Chapter Seventeen

Without the boiling mana distracting him, he found traveling through the forest much easier. Though that didn’t mean he didn’t stay on guard. Who knew when a tree would attack him? He just fought an animated lily pad. Anything could attack him if that thing existed.

If only he had some affinity-less cards in his deck, like identification. He would probably spam that card nonstop in a forest like this.

Actually, that would be incredibly dangerous. What if he hit his bracelet’s cooldown and something attacked? On second thought, maybe it was better he waited a bit until he filled out his deck with utility cards like that.

Cards like identification and dismantle were a must in the future, though.

An angry chirping above froze him mid-step. Without moving, his eyes traveled up to find a small furry creature with glowing deep green eyes glaring down at him. Upon making eye contact, it made aggressive hops forward on its branch several meters above him while chirping rapidly.

Despite needing to continue in the direction the creature guarded, Arden took a few steps back, knowing he couldn’t reach the creature with his spear.

For a moment, he thought about grabbing his bow, but based on the creature’s aggressive posturing, it wouldn’t take much to set it off. Who knew what it was capable of? If the tiny snake had potent enough venom to paralyze him, the creature who lived deeper in the forest probably had a similar level of power at least.

Unfortunately, he fell right into its trap. Something appeared behind him as he stepped back one more time, sending him stumbling back. He flailed his arms, but it was to no avail as another object appeared behind him, tripping him up even further.

Before he could recover, he flipped backward, smashing the back of his head into a tree. Stars danced in his eyes.

On instinct, he dove toward the ground, sending his vision spinning. When it stabilized a moment later, he glance up to find a wood spike grown out of the tree right where his head used to be.

His eyes hardened as he stood up. He didn’t bother picking up his dropped spear. Instead, he grasped his bow, then nocked an arrow. While staying as far as he could from the trees on a narrow forest path, he pulled the bowstring back.

As it creaked under the stress, he raised the bow aimed at the creature still perched on its branch, seemingly confident in its superiority.

He would prove it was very wrong in its assumption. It tried to kill him. Now he would return the favor. His vision narrowed on his target, blocking out all distractions as he released the string.

With an audible snap, the string shot forward, propelling its payload through the air. Even before it reached his target, he nocked another arrow just in case and released it just as the first arrow struck the branch, causing the creature to stumble for a moment.

Its eyes widened as the second arrow neared. Unbalanced by the first arrow, the creature was far too slow.

The arrow skewered its small body, killing it instantly. Even before it reached the ground, its body disintegrated into motes of deep green light.

Like the lily pad creature, it split evenly between where the body would have landed and his bracelets. This time when the motes entered his bracelets, they only glowed for a moment, then went back to their usual luminosity, signifying no card level ups.

Even before the card fully formed, Arden jogged over, eyes sparkling as he had high expectations the card would be useful.

The moment it formed, he scooped it up and inspected it, heart pounding.

A tree trunk with a single spike jutting out of it took up most of the picture set against a green background of similar shade to the border, denoting it as a wood affinity card. As a giddy smile formed, he read the description.

Wood Spike (Uncommon) Level 1

Type: Ability Card

Affinity Tree: Nature

Attunement: Wood

Effect: Use mana manifest a manifest a wood spike out of anything made of wood.

Without hesitation, he tapped the card on his bracelet to add it to his deck, then he moved it into his active hand. This card would come in handy. With a bounce in his step, he slung his bow over his shoulder, then jogged back to his dropped spear.

He almost forgave the thing for trying to kill him for donating the card to his deck. Now he just had to find somewhere safe to practice. If the card worked like he thought it did, it would make his spear devastating.

In fact, if he got good enough with the card, he could turn his spear into a staff. It would be less threatening if it looked like a walking stick.

Well, not really, as anyone who saw his bracelets would know what he could do with anything wood. If only it wasn’t the law to always keep his bracelets visible while in public. He understood the reasons for it, but it was inconvenient. They may assume he only had wood attunement.

His bracelets stayed emerald green until he used his other affinities, giving him an element of surprise. Well, they weren’t quite the same shade as wood attunement, but close enough, he doubted anyone would notice otherwise.

Why was he plotting how to fool people? It wasn’t like he was a criminal. Though having some hidden cards up his sleeves couldn’t hurt, just in case.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

As he was, he couldn’t stand against any veteran mage, anyway. No matter how many attunements he had, he would get crushed by a single attunement veteran mage with an established deck. That wasn’t even considering their likely far superior cultivation.

Even his new card he had a ton of counters in the forest, and that was only the ones he saw so far. The Wood Spike card would be useless against anything with hard or armored bodies, like the living tree or tortoise.

Of course, as he filled out his deck, he would limit his counters. He just had to be patient.

Despite the temptation to play with his new card, he knew it wasn’t the place to do it. Instead, he plucked his arrows and examined them. Both had some splintering, prompting him to use his Wood Manipulation to fix them, then return him to his quiver.

Another plus for Wood Manipulation was he could maintain his gear. As long as they don’t fall into some toxic liquid mana pond.

Fully equipped once more, he continued his journey, following the path toward the denser mana. The further he traveled, the denser the forest became.

At the edges of the forest there were barely any plants other than the trees, making traveling easy, but now even the narrow path had unknown plants leaning over it.

His previously gray robe was now a mosaic of greens and browns, as it was impossible to avoid rubbing it on things as he passed. Fortunately, other than the new paint job, no harm came to him. Though he would avoid touching it.

