Druid Ailin?
The furious cry startled Ailin awake.
"I actually fell asleep!"
He stood up in surprise, only to find Vesemir still kneeling on the ground, meditating.
There was no sign of the Greater Griffin in the sky.
Obviously.
The cry that startled him did not come from the powerful Favor Field of the Greater Griffin's return.
"Did I... have a nightmare?" Ailin was completely baffled, but he vaguely felt that it wasn't a dream, but more like some kind of response, like the echo of someone shouting in an empty valley.
Could it be "Primal Tongue"?
Looking back on his experience before "falling asleep," he could only think of this one possibility.
The Witcher smacked his lips, a faint chill still lingering on the back of his tongue, as if he had drunk a mouthful of mountain spring water, and his mind was clear.
"My perception seems to have improved quite a bit..."
Name: Ailin
[Level: 58]
[HP: 100%, Stamina: 640/640, MP: 780/780]
[Attributes: Strength 70, Agility 61, Constitution 63, Perception 80 (+3), Mysticism 79]
[Affinity: Water 16 (Magic Source - Water 6%), Earth 12 (Magic Source - Earth 2%), Wind 10 (Magic Source - Wind 0%), Fire 7, Space 2]
"Hmm? It actually increased by three points!"
Startled, Ailin quickly looked up at the angle of the sun to estimate the time...
"Two hours! I only 'slept' for two hours and improved by three points!"
Three points of perception are not much; they are only enough to sense the degree of change. Moreover, drinking a large monster's Essence Fluid can increase attribute values by several times over.
But!
But!
"Beast Roar: Berserk" only increases by four points in a week, while the effect of "Beast Roar: Primal Tongue" in just over two hours is simply amazing.
"That's not right. If the effect were really that strong, it would have been noticeable during my first training session in Kaer Morhen. But back then, the progress was clearly as slow and difficult as 'Beast Roar: Frenzy,' or even slower..."
"What's going on?!"
Ailin stared wide-eyed, utterly bewildered.
"Huh? Ailin, you..."
He was suddenly interrupted by Vesemir's voice beside him.
Ailin looked in the direction of the sound.
The Witcher Master was getting up, supporting himself on his knees, and looking at him with a strange expression.
"Master Vesemir, I'm sorry to bother you..."
Before he could finish speaking, Ailin suddenly shuddered and instinctively looked up.
A black dot appeared in the cloudless southwestern sky, rapidly enlarging, accompanied by a faint smell of blood in the air.
The Greater Griffin has returned!
Ailin was completely stunned when he saw the Greater Griffin.
Could that cry in my dream have really been from Greater Griffin?
"What nonsense are you talking about? What do you mean by disturbing us? Get on the horse!" Vesemir hurriedly untied the reins and jumped onto the horse.
Filled with rage, the cry, exactly the same as in the "dream," startled the vast birch forest, causing all living beings and monsters to flee in terror.
For a few seconds, Ailin's mind went blank. Almost instinctively, he mounted his Vesemir and galloped off in the direction the Greater Griffin had flown.
"Da da da~"
Soothed by the Axii Sign, the horse galloped away in the shadow of the Greater Griffin.
The rapid hoofbeats echoed through the lush woodland, leaving countless grasses and trees in afterimages, thrown behind.
"Were you not meditating just now?" Vesemir shouted in the wind.
Radish would follow Vesemir on its own, so Ailin was a little distracted.
He was recalling the "dream" he had just had when he heard Vesemir calling him, and he immediately shuddered.
"Ah...yes," Ailin said, "I was...I was thinking about something..."
"I knew it," Vesemir laughed. "The Greater Griffin arrived a little earlier than expected. If you were meditating, I should have been the one to wake up first."
"It's only been half a day, how could someone whose perception has just improved be surpassed so quickly?"
Sometimes, the Witcher Master can be quite competitive, like a child.
Ailin gave a perfunctory laugh.
However, Vesemir's current perception is 84 points, only 4 points more than Ailin's.
If he can figure out these four points, it will only take him two or three hours to understand why the effect of "Beast Roar: Primal Tongue" has improved so dramatically.
The key is...
Why did it make such rapid progress?
in addition...
"How did I manage to hear the cry of the Greater Griffin returning so far in advance, and it even seemed to echo in my mind?"
The Path of the Beast Roar seems to be able to do more than he imagined.
