Hello, I'm writing a story called "Growth". Synopsis A human consciousness fusing with a sacred, magical tree. Learning about the world and finding out about the extreme animosity between humans and elves due to slave trade and deforestation done by a part of humanity, this consciousness is forced to live a life quite a bit different from what one would expect. When a sacred tree - a source of great power - becomes conscious of its surroundings and starts reacting to it, just what is going to happen? Genre Action, Fantasy, Mature Table of Contents Vol. 1. "The Forest" Ch. 1 - Keepers of the Forest Ch. 2 - Small Companion? Ch. 3 - Impending Crisis Ch. 4 - Mother nature... Ch. 5 - ... is powerless Just writing this in my free time (probably only on weekends), if people like it i might take it a little more serious than right now. If you find mistakes or have any thoughts, feel free to tell me. (I am not a native english speaker btw) Similarities to other novels might be possible, but aren't intended.
Chapter 1 - Keepers of the Forest --- … And slowly, his consciousness returned. He doesn’t remember what happened. He doesn’t remember his name. He doesn’t remember his past. He doesn’t remember the feeling of his body. However, he was alive right now. And he had retained basic knowledge of the world. --- Feeling a little dizzy, he noticed he was inside a Forest. His surroundings were filled with trees, small insects and the sound of flowing water. He could clearly tell it was daytime, as he was feeling the warmth of sunrays gently stroking his body. He himself appeared to be on a tiny hill in the middle of a forest clearing. He tried to move but failed to do so. Uneasiness and a little despair filled him. Calming down and realizing that movement is impossible right now, he started to think about what situation he is in. He couldn’t open his eyes, and there was no feeling of having any. Neither was there a feeling of having hands or any limbs. But he definitely had a living body. After a few minutes passed and the dizziness was wearing off, he finally could tell what exactly he was right now. The feeling of having his lower body firmly stuck in the earth, and the huge amount of big and small “limbs” digging deep into the ground. He was a tree. And a very small sapling-sized tree at that. --- His roots were absorbing an essence from the ground that filled his whole body, giving off an unusual feeling of pleasure and it clearly was strengthening him and helping him grow and survive. Until feeling how he absorbed the essence, he didn’t realize how good his perception of this essence was that filled his body and everything in his surroundings. This essence that he can sense was everywhere - rocks, living beings, grass, the earth - even the air was filled with it. He doesn’t understand how it is possible, but using this essence he could perfectly grasp his surroundings up to a certain distance, even tell how warm the air was around him, or what insect was moving behind a tree that would normally block his vision. Every living being and every object had a different amount of essence inside them with different shapes, forms, density, consistency and other characteristics - with the essence being restricted by the physical form. However, the essence can definitely move through a physical barrier just like his roots show: He himself is absorbing essence from deep underground, and that essence was moving inside his body and slowly piling up inside him. He could tell he subconsciously was moving that essence in the ground inside his body. It was a very slow process since the essence was manipulated to easily pass the physical barrier between his roots and the earth. He tried absorbing the essence out of the ground without manipulating the essence beforehand and by doing this, almost destroyed a few of his roots as the essence was not entering his body but pushing and crushing it physically instead. This proved that depending on how you manipulated this essence that was everywhere, you could make it pass physical barriers or push them instead. He can control the essence inside his body perfectly and even in his immediate surroundings, the manipulation was still possible, though compared to the range he can sense essence in, the range of manipulation was much smaller, only about 1-2 metres from his bark. After experimenting with essence manipulation for a while, he decided to release a moderate amount of essence from his body into the air and condensed it into a very small ball. He manipulated the essence around that ball to push that ball in the direction of a rock twice his size and what happened was baffling. The rock was pierced by the essence and the essence scattered inside the little hole it just made inside the rock. He could clearly tell the “essence bullet” he just shot didn’t make it through the rock as the essence of the bullet was rubbed off the physical form of the rock it had pierced and the hole was overflowing with the dense essence that was rapidly scattering. Just maybe, had he made not a ball but another form with the essence, the essence might have penetrated the whole rock. In a second attempt, he made the same condensed ball but manipulated it in the same way his roots manipulate essence before absorbing it into his body. This time he used much less essence to push the ball into the direction of the stone. The result was, the essence reverted back to its normal form halfway, making the manipulation to pass physical barriers useless and the ball simply hit the surface of the rock, leaving a small dent on the rock before scattering again. If he could somehow increase the range of manipulation he could probably move essence inside the rock and probably even take some of the essence already inside it outside. --- Some uneventful weeks passed in which he experimented with the essence and confirmed his theory from before. His range of manipulation almost reached the trees of the forest around the clearing. He even started amassing essence in himself and the rocks in his surroundings, even arranging them in a way that would protect him from wild animals or whatever might come trying to bother him. He decided this was a necessary step to protect himself. If you think about it, he was a tree with an abnormal amount of essence inside him compared to other trees, and no trees from the forest had any conciousness as they didn’t manipulate the essence they absorbed from the ground, or did anything at all. A tree with such an abnormal amount of essence considering his size - which by now reached 3m at most - would surely stand out. Maybe not to ordinary living beings like the insects, who clearly had no sense for essence at all. But