Lucy and Erik exchanged a glance, this time without the serious meaningfulness from earlier. They were truly stunned by Liam's extensive knowledge of the topic, leading to a silent conversation that had a joint conclusion.
"Liam, are you confident?" Lucy questioned, dropping the honorifics in that more private atmosphere.
"Unless there's something I should know about magical beasts," Liam nodded.
"Magical beasts can occasionally show erratic behaviors," Erik mentioned. "They are more intelligent than the average animal, but they remain animals."
"Then yes," Liam confirmed again. "I'm confident."
Lucy and Erik exchanged another glance, this time shorter, only needed to confirm the previous silent conclusion.
"Junior Brother, you take this," Erik called, offering the map to Liam. "We'll follow your directives."
Liam accepted the map without showing his usual excitement. Now that the task was a quasi-hunt, his mind left no room for any useless emotion, tackling it as seriously as possible.
"There's only one problem," Liam mentioned while studying the map, already finding a few spots worth investigating. "I don't know how to differentiate the feces from ordinary wolves and the magical beast."
"They'll feature Qi," Lucy explained. "It's why the Sect wants them. They can be used as alchemical ingredients."
"You can leave that part to us, Junior Brother," Erik reassured, adding something. "Since you are taking care of this, you should also get some of my contribution points."
"It's fine to split them in equal parts," Liam refused, his gaze still on the map. "Ten each is a lot, isn't it?"
"It's among the highest the missions for outer disciples reward," Lucy confirmed.
Liam had already guessed as much by comparing the various tasks on the mission board. Besides, as his first team mission, Liam didn't want to play any bargaining games. Splitting the points evenly would prevent any headache.
"We should move then," Liam exclaimed, standing up. "We are burning daylight."
Lucy felt surprised once more. Liam truly felt like a different person, even using idioms on his own, prompting her to comply with the order.
Erik also stood up, only for him and Lucy to exchange a faint nod. They had tried to hide that interaction, but Liam noticed it from behind the map, and a sense of uneasiness formed inside him.
Something had felt odd ever since the trio had descended the mountain. Actually, even the creation of that team had been strange.
Still, Lucy had promised to tell Liam later, so he put the matter aside for now.
"There's a rocky clearing South," Liam announced. "Let's head there first."
Lucy and Erik led the way, with Liam following close behind. They ran over the ground and snow, unleashing a stable speed that only the Qi circulating in their bodies could generate.
The quick advance brought the trio to the appointed area in no time, under half an hour. The trees soon grew scarce, replaced by a vast clearing covered in snow.
"Junior Brother," Erik called as the group stared at the clearing, drawing a small shovel from his pouch. "If you are sure this is the place, we should start digging."
Liam didn't reply, instead sniffing loudly as he handed the map to Erik, exchanging it for his shovel. He inhaled deeply, searching for any peculiar smell and following its trail.
Lucy and Erik stared in silence as Liam reached a seemingly random spot on the snow and squatted down to start digging, the process quickly culminating in a call.
"Found it!" Liam called, and his companions promptly reached his side, their three pairs of eyes staring down at the feces resting on the rocks beneath the snow.
"Junior Brother, did you receive a perception-oriented martial art this week?" Erik couldn't help but gasp.
"Did you really track it by smell?" Lucy asked instead, knowing that Liam didn't have a martial art.
"Is that it?" Liam questioned, ignoring the question to focus on the feces. "It doesn't look special to me."
"It doesn't seem like it," Lucy confirmed. "Brother Erik?"
"I can't feel any Qi," Erik concluded. "It must be from an ordinary wolf."
"There's another problem, too," Liam pointed out. "These feces are quite old. They almost lost their smell."
"But you smelled them anyway," Lucy commented.
"My nose is good," Liam claimed, looking up at Lucy, "But wolves use their poop to mark their territory. This is very old, so the pack will probably mark it again soon."
"So?" Erik questioned.
"So," Liam sighed, standing up to trade the small shovel for the map, "Unless we want to wait for the pack to mark their territory again, we might have to go for something more certain."
"Was there a more certain target?" Erik asked. "Why haven't we gone there directly?"
