Chapter Thirteen

Arden scooped up the seed pod and stashed it in his pocket, then stood, previous soreness forgotten. His ears twitched as he listened for a certain slithering snake or any other predator, but the forest in front of him was silent. That didn’t mean something wasn’t lurking just inside, though. He gave the snake plenty of time to set up an ambush.

To be safe, he took off in a jog, legs stiff but functional. As he ran, he scanned the tree line, looking for a branch within reach that was decent sized. Unfortunately, most of the trees lacked low branches, but not all, as he spotted one nearly as long as he was tall just above his head.

He stopped and grasped the branch with both hands, putting his entire weight on the branch, but it barely bent. A frown formed as he let go and unsheathed his dagger. With the serrated section of the dagger, he sawed through the branch near the trunk, but it was awkward with the branch being above his head.

His arms grew heavy as they struggled to saw through the several centimeter thick branch. Soon his wrist hurt from the awkward angle, forcing him to stop halfway through. He stepped back and stared up at the branch as mana rejuvenated his sore arms.

A few seconds later, he hopped up and grabbed the branch, using his momentum to swing. With a yank downward, a crack sounded, sending him down to the ground branch in tow.

While clutching his prize, he retreated from the forest in no condition to fight anything, the previous body wide soreness returning in force.

With an ungraceful flop, he dropped to the grassy ground and examined his prize. If it weren’t for his Wood Manipulation, he wouldn’t have chosen the branch as it was a little too curvy to be of use normally, but its size was about right.

Eager to try out his possibly most valuable card, Arden diverted a stream of mana and sent it back to his bracelets, then into the branch with the desire to activate his Wood Manipulation. His bracelets shifted to a slightly different shade of green as his fingers indented the wood as if it turned to putty.

Heart pounding in amazement, he ran his hands down the length of the branch, straightening it without effort, then cut the connection. The moment the mana he pumped into the branch ran out, it solidified as a perfectly straight branch about as long as he was tall.

Despite his body screaming at him to stay on the ground, he climbed to his feet and swung the branch eyes wide with wonder. No wonder manipulation cards were so valuable. He felt like he could manipulate the branch into any shape he wanted. Well, not any shape as he was sure there were limits. Yet again, he needed to do more experimentation.

Unable to resist, he activated his Wood Manipulation card again, this time focusing his attention on one end. Even though he could have whittled a tip with his knife, it was much more fun to manipulate the branch with his magic.

While maintaining the flow of mana, he used his fingers to form a tip, though he ran into a problem. It was easy to create the shape, but making it sharp was another story. Then he got the idea to use his knife while keeping his wood manipulation active.

Each swipe created a finer tip but unlike whittling no material ground away as he found it was impossible to remove any section of the branch with his Wood Manipulation. He could shape it however he wanted, but the amount of material available never changed. At least he didn’t think so. He didn’t try to enlarge the branch, as he didn’t want to redo his work.

With a smile, he cut off his magic and inspected the tip. It looked unusual as bark still covered the entire length of the branch, including the tip, but that didn’t take away from its sharpness. In fact, his manipulations cause the bark to smooth out.

While inspecting the spear, another idea formed. He once again activated his Wood Manipulation card, finding it quickly became his favorite card even though his plant attuned cards provided more use so far. With his knife, he smoothed a dozen centimeters down the branch from the spear tip, improving its stabbing capabilities even more.

Done with that, he turned his attention to the rest of the branch. He gripped the branch loosely with his right hand and ran it down the branch, smoothing it out further. Not to the point it lost its texture, allowing for grip but preventing burns on his hand if he slid his hands down at too fast.

He smiled down at his creation, then gave it a few swings and stabs flowing through each motion as his parents ingrained in him. A spear and staff were two of the primary weapons his parents had him practice, since they were easy to create with their sand manipulation. Compared to those stupid heavy creations, his was almost feather light almost throwing him off.

Now, if only he could create a bow, he would be set.

Actually, why couldn’t he? Would it be possible to create a bowstring out of wood? Whatever these trees were, they seemed pretty flexible, but wouldn’t they snap if it was that thin? It might be worth a try if nothing else he would get to practice his wood manipulation a little more.

As much as he needed to advance deeper into the forest, he needed to prepare himself and let his body recover a little.

Giddy with the possibilities, the weight resting on his shoulders from his quest lightened just a little. Despite the slight limp as his abused body made its presence known, he returned to the forest edge, this time looking for smaller branches. With his newly created staff, he snapped off several small branches, tossing them into a pile.

Unfortunately, none of the branches were big enough for what he wanted, but he was sure he could find a use for them. Several ideas already manifested, but without a large enough branch, a bow was out unless he got creative.

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He lifted his staff to break it off, but a twinge of pain in his right shoulder where the snake bit him forced him to stop. A groan escaped him as he dropped to the ground next to his pile, eyes sparkling at the possibilities.

An idea sparked as a solution to his bow problem. As giddy excitement masked the pain, he grabbed three thin meter long branches. With them in his hands he activated his Wood Manipulation card and fed all three branches mana.

His vision blurred for a moment as a headache manifested, but he pushed through it, causing his bracelets to flash.

When his vision cleared, all three branches turned to putty, allowing him to twist them together. He twisted them again and again until he felt a sort of resistance.

Curious, he continued to twist, feeling increased resistance as if he was reaching a limit on how tight he could twist them together, but that didn’t feel right. The branches should allow him to manipulate them as much as he wanted, as long as he didn’t try to change how much wood was available to him.

