Chapter 5
Almost a week had passed since Rennel started training under Chaos in the woods. Compared to her first few days of training, the girl had grown much stronger. But that didn’t mean she had an easy time in the woods. On the contrary, the girl’s first few days there was like a nightmare to her.
Due to the season, the woods were especially cold. Despite wearing thick clothes, the cold was no less intense. If not for the campfire and the protection of ‘seed’, the girl might have frozen to death already.
The other issue that the girl had to face was the limited food supply. Having bought only a few breads, the girl found herself without food in just three days. Thankfully, she was able to hunt a game in the fourth day which helped her situation greatly. Also, Chaos was not that heartless and would always provide the girl with clean, warm water to drink and clean herself with. The magic was created by Chaos using magic so it was very clean without a single impurity.
Still, the biggest problem was finding animals and monsters to hunt. Because of the freezing cold weather, most animals and monsters are in hibernation – making their numbers very scant.
Actually, the scantiness of the beast inside the woods wasn’t supposed to be a problem since Chaos could easily find the location of any animals or monsters it wanted. It’s just unfortunate that on the second day, Chaos made her training more difficult by making her locate the location of her prey on her own.
And with the girl’s almost non-existence experience in locating the whereabouts of the animals and monsters in the area, Rennel could only walk around and search blindly. And as one would expect, the girl always returned empty handed.
Her unsuccessful hunts continued till she ran out of food. But as some would say, clouds have silver linings. Maybe it’s out of desperation but Rennel awakened another ability of her ‘seed’ in the fourth day. This newly awakened ability of her allows the girl to finally find a small animal that she successfully hunts, solving her food shortage problem.
Rennel’s newly acquired ability worked like, according to Chaos’ words, to that of radars. Despite not knowing what the thing called radar was, Rennel’s ability allows her to sense any presence within a hundred meter of her surroundings. One hundred meter might not be much but in a location littered with snow where a prey could easily hide or meld with the surroundings, the ability to sense anything within a hundred meter was god-like.
With that ability, the girl’s encounter rate grew exponentially. It’s just unfortunate that not every encounter result in a kill. Sometimes her prey would be really good at escaping a run away before she could even get close within a few feet of them. With her dagger having really short range, Rennel could only look forlornly as her prey escape before her eyes.
****
“Teacher…” Rennel, whose prey escaped her earlier, looks at Chaos pleadingly.
“What is it?” Chaos asked lazily.
Rennel twiddle her thumbs bashfully before speaking. “Teacher, could you do something about my weapon? The dagger I’m using has really short range. I need to get really close to my prey just to have a decent chance of killing them.” The girl complained.
“Why don’t you try using your dagger as a throwing weapon?” Chaos suggested.
“I did try that but there’s a lot of obstacle in this place. Besides I’m not good at throwing things.” Rennel explained.
“It’s not that you’re not good at throwing but rather you just don’t have enough practice. But fine. I’ll get you something longer.
“Really! Hurray for teacher!”
Hearing that her teacher acquiesced to her request to give her a weapon with longer reach, Rennel was really happy. With a longer weapon, Rennel could hunt more effectively.
That night, Chaos left their camp and went deeper into the woods. Given Chaos’ ability to fly, it reached its destination in no time. Chaos stopped in front of a majestic looking tree.
“This tree should be good enough.” Chaos thought as it scanned a large, old tree in front of it.
Despite the season being winter, the large three was still full of foliage and vitality. What’s more, a large area surrounding the tree was bare, without even a single grass. It was as if the other plants dare not grow near the said tree. It was quite obvious that it was not an ordinary tree.
Chaos stood in the air in its hind legs and pointed one of its forelegs towards the large tree. Soon, one of the tree’s long and thick branches extends towards Chaos. And without touching the branch, Chaos cut it from near the base.
But it didn’t stop there. Without warning, a greenish light engulfed the branch. Several minutes later, the bluish light disappeared, leaving behind a floating spear.
The spear was colored green with strange white patterns all over the shaft. The head of the spear was just the sharpened end of the shaft itself. The spear looks simple but pleasing to eyes.
Chaos examined the spear carefully and nodded in satisfaction. “Yeah, this should do. Although it’s not that powerful, the advantage of this spear is that it would grow with its wielder – growing stronger the same time as the wielder. ”
After taking the spear, Chaos did not leaved quickly. Instead, it looked at the tree that lost one of its main branches.
