Spinning Blades

Gerald awoke the following day, accompanied by the all too familiar, and similarly unwanted headache. He opened his eyes slowly, letting them adjust to the first light of day. That allowed him to notice his position on the ground, laying beside a familiar face.

[I seriously hope this is not going to become a routine...]

"Oh, you are awake?" Alyx Bell answered with a smile and continued with his breakfast. The young lad appeared to have quite the appetite.

[You took care of me again? Thanks.]

The boy shook his head. "Don't worry about it. My mother taught me how to offer aid, and Senior Disciple Ba Lin gave me a task to guard you until you wake up." He licked his bowl clean and jumped up.

"So now I guess my job's done!" He then laughed and ran to get another portion to start the day right.

Gerald groaned and rolled on his stomach before pushing off the ground and standing up. His head was spinning a bit, but nothing he couldn't manage.

He closed his eyes and focused his mind inward, examining his Soul. It was in a bad state, all tattered and raw, but nothing he didn't experience before. In fact, it was already healing. A bit of a shock that it was happening so fast, but a welcome surprise nonetheless. A few more days of rest and he would be back in business.

He performed a few basic stretches and then went to eat as well. Some jerky, a bit of lard, and some eggs of an unknown bird were all he had for breakfast. The resurrection has left him weak, and he was in urgent need of good sustenance to put some meat on those bones.

After the meal, he approached the tree designated to be brought down and considered its state. Its diameter was easily five meters, and the bark barely had the marks of being chewed on by saws and axes. He wondered if they had even started working on it already.

Gerald grabbed an axe that was laying beside the massive tree, took a step closer, and gave it a good swing. The metal collided with wood, giving out a good thwack, and immediately got lodged in the thick bark.

Gerald's eyebrow rose as he had to put considerable strength into getting the tree to release his tool. He swing again, this time harder. It was the same result, perhaps marginally better, only this time the axe got stuck even harder.

He repeated the same action a few times just to confirm he wasn't dreaming, and after took a few steps back, looking at the tree.

"Ironbark tree, that's what Senior Ba Lin called it." His temporary nurse, Alyx Bell came while eating a sandwich and explained in between his bites. "He said we should bring it down in a week if we all wish to enter."

[Yeah… That's… not going to happen.] Gerald was quite confident in his statement. It would probably take a week just to chew through a meter of this insanely dense bark. Perhaps a chisel would work better than an axe in this case.

"We won't know until we try!"

[Hmm… I'll try to find some stone.] Gerald noticed the eyes of the other recruits that were watching him warily. It seemed they were unwilling to approach the tree while he was there, for whatever reason. But that was fine, he was done with it anyway.

He picked up the pickaxe, threw it over his shoulder, and marched off in a random direction, in search of exposed rock for his house.

The forest stretched out infinitely in every direction, the massive trees blocking out the sun, and the undergrowth blocking his line of sight. He felt like a tiny mouse in the land of giants, surrounded by the smell of fresh soil and nature, away from civilization, alone.

He stopped after having strayed away from the path for a while. The sounds of people have long since disappeared in the distance, and now only the chirping of birds and calls of wild animals remained.

A small rocky outcrop poked through the black forest soil, the gray stone cracked in many places due to countless eons of exposure to the elements. Gerald brought his pickaxe close, lifted it up with one hand, and gave it a half-hearted swing.

The metal sang as it collided with the stone and bounced off, returning the vibrations back through the handle into his hand. He grunted a bit and then gripped the handle with both hands, giving it a proper swing this time. The metal spike struck hard and true at the stone, and yet it bounced back with minimal damage.

Gerald struck again, using his full power and aiming at a crack already in the rocky face. This time a small chunk was chipped off, barely worth being called a pebble. He examined the damage, determining it to be minimal, and sighed. This was going to be a long month.

***

661! Come on!

662! Break!

663! Full power!

664! Just one more!

665…

Enough! I couldn't do a single one anymore. I collapsed to the ground. Beside me, a few uneven pieces of broken-off gray rock. Hundreds of full-power strikes with the pickaxe and what did I have to show for it? Not much, that's for sure.

This stone was damn hard, let me tell you! I tried using magic on it a few times since then, just to be 100% sure. It rejected my advances every time and crushed my spirit. Perhaps if I could get a long metal rod I could try to pry off a few pieces, but we didn't get one. And I got no idea where I could get iron to make it, so…

I wondered if melting down tools given to us by the Sect was allowed? I would guess not. Better not test my luck anymore. And relying on luck was a bad strategy anyway. Besides, I already knew how that usually ended.

No, this had to be another test, I just didn't know which one. What were they looking for? Persistence? It was possible. Cultivation was supposed to take long years to achieve any significant results, so those that gave up easily weren't going to achieve much. It was better to weed them out at the beginning.

Well, if that was the case, I dared to say there was no person more stubborn than me! Rock was harder than wood? Oh, really? Then I guess I'm going to make a mansion out of it, just wait!

Not now, of course. I tried to meditate for a bit and see if I couldn't get my Soul patched up sooner.