he thought it’s definitely possible that humans or other beings might be able to at least notice the essence. --- He started bullying the insects in his surroundings out of boredom and disgust - pushing them away from him using the essence. Though a small amount, even the insects had essence inside them. What’s more, he could tell their mood from how the essence inside them flowed. The insects approaching him all felt angry being unable to approach him as he pushed them back each time. In the time he experimented with essence and grew up he noticed something. There is essence with very distinct characteristics, different from the neutral essence found everywhere. He was able to confirm this after his area of perception expanded to the flowing river behind several trees whose sounds he got so used to, he completely forgot it existed. Inside the water flowing inside the river, a very unusual kind of essence was mixed into the neutral essence. He classified this essence as “green essence” - though it doesn’t really have a color - as it could be described as very calming, gentle and soft and though his range of manipulation was still very limited, he could sense that this essence was healing and cleaning living beings that bathed in the river or drank the water in the river. To clarify, the water isn’t filled with this green essence - most of the water actually had neutral essence in it, but small portions of the green essence were mixed in everywhere. Another type of essence he discovered was the “red essence” - which was associated with fire and is quite an aggressive form of essence feeding on physical barriers around it. Depending on the material the red essence was feeding on, it could create more red essence which would spread the fire - but if the material was sturdy enough, the red essence would just disintegrate. In the fire he observed, the flames were actually only very warm neutral essence and only on the surface of the burning wood was some of the red essence that forcibly converted the physical wood into warm neutral essence, feeding on it like a parasite. --- The fires which he had discovered the red essence in were actually made by humans camping on the riverbank opposite to him. This was the first time he saw living beings with a size bigger than the occasional small animal that would drink the water of the river or wash itself inside of it. Since he couldn’t move or talk, he didn’t get into contact with them but he witnessed every move done by them. His manipulation range was still limited to the clearing so messing with the humans was impossible for him right now. The humans were armed with swords and shields and most were wearing leather armour. There were also humans without equiptment but with big backpacks filled with ores of very peculiar colors and a man that also wore leather armour but had a staff as a weapon, probably a magician. The humans had a horse that was pulling a wooden carriage. As far as he could tell, the carriage had no windows and was pretty much shaped like a box. The materials used for this carriage seemed to be rather cheap - he ended up on this conclusion because the trees in his surroundings were all sturdy and healthy - if someone used their wood to build such a carriage, it would still be sturdier, even after being used for years. What was very interesting though, is the fact that this seemlingy cheap and run down carriage actually had a very interesting sort of essence infused into its material. No matter how much he tried or concentrated, he couldn’t feel any essence inside the carriage, as if completely deprived of essence. He didn’t know if the interior was actually completely deprived of essence - or if that was actually even possible, but the essence infused into the cheap wood probably had something to do with it. He classified this essence as “dark essence” as it could seemingly be used for camouflage against people with very good essence perception. Another interesting fact is, the magician that accompanied the humans - who apparently was their leader - didn’t actually have that much essence inside his body. Compared to the soldiers, some even had more essence inside of them than he did. But he did have something that noone else had, his body maintained a moderate amount of red essence inside of him. He was probably a fire magician. He could understand the language they spoke, as it was one of the languages he had spoken before he had become a tree. He couldn’t really gather any important intelligence about the world he was in from the humans as they were only talking about how difficult it was to obtain these rare materials and how rich they’d become once they sold it. Other than that, they only talked useless things and were constantly weary of their surroundings, every single one of them was nervous - seeming very suspicious considering the mystery of the contents of the carriage. He couldn’t understand why they were so cautious, never has something appeared on the other side of this river that could be a threat to this large group. The humans so careful, they constantly had at least half of their soldiers up patrolling the camp, as if there were monsters lurking in the forest on the other side of the river. In fact, some of the soldiers were talking suspicious things like “I hope they won’t chase us”, or “Once we are done with this shipment, I’ll never do this kind of thing again.”. --- As if confirming the worried soldier, in the night they camped at the edge of the forest beside the road leading alongside the river, they were ambushed. A good part of their forces were asleep and were quickly woken up, those that were patrolling outside were reaching a point where the urge to sleep was a crushing disadvantage. The ambushers were elves. Their appearance was similar to ordinary humans, but skinnier with a lot less muscle and pointed ears. Though they had less muscle, their magic perception was very good and their dexterity and agility was unmatched. Though their magic perception was so good, their skills with actual manipulation were pretty much nonexistent. Highly skilled elven archers were showering the human camp with sharp arrows, killing most of the soldiers who were patrolling very close to the forest. Soon the whole human camp was up and they started organizing a counterattack using the fire magician. The elves - realizing this fire magician doesn’t mind a forest burning to the ground in order to complete his goals - moved outside of the forest onto the dirty road with all of their forces and faced the humans with their backs to the river. Just to protect the forest. Because of this action, the fighting was made a lot easier for the humans who would have had