#210 - Tracking Spell

This is the latest tracking charm developed by Antonin, which he calls the 'Pathfinder Charm'. It's based on the Tracking Charm, and was developed by integrating some bloodline magic, scent runes, and temperature runes.

Furthermore, he engraved a corresponding manifestation charm on his new monocle. When the two are used together, they can achieve reconnaissance targeting bloodstains, footprints, scent trails, life signatures, and other elements.

Remember the first website domain 𝕥𝕨𝕜𝕒𝕟.𝕔𝕠𝕞

Bloodstains on the ground will appear light red in his vision, while light spots around the ground are traces of biological activity related to the bloodstains. The fog appearing above represents scent trails. At the same time, if there are scratches on nearby trees or rocks, or if they have been touched or lingered on for a certain period, halos of varying depths will also appear.

This spell has two uses. One is non-locked reconnaissance, which allows him to see clues that appear in his field of vision. However, the disadvantage is that it is relatively susceptible to interference, requiring him to carefully distinguish them one by one.

But there is also another use, which is to use the Pathfinder Charm to lock onto a sample for precise tracking. Like now, he is locking onto the bloodstains of the Hippogriff, and the manifested light spots around are all related to the Hippogriff.

"There are the most clues here. A large amount of blood and feathers are left on the ground, which are initially judged to be from the Hippogriff. There are scratches on the trees on both sides. It seems that there was a fierce battle between the two sides here."

Afterward, Antonin carefully examined the surrounding remnants, mainly the broken branches of trees that had fallen on the ground, and the claw marks on the trees.

"There are claw prints different from those of the Hippogriff. There are no bite marks. It seems that the target creature's main method of attack is its claws. The height of the scratches is not low. Is it a large creature? But judging from the size of the scratches, the creature's size should not be large. Maybe it's performing a jumping attack?"

Antonin made a preliminary deduction based on the traces at the scene. The target should be a medium-sized creature weighing no more than 300 kilograms, with powerful forelimbs with more than four fingers, agile movements, and good jumping ability. The number is unknown.

"First of all, it's definitely not a dragon. Suspects include Chimeras, wildcats, werewolves, swamp werewolves, Nundu, Manticore, and Gryphons. Next, I have to find a way to find it."

Then he turned his gaze back to the bloodstains, along which two traces of movement diverged, and the bloody scent also diverged into two sides.

"One of them leads to outside the Forbidden Forest. It seems to be the Hippogriff's escape route. However, the Hippogriff at that time should have been seriously injured. Why didn't it continue to pursue?"

Antonin followed this return path and checked it again along the way, and found that the Hippogriff's aura and traces extended for more than ten meters before directly drifting into the air.→

"It seems that the Hippogriff endured the pain and flew away, so it was able to escape. That is to say, the attacking party has no flying ability, right? Then we can rule out flying creatures such as Gryphons."

Immediately afterward, Antonin returned to the scene again. This time, he looked at the other trace. As expected, this was the route the target creature took when it left. Because the other party was stained with the Hippogriff's blood and aura, the manifested traces were still relatively clear.

Then Antonin cautiously began to explore along this path. After a period of time, the footprints on the ground were either covered by fallen leaves or destroyed by other creatures. Now he can only follow the bloody scent forward.

Moreover, these traces are intermittent and constantly weakening, causing him a lot of trouble in his exploration.

However, with his persistence, he finally made a discovery. Antonin explored another kilometer forward and stopped behind a large tree.

"This is?" Antonin squatted down, used his hand to pull away the fallen leaves on the ground, and then picked up a tuft of hair and looked at it.

"The target should have rested here for a while, so the traces are so heavy, and the remaining hair is dark in color and still has bloodstains on it."

"Hmm? That's not right." Antonin carefully identified the bloodstains on the hair. "This is not the blood of a Hippogriff. The Pathfinder Charm doesn't react to it, which means the target is actually injured?"

"But no other hair or blood samples were found at the battle scene just now. It seems that the target only received minor injuries or has a strong ability to heal itself." Antonin judged, looking at the strand of hair.

"Then the culprit can be preliminarily identified as a werewolf or a swamp werewolf. But swamp werewolves mainly live in the Americas. It should be a local werewolf. But why would they appear near the outskirts of Hogwarts?"

"Never mind, I'll find it first. I don't know if it's a native werewolf or a werewolf syndrome patient. I hope I can communicate. If it's a native werewolf living entirely in werewolf form, it'll be troublesome. I must get rid of it as soon as possible."

After making his judgment, Antonin directly used the Pathfinder Charm on this tuft of hair. With new clues, the traces in his vision gradually became richer.

A gray light mist, like a transparent ribbon, extended from under the large tree where Antonin was located to the depths of the Forbidden Forest, and it was winding, twisting, and crisscrossing. Obviously, from here, the target's activities became disordered.

Moreover, from here, there were many traces of activity from other creatures around. They were more or less contaminated with some of the target's aura, resulting in a mixture of various strange smells, which also interfered with the tracking.

In this case, Antonin first used the function of the Echo Charm to scan the surrounding hundreds of meters, eliminating some erroneous auras. At the same time, he cross-used the Pathfinder Charm on the blood of the Hippogriff and the target, and more or less locked the target's direction of travel.

Along these remaining traces, Antonin continued to go deeper. At the same time, he began to discover traces of activity from other magical creatures and many wild herbs.

Since he saw these wild herbs, he naturally couldn't let them go.

With these gains, Antonin was even more looking forward to this trip to the Forbidden Forest. No matter what the final result, at least it wouldn't be a waste of time.

Next, Antonin gradually went deeper along the traces left by the murderer, and time gradually passed, until he came to a river several meters wide.

"The clues ended here. No clues appeared on either side of the river. Does that mean the target waded across the river?" Looking at the river in front of him, Antonin frowned tightly, feeling a little troubled.

This river cut off all the traces of the murderer. If that werewolf waded across the river, the river water would likely dilute the scent, so he wasn't sure if there would be any gains on the other side of the river.

And what if that werewolf didn't cross the river directly but swam along the river, that would be troublesome.