We have finally reached the area that the kid had found the Shadow Hunter before. Since it was still daytime, I decided that we would split our tasks for now. Lu will be responsible for building a tent and preparing everything for long term watch. I would send out my Blood Eye to start scouting the surroundings.

  Shadow Hunters are very wary so only using more covert surveilnce methods can truly find them. Otherwise, most sightings are them wanting to deter others from an area. The Blood Eye happens to be one of the methods that can be used in order to surveil a Shadow Hunter. So, I did not summon my skeletons for a carpet search as that would alert the Shadow Hunter and cause the surveilnce project to ultimately fail.

  Not only do I have to watch the Shadow Hunter, but I also need to get an understanding of the terrain. Although the Shadow Hunter might be able to faze through obstacles, I still have to go around them, so having a clear understanding of the terrain is a must.

  And so, I started my goal of understanding the terrain by closely examining and simuting what path would be best to go in order to chase after a conniving rabbit. This goal would ultimately be a long term mission so keeping in contact with the base would be important while doing this. So, we made sure to contact the base twice a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. Because of this, we were able to keep in check the happenings at the bases in time.

  Every day we would report to base before I began my search once again. During this time, plenty of things were going on among the organization. Among them, was the meteoric rise of the Ptinum Stars. Ever since we stayed here to hunt the Shadow Hunter, the little group had eventually grown into a big deal. The five of them showed their superb talent and teamwork capabilities and were even scouted by the city lord of Lily Breath town. They agreed to the offer only when they confirmed with us whether it is okay for them to work under the City lord and us.

  Since we needed people to keep up a bright reputation for our organization on the surface, we agreed and the five officially joined the City Lord and were taught some of the Church's own extraordinary knowledge for a bit. Compared to the more standardized inheritance that I passed down to these kids, the inheritance of the Church seemed quite ordinary in comparison. I mean, I can't really fairly compare the two when the source of my own knowledge comes from the accumution of countless pnes working together.

  Because of their new positions in the town, I decided to let a few of the other kids from the base go under them to help them take control of a part of the town. Because of the mayor of the town is Bronze level, I can't easily take action to take over the town. So, using the kids in the Ptinum Stars as a cover, I will slowly be able to infiltrate the town in all walks of life. Eventually, the town mayor will be overthrown once more Bronze tier people appear in the organization. Just me and Lu is not enough to conquer everything at the moment.

  The difference between Silver and Bronze is just qualitative in nature and so, enough Bronzes can indeed take down a figure in the Silver tier. So, my goal for now is to accumute more power for the organization and to wait till we either have enough people to take over the pne or the war on the main pne is finished and I get pulled out of here.

  I have already put this much effort into this pne so I may as well do my best to take it over.

  All of this was what was going on through our devices while I was scouting for the Shadow Hunter. The process wasn't long, but it still helped to solidify my resolve to take down this pne personally. This is my first pnar expedition after all. Another day passed as I watched the time pass by while the Blood Eye kept scouting for a shadowy figure.

  It was at this time, I felt a tug in my mind. Earlier, I had let my Blood Eye surveil on its own and had it report to me whenever it detected anything of the dark or shadow attribute. Since it notified me, it must have found something of note. I went and reconnected our vision and saw what the Blood Eye was seeing.

  When I was connected, I saw a shadowy area in the forest that was unnaturally dark and found that the situation was quite favorable for us.

  Since there was a Dark Spot (Area of High Dark Element Concentration) in the forest, it was likely that the Shadow Hunter was traveling around and found a pce to call it's territory rather than it being a tamed beast. This means that there will be less worries and I can officially start the hunt.

  I first have to surveil the exact area of this Dark Spot and see how expansive the area is. This will determine the general amount of resources needed to trap the Shadow Hunter. If it is not too big I could try to hunt it in the Dark Spot itself. Although it may not look like it, Blood Magic is partly cssified under the umbrel of the Dark Element. Although it won't receive as big of a boost as actual Dark and Shadow Element spells in that environment, it could still present a sizable boost.

