“What? You’re crazy!” shouted Edward. The other group members also more or less had the same thought. The following morning, Chronus stated his plan to return to the giant turtle’s grave alone, leading to this scene.

“The only dangers we’ve encountered in the forest so far have been the vegetation,” reasoned Chronus, motioning the others to calm down, “They can’t move. Now that I know where they are, I can avoid them.”

“It is still dangerous,” said Alice, frowning, “Our safety is dependent on numbers. Leopold is already injured, and Griffin isn’t much better. If you are too, or if you go missing, it would be a risk for all of us.”

“Yeah, we won’t even know if you get injured on your own,” said Kenan, trying to convince Chronus.

Chronus shook his head. “I’m willing to take the risk. You guys can go explore the deeper parts of the mine. The five of you should be enough to do so.”

Edward sighed and gave up convincing him.

Afterwards, the group split up into three groups. Charlene remained at the campsite, guarding Leopold and their now sizable collection of strange items. Chronus left for the forest, and the remaining five went to the magic crystal mine.

On the way to the forest and during his trek towards his goal of the magewood trees, Chronus did his best to converge his breath and make as little sounds as possible. Even though he was confident, he knew that a moment of carelessness could spell his doom. Always alert and making sure to follow the path they had taken previously, Chronus carefully avoided the locations of the aggressive plants.

He particularly ensured that he remained as far as possible from the burnt area of the forest that marked the territory of the vampire vine. If he was caught by it, there would be no way for him to escape.

Chronus managed to arrive at the turtle’s grave smoothly. Traces of the plunder the wonderland had experienced the previous day were everywhere. The lush carpet of grasses had been dug through and disheveled. Clods of dirt were piled haphazardly and many of the beautiful plants had been pulled out and taken away. Even so, nature’s ability to mend itself was already on display. Where the soil had been torn up and tossed around, small green sprouts had begun to spring up.

Chronus walked over to the magewood tree he had selected prior. He circled around it and was satisfied with what he saw.

The first line of action he took was to shave off a section of bark off the surface of the tree. This was to allow Chronus to engrave formations on the inner part of the tree. This serves three different functions. The first is that they will be protected by the bark and be less likely to be damaged. The second is to hide the formations from being visible. If an enemy could recognize the inner workings of a tower from the outside, they could have a large information advantage. The third is to allow Chronus to layer formations and enchantments, placing them on both the outside of the bark and within the tree itself.

Having revealed a rectangular portion of wood large enough to fit two dinner plates in line on it, Chronus started the next step. Taking his axe, he delicately carved a magic circle onto the tree. With great concentration and stabilizing his motions as much as possible, furrow after furrow was cut into the soft wood. Curled wood shavings protruded from the rounded surface then broke off and fell onto the ground.

After an hour of delicate work, Chronus stepped back from the tree, gasping for air and his arms feeling wobbly. If it wasn’t for the Clear Mind Meditation, he didn’t think he could manage to complete the task. Depicted on the top half of the bare section of wood was a mysterious and intricate drawing. The main structure consisted of many perfect concentric circles. Dotted between them and wrapping around the outermost ring were strange shapes and symbols.

Chronus took out a handful of quicksilver grass from his backpack when he finished catching his breath. He found two smooth stones, one large and one small, and tightly pressed the blades of grass. When he had repeated the process for all the grass in his possession, he was left with a large globule of silver liquid.

Using a thin stick, the metal-like liquid was painted into the formation on the magewood tree. The thin channels were all filled with the juice of the quicksilver grass. With this done, Chronus had completed the main control circle for an alchemy puppet.

This alchemy formation allows the user to control the puppet it’s depicted on remotely by connecting to it with their soul. Interestingly, when this control circle is combined with a soul core, it results in a golem capable of actions on its own, with its intelligence determined by the quality of the core it is inlaid with.

