8 Shota VS Tree

I found two paths, both of which have their good sides and their bad sides. The first is this rock path, I can hop across the rocks that are sticking out in the river to make it across. I don't want to take this path, I could easily slip trying to jump across. If I hit my head while I am falling, then I deserve to win a Darwin Award for my contribution to humanity.

The second path is one I have to create myself, and it's the one I consider to be the safest. One day while searching, I found this tall tree near the river bank. What is so special about this tall tree? Well, if I cut this tree correctly and make it collapse in the right direction, I have a makeshift bridge. The problem I have right now is that I have to fell a tree with the only tool available to me, my survival knife.

Boy, this is going to be rough, but it is not impossible. If beavers can fell trees with their teeth, then I can cut a tree down with a knife. Nothing is going to stop me from making new friends. The worst thing that can happen to me is my knife breaking while I attempt to cut down this tree.

Alright, no time to waste, I need to get this done as soon as possible. It's a good thing I have enough food stored and I don't need to use all of my time hunting. I can focus on completing this task as safely as possible.

---------------------

I remember seeing someone on TV cutting down a tree using a knife and some sort of baton. If I remember correctly, that baton was used to strike the back of the knife's blade to force the edge deeper into the tree trunk. I need to be careful not to strike too hard, I could break the knife or I could get it stuck in the tree.

My personal skill will help out a lot in this endeavor, creating that skill was the greatest achievement I have made during my training. Sorcery Blade, a skill that allows me to add 30 percent of my magic stat to my strength when attacking a target with my weapon. Sadly, I can't add my physical strength to my spells to make them stronger. However, that doesn't change how amazing my personal skill is.

In the future, when I improve my strength and magic stat, I'll be a force to be reckoned with. Right now, when my skill activates I have 7 strength when attacking. I asked my master how much that would be, and he gave me a rough estimate of how strong that is. He told me that 6 strength is the average strength of an adult female, and 8 is the strength of the average adult male. I am a goddamn beast at the tender age of 5 with my personal skill activated.

I don't have enough magic in me to make Sorcery Blade a passive skill yet, so I have to manually channel the magic through my weapon. Hopefully, the knife my master gave me is made up of a metal that is a good conductor of magic. If it is, I don't have to waste magic and I can spend a longer amount of time working with my enhanced strength.

Alright, let's see how long this will take. I remember my master telling me if I want to cut down a tree, I always need to start by cutting at an angle of 45-degrees going downwards. Not sure why a legendary mage knows about proper tree cutting procedures, but at this very moment, it is a lifesaver.

I channel the magic through my knife and try pushing my knife into the tree trunk at a 45-degree angle downwards. I am not getting through at all, but at the very least I have a proper tree cutting form.

I get the tree branch I prepared beforehand to use a baton, and I begin to channel my magic through the baton. I line up my baton to hit the edge of my knife, I pull back my right arm and strike the knife with the baton. Fuck! This tree is very strong, doing that hurt a lot. I may have the striking power of an adult, but I don't have the durability of one. I felt the force of my strike coming back at me, I wasn't expecting to feel that.

Oh, this is going to be a bigger pain in the ass than I originally thought. I'm barely making a dent in this tree, the magic environment has made it even stronger. I can do this, a measly tree won't defeat me. I just need the willpower to push through the pain, okay, I got this

---------------------

Alright, that was even worse than I thought, my arms feel pretty numb right now. I made progress. I think I did, I managed to cut about 3 cm downwards into the tree trunk, and I also managed to cut at an upward angle 3 cm in. I took out a pretty good V-shaped chunk out of the tree, I decided to imitate the beaver's style of woodcutting. So it is going to take a lot of time to cut around the tree.

I wasted about 75 percent of my magic reserves, and it took me about 8 hours to make that progress. So that means I have about 3 hours until the sun sets if I did my math correctly. I only have enough magic left for one attack spell, so I did not pace myself as well as I wanted. I have to repeat this process around the entire circumference of the tree. Why can't things in my life be easy for me?

---------------- Day 2:

Despite the extreme exertion, I put my body through, I don't feel any soreness in my arms. Sure I feel some residual pain from yesterday, but it is an amount I can work through. Enough monologuing time to get back to work. I need to make the cut wider and deeper, it should be a bit easier now that I have an opening to work with.

--------------------Day 3:

Yesterday I made the V-shaped chunk wider, and now that I have space to work with, I plan to cut deeper into the tree. I wish I had an axe, it is going to take a long time to whittle this tree down with a knife. The plan I have in mind requires me to cut a V-shaped chunk out of the tree until I have a ring. At the rate I am working, it will take me about 3 more days to cut about halfway around the tree. if things go right I only need another 5 more days before I am done with this project.

---------Day 4:

It occurred to me that I need to increase the height of the cut to make toppling the tree easier later on. So I need to work on making the chunk missing a lot bigger, this will slow down my progress by a lot. I have to focus on maintaining the correct downward and upward angle, it is a good thing I caught this early on.

~Imbecile~

What the hell? I look back and I see the rock where I placed Clara on. Did Clara just speak to me? Nah, it must have the wind blowing through the gaps. Skulls can't speak, much less address you and have a proper conversation.

-------------Day 7:

"Fuck you, Clara! I told you I could cut halfway around the trunk in the next 3 days! You doubted my strength and my skill, but most importantly you doubted my ability to learn and improve! I will cut this tree down with or without your support! So just keep taunting me, I'll always be here to prove you wrong!"

-----------Day 11:

~For someone who prides himself on having the willpower to do anything, you don't seem to have a lot of confidence in yourself. ~

"What do you mean by that?"

~If you were truly confident you should have hopped across the rock path. After all, you have told me before that you have the strength and the skill to implement your plans. Most importantly you claim to always grow from your 'experiences'. So why didn't you train yourself into controlling your leaps, and improving your way of landing?~

"Shut up, I took the path that offered the most safety and highest rate of success."

~Oh, so you are just a coward then. It makes sense, after all, people like you often boast and always take the easy way out. Never having the guts to take risks or the hardest path available, those types of people will never amount to anything by letting fear rule over them.~

"Hey! If anything, I am taking the hardest path available and I am enduring the pain while doing so. A coward wouldn't put himself into a position where he has to feel constant pain and agony."

So you are just an imbecile who can't admit when he is wrong. Or a masochistic who gets off on this sort of thing.

"Neither one. I'm putting you back into the void, you are being very annoying."

~Do it. I know that you will always come back crawling to me. You can't hide your crippling loneliness from me.~

Now that she is back in my inventory, I can focus on finishing the work for today. I already have the ring shape done, all I need to do is cut deeper. Soon the tree will be weak enough to push down and create my bridge.

————Day 13

I think the tree is finally ready. If I can exert enough force to push it down, then my bridge will be completed. I can finally start my friendship journey.

I kind of want to cry. I won't, Clara will bully me for weeks when she finds out. She always seems to know when I show weakness. Alright time to hit it with a spell. I pour all of the magic I have in me into this one attack.

'Strike'

My spell connects, and I thank god for the tree falling in the right direction. If it fell in the wrong direction, I would probably go on a rampage slaughtering as many animals as I can. Today is the day I have vanquished my strongest opponent in my journey thus far.

===

Morgan wins.

avataravatar
Next chapter