  Of course, if the territory is too wide to trap, I just have to add an extra step of either luring or shepherding the Shadow Hunter out of it's home-field advantage and into a prepared combat environment. And, after looking at the area, it seems that my second pn will be the one to follow.

  With the pn figured out, it was now time to find the right pce to set an ambush this will require me to scan the entire periphery of the Dark Spot to find an area that I can maximize my combat advantage. Normally, when facing a faster opponent, the optimal pn would be to choose a more crowded arena so the opponent can't just rush out of the encirclement. Unfortunately, the Shadow Hunter is one of the exceptions as it has the uncanny ability of Shadow Movement and can travel through shadows to pass through most obstacles.

  This means I will have to take specialized measures to make sure the environment is properly prepared to deal with this hunt. Unfortunately, my parents did not expect me to face an opponent like this, so the right materials to block it are not what I have on hand. Thankfully, the encyclopedia on beasts has several records of methods to beat Shadow Hunters securely that I can currently create.

  Because of this, I looked through the methods told and found one that fits with my current environment. That is to use my domain as a barrier to trap the Shadow Hunter inside. This is an application of a domain that many Ptinum Domain wielders have developed in order to create an advantageous environment for themselves in a fight.

  Although I may not be at the Ptinum level, I still have a domain of my own that is usually exclusive to the Ptinum level. This means that this usually exclusive method is one that I can regurly deploy to hunt not only Shadow Hunters, but also other speedy fleeing prey.

  The specifics of the technique is that I envelop an area with my domain for a time. This process slowly changes the surroundings to better fit the domain and will help the user take control of the area. Eventually, this process will reach its tipping point. When that happens, by using a certain technique with your body's energy, the domain's influence can temporarily exceed the limit of the area. When that happens, the area will fit perfectly with the user's domain and help further boost the effect of the user's domain.

  This temporary amplification for the user's domain is what is used to trap the Shadow Hunter in my pn. Domains are a partly spatial based ability and this minor boost makes it so that the partial space part of the technique is amplified further to the point of a minor spatial blockade. With my current abilities as a Silver level, I can upkeep the increased cost of this domain for about ten minutes. This means that I need to kill the Shadow Hunter within ten minutes to keep it here.

  Although I say this, combat will also consume some of my internal energy so I have even less time to finish it off. I also have to take into consideration the fact that I do not want to ruin the materials on the Shadow Hunter in order to make sure the value of the kill is equal to the effort to kill it.

  So I have to kill it within my time limit while also not damaging both the fur and horn. This may seem extremely difficult, which it is, there is still a saving grace in all of this. My Blood Magic actually has the spells that can take the kill without damaging the corpse. The spell I am talking about is the spell called Blood Drain.

  As the name suggests, the spell drains all of the blood in the target's body. Although the spell sounds quite outrageous, there are restrictions for casting the spell. First of all, the spell is in the category of curse type spells. This means that, as long as the conditions are met, I can cast the spell from a distance to complete it. The specific conditions for casting Blood Drain is that the opponent has to be equal or lower in level than me, the user has to have a higher level of blood control than the target, the target is within the user's perception and that there is enough time to cast the spell.

  These requirements seem to not be that outrageous, but there is still a problem for my current scenario. First is that my perception is only within the range of my domain. Although it sounds like perception is anything I can sense, in regards to the conditions for the curse, perception is the range that my mana or other energies can extend outside of my body. Normally, a Silver level like me can't extend this perception that far from my body. Thankfully, the effect of my domain happens to coincide with my perception so I can use it as my perception stat.

  In addition to this requirement, the blood control necessary to wrestle control of the Shadow Hunter's blood is indeed enough. The level of the Shadow Hunter is currently unknown to me, but seeing that the Shadow Hunter did not just kill everyone on site leads me to believe the Hunter is not at the Silver level. Finally, there is the time problem. The casting time to complete the spell is 10 seconds. This may not sound like much, but when the target can phase through obstacles and instantly reach from one end of the space of my domain to the other in around 4 seconds, problems will start to arise. I need to fully focus on casting the spell, so I will have to rely on summons to block the Hunter.

