Chapter 14: Ranger's ability

Sun rose on the horizon the next day; warmth fell upon a long eagle searching for prey above the sky. Its eyes pierced the ground and rolled in different directions every second. When it had suspicions, it spread its wing wide open, gliding in circles over and over again. It was a master of flight, king among birds. Flapping wings to thrust itself upward and its feather usage was the most efficient. Its sight passed through tree line and saw numerous meals, but it decided against its will because consumption of energy wasn't worth the chase. It soared over many hills and arrived at the open field space, where its eyes gawked a snake laying down resting, unaware the danger it was about to face.

Simple hunt for the eagle, it dove nearly straight down, and its claw prepared to grab and bring death to its prey. Plunging nearer, it screeched to wallop fears onto the soul of its prey. Usually most of its meal would run into hiding as soon as possible, but this one didn't even flinch. So courageous, it thought. It just liked a hard opponent. Only 8 feet above the ground, its hair stood out and alarmed rang in its heart. It scanned its peripheral the result almost didn't frighten the self-proclaimed king to death.

Swish. Swish

Two stick-like materials just whizzed around him, it was so close that the eagle evens saw its feather torn apart. Except for a slight pain when one's hair was being picked off, it felt nothing. It quickly halted its flight and tried to escape in panic. Screeching and flapping its wing hard, it jolted to the sky and ignored the meals it thought was the easiest. It looked back at its prey and found it still didn't move and knew immediately it was already dead. The eagle cried bitterly, though no one knows what the difference in its sound was, 'who said Early bird gets the worm. It nearly become early worm now.'

What it didn't notice, was two figures supposed to hit, still flew and crashed into the target, producing a big wooden clap. Thump. Thump. It was actually two arrows crashing into the target practice wooden board, straight into bullseye. Who else could the culprit be except for Lireesa. She held the elegant longbow at an angle on her left hand. Her right hand still maintained the shape of releasing arrow. She was closing her eyes and sensing the changes brought by a sudden enlightenment. Poor eagle king became the first steppingstone for her enlightenment.

Lireesa opened her eyes showing clarity and jubilant mood. She actually succeeded comprehending one of the hardest realms recorded in the predecessor's memory—heartfelt arrow realm. Although there was help from the memory fusion, Lireesa couldn't even deny herself she achieved something by herself. Because even with fusion, except for some skills related to archery, realms couldn't be copied directly. Only after thoroughly understanding could one have a true impact when using it. Heartfelt realm in the ranger profession meant shooting arrow through feeling of heart. One didn't require to aim using ear or eyes. A ranger could shoot arrow by one's heart and knew the target was hit without looking at it.

Lireesa practiced archery since dawn and haven't rest until it found a snake and nailed it to death with an arrow. Afterward, when she saw the eagle dove, she had an inexplicable sense and relying on it, took out two arrows from the quiver and instantly without bothering to aim, she released the arrows, zooming for the target through the eagle but not killing it. The result was satisfying at least for Lireesa, not caring about eagle's sad thought. Lireesa stood still savoring her accomplishment and decided to sit down and rest.

She looked at the sides where her two daughters—Sylvannas and Vereesa—were training meticulously, if no one was observing their bitter face. Lireesa punished the two for the crimes of sleeping too late yesterday. Even today, had she not dragged them out forcefully, they would really lay down lazily on the bed and relax themselves. The two didn't knew why her mother was urgent recently and reneged on her promise to ease the demands on her daughters that night two days ago.

Lireesa in order to maintain her reputation had to stop their training and asked them to sit down beside her. Their sleepy face immediately brightened when they heard her. Lireesa heard the two said, "Mother, we thought you broke our deal." Sylvannas came beside her and laid her head on Lireesa's shoulder and Vereesa lie down, placing her head over the lap.

"My daughters, I meant my words and I'll never demand you," Lireesa comforted. "But you two must promise me, you will never forget to practice yourself every day. Otherwise, I will triple the exercise each time you girls. I demand nothing from you but discipline." She rubbed the two's head who squinted their eyes enjoying the adorable moment but were purring dissatisfaction about the harsh punishment. They knew when her mother worded out, she would do so if they disobey.

Lireesa thought about her youngest Lina who went to sleep after playing around her and getting exhausted. She shook her head in amusement. Her eldest went to report herself and transfer under the command of Sena, who presumed the rank of ranger-captain in Windrunner guard unit. Today, she practiced ranger talents such as 'concuss shot' and 'arcane shot'. It wasn't difficult but the arcane shot demanded high mana accumulation. Concuss shot was actually a magical spell learnt by rangers and didn't require physical arrow. Via mere arcane gathering, an arrow was formed and released. Its function was to slow down the intended target to a snail speed for 3 seconds or for a slight moment when the target was very strong.

Arcane shot used arcane sorcery forming a magical arrow, which dealt twice the damage to the target compared to normal arrow with more penetrating power. When the spell combined with physical arrow, the damage it produced became three times. Concuss shot was a spell every ranger learnt and used proficiently. Arcane shot was rare and could only be used by mid-level ranger. Another spell similar to it, only commonly used by high-level ranger was 'arcane burst shot', whereas mid-level could only use once due to their amount of mana accumulation. The whole process was the same until the arrow hit the target, and exploded, having a magical damage on the surrounding like an AOE spells—area of effects.

High-level ranger could only use this particular shot three times at most, except for a talented one able to shoot another. This didn't include Lireesa, who reached this morning high-level peak ranger. She only consumed one-twelfth of her mana even with her high-level cultivation. Lireesa noticed it straightaway and remembered in her memory she wasn't supposed to have this high amount of mana in her body. It seemed the mana inside her was compressed allowing more to flow through and be stored. She regarded this as advantages brought by fusion and threw the thoughts away.

Another spell only quasi-legend could use was 'multi-shot array'. A magical spell where, the caster drew an arrow for a slightly longer time, accumulated arcane power and released it into the sky. The arrow depending on the amount of mana infused by the ranger, subdivided itself into several smaller arrows as soon as it leaved the bowstring, intending to submerge the whole area by rains of arrows after dividing several times. The higher the mana, the bigger and longer the arrow, the more the number of times the arrow will divide.

Lireesa gasped her breath when she searched across her memories and found the spell. She even now reckoned, a quasi-legend ranger was capable of being a one woman army. Usually, quasi-legend ranger like Sena could use this spell two times continuously before being exhausted, but why did Lireesa felt she could cast more if she regained her strength, not mentioning how much increase the amount of mana will be as soon as she became quasi-legend.

There were many small level spells used by various rangers which weren't worth mentioning. Amongst them, 'entanglement' spell which created vines to grip and hinder the movement of the target, was the most useful. An arrow upon hitting something, sprung out vines grabbing any living beings intended by the caster's mind nearby. The more the victim struggled, the tighter it would become and possibly killed the target. Its weakness was if the target no longer struggled and stayed stationary, vines broke apart after 10 seconds and couldn't threatened anymore. This spells at first largely caused huge casualties to the trolls until they discovered this weakness and hugely favored by elf rangers.

Lireesa, seeing her two dreamy daughters, decided to teach this 'entanglement spell' first even though their mana weren't still sufficient and were at the apprenticeship level. Sylvannas was slightly better than Vereesa as she was one step in the low-level ranger, which for her was a matter of time to breakthrough. The two were inherently clever and soon learnt the casting method. They were excited for a while and tried it out. After several times, Sylvannas succeeded followed by Vereesa. Grinning from one cheek to another, they bounced toward Lireesa who smiled and was gratified for her daughters' talent.