3 Shelter and the forest of *******.

Activating his magic eyes, a now subconscious action when he wants to focus on something, he observed his surroundings.

The first thing that came to his mind was to find some sort of cave so that he can isolate his body from the elements such as the wind.

On second thought though, imagining about the chance of there being any wild animals like bears in there, he shivered.

Even though he could use that newfound ability of his, the magic ball, what good would it do if he could barely move after casting it?

He thought that there must be more to mana than his crude usage but the time he spent was too little, and with the sky darkening without stop, he couldn't help but feel his spirit waver a bit.

Ridding himself from that thought process, he focused once more, unbeknownst to him, his dark brown eyes glowing with a little deeper shade of blue, he said in almost casual, yet determined voice:

"Since I'm too pressed by time to find a use for my powers to secure a shelter, I'll make one!"

Looking a bit further from the current apple tree, just in case that some animal gets attracted to it, towards the north, he saw what one would call a baby tree next to another one that looked like 2 barks grown, leaving a gap-like hole that extended up to point of 4 meters where the tree then split into 2 directions.

Seeing the baby tree next to the mutated one, he got an idea.

Grabbing the biggest twig he found on the baby tree, with a grunt, he broke it.

Grabbing that twig, he also broke a couple of smaller ones.

Placing the big one on a 40-degree angle between the 2 barks, leaning against the tree, he also placed the other smaller ones along the length of the smaller branch.

He then grabbed some fallen leaves and various foliage such as twigs with leaves on them and he placed them along the structure of the amateurish construct.

The result being, a shut-in type of shelter leaning against the barks covered in greenery that made it mostly wind resistant.

Entering his new shelter, he marveled at how suddenly this idea came to him; He never did something similar, at most, the closest thing he'd done to camping was when he set up tents in his mandatory service in the army.

And they didn't teach him anything similar there, the only thing he learned was how to set up a tent with tools such as hammers and the like, never something so improvised.

In the end, he let that thought process slip, attributing it to the changes made over his body.

Peeking through the now dark forest, to his great surprise, everything was different; The previous leafy sky now looked eerie and pale under the moonlight, a well-woven structure reminiscent of a spider-web.

The swaying branches looked like ghostly limbs that swept and grabbed at the void like an eldrich apparition trying to fish for pray.

The only source of light beside the eerie moonlight was much to his amazement, the previous Apple tree.

The bark that looked tested by the wears of time itself had a soft brown glow to it, followed by a gentle light green display of lights that were previously its leaves.

The somewhat exotic apples now had a crimson star-like quality to them with a reflective golden tint them, making them look like Christmas lights.

He was so distracted by the sight that he didn't notice the various shadow figures that jumped around the faraway trees, sometimes running on the ground.

When he finally caught sight of one of them prancing around, he focused on it and the shadows surrounding it parted to his vision, revealing a tiger-like creature with jet-black fur, crimson eyes and sharp teeth that would put the sharpest of knives to shame.

He yet again focused on the fog surrounding, forgetting to even feel fear at the consequences of any of those shadows approaching him, rather, his concentration towards that fog made him feel like it was similar to his own mana, but more impure, evil even.

That creature pounced on what looked like a rabbit but with similar black fur and crimson eyes.

That rabbit had 2 sharp teeth protruding from its front mouth that looked like daggers,

On its feet, its claws were like thick, long, sharp needles.

When the tiger was about to reach the rabbit, it suddenly disappeared, leaving behind a small cloud of smoke, making him open his eyes wide on the weird sight.

Seemingly ignorant of how weird that sight was, the tiger just released a low growl, casting a glance towards the shining apple tree and turned away.

Taking a moment to contemplate what just happened and imagining that all those shadowy figures may have similar qualities, he got a chill down his spine and shivered.

'If in the worst-case scenario I get forced to use my mana ball move, will these creatures disappear like that rabbit?'

Bent on avoiding the creatures, he calmed himself down and made up his mind on observing how they behave in order to survive

That was when he noticed that the shadow creatures avoid the beacon of light that was the apple tree, even the black fog itself steered clear as-well like there was a protective dome surrounding the tree.

His makeshift shelter was within the range of that force field but he didn't relax completely even when he was left exhausted by everything he had to face on this weird forest.

He stayed on guard for what seemed like an hour and a half, observing the shadows and the actions they took, registering their behavior patterns and actions.

While in that state of focus he didn't realize that every figure was extremely quick or how he even managed to follow them with his untrained eyes.

What he also didn't realize was that his eyes shone an intense blue light that held alternating matrixes within, changing shapes without stop.

When he broke out of his trance and thought of how he was analyzing them, he was hit by a sudden wave of exhaustion, his own body felt weak and his eyelids felt heavy, out of his control he fainted in that exhaustion.

On a branch upon the apple tree, much to our protagonist's dismay, was a crimson red small bird that looked like it had taken a bath in flames, with delicate small wings, beady deep orange eyes and a small black beak, it caused the viewer to want to want to protect and hug the little bird, to those unaware of its true nature, that is.

That small bird muttered in a small voice that sounded childish but with a girl-ish tune to it:

"A human in the forest of shadows, near the sage tree nonetheless? Somewhat interesting."

Sitting in silence, that little bird then said with its girly voice, with a tint of mild excitement and complaint: "Stupid dad! you won't let me go out on adventures on my own, saying that vermilion birds will be chased by powerful warriors, what powerful! I can get rid of them just by spitting on them! That's it, I'm following that boy, its bound to be more interesting."

And so the night went by without any incidents, with the sun rising, announcing the new day, full of promises filled with excitement and the encounters to come.

Thanks for reading!