I gathered a decent amount of water and then shaped it into a surfboard. I compressed the water to the point it could hold my weight.

This technique was very taxing on my spiritual energy reserves and was not made to be use for a long time. Add to it the amount of time it took to create and that it couldn't be really used in battle, it's uses were limited.

*Step* *step*

I slowly stepped into my creation and then coated my feet with the water used to create the board. My feet were wearing a gigantic water slipper.

Hehe, a water slipper.

'All the preparations are done so let's see who is spying on us from up high.'

I lowered my stance before flying out towards my target.

I first started slowly but after a while I picked up speed more and more.

*Whoosh*

The wind brushed past me making me hear little because of the high speed I was flying. I had already noticed my target and approached him rapidly from behind but when I was about to enter striking range it suddenly picked up speed and ran away.

'You are not running away!'

I also picked up speed and chased the odd looking bird.

The bird was 30 cm long with black feathers most of which were in bad shape, a red curved beak and a wingspan of 1 meter.

One of its wings was damaged with feathers missing and broken.

*Whoosh* *Whoosh*

I flew through the air at high speed and was able to eventually catch up to the bird but the problem was my rapidly decreasing spiritual energy. This technique used a tremendous amount of it and in the one and a half minutes I had used it I had already started to get tiered.

So of course I decided to end it fast.

I again increased my speed and in 5 seconds I was 2 meters away from it and was able to count its feathers.

I stretched my hand.

'You’re mine, bit*h.'

*Miss*

The bird took a sudden sharp turn and dodged my hand.

'Shit...

The unexpected turn caught me off guard. I didn’t expect that the bird would do such a thing at the last moment.

This clearly was a sign of human level intelligence because it had first baited me into following it and the tricked me into thinking that it was not able to evade me until the last second where it took that sharp turn

"Fu*k...

With my low mastery of this skill I couldn’t immediately cach up with the bird and taking into consideration my now low spiritual energy reserves that were dropping by the second I wouldn’t be able to continue this pursuit much longer.

Also, even if I caught up with the bird again and it did the same trick as before I could lose my chance to capture it.

"Okay then if you are not coming with me alive then I’ll have to settle for your corpse."

In that split second I stopped using my Water Art: Wind Surfer and decided to end it.

“Eat this you little fu*ker."

I gathered some water from my previous dispelled technique into my hand and then shaped into a compressed ball of water the size of my fist before throwing it towards the bird.

"Water Art: Water Bullet."

*bam*

My attack hit the bird on its wing and with its wing not functional anymore I fell down like a rock.

"Strike...

I was happy but not for long. I had abandoned my way of being airborne and not having the time to use the technique again I was in a freefall.

I was at least 100 meters above ground and even if I was very resilient now, the fall would kill me for sure.

“Free fall?

No problem.

I have already taken this scenario into account."

I started again gathering water to my right foot as I was approaching the ground at high speed.

80 m ...60m....40m.....20....5.....

*bang*

A loud bang was heard in the forest but it was not the sound of me breaking my skull to the ground in a million pieces but the sound of my new technique.

Water Art: Geyser Step

Gather a certain amount of water below your feet before compressing it and then decompressing it to give you momentum in your desired direction. The amount of momentum gained is proportional to the amount of the compressed water.

Using this technique I had survived the fall by giving myself an upwards momentum when I was 5 meters above the ground. This decreased my fall significantly and although the inertia was a little disorienting, I had survived with minor scratches and bruises.

"Huuuu...

That was quite an adrenaline rush.

Now... let’s see where the little birdie fell."

I dusted myself of before heading into the direction where the bird was certain to fall.

....

After 10 minutes of searching into the forest I found the mangled corpse of the bird. The fall had destroyed the bird’s appearance making it not that pleasant to see.