was ready.

  By the time the sun's first light came up, he was out, nearing the entrance to the forest around the sect, passing by the few disciples who were awake just as he was, usually those who had the job of starting the kitchen's ovens, picking up water jugs, and the occasional early-morning cultivator already warming up in the courtyards, going on their daily rotuine, nobody paying much attention to him.

  Going by his studies and clues, he headed towards the southern trail, which was a narrow path at first, twisting between multiple cliff roots and shrubs, but it widened once it dipped toward the forest valley between the mountains. Thanks to the early morning, the woods were darker than they would be later, still inside the thick shade of the mountains, mostly made out of pine and oak trees. When he crossed the boundary stone with the sect’s sigil marking it, he could tell that a faint ripple washed through him. Its scent was the most noticeable, telling him he had walked past an invisible barrier marking the official dividing line between the sect's safe zone and the actual wilderness.

  "The air has changed..." He muttered to himself as he took a deep breath, smelling the differences.

  The forest was... thick. And unrefined. While living in the sect, when heading to meditate, and using one of the paid alcoves, caves, platforms, or whatever a disciple would choose, the energies drawn in from the world would be focused, concentrated, and easily digestible for even beginners. Out here...? It was still raw and chaotic, thick in some places, thin in others, forever changing and flowing. It was how nature intended it to be... pure and random. Once again, he inhaled deeply and then exhaled, tasting the energy on his tongue.

  “Now I get it,” he murmured, smiling to himself.

  Unlike before, when he had no cultivation to speak of, he never really understood it. His old master taught him how some lands were rich in such energies, the gifts of the Heavens, while some were... sparse. Exhausted. But it never really made any sense. It was the same for his untrained nose. Now, finally achieving something he could call a cultivation basis, he could sense it. Indeed... The Hollow Song Sect's territory was indeed rich in it. It also showed in the forest, as the trees had roots sometimes thicker than his torso, twisting beneath the soil, rising to block a path before sinking underground again. As he climbed over such obstacles, he could see fruits glowing faintly even in the early light, which was not just because of the morning dew sticking to them.

  Heading deeper, Siu tightened the straps of his pack and began walking towards his marked direction, following the map in his head that he had memorized to its full extent. By the details, Bluetipped Ironclaw birds preferred high, steep places with trees for nesting, especially those near running water. They rarely built nests on cliffs, though, which could be too exposed, yet they often hovered around ravines carved by smaller rivers or seasonal streams after an intense rainfall. According to the bestiary, the southern forest had three common nesting zones that were possible locations to gather their eggs.

  One was the Ridgefall Gully, with narrow pathways, excellent for ambushes, while another was the Mossback Hollow, filled with denser foliage than the former. And finally, there was the Broken Sky Canopy, with the tallest trees in the southern forest, most likely favored by adult Ironclaws who wanted the best places for themselves. Yet no matter which he chose, he knew that all three locations were dangerous, with potential feeding or nesting grounds. Not that he would care, a mission was a mission, so he chose the Mossback Hollow first.

  Arriving, he noted that the books weren't lying; the scrubs in here were so thick that it forced anyone walking in here to slow down, to almost a crawl. It was thorny and dense, and if careless, one could easily wrap oneself in a bush and get stuck, like someone inside a snapped barbed-wire trap.

  "Lucky..." He smiled to himself as the agility of the Wild Cat came in handy now, which allowed him to keep his pace quiet and quick, soft-stepping where vines curved across his path, ducking beneath low-hanging branches, and going around those bushes he couldn't vault over, being too thick or wide.

  He was just up in a tree, crouching on a branch, looking around, deciding where to head next, orienting himself, when his ears twitched, picking up noise coming from the west. Immediately, going still, he stayed there, unmoving as something massive lumbered nearby him with heavy steps, pushing trees aside.

