Chapter 106: Categorizing the Prairie Wild Life

Joshua placed his scale blade back on his back the moment the fight had come to a close and he put away the dead bodies of the prairie chickens right away. The last thing they needed was more predators racing over to the area do to the smell of blood. He quickly lead the group after the elks before any more prairie chickens could come over in search of those worms that had attracted the previous group. They quickly got back on to the trail that the elks were making and followed as closely as they could without grabbing their attention.

After their first fight in the prairie Joshua had a lot on his mind that he noticed throughout the short confrontation. The first and most obvious thing that he recognized was the large amount of experience that they had gained from the encounter. Although it was short it was worth more than killing three of the giant snakes back in the canyon which was truly saying something. Imagining taking on larger groups of the chicken now had its pros and cons. The chickens were easy to take down individually but as a large group it would be a nightmare with screeches that not only sent pressurized air at you, but could shatter your eardrums if used by several of the chickens at once. That was a situation he didn't want to find himself in.

If the chickens at such a low level gave so much experience then Joshua could only imagine how much experience they could gain from something like the much stronger bobcat that they had seen earlier, or even a pack of the coyote. The elks they were following as well had some powerful beast amongst them that could give them a lot of experience. One thing Joshua knew after this first exchange was that they weren't going to have any trouble gaining levels in this area like they had been for the past couple of months.

The next thing Joshua noticed during the fight was the behavior of the chickens. Even when it came down to the very last chicken it wouldn't back down no matter what. It went in for the kill at every chance it was given and that showed the mentality of that group of beast in this environment. The prairie chickens weren't incredibly fast or strong, they only had numbers as an advantage. When cornered all they could do was fight back since they couldn't exactly fly away like other birds. They could only flutter in the air for short distances so they would fight anything that came nearby from what Joshua could see, although an overwhelmingly powerful beast strutting through their territory might be treated differently.

The bobcat however seemed more keen and intelligent than any of the other beast they had seen so far in the prairie. It didn't ever put itself in a dangerous situation throughout its entire hunt. It waited for the coyotes to kill an elk and gain the herds fury instead of rushing in itself and forcing itself to have to try to drag away the elk while fleeing from the herd. Instead it let the coyotes go into a dangerous situation and took away a meal of its own in the end. It even avoided going into the territory of the deadly prairie chickens when the coyote it was hunting ran into the area.

The elks seemed the most like their previous animal forms in the way they acted and worked together, but even so the lead elks showed some extreme intelligence as well. The leaders didn't fight over territory amongst themselves like the horses on the other side of the prairie did, but instead joined together to lead a larger herd and protect each other. The beast on this side all seemed to show a step up in intelligence in comparison to the regular beast that Joshua had seen up to this point.

It was going to be interesting to see what else they came across while exploring this side of the prairie. After all they had only just started and had seen so many interesting things. They hadn't even made it to the first watering hole area which seemed to be what the elk were heading for. At the pace that the elk were going they wouldn't get there until tomorrow so Joshua decided to keep following them as they scouted out the prairie. Seeing what kind of things might show up at the lake would give him a good idea of what else they might come across in the prairie.

'Seems like the wild life comes in all sorts in this territory.' Henry said through the party chat since he didn't want to draw the attention of the elks that they were close enough to that they could actually here them moving through the tall grass. 'To think even worms could grab the attention of those chickens and create trouble for us.'

'If worms can do this then what the hell would happen if a dead body of a bigger animal was left out in the open.' Julia said with a frown. 'I'm sure the bigger predators will tear off their own pieces, but for an ecosystem to run properly there have to be some scavengers in the area. Coyotes can't be the only animals around willing to eat left over dead beast.'

'I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. After all were only at the edge of the prairie at this point.' Laura said cutting into the conversation. 'Since there is such a variety of creatures so early on I'm sure we'll be coming across even more the further we go in. Hell the level of beast in this area can go up to ninety so don't expect things to get any easier.'

Joshua nodded at this as the conversation went quiet once more, but then he noticed the slightly longing expression that Lilly had as she looked at the elk ahead of them. He knew that she wanted to tame some of the beast they were coming across, but at the moment it wouldn't be worth the risk until they had a good idea of all the beast in the area. Rushing into the group of elks and hoping that she could tame one of the leaders so that all of the other elk would become much easier to tame going forward wouldn't be a wise decision.

While thinking along these lines Joshua noticed that the elks had once again come to a stop as a group in another taller patch of grass where they started munching away and spreading out a bit to get their fill. This time around however none of the younger elk strayed too far away from the herd giving little opportunity for any predators to go on the attack. Joshua spread out his aura sense to see if he could find any other beast in the area, but outside of a few prairie chicken off in the distance well away from the elk there weren't any large sources of aura around so any animal near by wasn't evolved like the ones they had to fight all the time. Instead they would be on the smaller side or something like the worms in the ground that the prairie chickens were after.

Knowing the area was safe the group decided to take a break a little ways away from the elk on top of a large hill where they had a good view of their surroundings. They would be able to easily spot out any predators that tried to come their way. They took out any small meals that they had prepared beforehand to eat and started discussing what they had seen so far.

Overall Joshua spotted out a few major circumstances in the prairie that they would have to keep in mind going forward. They would have to always keep on the move unless they set up a full on camp where they knew for sure they were protected for the night. At the moment they had no clue what type of beast could come out during the dark of night, but the beast repellent device that they had gotten from the system could still work in the area since none of the beast would be over level ninety-nine. Well at least none of the beast that actually should be in the area in the first place. There could always be a roaming high level beast passing by, but that was unlikely to spark any confrontation since those high level beast had intelligence and knew all about the system.

The next thing Joshua noticed about the prairie was that the shifts in terrain all across the prairie were incredibly important to pay attention to. After all they had been attacked by the prairie chickens simply because they entered an area where the grass was shorter and the ground was filled with little holes where worms could be found in abundance. They'd have to watch out for similar situations in the future just in case a much larger group of the prairie chickens were attracted to the area.

The shifts in terrain also signaled what kind of beast could be in the area from what Joshua had seen so far. The predatory beast tended to stick to the much taller grass so that they could sneak up on any of the herbivores that pass through the area. Joshua wasn't certain of all of the beast that could exist in that type of environment, but he at least knew that was where the bobcats tended to thrive and most likely the coyotes as well. Although Joshua suspected the coyotes were less territorial than the cats since they seemed to always be on the chase for prey unlike the cats that just looked for golden opportunities.

As Joshua was thinking along these lines he could feel the presence of another pack of coyote on the edge of his aura sense. The pack maneuvered their way through the tall grass around the prairie chicken and seemed to be tracking the herd of elk. This was a different group of coyote than the first one that Joshua had seen. This time around there were eight of the creatures with one pack leader, but since Joshua couldn't actually see them in the tall grass off in the distance at the moment he couldn't use the system to observe them.

At the moment they seemed to be just stalking the elk and were waiting for an opportunity to go on the attack. Since the sun was starting to lower down to the mountain tops at the edge of Joshua's view he had a feeling these sneaky beast were planning to attack the elk the moment they decided to rest for the night. Luckily Joshua didn't since any other creatures nearby that could be doing something similar so the coyote were the only beast they were going to have to worry about. They couldn't let them kill the elks since they were their ticket through the prairie at the moment. The safest option was to defend the elks before they get attacked so that they could continue the same plan in the morning. With a sigh Joshua decided to fill the others in on the current situation.