I had been heading north for three days, but I could not find a single animal I wanted. As I continued north, I began encountering Wildlings repeatedly, but each time I changed direction and kept away from them. After all, this was their territory, and killing people struggling to survive was too cruel, so I stayed as far away from them as possible to avoid needless bloodshed.
This really was a barren land of ice and snow, where fierce winds howled. There were animals in the forest, but no wonder so few Wildlings raided the south; even animals were unwilling to live here, so how could we expect humans to?
But there was one advantage here, since the ley lines were not powering a massive structure like the Wall. The mana density here was at least three times that on the other side. But even so, it was too low for me. The mana density here should have been six or seven times that over there.
Perhaps the disappearance of magic had affected this side too, or perhaps there was also an enormous structure here that consumed mana. In one of Old Nan's stories, she had mentioned something called the "Heart of Winter." Magic and dragons were real, so perhaps there was some truth in the other stories too.
Thanks to the sixty ravens, I could scout an area of two to three kilometers without using Promodynes (Find Animal). That way, I could use the locating spell on the animal I was looking for.
"Promodynes (Find Animal), Shadowcat."
I could now clearly feel the mana fluctuations spreading outward from me in every direction.
Studying the Wall had given me a deeper understanding of how spells worked. Just as I was thinking about the spell, I sensed it.
A Shadowcat, about four kilometers to the northeast. I cast a buff on myself, then began running at full speed. I could not lose it. I had to catch it.
Please be a cub, please be a cub, please be a cub...
I did not think I had enough mana to bind an adult Shadowcat.
It was all thanks to the spell Traceless Movement.
For me, running through the snow-covered forest was no different from running along a straight road. So I raced through the trees and bushes like the wind, without slowing down at all.
"Bo, don't wait for us. Fly straight this way, find that big cat right away, then let me know."
Bo wrapped his body in the wind element and accelerated like a rocket.
Before using mana, Bo's top speed had been a hundred kilometers per hour, and he could only maintain it for five to ten minutes. Now, his top speed was a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, and she could maintain it for half an hour.
After a while, Bo contacted me.
-Dad, I found it.-
-An adult or a cub?-
-An adult.-
I grumbled about my luck. I stopped running and began to think. Should I still catch this one and try to form a bond with it? There was a ninety-nine percent chance it would not work, but we might as well try.
-Keep following it. What is it doing?-
-It caught a wolf and is eating it.-
I was running toward the Shadowcat, but now that Bo was watching it, I was no longer in such a hurry.
When I reached the Shadowcat, it had already eaten half the wolf. It was a truly magnificent animal; it looked like a cross between a leopard and a tiger.
It was bigger than a leopard, but not as big as a tiger. Yet when it forcefully tore off a piece of wolf meat with its large paws, enormous shoulder and leg muscles showed beneath its thick, white-striped black fur, revealing its strength.
From what I had read about them in the beast encyclopedia, they were terrifying predators.
Shadowcats had low, rumbling growls and furious screams. They were silent, agile hunters, but they also scavenged, which was why they could smell blood from ten kilometers away.
When they caught prey, they ate every scrap of meat, even crushing the bones to get at the marrow. Unless they were desperately hungry, Shadowcats generally did not attack living humans, but if they did, they could disembowel a person with one swipe.
It was nearly dark, and the Shadowcat's eyes seemed to gleam in the darkness. It noticed my presence, stopped eating, and immediately turned toward me, taking an attacking stance. It began to growl in a low rumble, suddenly let out a deafening scream, then immediately started running toward me.
"Letagon (Trap)."
It froze in place like a statue. The spell should have held it still for a few seconds. But after two seconds, the spell broke, and the Shadowcat lunged at me. Caught off guard, I could only roll aside.
At that moment, my back felt as though a bucket of cold water had been poured over it. Had I moved a little slower, its claws would have slashed across my cheek. My head would no longer have been on my shoulders. The Shadowcat kept running without hurry, sprang at the large tree directly ahead of it, then bounced off the tree and lunged at me again.
This time, I was calm. I did not want to kill it, so I could not use a lethal spell. I decided to use a wind-element spell. I raised my hand and said,
"Jelmio indigo (Wind Blast)."
A powerful gust struck the Shadowcat square in the chest, sending it flying backward into a tree. It looked a little stunned. I used that opening to cast another immobilizing spell.
"Inretio (Entangle)."
Tree roots emerged from underground and began engulfing the Shadowcat. It came to its senses, but it was too late. The roots had already immobilized it completely, and this time it could not break the spell as it had Letagon (Trap), because this spell actually worked by growing real tree roots. As a result, it was more durable than Letagon (Trap), but its drawback was that the spell could not be used if there were no roots underground.
I approached the Shadowcat as it continued struggling to escape, struck it hard with the pommel of my sword to knock it unconscious, then placed my hand on its head.