Chapter 32- The origin of the great woodlands.

Waking up slowly, I leisurely stretch out my stiff body, before I slowly sit up and do a sweep of the immediate area. I find nothing out of place, and therefore turn my attention towards the now well roasted remains of the bunny creature: My breakfast.

Getting up leisurely, I walk over and grab and loosen a leg from the roasted remains of the creature.

After a close inspection of the piece of meat, and finding nothing strange or wrong with it, I tentatively take a small bite out of it. The flavor of the meat hits me almost immediately.

"Huh… tastes kind of like chicken." I comment before I resume chewing the savory piece of meat in my mouth.

After taking a swig of water from one of my water-skins, of which more than half are now empty, I take another bite out of the juicy leg meat.

"I could see myself getting used to eating this." I mumble as I leisurely savor the rest of my breakfast.

With breakfast finished, I stamp out the last of the embers of the campfire, strap on my water-skins and my bag of rations before I once again set out, this time to find another Mana stream to study and see where these Mana streams eventually end up at.

If they lead to where I believe then…

I will have found my target.

-------------

Hours pass while I study the stream as I stroll along, and I have learned a bit from my inspection: The two types of Mana are going in opposite directions, the light and pleasant Mana is going towards where I believe my destination is, while the heavy and unpleasant Mana is going away from it.

"Interesting…" I mumble. "So the positive Mana goes towards the origin point, while the negative Mana is being sent away from it…

What are they doing to produce this spent negative Mana?" I ponder aloud as I continue my trek.

Another hour later I come across a stream coming down from a mountain so I promptly refill all my water-skins and drink my fill before I continue my trek once again. The sun has climbed high up unto the sky by now; My guess is that it is around lunch time now.

With that in mind, I pull out some rations and start nibbling on the rock hard rations as I continue my trek.

The Mana density in the area has continued to increase significantly enough to be directly apparent as I have been walking closer to the origin of the woodlands, I'd say that the density has roughly doubled since the level it was around the place where I camped last night.

As the density continues to increase as I get closer and closer to my destination, I become more and more aware of a strange pressure that is becoming Increasingly stifling; I am finding it harder to breathe and I am getting tired faster than what I should be.

"Whoo… This pressure is starting to really get to me." I mutter as I sit down on a conveniently flat and smooth rock to take a breather. As I am already sitting down, I decide to take out another ration bar and start nibbling the rock hard thing. "I'm really getting tired of eating these fake rocks. Why can't they make something less… Well, rock-like. Like, c'mon people you have Magic! How hard could it be to invent a magical bread, or… or… Yeah, I got nothing more than magic bread.

… What else would you even bring with you as a ration, if it wasn't bread?" I muse as my mind ponders the options of magical ration and what one may use as a base for it.

"Like, I seriously can't come up with any other serious option.

… Magical fruit? - Mmm…. Maybe.

Magical rice-balls - Do they even have rice here?

What about magic jerky? - Hey! That could work! Yeah!" I exclaim happily as I finish the last of my rock-hard ration.

"Alright, time to get back to walking." I say as I stand up and get ready to start walking once again, and off I go.

--------------

Another hour of walking while following the Mana stream, I reach what I believe is the origin point of the woodlands of Eteria: The Mana abruptly doubled once again as I entered the single largest open area I have seen in the woodland so far: A large dome shaped area where the surrounding trees are even bigger than the previous gigantic trees and the Mana density is so high it becomes quite laborious to breath, let alone more around and physically exert oneself.

The new super giant type of trees are at least double the size of the other already gigantic trees; If the first trees I saw were skyscrapers, then these trees are super skyscrapers that are doubly large and likely reaches heights where air isn't breathable anymore.

Basically: They are stupidly big, stupidly tall and likely, stupidly sturdy to boot.

As it is already laberous just to breathe, I slow down my walking speed to a leisurely pace which I can sustain, even with the super concentrated Mana density sapping my strength.

"What's up with the Mana density? It burns my lungs just to breathe the air…" I mutter quietly to myself as I take carefully take in my surrounding and keeping ready to react to a potential attack immediately.

Once I reach the middle of the open area, I stop and sweep my gaze around the large open dome shaped area, as I survey the area for the target that I seek.

"Now where is that elder dryad…" I mutter quietly to myself as I continue spinning in place, surveying the large open area for my target.

I find no trace of any dryads however.

… No trace of anything, actually. Nada, nill, nothing.

"C'mon. Really? Are you seriously saying that after I freakin' go through hell to get here, none of the damn things show up?!

Do I seriously need to go around this god damn place to search for these god damned f-...udgecakes!?" I exclaim in pure anger and exasperagasm at the situation I find myself in.

…

… …

A long moment of silence follows my rather loud exclamation as I try to focus on my breathing to calm myself from my previous outburst: One that has left me winded thanks to the Mana pressure and the difficulty of breathing that comes with it.

Once my breathing returns to normal, I sit down and ponder what I am going to do now.

'Well, what now? The fudge-cakes won't show themselves and I really don't want walk around and to give them the opportunity to attack me first; Who knows how many of these damn things there could be here.' I rant in my mind as I continue keeping a vigilant eye on the surrounding area, but I still can't see any signs of the damn creatures.

Sighing, I lay down unto the grassy ground and look up towards the canopy of the super sized trees, some 40 meters above me.

"Hey… Maybe?" I mutter to myself as I

start surveying the canopy as well for any signs of the elusive creatures.

It takes me a good half hour of carefully surveying the canopy for any and all movement before I finally manage to spot one of the elusive bastards.

'Ha! I knew it! The bastards are hiding among the lowest parts of the canopy.' I exclaim in triumph in my mind as I carefully track the green humanoid creature, noting and commiting any and all details of the creature to memory, so I may analyze the details and perhaps find something that can help me differentiate the creatures form the surrounding fauna.

Unfortunately, i find no clear signs that could possibly help me point then out from the surrounding fauna: They seem to be able to blend in perfectly with their surroundings; The only telling sign being their humanoid forms that are relatively easy to pick out of the surrounding fauna once I notice their movement.

"Alright, so to recap what Ter'vi told me about the bastards: They are like plant people who lives in symbiosis with nature, they burn quite well and they like to lure in males to their lairs to… well, do the nasty, so that they can then use the… seeds, from the male to make more dryads." I recount quietly as I keep my eyes on the one dryad that I spotted

"Oh, and they have a tendency to… wring the male completely dry, to the point that they often die of dehydration…

... I'm not sure if that is actually a sucky way to die, or not.

...No puns intended." I add and chuckle slightly at my little pun at the end.

"Oh well, I might as well start this show on the road already. It's not like it will do me any good to just wait here, anyway." I mutter quietly before I start gathering Mana to Blink up next to dispatch the dryad I have in my sights do I may slash it, whether it be by regular blade or the more magical air-blade.

Taking a slow and deep steadying breath, I exhale equally slowly and steadily before I firm my resolve.

"Let's do this!" I exclaim and active Blink and disappear from the forest floor.

End of chapter 32.