Pov: Vik
I had no trouble facing rocks since they didn't harm me at all. However, I noticed something even more surprising. The rocks that fell on that skeleton did not affect it in the slightest. They seemed to bounce off, as if they were hitting a wall of iron.
After making up my mind, I decided to lift that skeleton. To my surprise, even after using all my cultivation in void refining and two other power systems, I couldn't lift it. I was convinced that this skeleton was exceptionally strong. So, I used the Maya manifestation technique while touching it. This time, I just circulated the technique to see the truth behind the skeleton, hoping to learn the story of this bird, just as I had seen my own story earlier.
Then, a large amount of information flooded my mind. I entered that white space again, but this time a screen appeared in front of me, displaying a story.
The story was about a bird named Chakor. This was a simple bird without any magical abilities or special bloodline. It flew to the moon.
As I read, I learned that this story didn't take place in recent times. It was set in ancient times when the world didn't understand spiritual energy. Back then, humans were the apex predators and ruled the world, and money was everything. People lived only up to 100 years.
At that time, this mountain wasn't called Azure Mountain. In fact, it wasn't even a large mountain range. It was just a dense forest with many hills. Various species of birds and animals lived in this forest, which was one of the few remaining sanctuaries protected by human laws—a place where nature was unharmed by humans.
This place was called Moon Hills because you could see a beautiful moon from those hills. But that wasn't all; these hills were home to a special species of birds known as Chakor. These birds were famous not for their beauty but for their actions.
Chakor, also known as the moon bird in various cultures, flew toward the moon. On full moon nights, adult Chakor birds saw the moon and seemed to fall in love with it. They started flying toward it. It almost seemed comical—a mortal bird trying to reach the moon just because it found it beautiful. Despite being land creatures, these birds dared to pursue the moon. They didn't let anything stop them. For ages, the Chakor would fly straight toward the moon every full moon night.
These birds soon became symbols of love in human stories and mythology. But not every story had a happy ending. The Chakor who dared to chase the moon flew high in the sky but never reached it, and worse, many died along the way. So, instead of being symbols of love, they became symbols of unrequited love.
Still, life went on. The remaining birds, mostly females who didn't fly up, continued to live and gave birth to a new generation of Chakor. One of these new birds was different. Born on the night of the full moon, he was the first in his family to see the moon. The first thing he saw was the bright full moon and several birds of his species flying toward it.
Since then, reaching the moon became his life goal, just like many other birds in his clan. However, life is not the same for everyone. Despite living in a sanctuary away from humans, he got caught one day. He was just starting to get used to flying after a few years of life.
The group of humans who trapped him were not normal hunters; they were researchers studying this particular species of birds. For a long time, the Chakor had been a mystery to humans. They didn't understand why a creature would risk its life for an impossible goal like reaching the moon.
So, they decided to do something different. They had studied these birds without gaining any results, and now our protagonist, Chakor, became part of their research. I will call him Chakor since that was the name given to him by humans; he didn't have any specific name as he was just a test subject.
Despite advancements in human technology, they still couldn't understand Chakor's behavior, often labeling it as a mating ritual. But their thirst for knowledge was insatiable. They kept Chakor in a specialized cell with other females of his species, but the ceiling was made of glass. Through it, he could always see the moon, especially on full moon nights. The Chakor ignored everything else during those times. However, being under human care prevented him from flying toward the moon, effectively condemning him to miss out on it.
This research continued for over two years, but the humans were never satisfied with their results. Finally, Chakor was released from his cage, but to his horror, the research escalated. Observing Chakor and other birds of his species, humans already knew they had a strong desire to fly toward the moon since birth. However, due to limitations of their mortal bodies, the Chakor could not reach it.
This didn't mean humans couldn't. As the dominant species, humans had developed the ability to explore beyond their world into the vastness of space where other celestial bodies exist like their own. They began many projects to find life on other worlds, but none succeeded so far. However, they discovered many things about the universe, and the moon, being the closest celestial body, was the first place where they successfully landed decades ago.
So, humans decided to help Chakor. They planned to fulfill his lifelong dream—the dream of his ancestors and generations before him. Through voting, the humans agreed to send Chakor to the moon in a specialized cell alongside some of their satellites on their next moon mission.