  My summons have to not only fight the Hunter, but they also have to block its advances. If I focus solely on defense, the Hunter will find the opportunity to slip past my summons and interrupt my casting. Because of this, I need to divide my summons to not only block its advance, but to drag it till I can drain its blood. Once the spell connects, even if it tries to interrupt it, I can start casting spells and fighting on my own at that point.

  And so I began my preparations for the ambush. I firstly analyzed the overall yout of the area. I needed to find a pce with as few trees and the like as possible. The more obstacles there are, the harder it will be to keep track of and intercept. Through a process of elimination, I was able to find a satisfactory location to set up the ambush. The area is a clearing surrounded by a ring of trees so the center of the ambush site could be easily trapped and full of lures to attract the Shadow Hunter over.

  Next, I would have to make sure that the Shadow Hunter is not scared enough to escape before I could close the net. The fact that the creature has a connection with the Shadow Pne means that they can escape as long as the spatial blockade isn't active.

  Finally, I would need to lure the Hunter into the ambush site using the aforementioned lures.

  As a good rule of thumb, most wild creatures are attracted to natural resources that match the creature's own elemental affinity. In this case, I would stuff some dark or shadow based resources in the center of the ambush site. Since the Shadow Hunter is not tamed, the intelligence of the beast would be quite low. This means that basic lures would likely be enough to attract it over, assuming that they were not targeted the same way previously.

  When I looked through my ring, I found a good stash of dark element resources, specifically medicines that were made in the main base. As one of the more common elemental affinities, dark element resources have long been produced and passed on by the base. With my authority in the base, of course I have on me a high quality version of the resources given by the base.

  The scent of this medicine will absolutely be enough to attract the attention of the Shadow Hunter so now it was time to prepare the ambush site. I first encircled the area of my domain in advance. Then, looking through my books, I found a selection of spells to prepare magic traps based on blood magic in the blood magic encyclopedia. After looking through it, I found the best traps for my current situation to be of two types.

  One was the automatic type of trap. This type of trap is as the name suggests. By pcing a certain spell on the ground, an attack can be triggered when a condition that the user sets is active like if something steps on it. These types of traps are generally weaker in effectiveness than a normal spell of the same level. This is because a trap needs to be maintained as well as be able to perceive when the conditions to activate are set. This means that auto traps like these are only really good for interfering with those in the same level.

  The other type of trap is called a trigger type trap. Unlike the passive trap before, these can be triggered when the trapper wills for them and are usually activated with a thread type of magic like my Blood Thread. By connecting the trap and the user with the thread, the user can activate the trap by communicating with the trap through the thread. This means that the trap only costs the initial set up and the maintenance until use.

  By setting a mix of both types of traps, I can easily interrupt the Shadow Hunter should it try to target me. This, in addition to my summons, will help dey the hunter until my Blood Drain spell has been fully chanted.

  Now that I knew the types of traps I would like to set, now it was time to learn how to make and pce them. Thankfully, the traps themselves are not that hard to make or maintain. Unlike with spells, spell traps are more forgiving of an art. With spells you would need to perfectly arrange the runes of the spell. The traction and movement of your energy that you converted into the required mana as well as the right amount of mana would all affect the final result of the spell. Traps can be id out in advance and over a long period of time. This means that even lower level people can prepare higher levels of traps as long as their quality of mana reaches the standard.

  All of this is to say, Traps are both easier to create as well as being convenient for setting up ambushes. Especially since activating traps does not require you to chant which means that the user can, if they pay attention, cast spells while activating their traps.

  This is important since dual casting is a difficult technique to start. Dual Casting is the name for the technique in which a wizard can cast different spells at the same time. Although it sounds like a useful skills it relies on the user being both proficient in spells to the point of casting them while distracted, as well as, doing multiple things at once. Each of these lesser skills are important skills that takes days of practice to start and longer to master.

  All of this leads to certain skills like Dual Casting to be among a special subset of skills and techniques that only dedicated spell casters practice in. When I awakened my ability, my parents were confused when I woke up an unfamiliar and unique technique like my Sanctuary of Blood. Not only was it an obscure ability that few have awakened, it has no obvious path to follow to get stronger. If the ability was clearer, it could help my parents find out in what direction to teach me. If the technique reted to magic, my parents would teach me to be a spell caster. If it boosted melee combat then they would likely let Carlos teach me how to fight.

