The three of us and our huskies slowly went down into the forest. I was feeling extremely nervous as this was my first hunt ever.
All the training has made my fitness way better. I no longer pant or lose my breath. As we were moving, Big One suddenly stopped. He gestured to us to be quiet and pointed to a direction on his left. Big Two immediately told me to follow his movements and to stay as quiet as possible.
With Big One leading and me following Big Two, feeling slightly reassured as I gazed at Big Two's hulking presence in front of me as well as the three huskies. My heart was still thumping in my chest. We continued moving for another 10 minutes until we came upon a clearing. There was a huge tiger lying down. It's eyes were closed but its ears moved every now and then as if to alert it to any potential threats.
At this moment, without any command given, Sia jumped ahead of me and with a growl she headed to the sleeping tiger. The other two huskies immediately followed Sia. I made a mental note to myself to teach Sia never to initiate any attack without my permission in the future. But for now it was too late. The tiger if I can call it a tiger, it opened it's eyes and saw the six of us. It immediately let out a menacing roar that went through me and shook me to my core. I was frozen and couldn't move. My only thoughts were this is how I die.
Big Two came to me and gave me a huge pat on my back. I could feel some sort of energy course through my body as I awakened from my stupor. I can move again . I hurriedly thank Big Two who just nodded and told me to just watch and stay careful. I agreed without hesitation.
At this time, the three huskies has already pincered the tiger in a triangle with the tiger being in the middle. Big One and Big Two were standing just outside the triangle with their weapons drawn.
At this time I don't know why but I thought of the game World of Warcraft that I played when I was younger. The Hunter profession was one who hunted with an animal. That can be described as me right now. The difference was in the game. The Hunter had long range attacks like archery or guns.
I told myself that I'm going to learn archery after this so even if left on my own, I have Sia who can be the melee attacker whereas I can the the ranged one.
The battle started. The tiger made a huge leap with it's sharp claws our. I'm sure those claws can easit tear flesh and carve bones from the toughest of skin. It pounced towards Grey. Grey deftly avoided the attack. Sia then gave a swipe of her own sharp claws to the tigers abdomen. It winced in pain. The three huskies had immaculate teamwork. Just then Big One yelled," make space."
All three dogs instinctively backed up and a huge earth wave came and buried the tiger. Every part except it's head was buried in the earth. Big Two then walked towards the tiger and plunged his sword right into the tiger's brain. With that my first battle came to an end.
The two brothers then swiftly dissected the tiger's carcass. I can only assume I'm having tiger for dinner later.
When all is done, we headed back to our site. Big Two explained to me that the Tiger's roar that froze me was it's inate skill. This huge tiger according to him was just a cub and was very weak. We were lucky mama or papa tiger was not around. We could have taken one down but if both tiger parents were around, our only alternative was to run away. He went on to explain, if we had met an adult tiger, it would have been at least 5 to 10 times the size of the cub and they also had the wind element which would make them extremely fast and dangerous. Most adult tigers will first roar to freeze their prey and before the prey can recover, with it's swiftness from the wind element the tiger would have killed it's prey.
Hearing this, my back soaked in sweat. I told myself I needed to get stronger to be able to protect myself. Starting tomorrow I will fashion myself a bow and some arrows and start practicing.
That night I could not sleep. The feeling of being frozen kept haunting me. I chose to meditate since I could not sleep.
As I went into my mind palace, I could see a speck of dust next to the deck of cards and brush. I decided to take a closer look at the speck of dust.
The speck of dust looked extremely dull. I started focusing on it, in my mind it was as if I was continuously polishing that speck of dust. I did the polishing over and over again. Suddenly I felt a tremor in my body. The speck of dust became shinier and brighter. This got me excited as I was feeling that what I was doing is effective. I continue doing the same until I could not bear it anymore. I left my mind palace and went to sleep.
The next day, we went back to training and sparring. This time after sparring, I asked the two brothers to help me cut down a young tree so that I could use it's wood to make a bow and some arrows. The brothers assisted me and after awhile I had my first beginner weapon.
At first I was extremely clumsy and always failed to hit my mark. I persisted until my hands were completely sore. I then called it a day, applied some medicine on my hands and after having dinner and talking to the two brothers, I called it a night.
Once again. I went to my mind palace and continued 'polishing' the speck of dust.
This time I noticed that after awhile the dust became even more shinier and brighter. I persisted in the polishing session when suddenly I heard a loud bang. My whole body shuddered. When I opened my eyes, there were now two specks of dust. One extremely shiny and bright, almost like a diamond and one completely dull. I knew leveled up. I can feel the strength flow in me multiplied. I am much stronger and faster now. This feeling can be addicting. I stared blankly at the two specks of dust. Just as I was about to 'polish' the second speck of dust, I noticed that there was some kind of light on the deck of cards.
I took a closer look at the deck of cards. There was a name on it and it was titled Beast Cards. I tried looking into it more. There were exactly 98 cards excluding the Sia card. All the 98 were empty, just blank.
I picked out one of the empty cards and some information popped up in my mind.
"Copy Sia or Superimpose Sia?"
What?? I knew what copy meant but what is this superimpose? I guess I can only know if I try.
I said, "Superimpose Sia."
Next thing the brush then filled the empty card with another exact copy of Sia. Just when I was thinking there was no difference to copy, the new copied Sia card began to merge with the Original Sia card. At the moment of merger, the picture of Sia disappeared on both cards. The brush then started to move. In next to no time, a new Sia was drawn.
There were obvious changes to the picture. The new Sia looked bigger. Even more menacing than before.
I took a look at the stats.
Name: Sia
Card Type: Beast,
Loyalty: 100
Bravery: 100
Strength: 18
Agility: 20
Primary Element: Wind
Secondary Element: None
Description:
Born out of love. A Man's best friend. Willing to die for her owner.
Status: Upgradable
Copies available: 97
Wow. Sia evolved.