Just placing this control circle isn’t enough for Chronus to make the tree move though. After all, the tree has to be able to move in the first place. Thus, he started his second modification on the tree.

Smaller windows were cut in the outer bark of the larger roots of the magewood tree. A different alchemy formation was carved on these main roots, one that induces movement. The same process was repeated on these roots, first carving out thin channels then filling them with quicksilver grass juice. In total, Chronus had to repeat this twelve times.

After the movement formations were completed at a quality that satisfied Chronus, they were connected to the main control circle. Now, the magewood tree had been converted into an alchemy puppet.

Standing at a distance from the tree, he sat down on the ground cross legged. Closing his eyes, he stretched out a thin sliver of his spirit and touched the control circle with it, connecting himself with the tree puppet. The moment he did so, he could perceive everything from the perspective of the tree. If his spirit was stronger, Chronus would be able to control both his body and other puppets at the same time, but for now, all he could do was control the tree and leave his body idle.

Extending his senses into the twelve movable roots, he commanded one of them to tear itself out of the ground. Switching his consciousness back to his body, he observed that everything had worked as intended. The entire body of thick twisted root was exposed to him, lying parallel to the ground along with a ruptured section of dirt.

Knowing that the puppet was functioning, he swapped back to it and slowly moved all twelve major roots. One by one, they were uprooted while making sure to maintain balance and not let the tree fall over.

Chronus disconnected his spirit from the magewood tree and smiled at the tree standing on the ground, admiring his work. He removed all the dirt and soil still clinging onto the roots and trimmed away any smaller branching roots not part of the twelve movable ones.

Now, with the alchemical modification completed, Chronus moved on to transforming the magical part of the tree. The first thing he needed to accomplish is to drain the naturally occurring magic energy from the tree, and the complete magic rule fragments contained in that energy. This was simple to do, essence extraction formations were crudely drawn onto the tree and activated, pumping the magic energy inside the tree into the outside world. They would be removed once their job was done.

Leaving the magic energy draining from the tree, he started creating the more complicated part of the transformation, filling the magewood tree with his desired type of magic. An essence gathering formation was arranged around the turtle’s skeleton, where the magic energy was the richest. The gathered mana would be transferred into an isolation formation, where blighted marshweed and other materials containing pure witchcraft rule fragments. Powering these two formations cost him almost all the magic crystals he had on hand.

The highly concentrated mana would be absorbed by these materials and assimilated into magic energy that they could use. These processes, the emptying of the magewood tree and the gathering of witchcraft magic energy, both take time to happen. Chronus patiently watched as the air in the isolation energy gradually filled with dark clouds.

It was a long time later when the two processes had been completed. The dome containing the blighted marshweed was now pitch black, the interior completely obscured. The magewood tree puppet no longer looked so happy, its leaves were droopy and the wood looked anemic.

The conditions for the last step of the magic transformation were now met. Chronus cut a gash on his arm and painted a large jagged circle with his fresh blood surrounding the tree. Twisted symbols and characters were scrawled around the drawing. This was an ancient formation used to pollute living beings.

The isolation array encapsulating the pitch black miasma was then broken. The tainted energy held within flooded out and was drawn into the ancient formation. The black cloud swirled around the magewood tree as if scrutinizing its food before making up its mind plunging deep into the heart of the tree.

Chronus could see the magewood twisting and groaning. Large sores opened up on the bark and the leaves began to fall off. As the tree swelled and desperately tried to adapt to the changes, the color of the entire tree darkened. Soon, the entire tree had turned black from the original brown and green. The patterns on the bark became twisted and lumpy, like it had malignant growths. From the bare branches grew small red leaves. A monstrous looking tree now stood where the magewood tree once stood.

Holding his embryonic tower core up to the horror he just introduced to the world, two rule fragments were now detected. Witchcraft and alchemy.

Now, there was only one crucial material missing before his tower was ready to be born. Chronus’ eyes flashed with a cold light. All he needed was…

A high quality soul!