to enter the forest while dodging the constant flow of arrows. However, the humans had already lost half of their group from the surprise attack - some of them brutally killed while still asleep inside a tent. The elves could probably sense them from outside using their superior magic perception. The humans who were now facing the elves with a shield wall made up of a formation of soldiers with the magician behind them, were completely at a disadvantage considering the elves had already killed half of them in their ambush. The magician suddenly pointed towards the carriage and shouted: “If you come any closer, i will burn and kill them!!!” The elves, amazed by his underhandedness, were still calm as they did expect this to happen. They were facing slave traders after all, the most despicable kinds of humans that constantly invaded their territory looking for elven girls and elven crafters. These humans were the reason for an incredible animosity between the elves and the humans. Since they expected this kind of situation, they had prepared a highly skilled archer that was currently still concealing himself inside the forest. The magician shouted again: “Leave this place or they will die!” The elves, seemingly backing off a bit at these words, were prepared to charge the moment the archer would take down the magician, and the archer was stealthily getting into position. As the archer started pulling the strings of his bow, suddenly his neck was cut by a sharp knife, and his lifeless body fell on the ground. The assassin that just killed him shouted: “The forest is clear!!!” The magician smirked at those words and shouted again: “You have no chance of winning, elven fools! You either retreat or your precious daughter will die right now! Choose!” The elves, completely betrayed by their expectations, were starting to get nervous and show some despair at those words. However, what noone could have foreseen in this situation, was a giant rock that came flying from the other side of the river, crushing the magician and some of the soldiers forming the shield wall. This rock was so big, it was impossible to lift for any living being the elves and the humans knew of. The fact that it came flying down was so confusing, for a long moment, both the elves and the humans that are still alive, were dumbfounded at this event. What they couldn’t know: this big rock was actually thrown by a certain tree who got so irritated by this magicians attitude and words, that he came up with a way to actually harm him. Using the essence inside his body and inside the rocks around him, he lifted one of the smaller rocks and pushed the rock into the air so it would fall and hit the magician. This action was quite naive and risky, contrary to the personality of the conciousness inside the tree. He was sure he wouldn’t hit the carriage and throwing the rock accurately wasn’t that much of a problem either since his essence perception gave him so much information about his surroundings, including the wind - but once thrown a good amount of essence he had absorbed and piled up would be pushed outside of his range of manipulation, de facto lost, slowing his growth and limiting his possibilities until he replenished it again. However, he did not think about that in that moment. --- The first person to regain his senses was the assassin, he clearly had a lot of experience and was probably smarter and more of a threat than the magician. After sorting his thoughts, he decided to get away from this situation. Most of the humans have died and as soon as the elves regained their senses the remaining ones would meet their end. There was nothing they could do here anymore. The fight was clearly lost and the ores and captives didn’t have any importance to him - though he obviously couldn’t take anything with him even if he wanted. As the elves slowly managed to gather themselves again, they charged the human camp and killed any survivors still there. They opened the carriage and inside, were 2 beautiful elven women and an elderly looking small person - a dwarf who was known in the elven lands for his incredible skill in blacksmithing. Since the perception of the inside of this carriage was possible as soon as the door was opened, it was confirmed this black essence infused in the material was indeed used for cloaking purposes. One of the elven soldiers approached one of the women and said: “My lady, we have come to rescue you. My deepest apoligies for not being able to respond sooner. We are very close to the border, if they had made it past the border… I don’t know what would have happened.” The elven woman, holding back her tears and faintly smiling, started to hug him, saying nothing. They had no injuries and they haven’t been defiled, so they didn’t actually suffer that much other than the constant thoughts of what would happen to them. After cleaning up the mess that had transpired here and calming the captives, the dwarf suddenly asked: “What was this impact just now? I thought we would die when the ground shook.” The elven soldiers, perplexed, remembered the rock that crushed the magician. One of them said: “We don’t actually know…. from the other side of the river, this rock just came flying and crushed this barbarian.” “We should probably check where this rock came from, as far as i know there are no giants in this area who could lift this weight, nevermind even throwing it.”, another soldier added. Noticing the unrest and muttering from the soldiers, the soldier that seems to be the oldest and was apparently the commander of these soldiers said: “We will go scout the vicinity on the other side of the river. You five, follow me. The rest tend to the captives and get ready to return to the capital.” And thus the commander and five other elven soldiers started crossing the river….
tbh a real story about a tree will be about looking at life and time as it passes by. not a real action adventure novel like some of the shitty tree novels are out there
an example of a story like this is something like 1. a tree obtains consciousness from a long life and faith power. 2. tree is holy tree of secluded group of individuals 3. watches slowly as the generations pass and watch the struggles of mortals and how they strive for greatness
That third option prbly is the most interesting to write about. I.e. The tree watches the rise and fall of a famous historical figure (Something you could write about)
Correction: The tree tries to save his ass from getting cut by Nazis, blown away by the tanks, getting destroyed by heavenly tribulations, made into furniture....and so on.
Hold up ill criticize this work after i finish rhetorically analyzing it just like my teacher taught me.
