The Martial Unity

He registered the mission to his name, before sitting down at a table by himself and reading through it, inputting them into his mind palace before analyzing them.

"Interesting..." Rui murmured as he sorted through all the information.

Mount Cravitz was a mountain at the very north of the Kandrian Empire, amidst the Faravali range. The temperatures dipped tremendously at those elevations, making it much more difficult to conduct missions. It wasn't as though the cold could kill him with his evolved body, but navigation and fighting were harder, and surveillance was harder as well.

Hippogriffs were winged creatures with the front half of an eagle and the back half of a horse. They were fast and powerful, nearly reaching the Squire Realm in those parameters, but their body was not particularly tough and their flesh was vulnerable to attacks in the Squire Realm. This meant that they could dish out more powerful than their body could necessarily withstand, which is why they generally weren't threats to Martial Squires, especially those of Rui's caliber

However, this also made it trickier to try and fight and capture aggressive rampaging hippogriffs with minimal harm. If he was not careful both he and the creature could get hurt.

Thankfully, he didn't need to immobilize and capture it with his bare hands, manually dragging the struggling creature back to the Ministry of Environment and Ecology was also implausible and difficult to do. The mission bill did have recommended tools and gear to rent or purchase that would aid in the capture of the hippogriff.

('Increasing the bill to even complete the mission.') He grumbled inwardly. Thankfully, the pay for the mission was solid and justified the extra expenditure he would need to make. He glanced at the list quickly memorizing their names

[Sedative: Tier 2 Refined Xhrenos Dew]

A potent tranquilizer that would subdue the creature. And an automatic syringe that would automatically inject the drug into the body of the hippogriff upon penetration.

Rui immediately got up before heading to the utility department, finding a drug store, and purchasing the necessary amount. It wasn't long before he had everything he needed. He had purchased several rejuvenation potions and food pills, consuming one of each to revitalize himself from his previous missions. While his previous mission wasn't particularly difficult, it did consume stamina to a certain degree.

"One last signature here, Squire Quarrier."

Rui nodded, obliging before wearing his mask and dispatching from the dispatch facility. He took to the air, rising to great heights and taking in the picturesque view.

WHOOSH

It wasn't long before he paddled his way forward at remarkable speeds. He wasn't nearly as fast as he was on land, but he was faster than his previous peak on land when he was a Martial Apprentice. It never ceased to amaze him just how much of a raw boost he had received ever since he discovered his Martial Body.

It took him a few hours to travel to the north of the Kandrian Empire. The weather and climate had changed dramatically, the temperatures plummeted, and the winds pushed harder and sharper. The air grew more opaque as time passed, hindering his vision.

THUD

He landed heavily on dense snow, gazing at the mountain before him.

"Here we are," Rui murmured. "Mount Cravitz."

He had already scanned the skies, hoping to catch a sight of the hippogriff flying around so that he wouldn't have to search for it, but alas, he wasn't nearly as lucky.

Hippogriffs only flew around when they were hunting. Unlike eagles, their bodies weren't entirely suited for sustained flight. The fact that the back half of their body was that of a horse, a land-bound animal, meant there was more of a limit to their flight capabilities. Their body was nowhere near as aerodynamic as that of a bird's, nowhere near as proportionally light either. Of course, as a Squire-level creature, flight was no issue. It was just that, by nature, it would spend most of its time on land.

He would most likely run into it whenever he chose to hunt. All he needed to was wait for it. Of course, he didn't intend to do anything. He had already chalked out the most effective and efficient means of finding the hippogriff.

He took to the air again, this time slowly escalating. He distanced himself from the mountain such that he was maximizing how much attention he drew to himself. Too close to the face of the mountain and only a small section would be able to spot him in their field of vision, too far and he would be too small and insignificant to draw any meaningful attention. He was intuitively adjusting himself to the contours of the mountain to ensure he was maximizing his noticeability.

That wasn't all he did, of course, he was also adjusting his presence. The 'aura' and 'pressure' that powerful beings emanated was something that existed in the eye of the beholder, rather than an actual phenomenon in physical reality. Powerful beings generated subconscious fear and a sense of danger from the subconscious evaluation of danger and risk that all creatures evolved with. The conscious mind simply perceived and interpreted this sense of fear and danger in the form of an 'aura'. It was an important element in the cognition creatures had of each other.

Rui was able to control this through the Mind Mask technique. He chose to reduce his aura and pressure to the peak of the Apprentice Realm. This was strong enough to draw even more attention as he triggered the sense of danger of the creatures inhabiting the environment of Mount Cravitz, while still being weak enough to appear as juicy prey to the target of his mission.

With this strategy, he could increase the probability of him running into the hippogriff better than any other plan he was able to come up with at the moment. He quickly set everything up just as it needed to be. He had laid the bait, now he needed to wait for the target to take it.

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