Chronus held his newly born tower core in his hand, intoxicated by the pitch black sphere. The darkness was so pure it seemed that all light had been swallowed up. It was hard to imagine that such a small object could bring a person such immeasurable power.
Chronus first cleaned up all the traces he had left in this area of the forest. All the materials that were part of the many formations from the current day as well as the previous were sorted out. Those that could be reused were collected and those that couldn't were destroyed. Soon, the area of the giant turtle’s grave was vacated, leaving only Chronus and the vegetation.
He had decided to root his initial tower in this area. The high mana density would be conducive to the growth of his tower and slightly speed up the process. Being in the middle area of the forest also provided the added benefit of being near the core of the forest, where the most valuable resources were but also where the most danger was. Having his tower here provided a fall back in case he ever needed to retreat.
Chronus marked out a spot near the center of the clearing and placed his tower core there.
“Confirm!”
A twisted tree slowly pushed itself out of the ground. At first just a winding stem, it grew and thickened as Chronus watched. Bark-like structures solidified on the body, encasing the wood in an uneven shell. Horrifying faces surfaced as patterns in the bark.
When the height of the tree reached Chronus’ navel, the body of the tree had crawled out of the ground. Knotted roots extended outwards from the base, like the tentacles of a monster. Thin crooked branches split outward from the top of the trunk. Standing under the tree, the branches felt like claws hanging over one’s head. Finally, when sickly purple leaves sparsely filled out the tree’s bald head, a pair of eyes opened from one of the faces trapped in the trunk.
No longer was the modified magewood tree a shell housing an evil spirit, what was standing in front of Chronus was a complete life form.
“Yes, as I expected. The preparations I made were able to synthesize a unique tree demon as the base of my tower,” Chronus muttered.
The grotesque tree in front of him was an existence Chronus had tailored for himself. The magic energy smoothly flowing through the veins of the tree had the nature of witchcraft. Witchcraft was a branch of ancient magic, encompassing many different studies and disciplines. The many fields witchcraft involved itself in included cultivating spirits, biological transformation, curses, and prophecy. It was also the predecessor of parts of death, shadow, and blood magic.
In his previous life, Chronus took the path of a standard mage, his tower born from the complete magic rules of a magic crystal. While he had great success in that endeavor, he knew that it was not the most suitable for him. Every major fight he had taken part in contained magnificent light shows, with flashy meteors and natural disasters announcing to the world where he was and how strong he was.
When he had the chance to choose again, he had decided on witchcraft. While it did not have the explosive hard power of a traditional mage, its insidious and unpredictable methods were hard to guard against and easy to conceal.
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The experiences he had as a traditional mage, while not a hundred percent replicable, could still be easily transferred. After all, as a mage all things could be an inspiration, and all things should be studied. Especially ancient magic like witchcraft, where many aspects are closely related and derivative techniques could be easily adapted from. And the same passion for knowledge would follow him in his new journey, with a new branch of magic.
The tree demon was also partly an alchemy creature. The part occupied by alchemy was smaller than that of witchcraft, but it was still part of the rules of the tower core. From his long experiences as a tower master, he had seen and studied the towers of others many times, be it a collaborator or an enemy. As such, he also knew how useful a secondary set of rules that had auxiliary and productive uses.
The puppets, constructs, and golems of alchemy would all be a great help to a tower master. Other aspects such as potion making and the creation of artifacts were equally important. Alchemy wasn’t the only option for an auxiliary power system. Chronus also considered incorporating rule fragments such as runes, psionics, mutant biology, or even druids.
While these all could complement the main system of witchcraft, he ended up choosing alchemy due to its versatility and compatibility. Just the simple implementation of combining an evil spirit and a puppet shows how integrating an auxiliary rule fragment can be beneficial. Any deeper fusions of the two would require more study from Chronus.
When Chronus had made up his mind as to what the rule fragments he would implement into his new tower, he also had to consider what form the tower would take. That was how the tree demon was conceived.
An important shortcoming of many tower masters when they first start is a lack of mobility. While this is an inherent shortcoming of the profession, there are ways to mitigate it. For example, in Chronus’ previous life he could only move his mage tower when he developed the technique to reduce gravity and make the tower float. Before then, he had to travel great distances away from the tower to gather resources. Later on, making the entire tower shuttle through space was also possible.
While Chronus could repeat the decision to make a stationary tower, it adds a lot of risk to his plans. A tower master away from their tower is a tower master missing a large part of their strength. Since he didn’t plan to take those risks, his unique tree demon was his solution. From the moment it was born, the tower could already move.
Each aspect of the tree demon was carefully considered. Being a tree allows the tower to have a large store of vitality. As a plant, it can passively obtain its energy without needing to hunt for it. The tree being a magewood tree causes it to have a high affinity with magic.
The tree demon would also have many methods of improvement. The spirit of the tree can be cultivated and the body can be modified or improved. It can also be developed according to the methods of a standard tower, by filling the structure with magic formations and arrays. Looking closer, the body of the tree demon was also brimming with life energy inconsistent with its appearance. This was the benefit brought by absorbing the plant painstakingly brought from Earth.
Because the tree was part of the tower, Chronus, as the tower master, had complete control over it. The process of creating the new tower core was not too time consuming, and Chronus had plenty of time to work in it.
The first thing Chronus had to do was to construct a wooden structure around the tree demon. The current tower was too small, and the tree would have to grow for a while longer before he would be able to hollow it out to form a real tower. For now, to make the tower livable, he would have to build a treehouse.
Chronus directed his tower to walk over to the other three magewood trees and uproot them. The tree demon obeyed his directive and leisurely lumbered over. He observed the slowly undulating roots as it wandered across the forest floor. While not perfect, the speed of the tower’s movement was tolerable.
The tree wrapped its roots around one of its siblings and gradually exerted force. The ground bulged as the entire magewood tree was forcibly pulled out by the tower that possessed strength surpassing its size. One by one, the three magewood trees were uprooted and presented before Chronus. He sighed, it was too pleasing having a thug work for him.
Chronus split the magewood trees into planks with his axe and fashioned them into a treehouse that rested on the crown of the tree demon, forming the immature form of his tower for the near future.
By the time the project was completed, it was time to return to the group. Chronus left the forest, wondering how they would react to Charlene’s accident.