Chapter 2 - Small Companion? --- The commander and the five elven soldiers were astonished as a peculiar tree came into view. They slowly approached the tree that was strangely growing between a few big rocks. The rocks were evenly placed around the tree, still leaving large gaps from which one could see the tree very clearly. The elves noticed the abnormal amount of magical essence inside of this tree and the rocks in his surroundings. The commander - assessing the situation - said: “It seems to be a sapling of a sacred tree. This abnormal amount of magical essence… It must be.” The magical essence inside the tree was actually only a portion of the original amount of essence the tree had inside of him, as a good part of it was currently simply blown into the atmosphere, outside the range of the trees’ essence manipulation. A worried soldier gave his opinion: “We cannot leave it here without protection. The Elders must be informed about this!” “I know that. But we originally came here to find the source of the flying rock... scout the surroundings and report back if you find anything unusual.” the commander said. Curious about this tree, he slowly approached it. He was very old for an elven soldier, reaching almost 400 years in service of the elven military. In those years, he had never seen a tree like this. The light-brown bark was very thin compared to other trees of this size and it was giving off a strange feeling with the magical essence inside of it sometimes rapidly moving around, other times standing still as if pretending to be dead. “Hmmm…” The commander, realizing there was nothing he could do right now, started evaluating the rocks around the tree. Their position was very suspicious, as if someone had purposely placed them this way. He noticed that one of the rocks had a round dent and a very deep, round hole in it. He knew a rock couldn't naturally have such a deep, round hole in them and he concluded this hole must have been made by a craftsman or maybe even a magician. Thinking for a while about the situation, the soldiers slowly returned to the commander. “There are no beasts around here. It is unusually safe for this region… I think we should consult with the Elders about this situation.” one of them said. The commander - carefully considering the facts - decided it was too dangerous to stay here. After all, something that could throw a rock the size of his own torso had been here, and though he was concerned about this peculiar tree, he knew monsters and beasts have no reason to harm it, so it was safe right now. However, he just couldn’t make sense of this hole in one of the rocks. “We are returning to the main force. I will request for help from the Elders regarding this tree and consult them about the source of this flying rock” the commander said, still uneasy about this unbelievable situation they were in. They were successfull in saving the captives, but everything that happened… the flying boulder, this strange tree and the unknown assassin that killed one of his soldiers. Too much happened today. Thinking about how to report this situation, the commander and the other elves met with the main force and departed after some time. ---- Disappointing. He thought to himself. When the elves approached him, he was full of motivation, hope and eager to experiment - maybe he could communicate with them using the essence. The elves scattered in his surroundings, while an old elf slowly approached him and examined him. At first, he used very small amounts of essence to move inside the body of the elf. However, the elf didn’t even notice this. Then he tried moving small amounts outside of his body. The elf also didn’t notice this. Fearing he could kill the elf by mistake, he didn’t try to move large amounts inside or outside. After all, he almost destroyed some of his own roots doing this. Instead, he moved the essence inside his own body really fast. And, just as he expected, the elf was intently watching as if picking up on the essence that was moving rapidly. At some point, he froze. How would you communicate just by moving essence around? The elf, noticing the essence completely stopped moving, lost interest in him after a while and started examining the rocks. Giving up on communicating, as he had not really thought of a way how to, he watched the elves leave and returned to being alone. --- His skills with essence manipulation were getting better every day. He was currently experimenting with improving his absorption rate of essence from the ground, testing his limits and increasing his rate of growth, while piling up essence in the rocks in his surroundings again. Completely immersed in his experiments, something strange suddenly entered his perception range. It was a small animal - a brown bear cub to be precise. The small animal was moving in the direction of him, which was interesting since most animals of this size would - by instinct - avoid him as the area around him had a high concentration of neutral essence. The small bear however, didn’t mind or didn’t notice this, slowly approaching. There was something wrong with this bear, his body was strangely rejecting the essence inside of him. Concentrating his perception on the bear, it seemed it had cuts and bruises all over its body and was bleeding. He probably escaped some hunters who were looking to make some money with bear pelts. The bear approached him and once close to one of the rocks around him, lay down and started growling in pain. It could very well be this bear cub decided this special place should become its grave. He was thinking how to save this bear as he could clearly tell it knew it was going to die. Then, he remebered the river. While his manipulation range expanded to the river by now it didn’t quite reach far inside the river, only a small area was in his manipulation range. However, that should be enough. He moved the body around the trees between him and the river and placed the cub in the water. To an outsider, this scene would be so weird, they would probably faint. The neutral essence was keeping the body of the bear a few cenimetres above ground, moving it towards the riverbank - making it look like a sleeping bear cub was literally hovering over the ground. Not realizing how weird his actions were, he started to manipulate the green essence inside the water. Just being in the water already has a healing effect - but that effect is very small since the green essence responsible for the healing process was too spread out inside the water. And the neutral essence by no means had any effect on the body. But since he could manipulate the green essence, he could gather all the small bits and concentrate them on the wounds of the bear cub and after some time passed, the cubs wounds were completely gone. Just like he thought, if one concentrated the