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Your group's assigned sector is south-west - further than your first year's spot, in a the rolling hills bordering the small woods where you caught what you mistook for a Phoenix Spirit.
Heh, you were right all along. You smile smugly, remembering that turning point of your life.
With your group splitted - One second stage with two first stage - you all try to cover as much ground as possible.
Of course, Sin Din and you will take the wingmost, remotest fringes. This will let the low-mobility Yi Norm ample ground to meet beasts on his own.
"Come on, girls. We'll ride!"
You summon the Horse spirit, and gently pick up your two juniors, sitting them on your steed.
"Hold on."
Your mount set off, drawing an cheerful cry of the ginger Tau Ryel and pushing the quiet Sheng Seng further in speechlessness.
Using the clay tablet as a detector, you push west and westmost until you meet the 2-marks thresh. You unmount.
"At this point, we'll try being subtle. What we'll meet will depend on our luck. Let's avoid engaging or catching useless beasts if we can. I do the fighting, you try to catch opportunities."
This year, you have something you lacked the first time : an innate Nose Skill. You won't have to rely on meditation until you lucked into a faint presence - you can smell 4 beast nearby.
The first one... Definitely bad news. A Hare brimming with Death energy, like a hoppity-hopping life-ender? You won't engage that. It could have been useful as a barter chip with the city's death sect but you don't have a debt with them for now.
Then, a braid of void, silver and sheep energy - most likely useless to you and your underlings.
"Two of them are better left unmet. Let's go that way."
You instead direct the girls toward spirits likely more useful - and here's your first target : What looks like a Hog with a strange horn and sinew contraption on the back - a crossbow?
That one will most surely interest the Military - It might even be a perfect match for a quickshot frenemy of yours.
"Lay low. Don't get skewered. I'll start the fight, you try to seize a chance to catch it.
You regret a bit not having a bow to engage it at range - you don't trust the sect's old training weapons in a real fight with your current strength.
"HEY PIGHEAD!"
You dodge the bolt with your Unlimited Rising Star Kick. Tumble upon falling down - unfurling your wings would have let you too static in the air.
You're in range. Your treasured weapon start spinning, your Qi spins, emitting a shadow around your weapon and a second, mirroring it. They strike from two angles.
An human would have easily deduced which was true and which was fake using logic - logic that the spiritual beast miss, leading to the Jade Phoenix clobbering it.