If nothing else, it gave him a bit of camouflage, not that the gray stood out too much in the first place.

Maybe the camouflage and the multitude of scents on his robe protected him. That furry creature couldn’t have been the only such creature nearby. He wouldn’t complain, though. He was making good progress.

Even the confrontations didn’t waste much time and gained him two cards, though one was worthless.

He cringed, expecting some attack summoned by his thoughts, but none came. Soon, the path opened to a clearing. At first he thought it was just another clearing, but he froze in his tracks when he looked up.

Several trees towered upward in the clearing, surrounded by flowers in shades of reds and browns. At first glance, it just looked like a beautiful clearing. However, when he looked up, the trees curved together to form a small platform with a wood shack. Even from his low vantage point, it was obvious the shack had seen better days.

What didn’t make sense was how something that looked like it would collapse at any moment existed in a dungeon? It was common knowledge nothing degraded in a dungeon. It would revert to its previous state prior to entry. Did that mean this shack was ancient?

Hope sparked, causing him to jog into the clearing, but he skidded to a halt when his eyes landed on the flowers. A flash back to the ledge prompted him to walk down the center of the now much wider path.

His ears twitched and his eyes slid in all directions looking for some hidden threat, but none jumped him by the time reached the three trees.

A problem presented itself. None of the trees had any way to climb them. They were too wide for him to wrap his arms around and their trunks were branchless until well past the platform a dozen meters up.

As his eyes scanned the tree trunk, wondering if he could craft something with Wood Manipulation to help them climb, another idea sparked. What if he used his newly gained Wood Spike card? It was worth a try. If nothing else, it gave him an excuse to practice it.

Like with any of his other cards, he activated the card, then pressed his hand against the nearest tree trunk and let the mana do its job. Over the next couple of seconds, a wood spike about half a meter long grew out of the tree.

With a frown, he examined the spike, finding the tip razor-sharp. Probably sharper than his own spear or arrows. Still, as it was, it was far too slow to use in combat or really anything that required speed. There had to be a way to speed it up.

At that thought, he cut his connection with the spike causing it to disintegrate, which only added another issue to his idea of using it to climb.

Hoping to solve both problems, he reactivated the card. Like his Accelerated Growth card, he withheld the mana in his hand, hoping to wait until it grew warm.

After several seconds of no change in feeling, his eyes widened. Did his body improve that much? He supposed that made sense. The ambient mana didn’t seem to have an effect on him.

In fact, the stream flowing toward his core was basically a trickle compared to before. That meant his core was ready to step into grade one.

Even during his distraction, mana pooled in his hand, but no heat came. He glanced within, worry nagging him as he saw how much mana built up. Just in case, he tilted his body away from the tree trunk, hoping to avoid skewering himself.

That would be a sad way to end. It wouldn’t be the first young mage to die from practicing their magic, though.

As soon as the mana left his hand and entered the tree trunk, a meter long spike shot out. His decision to stand off to the side proved correct, as the spike would’ve skewered his left side.

While maintaining a flow of mana, he used his other hand to whack the spike with his staff, finding it solid. If anything, it was more solid than his staff if it’s thickness meant anything.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his bracelets flash, signifying a level up, bringing a smile, but he wasn’t done.

Instead of cutting the connection, he focused his senses outward, then gathered ambient mana again, taking a cue from his Accelerated Growth card.

Like with the flower bush, it accepted the ambient mana, so he sent more until it fed on its own.

His bracelets flashed slightly faster before returning to a steady cadence.

Before continuing, he opened his Ortus menu and brought forward his Wood Spike card, buoyant from his accomplishment.

Wood Spike (Uncommon) Level 3

Type: Ability Card

Affinity Tree: Nature

Attunement: Wood

Effect 1: Use mana manifest a manifest a wood spike out of anything made of wood.

Effect 2: Send a burst of mana to instantly manifest a wood spike. Length dependent on the amount of mana used. Current limit is 1 meter.

Effect 3: Link ambient mana to wood spike to maintain it after cutting one’s mana. Warning! If ambient nature mana is insufficient, the wood spike may dispel faster than intended.

A shiver ran through him as he read the warning. He definitely wasn’t using that effect in the desert. If he could in the first place. He was sure there was some ambient nature mana, but it was probably very thin.

Now paranoid, he sensed the ambient mana but sighed in relief as he found it plenty capable of maintaining the wood spike. Not that he should have questioned it with how many massive trees surrounded him.

He wondered if every card would be this easy to level. Maybe not, especially when he reached higher levels. He had no doubt the cards leveled well past level three, after all. Still, it was nice to get a couple of free levels just by using knowledge he learned from other cards.

Time to make a spike ladder. Hopefully, it didn’t backfire on him.

Over the next several minutes, he created ever higher spikes using the lower ones to climb. Halfway up, a problem presented itself. His bracelets dimmed as they went into cooldown, forcing him to hang onto the spikes he created, praying to Ortus to hurry up.

Either his prayers were answered or his bracelets had a shorter cooldown as they returned to near their typical glowing state around a minute later. Though the slightly dimmer glow worried him.

Just in case, instead of making spikes every couple dozen centimeters, he stretched them to a meter apart to conserve mana.

This proved to be the correct decision because his bracelets went dim once more as he made a spike just within reach of the platform. This time the bracelets were completely dark, signifying they went into a much longer cooldown.

So he had a way down, he linked the last spike into the ambient mana. Then he jumped up toward the platform and pulled himself over the edge.