green essence its effects would increase immensely. The same was probably true for the red essence, meaning sturdy materials which had to face an extremely dense amount of red essence would very likely literally evaporate. Thinking about the possibilites with the essences he knew of, and what other types of essence probably existed, he completely forgot about the bear. Maybe it was due to him becoming a tree, or his understanding of the world shifting completely. He would quickly loose himself in thoughts whenever he judged that nothing of importance was happening. Normally he would have never just left the bear cub at the riverbank like that. After almost an hour passed and the sun was about to set, the bear cub got up from its sleep and contrary to the expectations from before fainting, it wasn’t dead. All wounds were healed and the pain gone. The bear cub, remembering only that it started resting near a rock with an immense amount of pressure emanating from it. The bear cub was sure, no human would follow it to such a place. But that itself was a pointless thought as it was approaching death anyway. Nevertheless, the cub never abandoned its hope and still went all the way to the rock, before collapsing with heavy breaths and losing consciousness. Clearly remembering the scene, as it was sure those were its last moments, the cub went back to the place that still emanated this high pressure. Noticing the cub approaching again, he regained his grasp of the situation. The cub, this time not numbed by countless wounds and clearly shaking, was slowly moving towards the rock where it collapsed before. It was a very cute yet conflicted situation. He wanted to cheer the cub on, but at the same time he didn’t want it to force itself to come close. The cubs shaking became a lot more obvious - it clearly felt this place was dangerous, yet it was still approaching since there was just too much curiosity. It should have died at that place. How was it still alive? What happened? Finally reaching the rock, the cub started to reproduce the actions it had taken before - thinking something would happen again. Waiting for a long time under the pressure it felt was quite a feat for such a small animal. Realizing there was no immediate danger, and slowly getting used to this pressure, the cub started calming down and at some point, it even fell asleep. --- During the whole time the cub was waiting for something to happen, he tried something he had never done with essence before. The rocks filled with essence showed no signs of reaction to the immense amount of essence inside them. However, what would happen if he filled a living being with essence? Curiosity got the better of him, and he started manipulating the essence to enter the bear cubs body. Though the process was slow and the bear cub didn’t notice anything, his improvements with essence absorption at his roots was proving usefull right now. After the cub had fallen asleep and some time passed, it was already night time and he was slowly losing focus on the bear cub again, leaving the bear cubs absorption of essence to his subconsciousness… Repetitive tasks like this were almost like breathing to him now. What caught his attention was the clear sky above him. No clouds or any harsh winds. The night was so calm, that in itself was beautiful. If he had eyes right now, if his perception range was infinite, he would probably take this moment to appreciate this clear starry sky, with two big moons visible in the sky above him. The moons were completely visible and the dim blue light they basked the whole forest in was simply put amazing. The sounds of howling wolves and other unknown beasts could be heard every now and then. The meaning and intention these howls were supposed to carry, only the beasts knew. --- In this otherwise silent and calm night with this clear and beautiful starry sky, a human was traversing the forest - alone. This occurrence was quite unusual as humans by nature always moved in groups, especially inside of this forest full of monsters. He was old, almost 50 or so years old. His face was looking very mature and stern, almost scary and his body was full of scars - clearly from fighting strong monsters and beasts. The leather armor he uses is seemingly full of gaps and unprotected places, but in reality his armor was made to not restrain the movements of the one wearing it, while still covering the most important parts like the heart or his crotch. Despite his age, he was very agile and skilled, with years of experience in hunting. He was a lone wolf, acting on his own and only truly trusting the beasts and monsters who were at least honest about their intent to kill you. His area of expertise was focused on hunting, fighting with various weapons and, contrary to the expectations one would have from his appearance, he was also very skilled with magic. Earth magic to be perfectly clear. He had lived for so long and experienced this kind of night several times before, but everytime there was such a clear sky during night time, he couldn’t help but leave his cabin close to the forest and take a walk, as if the moons were inviting him to listen to the silence of this night. --- He had walked this path inside the forest countless times. Today though, he had a bad feeling. He usually didn’t stray far from this path, but for some reason the particular silence today was making him feel uneasy. This area was close to a cave full of bears. They had been there for as long as he could think. However, today, this cave was empty. Today, this cave was cleared out completely - with blood and the smell of burned flesh all around the cave entrance. There were also traces of traps, seemingly covered in some poisonous liquid. This old man had never seen huntsmen who would utilize fire magicians and dirty, poisoned traps to hunt their prey. Huntsmen normally used movement restricting traps, to then be able to cleanly finish their prey without it having to suffer for a long time. This scene was probably caused by a noble who decided he needed fine pelts for whatever reason. Though you could argue fire magicians and poison would harm the pelts, they probably had no other way to deal with the strong and sturdy male bears protecting this cave. The old man wasn’t very fond of nobles, or the people who were so ignorant of this world, they believed anything that’s not a human doesn’t have any feelings and was just there to be used by them as resources. Some of them might even think of other humans this way - those that still supported slavery. Leaving his thoughts behind, he noticed a trail of blood leading away from the cave. Thinking it might be a surviving bear that was still in pain from the poison, he started following the trail, with the intention of putting the bear out of its misery if it was still alive.