  With an ability like mine, there is no clear and obvious direction to follow. Although the technique may show traits of a summon type technique now, it also involves a domain and it is not like other techniques suddenly branch off into other paths once they develop.

  An example used to teach kids is the Star Body incident. There was an unknown race that awakened a special physique known as the Star Body. After obtaining some incomplete information on the physique, they developed the Star Body as a physical type of physique. Because of their special training methods, the true talent of the Star Body was buried. Its true ability is to resonate with the stars and be used for both magic and divination.

  It was only when they finally reached other pnes did they realize that the information they found was one of the discarded concepts for training the technique that had been proven to reach a dead end. Because of this lesson, most races are careful when training these types of techniques. So, instead of training me as a specific archetype, my parents felt that it may be better to just give me access to all of the techniques of the various archetypes.

  Because of my training at the time, I developed more as a summoner and melee weapon combatant. Suddenly, I also developed magic and had my blood unison transformation to work with as well. This really makes my head ache from all of the directions that my technique can go.

  Just like my combat styles, I could focus on each specific aspect and specialize in them or do a mix of them.

  Due to how mixed my various different branches for development are, there is one thing that I know for certain. My technique has been hiding so many secrets. Ever since back in my home pne, I have never stopped researching about my technique. Since my parents have not told me about it, I guess most conventional information on the topic shouldn't exist. At least, I can't access them.

  And so, I have to look in a direction that only I know about. Back when I was awakening my technique, I remember that there was a voice that spoke to me. Although I can't remember the exact words off of the top of my head, I remember a mention of something known as an Eternal Zenith.

  After searching for this term, I finally was able to find a small clue on the subject. In an ancient looking journal in my dad's office, there was a record of a ruins that mentioned the title of Eternal Zenith. From their decryption, they found out that the name is an ancient title to a position of sorts. That was all that the journal recorded on the subject.

  I looked into the owner of the journal and in his logs, I was able to determine that the ruins that he talked about was in another rge size pne that I haven't encountered in any other book. Because of this, I went and asked my dad about the journal and he only said that the journal has been in the family for generations, and that even his grandfather may not know the answer to my question. He said he will try to find out for me.

  But either way, since this natural technique of mine also has such importance, I think that leaning in towards it would not be a bad scenario. The other categories would all remain as secondary. They will become the means that I exert my own strength when I am either not with my summons or if I need a specific type of precise attack. Although my skeleton summons are all very skillful, they still need to keep watch over me as their top priority.

  Now, I should go back to the original topic. Since I haven't done the relevant training for Dual Casting, I have to go ahead and pce more automatic traps around. Trigger type traps require activation and a connection through my Blood Thread spell. This means that the number I can use is solely dependent on the number of threads I can control at once. At my limit, I can control 10 threads at once, but while in combat it is better to leave room for a margin or error.

  So, I decided to only have five trigger type traps. In order for the traps to not damage the materials on the Shadow Hunter, the trap must be aimed more to control the target rather than for direct damage. That goes for the automatic traps as well. In fact, all they really need to do is to get the Shadow Hunter out of it's phasing state and forced to directly move instead.

  As long as the Shadow Hunter is not in its phasing state, then it will have to manually dodge obstacles. Since the beast has no master and only has it's own natural intelligence, it likely won't be sparing when using its phase ability. Although slipping into the shadows sounds completely overpowered (which it is) it has some drawbacks of its own. The more it is used in a short duration, the less shadow endurance the user will have. Especially in the levels below Gold.

  When most people and creatures reach the level of Gold, the energy that cycles through their body or their body itself reach a qualitative change. This change results in a drastic boost in overall combat abilities. If before then, people in the Silver tier and below would be restricted to staying on a pnet, one they reach the Gold tier then the most basic versions of space based abilities can be finally be widely learned and used.