***

The days merged together as the group of new recruits worked tirelessly to bring down a single Ironbark tree. Dozens of people worked at it at the same time, slowly chipping off pieces of the impossibly tough bark to expose the wood underneath.

Meanwhile, Gerald spent most of his time just meditating and recovering his Soul. There was no point in trying to crack the rock manually as it was clear that was not the point of the exercise.

Over the days he became more convinced that the final test was about persistence, as well as working together. A community of new recruits. No one man could bring down a tree of such size on his own, nor could he build a house out of stone in less than a month. It was simply impossible.

So he didn't even bother. Not yet at least.

Whatever concerns the young ones might have had against Gerald at first seemed to diminish as time went on. Perhaps the fact that he nearly died on the first day freaked out some of them, considering him a harbinger of bad luck.

But when they needed every pair of hands to help break through the tree bark, such discrimination was quickly forgotten, and he was invited to join them. Even if he considered it a largely useless endeavor. A job had to be done, and he did his part without complaining.

And today was the day. The day when he felt well enough to attempt using magic to build. Only this time his plan was to use it sparingly and also not directly on the stone.

"What'cha thinking about?" Alyx Bell asked as he sat down beside him.

Gerald considered the question. [Do you think it's really possible to build enough homes for all of us in a month?]

"It must be, Senior Disciple said so."

[Hmm…]

"Today we should finally break through the bark! Perhaps the wood underneath is softer?" Alyx Bell wondered out loud as he got himself something to eat. The provisions were quickly dwindling with the group of hungry teenagers around.

[You are probably right. That's the only way to finish it on time.]

They chatted while eating a hearty breakfast, what was left of it anyway, and then went back to work. Alyx was on the Ironbark tree duty while Gerald went to work on his secret spot with the exposed grey rock.

After a short walk, he came back to his place. He cracked his knuckles in preparation for arduous work, and then made a swirling motion with his fingers.

Immediately some water condensed out of thin air and he drank it greedily, quenching his thirst. Then, spreading his magic wide, he extracted even more liquid out of the air and mixed it with the stone dust on the ground.

What followed was an expertly manipulated stream that was shaped and held in place with Telekinesis, forming a cutting jet of water with fine stone particles being suspended in it. He brought his creation close to the stone while holding it stable, and began cutting.

Millimeter by millimeter the stone was shaved off, disappearing under the eternally-replenishing stream of water. If he couldn't directly manipulate the stone, Gerald still had other ways to make it yield. Where there was a will, there was a way, and a jet cutter worked like a charm.

The only problem was that holding this thing stable was a fucking nightmare! Such precision at such high speeds and pressures was no joke, and he couldn't hold it up for long.

Just a few short minutes later, Gerald already had to stop as he panted deeply, with sweat dripping off his brow. His body was not yet used to all that Mana flowing through him after his resurrection, and the pressure on his Soul was also nothing to laugh about.

He managed to cut a nice block of stone in this short amount of time, however, it was just that. One. He would need a few hundred more for a single house, and it didn't seem like a viable option if he had to take a long rest every time.

As he meditated to recover, he was also musing over solutions that would make breaking the stone simpler. He looked at the pieces he had already extracted and manipulated them with Telekinesis as he wished. He spun them around in the air, admiring their precise angular shapes when he got an idea.

The land was only resistant to his magic when it was a part of the formation, right? And now that he had a few chunks and could do with them whatever he wanted…

[Hmm…]

He stroked his nonexistent beard out of habit and focused his mind. The stone before him cracked, splitting according to his will and forming a thin layer of solid rock, like a piece of paper. The stone then cracked further, precisely as he desired, forming a circle. Then it started to spin.

[A circular saw…]

He observed his creation for any imperfections. There were many. However, he felt like making a spinning blade was something he already needed once before, but he couldn't remember why, or where.

His memories of the Before were a bit blurry. Not of the Earth or the time before that, but the nearly a year he already spent in this world. It was like someone took a metal brush and went over his mind with it, scratching and rubbing out pieces of his memories.

The reason he knew it was the same world, was because of the two moons in the sky. Despite going through with unwanted teleportation before his death, the two celestial objects remained the same.

But, considering how good his memories usually were, it was… uncomfortable to think about. The blurry memories were painful to remember. So he didn't. He pushed them to the back of his mind, and instead tested his stone blade on the rock beneath his feet.

It worked well, the blade spun with speed and precision, being held in place by powerful magic. However, as the original piece of rock was not made with a blade saw in mind, the blade was rapidly consumed and ground to dust before even carving out his first block. The circumference was also too small for his needs, though it cut pretty well, and the strain on his mind was minimal as well.

Gerald made a few iterations over time, each slightly better than the last. He wished he could just create diamond-tipped blades out of pure carbon, but the pressures required for that were something he wasn't quite yet able to achieve.

[Soon… Soon I'll be able to cut. And you, damn Formation, will not be able to stop me!]

The blades of stone whirled to life, and the sounds of grinding rock soon reverberated through the forest.