His eyes widened as he came to a realization. However, instead of stopping, he twisted even further, hands shaking from the strain, but he refused to stop until what he envisioned became reality.

Suddenly, a pop sounded as if breaking through a barrier and all resistance vanished, causing a wide smile as his bracelets flashed once again. Instead of three separate connections, only one existed. Despite being able to, he didn’t smooth the branches out into one curved bow, as he liked the twisted look. Careful to maintain the look, he bent the twisted branch into the shape of a recurve, then with his fingers he squeezed at each end, creating a little notch for a string.

While trying to stave off the temptation to check his flashing bracelets, he cut off his connection to the string-less bow than set it gently down on the grass and grabbed a few small twigs he wouldn’t have kept if they hadn’t broken off with the other branches.

Like he created the bow itself, he twisted the twigs together while trying to will them to merge but curiously they refused, so he kept twisting until he felt the resistance like before. Soon a pop sounded as they fused. Even after they merged, he twisted them further and further, trying to create as dense of a string as he could.

Once satisfied, he kept mana flowing into the string with one hand as he grabbed the bow with the other. He wrapped one end of the string into the notch he created on the bow, then pinched the string together. With his full weight, he pushed down on the bow, causing it to bend.

While leaning on the bow, he wrapped the other end of the string around the other notch and pinched it together. Curiously, when he shifted his weight off the bow, the string didn’t stretch despite his wood manipulation card remaining active.

It seemed only he could manipulate the wood. Good to know outside forces didn’t have an effect.

Just in case, he set the bow on the ground and took several steps back as he cut the connection. He held his breath as he stared at the bow as the last of the mana faded away.

As soon as the mana ran out, the string groaned precariously, seemingly on the verge of snapping, but after several seconds it seemed to shift, then settle into position taut. Still Arden stood a couple meters away, watching for several more seconds, not wanting to be a victim of an exploding bow.

When nothing happened, he cautiously approached and picked up the bow as if it was extremely fragile. He gave the string a flick, causing it to thrum but remain intact. Finally, he shifted his grip, then grabbed the string and gave it a gentle pull.

He almost like go when he heard the wood groan but having shot many bows before he disregarded it and continued to pull until his arms trembled, string pulled near the side of his mouth.

Not wanting to dry fire the bow, he slowly but jerkily released the tension on the string.

Now knowing it wouldn’t explode on him, Arden inspected the bow, eyes landing on the center of the bow, tempted to add an arrow rest. However, he shook away the idea a moment later upon realizing he would need to take a chunk out of the bow itself, possibly damaging the structure. He would just use his hand as an arrowrest until he found another solution.

At the thought of arrows, Arden turned his attention to the dozen remaining sticks, most of which were of similar size. He didn’t have anything to make a true arrowhead or fletching, but with his Wood Manipulation card he should be able to make do. The card continued to amaze him every time he used it. It definitely earned its rare rarity.

If he had wood, he could probably create almost anything. Of course, wood would be scarce once he left the cavern, but for now, he had plenty of material to work with. The stories of wood elf creations weren’t so unbelievable anymore. If he could create his spear and bow with little experience, what could centuries of experience accomplish?

Before he fell down that rabbit hole, he set the bow on the ground and grabbed several sticks while activating his Wood Manipulation card once more. He frowned as it was a little slow to activate, causing him to glance at his bracelets to find them dimmer than usual.

To let his bracelets cool down, he pulled up his Ortus menu instead and flicked the flashing Wood Manipulation card to the front.

Wood Manipulation (Rare) Level 3

Type: Manipulation

Affinity: Nature

Attunement: Wood

Effect 1: Use mana to manipulate the wood shape. User must separate wood from the tree. Strength and durability depend on the wood used. Must be in the user’s active hand.

Effect 2: Use mana to manipulate multiple pieces of wood. Warning! Manipulating multiple pieces of wood will lower precise control. Current limit three pieces of wood.

Effect 3: While manipulating multiple pieces of wood, user may apply significant pressure to merge them into one. Must be from the same tree.

Wow, level three already. Was it supposed to be this easy or was he just talented with wood affinity? The default color for his bracelets was similar to wood affinity, so it made sense he had a high talent with it. He found it hard to believe that a rare card leveled even faster than the common Accelerated Growth card.

If his best attunement was wood, why didn’t he receive a wood attuned card as a starter card? That was a question he wouldn’t find an answer to. It wasn’t worth questioning Ortus’s actions as it only brought more questions than answers.

To take his mind off that train of thought, he flicked away his Ortus menu and glanced down at his bracelets to find them back to their usual brightness. He had a bunch of arrows to create.

Either because of his practice or the level of his card, soon after, he had a dozen arrows. Like how he created the spear point, each arrow had a smooth bark covered tip. In fact, the entire arrow was as smooth as possible to cut down on resistance. To help guide their flight, he added thin wood fletching.

Unable to resist, he grabbed one of them and knocked it via a notch at the back of the arrow he created by pressing his knife into the malleable wood. His arms protested as he pulled it back and aimed at a tree. Before he wanted to, his finger slipped, releasing the arrow with a twang just missing the tree, sailing into the forest.

Deciding to give his body some rest, he set the bow down and sat on the grass. Not bad, considering how little time it took him to create it. Though it couldn’t hold a candle to one of his parent’s compound bows, not that he expected it to.

Unfortunately, he didn’t think he could create something like that with wood. As far as recurve bows went, it was quite solid, though.

Done with crafting for now, he laid back on the grass and stared up at the cavern ceiling, eyes slowly drifting shut.