Soon after he tied up the creature's leg it passed out. Giving him time to go and hunt, it was a quick and easy hunt since so many new creatures had been introduced to the mountain plateau. He found a wolf-like creature that created illusions when it saw him.
Fortunately these illusions which it was creating through a gem in its forehead were not solid so he was able easily take it down using his makeshift spear. Seems this planet had an abundance of creatures that were meant to trick sight. It made him wonder what helped them evolve in that manner. Because of the three creatures that he encountered trying to kill him they all had some manner to disguise or conceal themselves.
The mantis-lizards could turn invisible, the illusion-wolf could make illusionary duplicates, and the vine plant creature had appendages disguised as vines. He would have to operatie going forward with the belief that any creature he encountered was concealing themself in some manner.
He brought the illusion-wolf's entire body back with him. When he arrived the tiger whose leg was injured was awake and glared at him as he approached growling slightly under its breath. It was still lying where he left it but its leg appeared to be almost completely healed as there was only a sliver of blood where the large gash used to be.
"So you do heal fast, at an incredible rate as well." Jace observed as he looked over to the wolf he brought. He put his weapons to the side while he brandished his knife to butcher the wolf. As he cut up the creature he focused on finding out weak points.
Like any normal animal its heart was a weak point and so was its brain. There were only two things he could find unique to this particular creature. The first was the gemstone directly connected to its brain that seemed to be organic in origin. The other was an additional organ in its body that he was not familiar with.
Unfortunately Jace did not have the equipment to investigate something . So he would have to spend time watching if he wanted to figure it out. But as he went to throw it to the side he heard the tiger make a pouting noise.
Jace looked over to see the tiger staring intently at the organ. He saw no harm in it so he threw the organ to the tiger and it caught the organ in its jaw and began devouring it. It appears that whatever the organ was, it was seen or tasted like a delicacy to the locals.
Jace shook his head as he continued to butcher the creature. Placing all of the meat on a fire to cook but dumping the organs off to the side. Tonight he wanted to run an experiment and leaving out the excess meat would do perfectly.
After he finished butchering the wolf he began thinking of how he should hoist his new companion up the tree. He may not know much about what was coming out at night, but he knew that all the other creatures hid when night fell.
Jace made a few trips up and down the tree as he prepared for the night. He fashioned a bed of vines for the tiger as well as putting up a few pointed sticks in case a flying creature decided he or the tiger might be worth a snack.
But as he was coming back down he frowned as he looked at the cooking meat. Then he looked at the tiger, "stop eating my meat." The meat had steadily been decreasing each time he went up and down. He ignored it at first because he thought the tiger would stop at a few of the bones but it clearly had decided not to.
The tiger tilted its head and made a strange sound. If he did not know any better he would think this thing knew what he was saying and was playing coy. But considering this thing was likely based on the genetics of a tiger the chances of it being intelligent enough to understand human language was next to nothing.
By the time he was preparing to lift up the tiger in a harness as the sun was descending. Jace looked at the sky as he could feel his body increasingly resisting the extra work. Getting the tiger on the harness took only a moment as it appeared to be easily baited with cooked meat.
Once the tiger was on the harness he began pulling up the vine until it was level with the tiger's hammock which was only a few branches lower than his own. Then he tied off the vine to another tree, double checking to make sure the vine would hold.
Then he climbed up the level of the tree where the tiger's vine hammock was located as it was looking around with curiosity. As the forest he was in grew darker he managed to move the tiger over to the vine hammock which had a rudimentary defense in the form of sharpened branches. Just in case one of those flying creatures decided they looked like a tasty meal. He had also done it to the branches near his own hammock.
At the same time as yesterday was the wood on wood noise echoing throughout the forest. Seemed it was about time for the night creatures to emerge.
Jace double checked the tiger's almost completely healed leg before heading up to his own hammock for the night. As he arrived he organized the small storage area he had fashioned and started working on the orbital drop suit helmet he was working on. Only stopping once it was too difficult to see in the dark with only the moons to sustain his sight.
About halfway through the night is when something happened.
Jace awoke to a screeching noise and sat up in time to see a winged bat-like creature with a rather large wingspan diving right toward him. But as he grabbed a spear it lowered a bit and went toward where the tiger was. Running right into the spanked branches he had sharpened.
It screeched loud enough in pain that Jace could even hear the small critters below freeze in surprise. Then there was a cracking noise followed by a snap as it fell to the ground. All while it screeched in pain, then surprise, and then pain again.
It crashed into the ground with a thud. Then a second later the sound of the small critters moving could be heard followed by the creatures screeching going up several octaves. Jace flinched in pain at the recognition of the sound crunching and tearing as the flying creature was eaten alive.
Initially he left out the offal and other organs in order to see what would be left in the morning. But the sound of them eating through creatures was disturbing enough for him to wonder if these creatures could be the reason that there was very little in surface vegetation and if they were also the reason for the trees' hard bark on the lower areas. In the morning he would certainly know how much they ate up.
Disturbed by the sound of crunching he did not go back to sleep and instead decided to work on the helmet again. He spent the rest of the night, thankful for the few hours of sleep he had managed to get as he felt refreshed.
This planet was an array of mysteries that he was sure were being investigated. Although all the things he had seen so far indicate a sight based Apex Predator that emerged during the day. But he doubted they would knowingly send a bunch of students designated for special operations candidates against an Apex Predator.
So they either were not aware of the existence of this possible Apex Predator or they planned their training exercise around an interval where they knew this creature would not emerge. Either way he should be prepared for the worst in case it ever came to pass.
As he finished his work on the helmet he whistled in approval as the sun began to rise. Pulling the helmet on he now had all the data from the reinforced data tablet being transmitted to the helmet.
Actually making a digital connection between the helmet and the data tablet was not too difficult. But he had to spend all this time rewiring a few things on the helmet and programming a heads up display from scratch to work with the orbital drop suit helmet's more simplistic design.
But now as he put the helmet on he pulled up the display. Up in the right was where alerts would pop up. The left side had radio frequencies that were in use, for the moment there was not any. The rest of the helmet screen could pull up a targeting reticle based off of distortions in the air.
Jace sat in his hammock for a few extra minutes as dawn began gracing the sky with fiery orange color. Adjusting to his helmet when two different radio frequencies began to operate. He pulled out his radio and tuned it to the first frequency; it was the various groups doing check-ins and confirmations that nothing had gone wrong during the night. Then he turned it to the second frequency and listened intently to the communication, tuning it to his helmet so it was not constantly making noise that would draw attention.