Murderous Tree

The Ironbark tree was on its last legs. The days of hard work by more than one hundred new recruits were showing its effects. The thick trunk had a massive chunk taken out of it and the wood was releasing dangerous creaks as it moved in the wind.

It was too dangerous to do manual work, so they stood a safe away from the tree, and hacked off the last parts with blades made of Elemental magic.

Wind, Water, and Stone Blades were all slicing pieces off the tree as they were manipulated by their casters.

However, they were but normal kids with average Mana stores, so each of them could do 5-10 weak spells that equaled a few full-power strikes with an axe. After that, they had to rest for hours and let Mana recharge on its own. It was a slow process, but there was always someone working and making progress.

Gerald refrained from exposing his abilities and attacking the tree with hundreds of Wind Blades, instead, he occupied the low end of the magic-casting ability with just five spells every five hours or so.

That day was supposed to be it. It was the 8th day since they came here, and the tree was coming down. The hunter group was somewhat successful, managing to catch two small deer-like snacks and a medium-sized wild boar. It was enough food for a humble feast, which was exactly what they were preparing to do.

Five guys worked on the tree trunk when a slightly stronger gust of wind pushed it to one side, and the weakened wood finally couldn't take it anymore. It creaked and cracked, the sounds coming off loud and sharp as the Ironwood tree leaned over and as if in slow motion, snapped at the base, and fell down.

It couldn't have taken more than 30 seconds for all of it to be over as the mass of the giant tree trunk smashed into nearby branches of other Ironbarks, shattering them utterly and sending sharp shards flying in all directions.

The flat forest surface deformed as the tree finally dropped to the ground, breaking rock and throwing various pieces of stone and soil all over the place.

Luckily they weren't on an incline, so once the tree fell, it just remained there and didn't go on a rolling rampage.

"Damn… That was dangerous." Alyx, hiding behind a dirt mound elbowed Gerald beside him. "Look at the size of that thing, it's huge! How are we going to break it apart?"

Indeed, apart from some places that had the tough bark removed during the fall, most of the tree was still covered. That made it exceedingly difficult to properly extract wood and turn it into planks.

[We'll probably have to use our brains a bit. Maybe we can mimic the termites and take it apart from the inside?]

"I guess that's an idea… It's going to be difficult though. Even if the wood is softer than the bark, it's still pretty hard to cut thorough."

As they were chatting they heard screams coming from the opposite side of the camp, as well as calls for help.

Alyx, having had quite a bit of experience in helping others, quickly ran to see what was going on.

As it turned out, the tree falling didn't go without incidents. One of the kids stayed too close to the danger zone and was smashed by a falling branch. He was dead instantly.

Another was struck in the head by a flying stone and was bleeding terribly, his current state unknown. There were also a few that got struck by other debris, most of them suffering only a few scratches or bruises, but there was one that had a big piece of wood sticking out of his leg.

He was fully conscious and currently crying in pain.

Alyx and a few others that knew medicine quickly came to help, however with no tools at their disposal, it was difficult to do much. The giant splinter was in there quite deep, and if they carelessly removed it, the guy might just bleed out.

That's exactly what had happened to the other guy that was hit by a rock. Despite their best attempts, they couldn't wake him up, and even as they stopped his bleeding with rudimentary healing magic, his heartbeat went lower and lower, until it completely ceased a few minutes later.

Of the 138 original recruits, five were already dead, and it has barely been a week! If things continued like this, in a year there would be nobody left.

The atmosphere in the camp turned somber. The big splinter guy was eventually taken care of. The lucky man had the sharp piece of wood just narrowly miss his artery, allowing him to survive, though the agonizing pain still remained and would so for weeks to come.

***

The feast was postponed for the next day, unfortunately. I was looking forward to stuffing myself full of meat, but I understood that would be rude. Two of our new comrades just died, and another one was missing. Well, the rest thought he was missing, but I knew exactly where he was. Under the trunk.

I had no idea what the hell he was thinking to be standing there when everybody knew the Ironbark was coming down, but it was too late for him. Pancakes couldn't be revived.

So, yeah… We lost three people again, all of them men.

It was interesting how 3/5 were originally boys and only 2/5 were girls. I wondered why that was. Were there any differences in talent between the sexes or was it just randomly like that? Something to keep in mind for later.

Well, at least one good thing came out of this tragedy. The tree falling revealed many stones around the place of impact, and many good-sized pieces were broken off the bedrock that we could use for construction. Now that they weren't a part of the Formation anymore, magic worked on them, finally.

I decided to take a few of them and begin building the foundation of my house somewhere around that place. I decided to try and be more of a social person this time, though I couldn't make any promises. While it was nice to chat with people once in a while, constantly being bombarded by shouts and screams from a big group was not exactly my cup of tea.

That was because I didn't drink tea. Perhaps a glass of wine? Or a mug of cold beer? That would work.

I wondered if the Sect has any good drinks… Did Cultivators even drink alcohol? Another question to keep in mind.

***

Gerald went to work after a meal. He rolled up his sleeves and began digging a shallow hole that would serve as the foundation. The rectangular space was dug into the side of a small cliff from which he removed dirt and small rocks to get a flat wall.

As he was grinding down a few sharp rocks sticking out, he used the stones and gravel to cover the bottom of the foundation like a jigsaw puzzle. The small spaces between the stones were filled with dust and sand, or with clay that was everywhere.

Telekinesis also helped him transport the stones from his quarry, so by the end of the day, the foundation was already finished. Well, at least the basic part. He still wanted to merge everything together, but the only binder he knew how to make was wood ash concrete.

He needed a lot of it for his house, and making it would take time. Luckily, they had plenty of wood scraps from the fallen Ironbark and ashes from a communal bonfire he could use. And the shavings and discarded waste that were bound to be created in the following days and weeks would serve well to help him realize his idea.