0019 - Time continues to pass

[A/N: I will be trying to increase the length of the chapters, either by a hundred or a few hundred words and, on the rare occasion, a thousand. In this chapter, I added 400 Words]

Days passed as I trained my skills and had my Undead Bird continue to watch the surrounding forests before I got an alert of movement from one of my Birds watching the northern section of the jungle.

[A/N: He doesn't know the directions, so he has just been calling one direction North and the other directions their proper name]

Looking through the Undead Bird's eyes, I was momentarily shocked to see that a small group of Na'vi was heading in my direction on foot. It appears they finally came searching for their friend!

For whatever reason they may have for coming here, they were bound to stumble upon my abode in a minute or two!

Rushing over to my hut, I grabbed my bow and spear and hid in some bushes away from my hut.

Soon I could see the small group of Na'vi come out from the forest and stalk their way towards my hut.

I had my 7 Undead Birds come back to the shack and wait in the trees through a mental command.

When the Na'vi got close enough, I acted.

With a single command, all 7 of my undead birds dived onto the Na'vi and began clawing and pecking at their vulnerable points, such as eyes, face, back, joints, and more.

There were only four Na'vi, so my birds outnumbered them almost 2 to 1, but when I came into the mix, the Na'vi started dropping like flies.

Don't get me wrong, they were still strong enough to injure 5 of my Birds and leave one on the brink of death, but when you have to worry about defending your face and vitals from an Undead bird and a Yautja with a spear? Either way, they quickly went down.

Those that focused on me instead of my birds found that they soon lost their eyes or gained painful injuries, and when they concentrated on the birds or couldn't even see me due to the birds literally clawing at their faces, they died from my spear that went through their chests or heads.

The hardest part for me was actually hitting their vitals. Due to their heights, I had to attack from an angle, sometimes missing their heart or only hitting the edge of their heart, but some of the times I went in for a strike, they ended up moving, causing me to miss my target.

When I was more than sure that they were dead, I collected their skulls and some of their bones.

I managed to level up to 7 as well, which was nice.

I was definitely uncomfortable with the fact that I felt no remorse for their deaths and even more uncomfortable when I noticed that I was actually excited when I was fighting them.

Heck, I did not even feel disgusted when I removed their skulls and cleaned the insides before latching them onto my waist along with the other skull that was already hung on my waist.

With five 'trophies' now attached to my waist and some bones, I buried what remained of the bodies of the Na'vi and had most of my birds return to their posts.

While six of the seven undead birds returned to their posts, the strongest and first of my undead landed on my shoulder.

I nicknamed my first Undead Ly'hmie Alpha, for it is the strongest of its brethren.

And I had a particular task for Alpha. I wanted him to find where these Na'vi were coming from.

And the first clue I had of where they were coming from was the direction in which they came from.

It was not much to go on, but it's better than nothing.

I don't plan on using my Rise Undead skill or the undead much, but they can still be helpful. After all, they never tire or fear.

However, another reason why I will not delve too far into the Rise Undead skill is because of Yautja society. Who knows what the Yautja Clans would do to me if they found out I could raise the dead.

They most likely would kill me then and there, which I would rather not have happen.

Even if I wanted to delve more into the skill, I would not since I find it to be against my morals. But, seriously, how horrifying is it to raise something that was once alive and turn it into a husk of its former self, one that hates all life and lacks any sanity it once had.

Pushing that chain of thoughts away, I focused back on Alpha and watched as he flew off my shoulder and into the jungle where the Na'vi came from.

The sooner I find where the Na'vi live, the easier it will be to keep track of them and avoid them.

Plus, I wanted to see just how advanced they were. With their attire and weapons, I assumed they were either Nomadic or lived in villages.

I would be surprised if they passed the Stone Age technological advancement.

And while Alpha began searching for the Na'vi, I went back to exploring the jungle for copper and tin.

I first needed to obtain bronze tools to mine a decent-sized iron ore vein I found in a small cave under a giant jungle tree.

This planet seemed to have an overabundance of water, meaning caves were quite common along with streams and rivers.

Although the overabundance of plant life makes it quite hard to find these caves.

And while I went searching for more caves, I checked my traps, finding that I caught a couple more small critters called Gi'a, [G-uh], killed them swiftly, then hung them on my waist beside the skulls.

The Gi'a resembled squirrels from Earth but had a square head with two horns that lay on top.

And while I stealthfully traveled through the Jungle earning some levels in Stealth, raising it to 11, and as I maneuvered through the jungle through and ran through the treetops, I was surprised to gain another skill, one that I felt I should have obtained long ago!

[Congratulations! Running has been obtained!]

[Running has been set to Level 1!]

Reading through the description of the skill, it lessened the stamina drain of running and sprinting, although, at its current level, the decrease is so tiny that it's barely noticeable.

And while I continued dashing through the forest tops, I suddenly stopped to a halt upon seeing what slept on the ground below me.

It was a massive four-legged beast that resembled an apex predator with its purple muscled body and long sharp teeth.

[Thanator Pic here]

And to my horror, the quills on top of its head seemed to rattle with my presence, and the fearsome beast raised its head to look at me...

"...Fuck."

Without any hesitation, I began running away as fast as possible, but unluckily for me, the beast was just as fast as I was, if not even quicker...

With little hope of escaping this monster, I began throwing Mana Bolts in hopes of slowing it down, but the beast was smart enough to know to avoid the possible danger my Mana Bolts could possess.

However, I noticed that it slowed down to dodge, meaning I had a chance!

All I would need to do is keep throwing Mana Bolts and have it lose sight of me!

So I enacted my plan!

Throwing as many Mana Bolts as I could, dashed deeper into the jungle and weaved through the trees, and to my surprise, upon landing on a tree branch, the branch broke, and I fell into a muddy pond.

Now covered in mud and wet, I quickly got back up and continued running.

And when I made it to some bushes, I turned around to see that the beast came rushing out from the jungle into the clearing where I fell into a muddy pond.

I stopped and noticed that it smelled around the mud.

Then I realized that it would not be able to track me now that my scent was covered in wet mud!

Now was my chance to escape this beast, and I took it!