Chapter 3 - Impending Crisis --- As the sun was about to rise and the chilly air was slowly warming up, the old huntsman reached a clearing in the forest. Surveying his surroundings while hiding behind a tree, he saw a small brown bear near what seemed to be some sort of ritual site with rocks aligned in a circle - he did not see the tree in the midsts of them. The bear didn’t move so in order to inspect it, he took a defensive posture with a knife in his hands. Lightly crouching and stealthily closing in on the bear, he was trying to check wether this bear was dead or still alive and if it had any injuries. The bear was still small but even such a small animal could kill a human if he was overly careless. Getting close enough to examine its body, the old huntsman didn’t see any wounds, which was extremely suspicious. He got here following a trail of blood and footprints. He had experienced a lot in his life, but a creature that left such a trail should be on the verge of death. It was clear this bear was the one that left those trails, since there were no other animals in the vicinity and the trails stop at the body of the completely unfazed bear cub. Unable to explain this, the huntsman proceeded to investigate the body further - he realized this was risky but he wanted to know just how these wounds healed. He didn’t notice the great amount of neutral essence in this place, indicating that though he is able to use earth magic and could manipulate and sense the essence used for it, he couldn’t sense neutral essence at all. Just as the huntsman was about to reach for the cub, it suddenly woke up and jumped into a fighting posture. The huntsman - knowing this cub probably witnessed humans killing its whole family - was feeling strangely sorry for the cub which had this hatred implanted into it. As the cub remembered the situation at the cave entrance - the painful growls, the blood of its siblings and the intimidation of the fire the humans used - it grew furious. And immature as it was, it immediately charged the huntsman intending to kill him for revenge. The huntsman seeing this, backed off and took his defensive posture again. He knew full well this was only natural. The way the subordinates of the local governor killed its family, it only made sense any kind of survivor would be scarred for life - though in this case only mentally. And just as the cub was closing in, the huntsman - believing to be in full control of the situation - put the knife away and crouched down while preparing to lift the cubs chest up swiftly, causing it to only stand on its hind legs and finally topple backwards. He was fully prepared to take a small biting or scratching wound from this action, but it would probably cause the bear to forget its rage and he would be able to deescalate the situation afterwards. However - the cub had a lot more physical strength than what could be considered normal. The cub bit into his left arm, crushing the bones inside and causing the huntsman to writhe in pain. He was caught completely off guard, which is frankly his first time. If he had taken this cub seriously, there was no way he would take such a wound. But he held back against animals of this size, as there was no reason in hunting them since they posed no real threat and the materials you would gain from them are a lot less valuable than the fully grown ones. Maybe part of the reason he held back was also the fact that he had a good friend who was a beast tamer who loves these kinds of animals. Calming down and ignoring the immense pain, he hit the bear on the nose, which should make it loosen on his arm and back off of him. And just like he predicted, the bear fell back a bit and led out a strangely cute noise of discomfort. Ignoring this, the huntsman realized he couldn’t move his left arm anymore, this cub was probably just as strong as a fully grown bear, though its movements were unrefined and sluggish. He wasn’t here to kill the bear anymore as it was quite well as one could see clearly. He decided he had to retreat right now and get this injury treated as soon as possible, so he tried using his magic to bind the legs of the bear so it couldn’t follow him anymore. This earth magic was a great asset to him, and he specialized in using it to restrict movements of his opponents. He was nowhere near a battle earth magician, but his expertise with earth magic traps was still very good. But, for some reason… Nothing happened. Almost starting to panic, he started walking backwards, then speeding up and finally ran behind a tree at the edge of the clearing. The cub - finally done with repeatedly rubbing its nose - noticed the huntsman running behind a tree. Calmer than before, the cub tried to follow him and finish him off, however, its movements were restricted by something invisible. Taking advantage of the unmoving cub, the huntsman proceeded to leave the area and get back to his cabin - he was quite a ways away from his cabin, so he couldn’t take this arm injury lightly. Had he continued to fight the cub, he probably would have killed it, but he would surely die from blood loss or loose his arm. Having reached a safe distance - the huntsman now thought about why he couldn’t use his earth magic… He noticed only now, but the essence necessary to invoke it almost completely left his body - meaning from his point of view, he was out of “mana”. Thinking he is getting too old and forgetful, he was sure he had enough mana before he approached the bear. Focused on the pain in his arm, and his mana right now - he completely forgot his concerns about how the bear healed so fast. --- Having witnessed this whole situation, the consciousness in the tree was mostly ignoring the fight that took place between the cub and the human. He thought he had no right to interfere, as he could clearly feel the hatred and craving for revenge inside this cub, but the human didn’t seem to have any special feelings, calmly defending himself. He had no idea what had happened between the two, so - as an outsider - he judged he had no right to interfere with whatever they did. Inside of the human, he sensed a new kind of essence, he classified it as yellow essence and started stealing it from the human slowly, so he wouldn’t notice anything. Though, the fact that he was focused on the cub so much also distracted him from this. Seeing the cub bite the human and breaking his arm was a strange sight. Considering the size of the cub, this bite was way too powerful. Thinking it must be an effect of him storing neutral essence inside the cub, he grew quite interested in the fight. But the human started to feel a little worried and so, raised his right arm and moved a very tiny portion of the yellow essence inside his body - but he stopped moving it once he realized almost all of the essence was gone, already being absorbed into the trees body. Since he could clearly tell from the disappointment and confusion on the mans face that the man was about to use this essence, he felt like he had done something wrong. Not wanting to be the reason for this mans death, he assisted the human in getting away by holding the cub in place using the neutral essence in the air. --- The day passed with the cub starting to survey the area around the sacred tree, getting used to the surroundings and having the intention to build a home around here. The consciousness himself however didn’t pay attention to the cub and was focused on the newly aquired yellow essence. Using this essence, one could - seemingly out of nowhere - create things such as stones, earth or other materials. Realizing just how much potential thie essence held, he was reluctant to use it as he had no way of replenishing it. His imagination was completely running wild, thinking if he had enough of this essence, he might be able to literally create bodies or even build a house by using this essence. --- His imagination was actually not that far off, it might actually be possible. Had he still been a human though, unable to even tell what this essence was and unable to see the neutral essence everywhere in the world, he would have never arrived at such conclusions. There not few humans who could use or who had this yellow essence, but the problem was that they were thinking inside a box. For them, this essence was simply mana, just like red essence or green essence. This mana could be used to create fire balls or rock walls and the like, but no human had reached a point of understanding about the essences where they could truly grasp their full potential. They knew only of the things their ancestors and teachers passed to them - and the hierarchial society was by no means rewarding a great thinker. Quite contrary, these individuals would often be branded as crazy and as a result end up on the scaffod. This resulted in stagnant progress and inventions and discoveries were rare. You could say humanity’s greatest asset was sealed by their rulers and societarian norms. But even then - they were still the most dominant race in this