“Since you’re generous enough to give one of your main branches, it won’t be proper if I didn’t give you your reward. Hmm… Let see… What should I give you?” Chaos pondered for several seconds before an idea hits it. “Oh, I know!”
Having thought of a reward to give, Chaos pointed at the tree with its right front leg. An object that was giving a mysterious green glow flew towards the tree and entered the tree’s trunks without resistance. It was a seed.
The glowing greenish “veins” appeared on the tree’s main body. The glowing “veins” pulses with life as if pumping power to every part of the tree. This continued for several minutes before completely stopping. After that the glowing green “veins” vanished without a trace.
“What entered your body is a ‘seed’, or if we use the term of this world, a blessing. Since you’re a tree that developed spirituality, the ‘seed’ I’ve gave you should prove to be very beneficial. Even so, whether you can unleash all of the ‘seed’s’ potential depends solely to you.” Chaos explained.
The leaves on the trees all shook and sway as if excited. No, it was indeed excited. It didn’t expect that it would get such a valuable reward simply by giving Chaos one of its main branches.
“Don’t worry too much about it. Just think of it as me spreading karma. Like I said, what you’ll become in the future rely solely on you.”
Having said that, Chaos prepares to live but stopped and turned its head slightly towards the tree.
“I’m Chaos.” Chaos said and flew away.
Chaos flew back to the camp by back tracking the path it used earlier. Thanks to the protection that Chaos left behind before he went looking for the material for the girl’s new weapon, the camp remained completely unchanged without a single sign that anyone went near it.
As it was already deep into the night, Chaos did not wake up Rennel to give the girl her new weapon. Instead, she lied down on its favorite spot and sleep
The next morning…
“Here”
While the girl was eating her breakfast, Chaos unexpectedly throws something at her. I was the green spear that it forged last night.
Although startled, the girl still manages to catch the object and saw that it was a beautiful spear covered in mysterious white patterns.
Rennel stared at the spear with open mouth. She unconsciously put down the skewered meat it was eating to her side and started examining the spear.
“It’s beautiful.” The girl muttered while looking mesmerized. She then look at Chaos and asked: “Teacher, this spear…”
“Didn’t you ask me for a weapon with longer reach yesterday? You’re looking at it now.” Chaos explained with half close eyes.
Hearing her teacher’s confirmation, the girl was really happy. The first time she laid her eyes on the spear, the girl instantly fell in love with it. “Teacher is really the best!” The girl exclaimed loudly.
“What are you so excited about? It’s just a spear…” Chaos murmured to itself.
Rennel who seemingly haven’t heard Chaos’ murmurs, gently caressed the green spear.
“Teacher, does this spear have a name?” Rennel suddenly asked.
“It’s nameless.” Chaos answered without much thought.
Having heard of the spear’s name, the girl could not help but stare at her teacher.
“So, it’s called nameless? What a strange name.” Rennel looked questioningly at her teacher while tilting her head.
“No, no. The spear’s name isn’t nameless. I called it nameless because it didn’t have a name yet.” Chaos explained.
The girl grew more confuse after hearing her teacher’s explanation. She didn’t understand why her teacher called the spear nameless even though it’s not the spear’s name.
Seeing the confusion on the girl’s face growing, Chaos wanted to face-palmed (although it has paws). For some strange reason, the girl really thinks that the spear was called nameless.
“I’m pretty certain that her ‘seed’ should have greatly improved her comprehensive ability. But how come she’s acting like a fool now? Did the ‘seed’ lower her comprehension instead? Or maybe my word’s not translated correctly?” Chaos thought rudely.
“Listen here. The spear is currently nameless because I didn’t give it a name yet nor do I plan to. That spear’s no ordinary spear and therefore should earn its name through combat. Once it gained enough fame, it’ll naturally gain a name,” Chaos explained. “But if you feel uncomfortable about it having a name, just call it nameless for now.”
Having been given a proper explanation, Rennel was enlightened, and finally understood the significance behind the name 'nameless'. Just like her the spear was relatively unknown. In order for the spear to get a proper name, it must first prove its worth.
“It’s just like me. Like it, I too, haven’t proven my worth to teacher yet...“ Looking at the spear, and hearing its significance, Rennel felt much closer to it.
“Alright! Let’s earn do our best and earn teacher’s and the world’s recognition, nameless.”
Rennel, whose conviction was reignited, points the spear towards the sky as if challenging it. With the spear nameless by her side, she too will earn everyone’s recognition.