"Because that's probably where the wolves travel," Liam said, his eyes falling on the river he had spotted earlier.
The river was long enough to keep a safe distance from the likely location of the den, but it was also where the chances of meeting the pack were higher.
Lucy and Erik followed Liam's gaze, spotting the river on the map. He had warned them about it earlier, but staying safe could stretch the search by entire days or longer.
"Junior Brother said that we are safe during the day," Erik pointed out. "I say we risk it."
Liam didn't like the idea. Timing was key to successful hunts. If he were alone, he would have already retreated to wait for more favorable conditions.
Nevertheless, Liam wasn't just a hunter now. He wasn't even alone. Cultivators made that team, and that played an important role.
If Liam could feel instinctively scared about the Qi, so could animals. Chances were that any wolf would leave the team alone, flagging them as too dangerous to hunt.
As for the magical beast, that was a dark territory for Liam.
"Senior Brother Erik, you know this magical beast better than I," Liam eventually announced. "I'll trust your judgment."
Erik nodded, and Lucy exchanged another odd glance with him before the trio got on the move. Liam gave directions, and the duo led the way, crossing the forest quickly to reach their destination.
The river was farther than the first clearing. Despite the group's speed, morning turned into afternoon by the time the trees disappeared again, replaced by a vast, empty white space.
The group stopped there, not advancing any further since Liam had started sniffing loudly. The cold hindered his nose, but his nostrils eventually caught something intense, and they weren't alone.
A distant howl resounded through the area, loud enough for everyone to hear it. After the warning, the cry spooked Erik and Lucy, but Liam kept focusing on his nose.
"Do you think they noticed us?" Erik wondered.
"They smelled us a while ago," Liam bluntly revealed. "This is their territory, and up ahead is their river."
Liam's calm was reassuring, but even he looked away when the howl resounded again.
"Is it warning the pack?" Lucy guessed.
"This wasn't from the same wolf," Liam commented, earning himself Lucy and Erik's questioning gazes. The howls had sounded identical, even coming from the same direction, but Liam had spotted the difference.
Liam closed his eyes to concentrate. The snow messed things up, but sound wasn't part of it. He couldn't hear footsteps, but growls eventually reached his ears, and there were many of them.
'This is wrong,' Liam thought, countless calculations happening in his mind in the span of a second, leading to a single possible conclusion. "It's a territorial conflict between packs!"
"How can you be certain?" Erik questioned, his doubts self-explanatory. There was nothing but snow around the group. Even the river wasn't visible from there, but Liam had somehow deduced a whole conflict between packs from sounds only he could hear.
Liam had never needed to explain himself in those situations, or talk, for that matter, so only fragmented lines escaped his mouth. "Winter. Hunger. Many growls, and they sound desperate."
Lucy wanted to believe Liam. It wasn't that she trusted his superhuman senses. She simply knew he wasn't a liar, but that deduction did sound like a stretch.
However, louder noises soon reached the area. Grows, wails, and howls resounded in quick succession, even simultaneously, highlighting the high number of animals involved.
Lucy and Erik could only turn in the direction of the noise. Despite being unable to see it, a battle was indeed unfolding, probably hidden by some slopes along the way.
The two looked back at Liam at that point, shocked that his hearing and knowledge could achieve so much with so few clues. Yet, Liam didn't glance back, his mind already working out a different problem.
'Where is the alpha?' Liam pondered. 'Is it fighting, too?'
Realistically, the fear of wolves was a leftover of Liam's mortal mindset. He had no idea how much he should be worried about them. If anything, he was pretty confident he could escape them now.
However, the magical beast was a variable that Liam didn't know how to address. He guessed he had to fear it, but respecting it enough to abandon the Sect's mission was something else altogether.
A battle between packs was also the perfect distraction to collect what the mission demanded, but those thoughts crumbled before they could go any further.
Lucy, Erik, and even Liam turned at the same time, their gazes claimed by something that spoke directly to their survival instincts.
Among the whiteness to the left, on the opposite side of where the battle noises were coming from, a black dot had appeared, seemingly standing on the horizon and looking directly at the trio.