Chapter Twenty-Two
Arden sat while watching the backlash mana strand dissipate to nothing. The moment it broke apart, his headache vanished, proving it was the cause.
Still, despite recovering, he held off experimenting further. He knew it was possible that was good enough for him for now. It would be incredibly stupid to push himself further into hostile territory.
In fact, his brief experiment was a dumb decision, but one thing he learned since entering the forest dungeon was, he needed to follow inspiration. Inspiration brought higher level cards and more versatility in his arsenal.
He glanced down at his flashing bracelets. With that thought, his Ortus menu opened, allowing him to see the flashing Wood Manipulation card.
Wood Manipulation (Rare) Level 4
Type: Manipulation
Affinity: Nature
Attunement: Wood
Effect 1: Use mana to manipulate 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.
Effect 4: While in physical contact, the user may use their mind to shape wood.
As he expected, the effect would be. He was surprised there wasn’t a warning about how easy it was to cause backlash. Or maybe he wasn’t meant to reach such a high level on the card so soon. He wasn’t even grade one after all. It couldn’t be healthy to push card levels like he was.
Or maybe it was good. If only his parents answered his questions about how cards leveled. The mechanics behind how to level cards couldn’t have messed things up, but he didn’t know enough to say either way.
Curious, he closed his Ortus menu and delved inward. A glance at his mana core told him two attunements dominated the others. A deep forest green warred with the dark green of poison, with a light green taking third place. He wasn’t sure he could find enough cards to balance out three different Attunements but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try.
Unlike his mana core, the tether had one attunement dominating others. The other green shades appeared mostly even, but the dark green strands overshadowed them all, taking up almost a third of the entire tether. He definitely needed to fix the imbalance, but there wasn’t much he could do about it at the moment.
Done with his internal investigations, he returned to the outside world. Before taking a step, he checked his bracelets, ensuring they were glowing at their normal radiance in case he needed to draw upon his magic.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bent arrow prompting him to straighten it with a quick application of Wood Manipulation. This time, physically manipulating the arrow, not wanting to backlash himself again. He couldn’t risk wasting any more time.
Once satisfied with its straightness, he slid it back into the quiver, making a mental note of where it was in case he needed a poisoned arrow.
Fortunately, the poison seemed to persist on its tip. In fact, it actually integrated with the wood. When he manipulated the wood, it must have fused the poison.
Did that mean he could reuse the poisoned arrow multiple times? Something to test on his next target.
Arden peered down the tree, a relieved sigh escaping him upon finding his improvised ladder of wood spikes remained.
At the thought of his assent, a certain snake came to mind, causing him to stare down at the colorful clearing below, looking for said snake.
A shiver ran through him as parallels to the trial displayed themselves. He almost didn’t want to climb down, but he knew he had to. Besides, from his vantage point, he could feel the ambient mana, and nothing stood out as extremely poisonous. There was a tinge of poison attuned mana, but it wasn’t the pure poison mana from the torturous trial.
Just before he withdrew his senses to climb down, he felt an extra potent aura somewhere below. Was that the snake? No, if the snake radiated an aura that strong, he wouldn’t have trouble spotting it.
He grabbed his bow and nocked an arrow as he scanned the clearing below with both his eyes and his mana sense, ears twitching to pick up any movement as well.
It only took him a moment to spot his target. Coiled in a colorful bush was a snake dwarfing his stalker, though from its dark green coloring that had to be related. Maybe an adult version.
At that thought, he drew back the arrow as slow as he could, trying to minimize the creaking of the wood as he lined up the arrow with the snake’s head near the size of his own head.
As he released a breath, he let go of the string, propelling the arrow forward with a crack of the bowstring.
Either sensing the incoming projectile or hearing the bow, the snake jerked, causing the arrow to impact its thicker body beyond its head.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
A hiss of pain, audible even from his vantage point, reached his ears as the snake lifted its body, revealing just how massive it was. Even with most of its body coiled defensively around the bush, it still reached a meter in the air.
Without hesitation, he launched another arrow, this time scoring a hit on its left eye as it struggled to pinpoint the source of its pain.
Just as the snake jerked back, he released the third arrow, striking its left flank taking advantage of its blind spot.
Still, despite the three hits, the snake soon recovered and tilted its head, bringing its right eye into view of his sniper nest.
An enraged hiss escaped the snake, but for some reason it refused to approach the central trees of the clearing.
Unfortunately, now that it knew where he was, the next couple of arrows failed to reach its target, with the snake deftly dodging each one.
A standoff ensued, as neither party could harm the other. There was no way he would descend to the ground, but his only ranged weapon was his bow. Even if he could hit the snake with more arrows, it seemed barely affected by the three arrows still sticking out of its body.
Not even the arrow that pierced its left eye inconvenienced the snake enough to leave an opening. He knew because he tried several more arrows aimed toward the left of its body, but the snake always kept its right eye trained on him, covering its blind spot.
