The next day, both Dorian and Kael woke up to a sight they couldn't have imagined even in their wildest dreams.
The hollowed-out oak tree was completely surrounded by nearly a dozen terrifying beasts of all shapes and sizes. There were creatures like dragon-scale earth lizards, prickly porcupines, and even massive snakes as thick as small houses and many others. But what truly confused Dorian was that they were all just standing there, keeping a careful distance from one another.
Suddenly, Dorian heard a piercing screech. High above the clouds, he spotted a huge bird resembling a crow, but with striking bright yellow feathers and an orange beak and talons. What sent a chill down his spine was the realization that this was a Sun Crow, a distant relative of the mythical Phoenix itself. The difference was in its superior bloodline, meaning it would be significantly stronger than any other beast at its level. The good news for the moment, however, was that the Sun Crow was also just circling overhead, doing nothing.
Dorian, spread his senses. The positive news was that all the land beasts were either weaker than him (a High One Wizard) or only one stage above. Most of them were classified were weaker Lurkers.
"What do we do?" Kael whispered, his voice trembling with fear of angering the surrounding creatures. They were trapped, and he knew he couldn't possibly outrun them.
Dorian observed the situation from the entrance of the oak. His mind raced as he desperately tried to figure out why these beasts were all gathered here. Then, like a sudden strike of lightning, the answer hit him. He reached down and touched the mana stone and the two magic cores he had harvested from the sparrow and the leopard.
"It seems the energy coming off these three items has attracted all these beasts," Dorian said, barely above a breath, not daring to twitch a muscle.
After what felt like an eternity, but was only a few seconds, Dorian spoke again. "Kael, you stay inside the tree. I'll run out and draw them away, and you make a break for it."
"But Dorian, you can't possibly fight all those monsters!" Kael said, his voice now filled with genuine concern, a rare sound for him.
"Well, I don't see any other choice," Dorian replied gravely. "And besides, I don't plan on fighting them; I just need to escape."
"Why don't you just throw the damn stone away?" Kael exclaimed, annoyance creeping into his concern.
"I can't," Dorian stated firmly.
"Why, why can't you?" Kael asked, alarmed. "It's certainly not worth your life!"
"This mana crystal will help me grow powerful. If I give it up now, how will I advance? It's not everyday you stumble on mana stones and besides nothing good ever comes easy!" With those final, resolute words, Dorian sprinted out of the tree and into the dense forest.
Like a chain reaction, his movement caused a massive frenzy. All the surrounding beasts instantly started charging after him.
Dorian immediately pumped his mana into his legs to boost his speed; otherwise, he would be caught instantly. He burst through the undergrowth, weaving skillfully between the trees. His smaller frame gave him a significant advantage over the hulking magical beasts. From behind, he could hear the thunderous clack of hooves as a giant black bull with milky white horns tore down multiple trees in its path.
Dorian was using mana in the most basic way known to wizards : boosting his limbs. He could move faster than the strength-based creatures, but not fast enough to outpace the speed-oriented ones.
This fact became terrifyingly clear when, suddenly, a normal-sized wolf with a wind affinity burst from his flank. It was so fast that it appeared as only a blur in Dorian's peripheral vision. With a sharp turn, the wolf lunged at Dorian, its claws extended, ready to rip him apart.
Dorian reacted with lightning speed, forming an energy barrier just as the wolf struck.
Boom!
The powerful impact and momentum hurled Dorian straight into a massive tree trunk.
Cough! Cough!
Dorian felt the air rush out of his lungs, but thankfully, the energy shield had absorbed the majority of the brutal force. He desperately needed a plan to escape; the situation was quickly spiraling out of control.
The huge, bull-like creature appeared, slowly but steadily closing the distance. Though slower than the wolf, it was a pure strength beast and would easily flatten him. Its colossal horns were locked onto his figure, like a pikeman preparing to impale him.
Dorian focused his mana, strengthening his legs, and leaped hundreds of feet up onto a thick, nearby tree branch. The enraged bull missed its target and began to relentlessly ram the tree with unbelievable power. The tree shook violently, and a shower of leaves and branches rained down.
Dorian looked around and saw more and more creatures closing in on his location. What to do?
Using his mana, Dorian started rapidly hopping from one branch to the next; to an ordinary person, he would have looked like a ghostly blur. Just as he was about to jump to the next tree, a large fireball slammed into the tree he was on, hitting it dead center. In an instant, the tree burst into scalding, raging flames.
Looking up at the source, Dorian locked eyes with the Sun Crow. It was still high in the clouds, Dorian broke out in a cold sweat. Had he not paused for that split second, he would have been a pile of ash. The crow was mostly just circling, but Dorian could tell it was carefully watching the whole fight, waiting.
"It's waiting for us to tire each other out," Dorian realized the true danger. Looking down, the bull was still battering the tree, while the wolf stared up at him with ravenous, hungry eyes.
"Dorian, Dorian, you need to conceal the crystal and stones' energy."
Dorian spun around in confusion, searching for the source of the voice. No one else was nearby.
"It's me, the artifact spirit," the voice suddenly echoed, but from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"It's me the artifact spirit,"he heard the same voice again.
"I thought you vanished with the emerald! How... how?" Dorian asked in utter astonishment.
"I don't think you have time for that right now," the artifact spirit said with a slight chuckle, sounding as if it were always in a playful mood.
"Okay, what should I do?" Dorian asked, realizing that his questions could wait until he was safe.
"You are an energy affinity user. You can conceal them, can't you?" the artifact spirit said in a casual, matter-of-fact tone.
"But how?" Dorian was frustrated by the spirit's usual cryptic way of speaking.
"I was just getting to that," the spirit said, still sounding carefree. "When you release an attack, it's like throwing a spear, right? You release the energy from your core, form the attack, and let it go, correct?" The spirit adopted the tone of a professor lecturing a student. "Well, in this case, release the energy, form the concealment, and don't let it go." What the spirit was suggesting sounded like a viable theory, but this was a life-or-death situation. All Dorian could do was try.
"Wait, how am I supposed to maintain the concealment if I don't constantly feed energy into it?" Dorian questioned, a major flaw in the theory occurring to him.
"It's like how an Earth Wizard can build a permanent wall. You will have to make the concealment more physical—you will have to mold your energy like clay and not a one time attack," the spirit finally explained.
Dorian finally understood the concept. But this was not the time or place, surrounded as he was by deadly beasts.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Suddenly, like a hail of bullets, many ice shards began bombarding his position. They cut through the enormous, burning tree with minimal effort. Realizing the extreme danger, Dorian threw himself off the flaming branch, luckily receiving only minor scratches upon landing on the ground.
As he hit the forest floor, he looked at the source of the attack. It was an Ice Element beast resembling a porcupine, but instead of spikes, it was firing deadly shards of ice. The two locked eyes, and a risky, desperate idea formed in Dorian's mind.