The Shapeshifter - Chapter 13 Elemental Crystal 2

The light emitted by the Wood Crystal shone on his face and enveloped his room amidst the dark of the night. Its light was warm and not blinding to the eyes.

Alex marveled at the sight. It clearly didn’t emit any light earlier. So he took another look at it, in this darkness and the light the Wood Crystal, he could now see it clearly.

This elemental crystal has something like fine strands of hair on it, coiling at its base and spreading out at the end. Like a little plant about to bloom its flowers.

Alex thought that maybe these hair-like lines on the crystal are the ‘mana channels’ of this crystal.

He concentrated and let mana flow through his body as if familiarizing himself with his own mana and their pathways. After doing this for a couple of minutes, he started channeling his mana into the Wood Crystal.

He first started at the base of its ‘hair’. Bit by bit, he slowly ‘entered’ a ‘hair’. It was a tedious task and took him 10 minutes, just to enter a tip of the ‘hair’.

Alex slowed the flow of mana of the hair to get a feel of it. It felt quite weird for him using his mana to travel around this single hair. in fact, there wasn’t anything special with this crystal. At least that’s what he thought.

He wanted to absorb the mana that was on this strand of hair, but quickly decided against it since he hasn’t gone to the other strands yet.

It took him some time to move around the strands, and finally he’s at the last one, the 10th strand.

Like what he did in all other strands, he gently let his mana roam. He opened his eyes and looked at its green glow, he cannot see his own mana in the crystal, but he can feel it. It gave him a familiar feeling, like a … forest.

‘Again?’

An ancient looking forest entered his whole vision.

‘What the f?’

It was the same forest he saw during the awakening and when he got almost knocked out by Kael.

This ancient forest still gives him a feeling of sentience, a feeling of … life. But when he looked around, this feeling of life was very faint. The forest that has life lacks it.

‘It doesn’t have any inhabitants. No animals, no creatures, nothing. Aside from me, that is.’

There was a weird look on his face when he was looking around the forest.

He tried using his mana to check on some trees, but what he got was refusal. He cannot check them, or they won’t let him.

‘Then why the hell am I in here?’

He continued looking around and found a black stone. The inexistent sun shone its brilliance towards this stone, that was why he found it.

Upon closer look, it was like a pitch-black cocoon with gold linings on it. Its gold linings gave its position away, even though it was carefully hidden.

He tried imbuing his own mana to the cocoon, and what he did was a success. Though this cocoon was crazily sucking his mana from his body. Like a man, finding an oasis in the middle of the desert and drinking it dry of water.

As he was about to lose his consciousness, the connection between him and the cocoon was suddenly cut.

Alex let out a breath of relief. If it continued on sucking his mana, then his vitality would take a toll on it.

‘Good thing this little butterfly stopped. Or I would’ve killed it myself.’

Of course Alex was just spouting some bull, he didn’t have the heart to kill a small butterfly. He won’t let such a cute creature meet its demise earlier on and not even reaching its peak of life. He wasn’t like that.

‘What if I was forcefully pushed out of here and when I come back, I can’t find this little creature anymore? Heck, I don’t even know when I will be able to come back here.’

When he thought of this, he immediately used his mana to make some markings on the trees that surrounds the cocoon. Unfortunately for him, with his almost non-existent mana, he wasn’t able to leave a scratch on it.

His mind moved fast, and he started searching for rocks. It didn’t take him long to find one and again, tried to carve something on the tree to leave a mark. But it was no good either.

‘Is this really a rock? This is the first time I ever saw such a stupid rock! Even a chalk leaves behind dusts! Yet this rock! Does! Nothing!’

With his eyes turning red from anger, he pulled his hair as if he was going mad and cursed at the rock, the trees and the forest for a few minutes then finally stopped.

He took deep breaths to stabilize himself. After calming down, he realized that he was the one that is stupid and not the rock. He lamented his own stupidity and collected a number of rocks before stacking them on each other.

He was satisfied with the results. He made it look like a little temple with the cocoon at the center of the rocks. Like a temple for a god.

Right now wasn’t the time to feel smug. He quickly sat cross-legged in front of the little temple and attempted to feel the mana in this forest.

He guessed it right, this ancient was really abundant of mana. Unlike the world outside which has a near chaotic state of mana due to the upheaval of the demons.

Alex was feeling ecstatic with his recent discovery, so he hurriedly tried to absorb the mana. His face was soon covered by a dejected expression as he realized he cannot absorb anything.

“This forest, really! First you didn’t let me check the trees, that was okay. Then you sucked me off of my mana, that too was okay, since I might have helped a little creature. And then the bloody stone! GAH! And finally! You didn’t even let me recover my lost mana! WHAT THE HELL?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME, FOREST!?”

He shouted and complained at the forest, he didn’t care if he was being too loud, because he knew he was alone in this forest aside from the little cocoon.

Everything was just unacceptable!

But what he got as a reply was complete silence.

“F*CK!”

Since he got nothing as a reply, he cursed out loud again.

Unexpectedly, after cursing, his eyes blurred, and he found himself sitting in his bed.

“Fuuuuuuu-”

He wanted to shout but stopped himself halfway because the people of the village might wake up.