By the look of it, we were about four to five kilometers from the woods. Should be a nice stroll. During the walk, I kept thunderdome running as well as throwing out thunderballs. We stopped about halfway from the woods as I had run out of mana. Sitting down and just meditating (the shit speeds up the crystal to absorb mana). While waiting I just kept playing with the thunderball and I was able to compress it to the size of a basketball. I also noticed that thanks to the mana in my body, I have toned up quite a bit. Not the size of a bodybuilder, but you can tell if I punch you, it will break your bones.
Not all magicians are fit. Its all based on the amount of mana your crystal pulls into your body and how much your body can hold. I have picked up over twenty crystals so far. All of them have been apprentice size crystals. There is a small difference between sublevels of the crystals but not enough to care at this low level. Not for me anyways. It took me about 10 minutes to fully recharge while playing with the thunderball. This is a lot faster than what was told in school. Most prodigy magicians at my level take about 30 to 40 minutes to recharge their mana. This can go up or down based on the magician’s abilities in the future.
I got up and we headed off to the woods. Once we got closer, I stopped about 50 meters away from the line of trees. I wanted to recharge before entering, just in case something nasty was waiting for me. Everything has been at a lower level than me so far. Putting up the TD (thunderdome) and putting a TB (thunderball) in each of my hands we went forward. It wasn’t a densely packed forest, but the tree’s canopies were hundreds of meters in the air blocking out most light and preventing too much undergrowth from starting. I walked in the woods with Caerbannog next to me. I could sense some creatures on the higher branches looking at us and following us as we walked in further. Wanting to test something out I walked closer to one of the giant trees and let my TD run into it. As the shield touched the tree, I could see the bark instantly burning. The closer I got the further up the shield went on the tree and the further up it burned the tree. I could drain the mana a lot faster now. Guess I need to feed the TD more mana to keep it up and running, so backing away from the tree to prevent me from wasting all my mana. I looked at my handiwork and noticed that where the TD touched the tree, it had killed the tree. Every part of the tree that had been touched by the shield was burnt to a crisp. Looked as if all the moisture was sucked from it.
While I was doing my experiment, you could feel the hate from the creatures toward me. I guess messing with the trees is considered offensive. I sat down and dropped the TD to recharge, yes I am paranoid about running out of mana. Taking only a few minutes to top up I walked back to the tree I just toasted while standing about 20 meters away, I turned on the flamethrowers. Since the creatures were so high and they loved their trees so much. I might as well piss em off and bring them to me. Surprisingly it took about a minute before the tree actually started burning on its own.
I could hear all the creatures screaming in the woods. Stepping away from my handiwork and waiting for the welcoming committee, waiting for my radar to start pinging with incoming. Nothing happened so I went to the next closest tree and decided to try lightning on it. Shooting arcs of lightning at the tree had different results than what I expected. Instead of the tree catching fire, um… it exploded. From what I could guess, instantly raising the temperature of a water soaked tree to 50000 degrees (Fahrenheit..says google) will cause the water to explode when confined in the tree bark. After running to the side really quick I watched the 200-meter tree fall over. The sound was quite loud when it crashed, but after, it was dead quiet for a few seconds. Then at one time I think every creature in the woods became pissed and came running at me. I sensed the hoard flying, running, charging, and falling at me from all directions. Caerbannog took off running toward some foxes that were running at me. I looked up and saw a few birds fly straight into the shield. Their crystals were the only thing to make it through. I started forming TBs and launching them at the densely packed animals. Badgers, rabbits, squirrels, foxes, owls, hawks and bats were all over the place. The ones that charged or flew into my shield ended up just throwing crystals at me making the collection easier. After a minute I felt my connection to Caerbannog disconnect and looked in his direction and saw a pile of dead wolves but one big one standing with Caerbannog in his mouth. Even though I knew he couldn’t die unless I died, it still pissed me off. Throwing two TBs at that ass hole was overkill but buddies have to stick together. Like I said earlier, they travel at the speed of a bullet and with no gunshot to be heard. You get to hear the high pitch wiz right before the explosion. I evaporated the wolf and the corpses that Caerbannog left for me. Running over there as fast as possible as I could feel my reserves running low. I stashed the crystals that were all over the place, looking up I saw some bigger company had finally arrived. The closest thing I can describe them as is a combination between a huge wild pig and a black bear. Claws and teeth of the bear with the tusk and thick hide of the wild pig.
These were spellcaster level creatures, if not warlock. Oh, the best part, they travel like pigs, yup when you see one their will be about twenty to thirty more right behind it. I launched the two TBs I had formed at them, killing three of them, but the rest only seemed to be pissed off more. Yup, “I’m fucked”. Was all I could get out before they ran me over. Four more had died in the shield before I felt my mana go empty. The one that got me, I believe swiped my head off, but I couldn’t tell. Well, note to self. Don’t destroy the trees in the woods, Lesson learned.
I woke up laying on a couch in the main room.
