Forest of owls.

Even before the sun started to light up the mountain, my team was already climbing it. Gloria woke up so excited today that she seemed to be radiating a golden aura. After a pleasant night's sleep, she seems to have shifted her focus to the next mission other than rethinking the tragic event that happened before.

Obviously, nobody commented nothing on this, I don't think nobody here and idiot enough to think reminding her about her new nemesis is a wise move. With all our luggage securely tied up as it would be pretty tragic for one of the backpacks to fall off as we climbed the mountain, Gloria started up the mountain.

I was overwhelmed with her climbing skill; she demonstrates a clear familiarity with the tools and with the very act of climbing using her earth element as assistance. Every few feet we pass she pins a stake to the mountain; she uses her elemental energy to solidify the earth around the stake and harden the earth around her so that the chance of the stake breaking free is very small.

Climbing a steep mountain is more relaxing than I expected, but when a fist of birds tried to attack us, it wasn't so pleasant, but as they were only level two magic animals some aura and wind blades will kill them without much trouble

It took us around three and a half hours to go up to the peak, next time it will be easier as the whole path is marked and going down too is much easier and faster. Those four hours were pretty nice as I was in my queue, up I had a nice view of Hilda and Gloria.

I stayed in my queue as I can attack either using my bow or my blade from a good position, this would also be a good place for our mage to stay, but as he is a great safety net with his magic, we leave him more to back in line in case anyone falls.

When Gloria finished climbing the mountain, she even celebrated which is not a bad thing as it shows her mood is good, but I would prefer it if she hadn't screamed during her celebration. She must have alerted any animal or magical beast that is nearby.

It didn't take long for the whole team to be at the edge of the peak while Hilda set up the ropes so the team could descend quickly should anything happen, although everyone here has the wind element and we can probably use it to break our fall more and always good don't risk too much.

"Let's start hunting the owls that may be sleeping, don't try to kill other animals or magical beasts that aren't in our way and keep an eye on the trees, the owls' nest can be hard to find, but their eggs are worth a lot to us. And don't scream anymore."

I started to lead the team through the very dense forest, the really many trees here and even with their cover the very cold wind still hits our bodies, but as the sun is almost completely blocked by the trees the temperature in this forest is quite low.

When I made my way through the forest, I came across several herbs that may not have a high level, but as they are a little difficult to pick up and preserve for a long time, they end up getting a good price in the market. It's a shame I didn't even find a miner, the only thing I found buried was some mushrooms that aren't worth much.

To my surprise I hardly saw an owl, the ones I saw are clustered in a tree half asleep, but when we got close to them, I could see their morning and elemental energy speeding up inside their bodies. They're just pretending, I think this mission is going to be more complicated than I expected, I put away my bow and drew my blades, trying to hit these owls with arrows is already quite difficult because of the wind element, but adding up how tight this is forest is the owls should use this to their advantage i think it would be a waste of time for me to shoot my arrows.

I gave a recombined signal to my team it was basically the owls are on alert and we should attack full force. My team surrounded them and we prepared to attack, one step at a time, but the moment I saw the first impatient owl open its eyes I darted forward covered with my wind element and my team seeing my movement they too will advance.

The owl that was closest to me not only opened its eyes and wings, it released a wave of wind that formed two blades of wind, one coming from the right and the other from the left, it looks like it has to use its wings to shape its wind.

I responded with my own wind blades that will clash between us creating a blast of wind, and it worried me a lot and it's obvious that this magical beast didn't use all his strength in the blow and he already gained a little advantage in this first exchange. I release an aura and wind blade against the raised owl and go as its other three companions are going to attack my teammates.

During this initial exchange the wind from this region became extremely chaotic and concentrated, but luckily it didn't attract any more enemies. The owls won't go up much but will go down, it seems they like to fight up close, which is unusual for a bird.

I covered myself with my sword and tried to hit him as he approached with my other hand, but the owl dodged by whirling in midair. She dared the chaotic wind that formed around us to spin and move erratically, these owls seem to be natural at fighting their own element.

I would love to have more time to study how they manipulate chaotic air currents or it would be better to say how they follow the chaotic airflow to move in an unpredictable way. But before being hit again by the owl, a wave of wind spread around us.

The chaotic air that had formed around us was modified by this energy wave, the air became much more stable and slower and this affected very effectively the owls that were caught by surprise. The owl that was ready to attack me and flee lost its attack momentum and was hit by my aura-enhanced sword.

My blow hit the owl's body full in, opening its chest to its hind leg, blood spurted from its body as it fell to the ground, I wasn't the only one who managed to hurt these owls, I saw two other owls falling to the ground because your wings have been hit full on by Hilda and Alice's thrust, they will not only blow a hole in their wings, they will also hit the owls' wing bone.

The only owl that escaped was the owl that is fighting Gloria, she had a small wound on her wing but it didn't stop her from flying away. Well, we managed to kill three owls in a short amount of time and it was easier than I expected.

I look at the reason why it was so easy to kill the owls, I don't know what our mage did, but I can say it was quite effective.

"What was this?"

"My magic? Or about how troublesome these owls are?"

"About your magic."

"I've already explained to the team which spells I'm most proficient with, Gloria. Just because an aria spell to focus elemental wind energy doesn't mean it can't be used to stabilize the wind element around us."

"But I must say that I was very surprised with these owls, how they can fly like that, one of the owls goes backwards during the fight, that's really weird."

It's a shame I missed that, seeing a bird fly backwards must involve a very unique wind flow."

"It's a lot of practice, yesterday I found it a little weird to have so many lights flashing in the sky, I thought the owls should be getting married, but now I think they were fighting each other. These little things must spend a good part of their time fighting each other to develop such an effective and unusual movement skill."

"I've seen more than one movement art that uses external airflow to increase your speed, but they seem pretty simple now when you compare these owls' ability to go. But thanks to Zephyr's magic we might have a good chance of killing them."

"How many times can you use this Zephyr spell?"

"If I activate it for a short time, but a dozen times, it drains my concentration more than my elemental energy or mana, and it takes a great deal of mental effort to manipulate so many air elements at the same time, even when the command I give is very simple like keeping stable and motionless."

Looks like we can rely on Zephyr's magic for a while, but I believe it might not work so well after using it several times, these owls are pretty smart.