***
Side story 1 (The Tree Spirit)
In the deepest part of the woods just outside of Robac, there was a large and mysterious tree. It was a tree that existed for who knows how long having seen been around since the founding of the kingdom and the town of Robac.
The tree had long developed spirituality. Unlike other trees, it was sentient and has a consciousness. In a way it can be called a tree spirit. It has been living peacefully inside the woods for countless years and had seen countless living creatures. Because it cannot talk yet, the tree spirit could only observe and could not interact with other creatures. It didn’t really mind it though it was after still a tree, its mentality vastly different with other creatures.
Nonetheless it’s still a spirit, and being a spirit, the tree spirit possessed some strange abilities. For example, it could create a maze using all of the surrounding trees. This way the tree spirit could protect itself from any unwanted attention, especially from the greedy humans. Aside from that, the tree spirit could synchronize with the other trees within a certain radius. This allows the tree spirit to observe what’s happening to its surroundings.
Because the tree spirit had seen a lot of things, it didn’t allow other sentient creature from getting near it and leaved for isolation all this time.
That said, the tree spirit had lived like that for countless years and has no real desire to change anything. Therefore, when a mysterious creature suddenly appeared before it, and communicated with it spiritually, the tree spirit was greatly surprise.
It didn’t even notice that it was approaching; only knowing that it had arrived after it communicated with it.
The mysterious creature did not say much, only requested for one of its branches. Although the tree spirit values its branches, it did not refuse the mysterious creature’s request. Although the branch was very valuable, the tree spirit felt like it should not deny the creature’s request, and even gave its best branch to it.
Much to the tree spirit’s surprise though, the mysterious creature transformed the branch into a beautiful looking spear. And being part of its body, the tree spirit could still feel some connection with it. Maybe, it could communicate with the future owner of that spear?
A strange thought appeared on the tree spirit’s mind. For some reason, it wanted to see how far the future owner of the spear could go. What height would that owner reach? “I want to know…”
While the tree spirit was having such strange thought, the mysterious creature spoke to it again. This time it’s about a reward.
“It wanted to give it a reward?” I don’t need any reward. The tree spirit thought.
But after seeing what the reward was, the tree spirit completely changes its mind.
“I want it.” It thought.
It was the first time that the tree spirit desired anything for itself. The tree spirit didn’t even know why it wanted the reward so much. The reward was an object shaped like a seed that glows with greenish light.
The mysterious creature did not disappoint the tree spirit and directly gave it the mysterious ‘seed’. Upon entering its body, the tree spirit was almost overwhelmed by the power stored within the ‘seed.’ It could feel the power quickly spreading to every part of its body.
“It’s so comfortable.”
The tree spirit never felt anything like it. A mysterious power was surging within it but it’s not harming it at all. Instead, the tree spirit can feel that it’s nourishing it soul!
Not long after, the peculiar but comfortable feeling banished, disappointing the spirit tree. Nonetheless, despite the fact that the comfortable feeling had banished, the tree spirit could still feel the mysterious power flowing inside its body.
“What entered your body is a ‘seed’, or if we use the term of this world, a blessing. Since you’re a tree that developed spirituality, the ‘seed’ I’ve gave you should prove to be very beneficial. Even so, whether you can unleash all of the ‘seed’s’ potential depends solely to you.” The mysterious creature explained.
Although the tree spirit did not fully understand the mysterious creature’s explanation, it knew that it received something very valuable – more valuable than the branch that it gave to it. No, those two things’ not even in the same category.
The tree spirit was very thankful and excitedly shook its branches and leaves to show its appreciation.
Having seemed to understand the tree spirit’s gesture, the mysterious creature nonchalantly spoke:
“Don’t worry too much about it. Just think of it as me spreading karma. Like I said, what you’ll become in the future rely solely on you.” After that the mysterious turned around and was about to leave.
“Please tell me your name!” The tree spirit mentally exclaimed after seeing that its benefactor was about to leave.
The mysterious creature stopped and turns its head slightly. “Chaos.” It said and flew away.
And that’s how the tree spirit met the mysterious creature called Chaos. It was a meeting that completely changed the tree spirit’s life. Having received a ‘seed’ from Chaos, the tree spirit’s destiny has become its own. Thanks to the ‘seed’, the tree spirit would become an all-encompassing entity – the world tree – many years from now. But that’s for another story.
To be continued...