What other options did he have? He only had six arrows left, including the poisoned one. His hand gravitated toward the poisoned arrow, but he shook his head. Even if he could score a hit, some itching wouldn’t take down the snake. He needed something more powerful than that.
That thought sparked an idea. He retreated several steps and sat down to hide himself from the snake as he activated his Lurking Heart Attack card. Potentially his deadliest card. A wave of weakness hit him the moment he did, but within seconds, he had a drop of poison in his palm.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t enact his plan right away because of his dim bracelets.
Not wanting to give away his plan, which slowly formed in his mind, he remained out of sight while meditating as his bracelets came off cooldown.
With deep, steadying breaths, he let his senses spread wide, taking in the world around him, most of his focus remaining locked on the potent aura below him.
Several other auras came to his attention on the outer reaches of his range, which he noted was longer than his previous record. Not a huge jump, but enough to be noticeable. Fortunately, none of the other auras he sensed appeared focused on him, nor were they particularly strong.
Still, that didn’t mean they couldn’t pose a threat if he let his guard down. Anything in the forest could kill him if he wasn’t careful.
Maybe one day he could travel without fear, but that day was a long way away.
Before he could dwell on his weakness any further, he felt his bracelets come off cooldown. His expression hardened as he grabbed an arrow and activated his Wood Manipulation.
This time, he paid close attention as he applied the poison, deforming the tip as the arrow was putty in his hands. His eyes widened as he watched the poison seep into the wood, not like water would but actually fusing with the wood.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his bracelets flashing, but he ignored them as he continued to watch the poison change the wood. Not only did it apply poison to the tip, the poison spread along the entire arrow, but despite its spreading, it didn’t seem to lose its potency.
Within a few seconds, the arrow gained a greenish tint to its light tan wood as the poison completed its integration. When nothing else happened, he tore his eyes away from the arrow and focused on his bracelets.
Wood Manipulation (Rare) Level 5
Type: Manipulation
Affinity: Nature
Attunement: Wood
Effect 1: Use mana to manipulate 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.
Effect 4: While in physical contact, user may use their mind to shape wood.
Effect 5: With Wood Manipulation, the user may add compatible substances to the wood to give it additional effects.
Already level five? This card seemed really easy to level, or maybe he had a great affinity with it. Whatever the case, he wouldn’t pass up on more versatility.
An idea popped into his head, prompting him to grab another arrow while reactivating Wood Manipulation. Like how he created his bow, he twisted the two arrows together, hoping to create a larger poisoned arrow, but no matter how much he twisted, they refused to fuse.
With a sigh, he unraveled the two arrows, then used his knife to help straighten them. It was almost effortless to return them to an arrow form. Easy to an unnatural degree. The card must give him support.
Maybe he could mentally manipulate wood now, not that he would risk trying with a snake large enough to eat him whole nearby. Just because the snake appeared to be hesitant to approach, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t change.
No, he needed to take down the snake before he tried anymore experiments. He still had a long way to go to complete his legacy quest with a limited time to do so. Even without the snake, he couldn’t afford to incapacitate himself for a long period.
Arden nocked the Creeping Itch poisoned arrow in his bow, then approached the edge and looked down at the snake. A frown formed when he noticed a lack of arrows sticking out of the snake. It still missed its left eye, but no blood or wounds from the other arrows remained.
That didn’t stop him from implementing his plan. He dropped to one knee with the Lurking Heart Attack arrow within easy reach as he pulled the bow back and aimed the Creeping Itch arrow at the snake.
The moment he released the arrow aimed at the snake’s left side, he grabbed the other arrow and pulled it back. He paused for a moment to watch how the snake reacted before releasing the second arrow.
His guess proved correct as the snake jerked extra quick to dodge the first poisoned arrow as if sensing it differed from the previous arrow. However, all that did was bring it in line with the second arrow.
Even surprised, the snake tilted its head out of the trajectory of the arrow, but that didn’t matter, as the arrow still sunk into its right flank.
At first, there was no reaction as the poison spread, or at least he hoped the poison spread. With growing worry, he watched the snake expel the arrow and turn a hateful one eyed glare at him.
Suddenly the snake froze, then dropped limp on the bush, It coiled around, crushing it.
Still, despite the snake’s glassy eye, he remained on guard, as it didn’t disperse into particles like his previous kills.
Several moments passed before the snake began moving again, though sluggishly.
In a panic, Arden released several more arrows, leaving only one arrow in his quiver. Each arrow scored a hit on the defenseless snake, one piercing its right eye while the other two sunk into its scaly body just behind its head.
The snake stilled once more, but before he could celebrate, horror built as the snake morphed. A humanoid top replaced where it’s snake head once resided. Scales still covered the feminine body, providing a bit of modesty.
Not that anyone would mistake the being for anything other than what it was, a Lamia. A race he only saw mentioned a few times in the books of myth alongside the fairies.
Two slitted pupil eyes opened and glared up at him perfectly healed along with any other injury he inflicted, only spiking his fear further.
He took an unconscious step back, causing a vicious smile to form on the being’s scaly face.