Ailin then focused his attention on "Beast Roar: Primal Tongue".
He had a strong premonition that the way he had cultivated the Path of the Beast Roar was actually the most foolish and inefficient one. It was like a math problem with many solutions, but he chose to exhaustively search for all possibilities.
To be honest, he had a few guesses and was willing to try them out.
However, the jolting on the horse's back always interrupted the flow of golden energy from the heart as it pumped out the blood.
Ailin's mastery of the Path of the Beast Roar is still too shallow.
"We can only try again after we catch the Greater Griffin, or after we lose it."
He sighed inwardly and looked up.
Through the narrow gaps in the lush foliage, the fiery red, sky-covering figure was rapidly distancing itself from them.
"Of course, it would be even better if we could catch up."
Unfortunately, it's not possible.
Things that walk on the ground are much slower than things that fly in the sky.
After chasing for less than half an hour, the two witchers gradually pulled on the reins and stopped.
The Greater Griffin in the sky was reduced to a tiny black dot the size of a thumb, and it soon disappeared into the foliage.
More importantly, ahead of the two horses, in a sparsely wooded area, lay a cliff at least thirty meters deep.
"There's no road again." Vesemir sighed and turned around. "Ailin, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear?"
Is there a difference?
The Witcher dismounted dejectedly and rode forward, looking along the cliff to both sides, hoping to find a way to the other side.
Unfortunately, no matter which side it extends out to, after twenty or thirty meters, it disappears into the dense forest and can no longer be seen.
Actually, the terrain is quite similar to the valley where Viscount Hudson's abandoned mine is located.
"Of course there's a difference..." Vesemir smiled, and without keeping her in suspense, said directly, "The good news is that..."
He raised his index finger and pointed to the towering mountains not far away.
"Mount Adria is only two or three thousand meters away from here. As long as we cross this cliff, we will most likely reach the foot of Mount Adria the day after tomorrow."
"Yes, that's certainly good news," Ailin nodded. "And the bad news?"
"I just observed the Greater Griffin's flight direction and posture. That beast must live on the cliff. Even if we reach the foot of the mountain the day after tomorrow, it will probably take even longer to find its nest." Vesemir looked at the graceful, cloud-shrouded mountains in the distance and sighed helplessly.
Ailin remained silent.
A counterintuitive piece of Monster Economics knowledge:
Most common griffins live on towering mountain cliffs, while Greater Griffin, although much stronger than common griffins, also nest among mountains, but prefer hard rock walls, and their nests are often not at high altitudes.
Another theory in Monster Economics is that the Greater Griffin is strong enough that the sheer power of its Chaos Magic is enough to frighten other predators away.
Therefore, there is no need to build nests at high places.
It was because of this Monster Economics about the creature and made the decision to follow the flight path of the Greater Griffin. If it were a griffin, they might have given up.
But now.
Although the Greater Griffin's behavior was rather strange, Vesemir, being experienced and having become Witcher Master by hunting griffins, said so.
Then this judgment is most likely correct.
"If it were before yesterday, we could certainly hunt it without time limits until we caught it, but now..."
Vesemir shook his head, then advised again:
"Judging from Vilgefortz's appearance, Ban Ad must have suffered heavy losses last night. Even if Ard made peace because of the Greater Griffin's withdrawal, they probably won't have the energy to cause us any trouble..."
Upon hearing this, Ailin looked up at the distant Adria Mountains, but did not rush to answer.
Vesemir actually has a point.
However, the possibility that the two countries might withdraw their troops and negotiate peace, and that the vision of Ban Ade last night would not involve the School of the Wolf, is merely one possibility.
However, if the battle continues, it will inevitably tie up most of the forces of Kedwen and Ban Ade.
These two are not comparable to the School of the Wolf thought.
In addition, there is another point that the Witcher Master avoided, or perhaps he simply doesn't think such a possibility exists.
If we give up here and go to Arland for two weeks... or leave a portal coordinate here and come back a week later, will this Greater Griffin really still be here?
If I miss this opportunity, how long will it take before I can encounter the next monster I like?
Ailin does not deny that he has selfish motives, but owning a flying monster is of great significance to both him and the School of the Wolf.
"It's still early, it's not noon yet. Let's find a way to get across this cliff first. As for giving up..." Ailin took a deep breath, "I'll think about it some more."