  This small affinity for space as well as an evolution in life level would allow the person to be able to escape their pne if they lived in a small one. Then they would adventure around until they either find a rge pne, or are found by a person from one. This massive leap in strength allows all of this to happen and this also means that most inter pne travelers are at least in the level of Gold.

  All of this helps to represent the massive gap between the Silver and Gold level as well as how small the other levels are in comparison.

  Since the rabbit is unlikely to be in the Gold level, entering and exiting the shadow pne constantly will constantly affect it. This is also a secondary pn should my Blood Drain spell were to not work for any sort of reason. This corruption from the Shadow Pne will eventually reach a point where the hunter can no longer slip into the shadows. Once this happens, the whole problem can be dealt with easier.

  All of these thoughts rolled around in my head as I slowly and methodically finished all of my preparations for the ambush. I first let Lu surveil the periphery of the Dark Spot while I pce my domain in pce.

  Before, I learned that I could pce my domain in a stationary pce. This is actually a part of this spatial blocking technique. By pcing my domain in an area, I slowly gain control of the specific spatial coordinates of the area. After taking root in the area, it will blockade the area as I had stated before. With this completed, I went ahead and began my trap preparations. In order to hide the existence of these traps for as long as possible, I put them all by the trees towards me so that if it rushes to me through the trees by Shadow movement, the trap will go off.

  The Trigger type traps I have id a distance from me. I have pced so many traps all around in order to constantly force the Shadow Hunter to be on the move when facing me. All of the trigger traps are clustered together so if the opportunity arrives I can bst them all at once.

  All of this is not mentioning the skeletons I have pced in ambush. Near every trap I have a skeleton archer prepared to shoot at the rabbit once they leave the Shadow realm. While in the shadows, they might not be able to hit them, but the traps are made to force them out of the realm by creating mini spatial blockades that force them back to the main world.

  With all of these in pce, now it was time to wait for the Shadow Hunter to fall into my trap.

  All the way from when we first arrived here, I have been setting my Blood Eye out to watch all around for any traces of a being simir to a Shadow Hunter. Now, my ambush preparations are completed and I finally had the time to go and chat with Lu.

  Celine: Lu! I finished my side's preparations. How about you?

  Lu: Celine, I am almost done over here. I just need to corral the Shadow Hunter towards the ambush location so my current pn should be fine. Do you want to check it out?

  I thought for a little bit before nodding. I don't have much to do at the moment and the Shadow Hunter has not appeared in my sight at all. So I went to check out the preparations that Lu had prepared.

  Once I saw it, I was quite surprised. Lu had prepared a formation that was built to let the Shadow Hunter target the ambush site. The formation was made up of talismans full of the light element. As a miko, Lu naturally has a certain amount of light affinity. The role of Miko is among the Shaman css which is its own subcss in the mage archetype. These people usually obtain external power from a higher being of their choosing. For the Fox races, the usual higher being is one that is known as the Celestial Ten Tails.

  Although it is not known whether this being truly exists, it is used in Miko rituals more as a symbol of power. Because they pray for external strength, mikes can generally call for a massive amount of energy. This massive amount can simply overwhelm their target with their energy pool. One of the ways developed by miko are the talismans. They are built based on the spell scrolls and runes of normal mages.

  Due to their unique nature, they can contain a massive amount of energy and can remain running at a minimal cost. This alone lets the career path of the miko remain even after the massive influx of mages.

  The talismans that Lu made for the formation is known as the misdirect talisman. Once they are seen, they force victims at the same level and weaker to unconsciously shift their direction of movement. This in addition to the one-way formation that combines stealth and defense, and the perfect method to direct the target into the ambush site.

  These talismans and formation are written in the textbook for miko development that my uncle had passed on to my parents and are now in Lu's hands.

  Even if her growth was not as much as mine in this time, Lu has still grown to an incredible degree from where she came from.

  Now, all that was left to do was to wait for the eventual arrival of the Shadow Hunter. And so we waited for them to arrive. Since we were just waiting, I decided to go ahead and look through my communicator again. When I looked through the communicator I once again read through all the news of areas seen as well as stories of adventuring by the various kids.

  It was only at night the next day that my Blood Eye finally reyed a message to me.