  Watching, not that long later, a bear, or at least something that was akin to a bear, walked out from the shrubs. Its fur was brown, its paws at least half the size of its own torso as it grunted and grumbled, heading along Siu's path. He didn't know what the creature's actual type was, but it looked dangerous enough not to make any noise... or movement.

  "Just... keep going..." He murmured, hoping the creature was not interested in him, knowing that this close, he must know he was here... That black-tipped nose at the end of his snout was not for decoration.

  As if he had heard him, the bear looked up at him once, before scoffing, simply walking into the shrubs Siu was trying to go over, bulldozing them without any scratch on his thick fur. Apparently, he thought nothing of him... heading towards its destination without stopping.

  "I have never been happier for being looked down on by an animal..." He sighed after it was gone, causing him to wipe sweat from his brows, laughing to himself.

  Still, he slowed his pace after that encounter, bending slightly at the waist, checking for trails, wanting to make sure he didn't run into the creature, returning from its morning routine. It was a few minutes later that he spotted a set of tracks along a shallow rise he had reached. They were left on a rock, marked with three-way prints, with the middle one elongated and with a faint groove towards the left.

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  "Ironclaw scratch marks... they were using these rocks to sharpen their claws. So they were coming here..." he muttered, closing his eyes, going over the details.

  He hoped that maybe some younger ones made nests in here, chased out by the adults, the more experienced ones unwilling to share their nesting grounds. That would be the best, so he followed the trail deeper into the Hollow, moving in calculated bursts rather than continuous strides, stopping and watching the ground, the treebarks, and the rocks, finding more and more claw marks, looking for clues for a nest but...

  "Going by the size... this is not a fully fledged adult yet..." He hummed, running his fingers along a set of prints in the wet ground. It had to be fresh, so with caution, he raised his gaze slowly, letting his eyes adjust as the sunlight that had just broken through the shadow of the mountains, sending a bright beam down on the area he was in. "Thanks for the spotlight..." He grunted, shielding his eyes just as a screech echoed somewhere, precisely as the book described.

  Siu stiffened at once, finding a shade, surveying the sky. The Ironclaw’s cry wasn’t loud, but it had a metallic tinge to it, as if two pieces of iron slabs had been scraped together somewhere. Question was... Where exactly? As he went still, using the foundation of the Ox, becoming as stationary as a rock would... he finally noticed it. Not that far from him, some of the branches shook as something landed, rustling the leaves, making knocking-noises on wood, as if looking for something... probably for a nesting place.

  He wanted to move, but he knew he couldn't. The bird was too close to him now, and if he made any noise or just breathed louder than usual, it would be alerted for sure. Then, it will either go and attack him, or worse, fly away and probably alert half of the forest or something. He listened as two, then three pairs of knocks came, then a somewhat annoyed screech and the sharp, cutting sound of wings as the bird flew away, back up to the skies, through the green canopy above them.

  "No... this won't do." He shrugged to himself, realizing he was right, but he was also wrong.

  Young ones were indeed coming here, looking for possible nesting places. But that is also the problem... They are young ones. And would they lay eggs? Probably not, because it would be only one bird, not a pair. Those were hogging the best places for their species, along with the 'women.'

  "Still, taking a look couldn't hurt." He told himself, readying because observing an Ironclaw in the flesh would be better than reading about it in a book. "Seeing it move will teach me more anyway." Deciding on it, he moved onward, choosing to follow the sound where the young bird had flown off. "Experience makes the cultivator..." as his old master once said to him.

  Acting on his instincts, he moved quietly through Mossback Hollow, keeping to the lower brush whenever possible, sliding between roots that bulged from the ground and keeping one eye on the sky. With even a juvenile Ironclaw flying around, it was still a source of danger, so he didn't want to take unnecessary risks. He was about to stop once again when his ears picked up another metallic shriek, followed by a crashing sound and a tree being torn through, somewhere nearby.

  "It's hunting..." Siu realized, which was another great news. If the bird got tunnel vision, he could survey it without drawing too much attention to himself.