Vesemir nodded slightly, patted him on the shoulder, and said nothing more.
He knew Ailin's character and abilities, so he didn't need to make choices for Ailin as he had with Ernie and the others.
Ailin has mastered the craft and will make the most appropriate decisions, better than any possibility he can think of.
Just like last night, if they had listened to him and gone to rescue people without making any preparations, they might have turned into the eighth or ninth jade statues as soon as they met those two sorcerers.
"Da da da~"
The sound of hooves slowed, but the efficiency remained high.
The terrain of mountain peaks and cliffs is much easier to judge than that of rivers.
Vesemir verbally suggested leaving, but based on his experience, he found the high ground in just half an hour and got a clear view of the cliff's terrain.
Then, in less than ten minutes, they found a natural stone bridge.
There was a two-step gap in the middle of the stone bridge, which two horses could easily leap across.
By the time Vesemir marked the location on the atlas and arrived at the other side of the cliff in the Greater Griffin's flight path, it was just past noon.
In reality, the hunt is over for today.
As mentioned before, without the guidance of Greater Griffin, one cannot find the Greater Griffin's nest by relying solely on intuition.
Vesemir tugged on the reins, glanced at the landmarks around him, and mentally marked the distances on the atlas.
"Have you thought it through?" he asked.
"I have another method." Ailin paused for a few seconds, then suddenly dismounted. "We can give it a try."
Vesemir sighed and shook his head helplessly, but did not stop him.
Ailin didn't pay any attention.
Ultimately, Vesemir's opposition stemmed from a lack of time.
The reason there isn't enough time isn't because time is really tight, but because too much time has been wasted.
With only half an hour, or at most an hour, to chase the Greater Griffin each day, how could time not be tight?
After dismounting, he first took a deep breath, following a premonition in his mind, and then...
"Fir..."
The ancient and elegant syllables echoed through the open mountains and forests.
"Buzz~"
"Buzz~"
The two School Emblem hummed.
The golden-brown ripples, visible only to the Witcher, spread rapidly outwards from the Witcher, like rippling river water.
Within a circle with a radius of fifty meters, the inspiration of countless creatures appeared in his mind.
Crows hid behind the emerald green leaves in the birch tree, squirrels sought shade in their tree holes, gray rabbits shunned black snakes, and earthworms dug through the fertile soil ten meters underground...
He can influence all these animals through the "Primal Tongue," and even communicate with them in a simple way, but it is meaningless in terms of finding a way.
You can't talk about ice with a summer insect.
The simpler a creature is, the easier it is to control, but at the same time, the more chaotic its thinking becomes. Ailin can make a rabbit relax, stop, and extend its paw, but he cannot make it point the way.
Not only because these simple-minded beasts were terrified and their minds went blank when the Greater Griffin flew by, but also because they were not as "intelligent" as those in many fantasy novels from the previous life.
They have no concept of "direction" or "location" at all. If you give them the command to lead the way to the Greater Griffin's nest, they will just go around in circles.
Of course, it's also possible that Ailin's own expertise in this area is not yet sufficient.
"That's not possible..." Ailin sensed it for a moment, then ordered the crow, squirrel, gray rabbit, and black snake to come. After finding that nothing had changed from the past, he withdrew his Primal Tongue.
Then he took a deep breath, and under Vesemir's wide, dark golden Cat Eyes, looking at him with the astonishment and uncertainty of a curious child.
Gently squat down, kneeling on the ground.
Close your eyes...
"Thump~"
"Thump~"
My heart once again slowed its beating in a unique rhythm.
In the blink of an eye.
Golden specks of light then appeared in the blood.
He sensed something was different.
After suppressing the sudden and gradually intensifying drowsiness.
He heard very faint voices, like a mother's, gentle, kind, and bright...
It was these sounds, which he hadn't even noticed at first, that lulled him to sleep, making him feel as if he were lying in the most comfortable and safest cradle in the world.
When they sensed his reluctance to rest obediently, these soft, gentle voices chided him reproachfully, as if thinking Ailin didn't understand, yet they coaxed him affectionately with ancient words whose meaning they understood immediately:
"Child, what do you want?"
Without hesitation, the Witcher thought to himself, "Greater Griffin, I..."
Before he could finish speaking...
Monsters cry out in Adria, due east.