An Owl's Rise

'Well, that went fairly well.' Evelyn thought, watching the last bearcupine fall.

Her siblings, despite being a tier below their opponents had better control over their magical energy and their evolutions were of a higher quality.

Along with their mobility being able to fly, both of them had been able to barrage the bearcupines from above with magic and take them both down without any issue.

Naturally Otis had an even easier time, being superior to his opponent in every way.

It had been almost cruel how je toyed with the bearcupines' leader, but it had been necessary.

This was Otis' first actual battle since becoming a tyrant rank beast and he basically used the high tier bearcupine as a punching bag to test out what he was capable of now.

In the end he had created a large sinkhole below the poor beast and swallowed it into the ground.

Watching the power that Otis was capable of was a bit terrifying. Though, Evelyn soon understood that she had plenty of magical abilities that could be considered far scarier.

Once the three of them had collected the beast cores from the three bearcupines, they returned, and Evelyn commented on their fights.

"Verrader, you did a good job, but you focused too much on attacking with overwhelming power since you wanted to end the fight quickly and took a hit you did not need to." Evelyn said, eyeing his lower left side where a quill had hit him.

He had already removed the long spike and healed his injury with a potion, but if it had been poisoned he could have been in trouble. If he had focused on keeping a strong wind barrier around himself eh never would have been injured.

"Aralee, you have the opposite problem. You can attack fine when receiving directions and working as a team, but you are overly cautious when by yourself. I do not think that is a bad thing most of the time, but sometimes you need to be bold and strike even if you are not certain. Only after you were in the best position did you attack, but often times you will not have the leeway to move about as you wish."

Having their performances being criticized by Evelyn, both of her siblings hung their heads. For Verrader and Aralee, they wanted to live up to her expectations.

However, after she finished pointing out their mistakes, she made sure to praise what they had done well.

Overall, both of them had controlled the battle and their opponents barely were able to do anything but be taken down.

"There is not doubt that both of you are powerful and have the potential to be much stronger. It may seem that you are far behind us, but as I have said, my main goal is to catch both of you up. Now let us go find somewhere to rest for the day and we can get back to exploring the Forest of Giants tomorrow."

With the night nearing its end, Evelyn and her companions searched for a suitable tree to rest in and Rehni once again drilled a large hollow into it.

"Okay, dinner is served eat up." Evelyn said, having finished cooking more of the tyrant rank lizard's meat.

Everyone was quite happy since the food was delicious. That is, except Verrader and Aralee.

Just like before Evelyn made sure that they were stuffed to the point of almost bursting before sending them off to bed.

Their group then took three watches during the day until dusk came around and it was time for them to explore the forest once more.

…

Over a month had now passed since Evelyn and her group had set off on their journey from one end of the continent to the other.

During this time they had continued to push through the Forest of giants and fight beasts and collect valuable resources.

Just recently, Evelyn, along with Bylur, Rehni, Verrader and Aralee had returned to the Roost to sell the surplus of items they had collected and take a trip back to the Velinis Desert.

There the five of them took a dip in the magic spring and increased their magical energy greatly.

Thanks to the spring's power Aralee and Verrader finally were able to take the last push up to the mid-tier of the awakened rank, after Evelyn had continuously fed them food that was incredibly high in magical energy.

Usually, growth of this speed would have been impossible, but Evelyn had put her siblings on the fast track by giving them resources that no normal low tier awakened rank would have access to. Though the two of them were still far away from being able to match Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni.

This had less to do with their difference in magical energy and more that Evelyn and her friends simply had far more combat experience and had undergone grueling drills against Katrina and Anneli.

Of course, now that her siblings had gone up to the next tier and Otis had better control over his power she was planning on having the three of them train together.

"Are you sure you have everything you need from here? We will not be returning back to the Roost for nearly another month." Evelyn said to her party.

They were in the Wrap Hall and about to return back to the Forest of Giants, and Evelyn wanted to make sure that her companions had gathered everything they wanted.

"Yep, I have everything." Bylur said, tapping his new storage cuff.

Following him the others did the same. Each of them had used the credits they had earned from a month in the forest upgrade their storage magic tools since they had to leave behind plenty of items due to not having enough space.

Nodding her head, Evelyn turned towards the pad that would take them back into the Forest of Giants. Unlike the Velinis desert this warp pad saw a fair amount of traffic and several other owls were coming and going at regular intervals.

The six of them waited their turns and soon they were engulfed in the light of a warp portal.

'Looks like we are back.' Evelyn thought, swiveling her head around and getting her bearings.

They had appeared in the middle of the forest in a completely unremarkable area that made it difficult to judge exactly where they were.

Luckily Evelyn had left a magic message pad with Otis before they left this time so that it would be easier to find him amongst the sea of trees that towered into the sky.

Quickly writing out a short message she ripped out a sheet of paper and watched it crumple up and turn into a small bird that began flying through the forest.

"Let's go. Otis is this way." Evelyn said, taking the lead.

Around two hours later their group found Otis, or more precisely eh found them.

When they had gotten closer and the noticed their presences he had swooped down with a look of urgency and told them to head back and not go any further.

"You mind explaining what is going on now?" Evelyn asked once they had gotten a fair distance away from where Otis had been before.

"I am not really sure what it is, but there is some sort of manmade structure not far from here built into a tree. It is well hidden by leaves and appears to be quite ancient. I did not see any people around, but there were two statues in front of the entrance acting as sentinels. When I got within about three hundred meters, they attacked me. I was able to get away without issue, but they were continuing to pursue me, when I noticed all of you approaching. I did not want to get the five of you wrapped up in a sudden fight when you just came back which is why I asked you to back off." Otis said, explaining what was going on.

"I see, that certainly is unusual. What could be going on?" Evelyn said, pondering the situation.

Clearly these statues and the structure had not popped up out of nowhere. But it begged the question, what they were doing here. As far as Evelyn knew, the Forest of Giants was pretty far from any human domains and was considered fairly dangerous. Certainly, some might come wandering in every now and then, but it was doubtful that they would build a hidden structure and put up powerful statue guards. If these sentinels had been weak, Otis never would have fled from them in the first place.

"There are many possibilities that it could be. Perhaps it is the entrance to some secret civilization that lives underground below the forest, or maybe it is some hideout that someone built a long time ago. Whatever the case, we should decide how we want to proceed. We can either investigate further, or simply continue on our way."