  Hurrying towards the noise, he hauled himself up to the trees to perch again on a low, sturdy branch, watching the shadows flashing around the tiny clearing ahead of him. As for what it was hunting, it was also fast, zig-zagging, darting through the underbrush trying to escape, but every step it took snapped a twig or made noise through the leaves, causing the Ironclaw to dive again from the skies, following the source of the noise.

  As the creature landed, not that far from Siu, multiple branches erupted into splinters as a wide-bodied bird with ash-gray feathers and cobalt-blue talons sliced through them. The violent way it swooped downward forced whatever it was chasing to dart sharply to the right, barely escaping the attack, but it still gave out a painful yelp.

  As for Siu, he was more focused on the movements of the bird... Diving angle, how it spread its wings, the recovery rate, the speed of its rise back to the sky, how many times it circled the clearing before a follow-up attack...

  "It's hunting something small..." Siu concluded in his head, "Very small." He watched without blinking when the bird swooped again, until the underbrush split briefly, and Siu could see it clearly. "A fox?"

  A tiny one... She was smaller than any forest fox he’d ever seen, with black fur that shone strangely under the morning sunlight. The tips of her ears were silver, the same faint metallic color that went along her tail, which ended in a golden-colored tip. By now, the little creature was limping, its hind leg dragging slightly, while her left ear was clipped, wet with fresh blood, explaining the yelp he had heard previously. Then, as the panicking little creature, utter terror in its eyes that were one gold, one silver in color, caught Siu's eyes, she looked... as if she were pleading for mercy.

  Siu blinked at once..., shaking his head, but... There was intelligence in those eyes...

  Then he saw more than that. He noticed flickers around her, most likely illusions too weak to fully form, like heat ripples in a desert. They formed shadows that seemed to blur behind her paws as she ran. Then, in the next moment, her tail vanished, then appeared too long, then too short. Apparently, her panic ruined the magic, warping it into unstable fragments, no longer able to hide or shield her from a hungry Ironclaw. Just as Siu thought about it, the Ironclaw shrieked again and dove for its breakfast. The little fox tried to dodge, and it worked, causing the bird to claw the ground before flying back up, but she stumbled over a root the next moment, crash-rolling into a tangle of ferns. Yelping, almost as if a child crying, she scrambled up, only for her injured leg to give out, and she collapsed again.

  Watching the death struggle, Siu’s jaw tensed, without him noticing it... He was also missing the fact that his fingers had already balled up into fists... Watching, he knew that she wasn’t just tired, practically, she was done. Her sides heaved in rapid succession, and she didn’t even attempt another trick. The illusions sputtered out entirely, leaving her bare against the leaves, lying there, looking up at the sky, whimpering.

  As for the Ironclaw, it circled overhead, sensing its advantage, knowing the next time, it won't miss.

  As Siu watched the little fox, she lowered her head, one silver-tipped ear flattening to her skull, one of her mismatched eyes half-closed, as a slight shiver went through her body... It was not from fear. It was... Resignation. Something in Siu twitched at the sight, and he knew it was irrational; more than that, it was stupid. But... immediate. He didn’t even think.

  By the time the Ironclaw folded its wings inward for the killing strike, Siu had already dropped from the branch, landing silently in the leaf bed below as his feet used the steps of the Wild Cat to sprint forward before he slid into the Crane’s stance, his posture lowered, arms angled slightly forward. The tiny fox didn’t notice him arrive, but the Ironclaw caught him instantly, the moment he made his move.

  It shrieked up in the sky, sounding angry, issuing a clear challenge, furious that someone had interrupted the last moment of its hunt. Its blue talons glinted in the morning rays as it shifted trajectory, wings tightening, preparing to skewer both fox and the stupid human in one sweep...

  "Come..." Siu muttered, his breathing following the pattern his cultivation demanded, looking at the bird in the sky, "I need some actual life and death experience myself anyway."