world, their numbers higher than any other race. But they were also the weakest race, having skilled people in all kinds of professions, but the true masters were always part of another race. You could say it was a “jack of all trades, master of none” - race. Another reason for humanity’s dominance was - the commander-in-chief of their military. A person feared and respected by everyone, with a very unusual personality.... You could say putting this person in charge of the military was probably the only good decision made by royalty and nobles. --- After another two days, something very unusual entered the range of perception of the consciousness inside the tree. Corpses. Elven corpses. Slowly dragged by the rivers currents down the hilly forest where the elves presumably lived, these lifeless bodies were slowly going west, the direction of the lands of the humans. He could tell that they were part of the elven soldiers who were fighting the human slave traders before. Something must have happened to them - which was weird since you’d think there was no real threat for the elves in a forest so close to their territory. However, remembering the slave traders underhandedness and viciousness, it was certainly possible the humans used some dirty tricks to kill these elves. And sure enough, he noticed burns and cuts on the bodies of these elves. But since he couldn’t do anything about this situation between the elves and humans right now, he decided to pull the elves outside the water and buried them under the hill he was growing on. He made the graves using the neutral essence to dig the earth up and seal it afterwards, while the cub was watching all of this and helping him out. He thought it’s unusual for the bear to not feast upon the elves, but considering the elves were so close to nature, they probably were on good terms with beasts and animals. But monsters were still another story. --- Weeks would pass without major events - the now grown bear had a new home cave made by the tree and himself on the east side of this clearing, where a small hillside was located. Somehow the bear understood that this tree was alive and was interacting with its surroundings. The bear could even understand its intentions sometimes, while at other times being completely confused. The bear subconsciously saw this tree, this place as family and home. He survived thanks to this tree - and the tree in a weird way took the place that his family had before, this was one way to process the memories and the trauma of losing everything dear to him. --- The tree had grown to 5 metres height now, his perception range and manipulation range increased further and he collected more essence which he stored in objects in his surroundings. What he didn’t realize - or couldn’t realize - the forest that was on the other side of the river grew increasingly restless. The elven Elders having lost a long-serving commander and a daugher of one of the Elders to the humans and their slave traders, were going to hold a meeting on a decision that would shake the power balance of this world. The decision of going into an all-out war with the humans. The filled glass of water that people constantly added more water to, was about to spill over. Or even break completely...
Chapter 4 - Mother nature... --- Deep within the forest, where big trees were growing. The sun was rising slowly, shining on the countless light-pink leaves scattered everywhere. The wet grass was being dried by the warm light of the sun, and you could see birds gathering on top of the trees - as if observing something. In this beautiful and calm environment, there were 8 very old elves gathered in a beautiful mansion in the middle of a big city that seemingly fused with the trees growing inside it. As if both the city and the trees were made to support each other. These 8 elves were sitting at a round table, a conference room. The elves referred them as the Elder Council. With grim facial expressions and stern looks, the mood in the room was rather bad. With a very deep tone, the oldest person in the room spoke - quite obviously angered: “This is enough. As much as i want to avoid a complete confrontation, we must act soon. It is too depressing, too draining to receive reports of our kin being killed or captured by these despicable people.” After a short pause, he continued: “My daughter, Erica, has been killed along with one of my most trusted and long-serving subordinates. By assassins, in our own territory!!! … The Dark Brotherhood that controls the slave trades and assassinations must be dealt with. Along with all of the humans supporting them!” The room stood silent for a while, until an elf started speaking who looked like a high-ranking commander. “I can understand you very well. But outside of this forest, we loose our main advantage - agility. In an open field battle, we will loose just because of our numbers disadvantage. And even if we had an advantage there, their commander is too cunning to be taken lightly. We might still loose even then.” “I don’t think he will take action as long as we don’t attack them. He is definitely cunning and intelligent, but he has never once helped in an attack on us. Our Enemy is the Dark Brotherhood, not all of humanity. If we could counter their dark mana and actually detect their assassins, this would be much easier.” another one added. The Dark Brotherhood is the name of an underground organization that specializes in theft and assassination - it is probably the most powerful organization in human lands. That is due to their discovery of the “dark mana” (dark essence), that completely hides all essence and seemingly erases ones existence from others essence perception. But not only that, they had the incredible advantage that they had nobility under their control and they could operate in the darkness. That means they could conduct research on all kinds of things - something that was morally unacceptable in the human kingdom that was dominated by faithful believers in god and the church. Anything that goes against their views is branded as blasphemy and punished with death. This organization was also behind the assassination of a whole squad of elves that were escorting captives back to the capital of the elves - the daughter of the oldest Elder and his subordinates. Using the dark essence embedded into their gear - and sometimes even into their bodies - they were easily able to defeat these elves that heavily rely on their superior essence perception. On this day, despite most of the Elder Council being against an upfront confrontation, the conclusion was that the elves would go to war against the humans. That was due to the influence the oldest elf had. He has experienced hardships all his life and had countless achievements in the military before retiring. A true veteran. He knew that just waiting for more elves to die or get captured would be like asking for the downfall and extinction of their race. --- An incredible discovery. Using all the yellow essence at his disposal, he created a body using his imagination and faint memories. What he created was a human tree. Arms, legs, a face - but all made from wood. It was pretty weird how well the body resembled a tree despite having legs. If any human saw this, they would definitely mistake it for a tree that has a peculiar shape. Being a tree for so long, he started regaining his human desires and motivation as he looked onto the body he created. This creation perfectly summed up his own self right now. Fused with nature - be it a curse or a blessing - his own self changed completely. If he could transfer his consciousness somehow, he might be able to move in it and finally explore the world he had come to. For now though, all he could do was dream about using this sturdy body that looked similar to himself. However, this yellow essence opened up countless options, a power that he thought was solely designed for the gods. If he could get more of it he would be able to create an army out of nothing - and there’s actually quite a lot of this essence on and inside the earth - but, just like the green essence only appears in clean rivers and springs, one was most likely to find it in the bodies of living beings. And what he also needed was souls. Or “consciousnesses” that move his creations, otherwise everything he created would remain an object otherwise. --- A few weeks passed since the declaration of war. Both the humans and the elves were currently preparing for war - training soldiers and establishing supply lines, camps, fortifying forts and so on. The elves were calling for help from befriended beasts and other creatures, while the humans forcefully conscripted a lot of capable men - both old and young, experienced and inexperienced. And on top of that, they started efforts to burn and remove trees at the forest in which direction the elven kingdom lay - so the elves were forced to fight on the open field and their safe heaven, the forest, was further away from the humans defensive positions.
Chapter 5 - ... is powerless --- Smoke was rising… What used to be a beautiful, flourishing forest - with all kinds of animals and other living things inside it - was burning down slowly. The war between the humans and the elves had reached a point where both sides were being very careful with their actions, creating a vicious cycle of fighting between the edge of the forest and the defensive forts of the humans. After a great strike by the elves that destroyed several forts, they were eventually forced to retreat back into the forest and tend to their wounded. The human forces who would try to counterattack would then meet a similar fate. The endless back and forth of fighting had been going on for months now, with both sides being reluctant to commit to a real all-out offensive. However, it was clear that up until this point, the humans suffered more than the elves, with a higher amount of casualties and some destroyed forts - while the elves suffered way less casualties. But that alone was normal. Most of the humans that were send out were “disposables” - untrained farmers with high debt, elderly people, criminals. The elven commanders realized this as well - all the fighting up until now was more or less meaningless, since noone achieved anything and both sides were still testing the waters. What actually mattered however, was the material damage caused. The elves destroyed many forts, but the Forest suffered a lot too. It was as if a big chunk of dirty, charred land had just suddenly appeared and swallowed the forest between the elves and humans. All living beings that belonged to neither side were killed in the crossfire or had long abandoned this forest. The conciousness in the tree had also realized this, as the forest on the other side of the river was slowly diminishing, which created awful feelings and an urge to stop this war inside the consciousness. He was originally a human, but as he was now a tree, there was a weird connection he had with other trees. Just like a normal human would be appalled by the death of others of his kind right in front of his eyes. But no matter what, he couldn’t come up with a way to interfere with this war, as his range of manipulation was nowhere near the forts of the humans and not even quite reached the elves on this side. This caused a lot of uneasiness and anger at his own inability and powerlessness. That was, until today… --- It was no normal morning. The best and experienced human soldiers were all assembled at the training grounds of Fort Truz, the greatest fort near the forest. Noone knew why they were called here today, but they all knew it was related to the war and since they were the ones the announcement was meant for, it would probably mean the war was about to take a turn - in whatever direction. The commander-in-chief of the human military, Zeus van Brooks, slowly ascended onto a small platform meant for royalty to observe the training of the soldiers. Everyone turned their heads towards him, as if entranced by his aura - and the surroundings quickly became silent. The first thing the commander did when he turned towards his audience, was smile. Completely disconnected to the issues at hand - war, death, and the strategy to avoid such - he smiled. Leaving mixed feelings in the soldiers, he started to talk in a loud voice: “Men… I am here today, because we have won this war. You might be thinking: ‘What is he talking about?’ - that’s completely normal. After all, we haven’t yet done all that much.” The soldiers suddenly became loud for a short time, to then become quiet again once he explained: “We have won once we are done with our plans for the next 3 days. We have worked hard to obtain information about our opponents weaknesses and to come up with a strategy that would leave us with nothing other than absolute victory - meaning the extinction of the elves!” Immediately, the soldiers became motivated, as if struck by lightning. Every single one of them was convinced they couldn’t loose after hearing these words, after all - the person that was talking to them had a reputation of being a genius. It was as if god himself had come down to deliver the news of their victory, as if a choir of angels were already celebrating it. The soldiers were about to burst into cheers, but not a single one made a noise. They all understood - no matter how much of a genius the commander was, there was still a small chance of defeat, and they all had experienced battle - so even if their wives and children would survive, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t die at the hands of the elves or the beasts in exchange for that. Zeus continued then in a dignified and serious tone: “For these plans, in order to keep our families safe, i ask you to fight and die on the battlefield!” The atmosphere this commander picked to motivate was planned out completely. All the soldiers saw right now, was a saluting man with the sun rising behind him - and every single one of them now had the determination to fight. Because they knew: no deaths would be meaningless, as victory was certain. Or so it should have been… Zeus van Brooks, the commander-in-chief of the human military, one of the pillars of human strength in this world, was right now standing on top of a platform meant for nobility to watch the training of the soldiers. He was standing, yet he would soon fall to his knees, as his heart was pierced by a crossbow bolt, shot from somewhere behind the platform. But, as for this moment, noone realized as the bright sun behind this man was too dazzling.