A mage's journey begins with a battle mage.

Chapter 27 Hunting the Treants

"It seems that in the end, the outcome will still be decided by the knife."

Jiang Shuzhou drew his pirate scimitar, his mind racing.

He was thinking quickly about how to minimize the loss of health points.

It's almost impossible to be completely unharmed. Even if the treant's agility is low, his superhuman level is still first-tier. The reason Jiang Shuzhou is fighting so easily now is entirely due to the advantage of firearms.

Now that the gunpowder is gone, some injuries are inevitable, and all he can do now is try to minimize the damage.

In just a moment, Jiang Shuzhou came up with a solution.

Jiang Shuzhou began casting spells from behind cover.

"Magic tricks"

"The Mage's Hand"

First, he used magical tricks to collect a large pile of dust, and then used the mage's hand to lift it high into the air.

And just like that, a cloud of smoke was created.

To prevent a single cloud of dust from being too conspicuous, Jiang Shuzhou raised clouds of dust in different locations.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The smoke and dust seemed to guide the tree-man, as enormous fists rained down, destroying everything shrouded in the smoke and dust.

However, Jiang Shuzhou wasn't stupid. The amount of smoke he created with magic was far from enough to conceal his presence, so he naturally wouldn't release smoke where he was.

Taking advantage of the treant's impotent rage, Jiang Shuzhou weaved and maneuvered among the cover made of fallen tree trunks, gradually approaching the treant. At the same time, he also took advantage of the treant's current frenzied attack on the dust to deliberately lure it away.

"You despicable scoundrel! You shameless wretch! Don't you dare face me directly?"

"coward!"

Despite hearing the tree-man's curses, Jiang Shuzhou remained completely unmoved.

Even with this vocabulary, I doubt you could protect his parents if you went to the forum. Although Jiang Shuzhou doesn't have parents in real life, he has protected his cyber parents very well.

Raising his knife and looking at the tree-man less than ten meters away, Jiang Shuzhou knew it was time to launch an attack.

Taking a few deep breaths and glancing at the resurrection coins in the system, Jiang Shuzhou calmed his tense mood.

Although Jiang Shuzhou was optimistic about the battle from the beginning, he was still a little nervous when it came to close combat, mainly because he was an apprentice-level mage fighting a first-tier treant in close combat.

Nobody would believe this. It's one thing to challenge someone of a higher level, but how come you, a mage, are fighting in melee?

If Jiang Shuzhou hadn't possessed the talent of a battle mage, he probably would have turned and run away right now.

However, on the other hand, if it weren't for his Battle Mage talent, he would never have challenged someone of a higher level.

The time has come, now is the time!

Taking advantage of the moment when the treant attacked the smoke again, Jiang Shuzhou immediately began to sprint, and in less than two seconds he reached the treant's side.

At this moment, the tree-man also saw Jiang Shuzhou. Seeing this human who not only didn't run away but dared to rush towards him, the tree-man was ready to make this sinner who destroyed nature pay for his blood debt.

"Sinner, coward, rat, I'll smash you to pieces!"

He started with the same three-pronged attack again. I think this tree-man's life is pretty much over; he can't say anything else besides these three words.

Jiang Shuzhou didn't hold back and immediately slashed.

The blow struck the scarred tree trunk without a doubt.

"-19"

The tree's health points have also reached an extremely dangerous level.

"30/320"

With only 30 points of damage, two more hits would be enough to kill him.

"boom!"

At this moment, the tree man launched a counterattack. This time, Jiang Shuzhou was unable to dodge because they were too close.

But Jiang Shuzhou still came up with a solution: he used the all-powerful Mage's Hand to support himself from above. Although this couldn't completely block the attack, it could at least reduce some of the force and minimize the damage.

"-33"

The punch caused Jiang Shuzhou a splitting headache, but apart from some pain, there was no other damage. At least there was no buff like a fracture on the system status bar.

Ignoring the pain, Jiang Shuzhou swung his knife rapidly at the tree spirit. He just wanted to end it quickly, otherwise, if he got hit again, who knew if it would leave permanent damage.

"-20"

"-25"

The results were encouraging; Jiang Shuzhou successfully took away the Tree Man with just two strikes.

"Tree Man"

Race: Treant

Rank: First Rank

Health: 0/320 (Near Death)

Magic Power: 37/42

Spells: Entangling Thorns, Thorns, Ground Collapse

Condition: Malnourished, near death

"Near death: All attributes are reduced by 90%, unable to move, unable to cast spells."

"He's still alive?"

Watching the tree-man in front of him slowly fall as if it had been felled, Jiang Shuzhou originally thought that this tree-man would die directly like those pirates. Who would have thought that it could still live even with its life value reduced to zero?

"Whatever, you'll be dead soon anyway."

If Jiang Shuzhou had enough materials, he might consider signing a master-servant contract for this tree-man, since having a servant who could withstand damage wouldn't be bad.

These kinds of contracts aren't as expensive as you might imagine at the trading house; they're only around 200,000.

Unfortunately, there are no "what ifs," so for Jiang Shuzhou's advancement, the only option is to ask the tree spirit to die.

To ensure the tree trunk remained intact in order to obtain the most magical materials, Jiang Shuzhou directly brought out the three-dynasty veteran woodcutter's axe.

Next comes the loot collection phase.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The axe struck the tree-man's trunk, leaving only a gap of about one centimeter each time, suggesting that he would likely spend the rest of the day logging.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

As night deepened, Jiang Shuzhou, who had been busy for a long time, finally succeeded in cutting off the tree man's trunk.

He finally succeeded in killing the tree man only when he severed its trunk.

"Congratulations on successfully killing the Tree Man."

You have obtained: Staff of Lifewood, 65 Gold Coins

I finally got to experience the feeling of extra loot drops; finding a monster to kill was just too difficult.

While marveling to himself, Jiang Shuzhou opened the attribute panel of the Lifewood Staff.

Item Name: Staff of Lifewood

Category: Weapon - Staff (Equipable)

"Class: First Rank"

"Attribute: Increases mana regeneration speed by 20%"

"Attached spell: Rejuvenation (5/5)"

"Rejuvenation: Immediately restores 10 health upon casting, then restores 1 health per minute. The effect decreases with increasing tier for targets of Tier 1 and above."

"Description: A staff made of Lifewood, the druid's favorite staff, though of course, they are obtained in a different way than you."

Upon seeing the staff's attributes, Jiang Shuzhou immediately cast a Rejuvenation spell on himself. This spell is exclusive to Druids, and mages also have similar spells, namely, healing minor injuries.

It's not that the mages don't want to learn, but that they can't. The Rejuvenation Spell requires the coordination of natural will. The reason Jiang Shuzhou was able to cast it is because it's fixed to the staff.

If he were to release it himself, then the will of nature would absolutely not agree.

"Looks like I'll have to be more discreet when using this staff from now on, or I'll be in trouble if a druid sees it."

There are only two ways to obtain the Staff of Lifewood: either kill a treant like Jiang Shuzhou, or make a contribution to the forest like a traditional druid, and the treants will voluntarily part of their heartwood to make the staff in recognition of the druid's outstanding contribution.

Although Jiang Shuzhou's staff was technically a dropped item, not something he made from the heart of a tree after killing the treant, Jiang Shuzhou dared to say it, but do you think the druid would believe him?

If they are more polite, they will first place a "Detect Natural Enemy" to see if there is any problem.

If they encounter someone in an extreme situation, they will directly summon their animal friends and start fighting.

In either case, Jiang Shuzhou would fight to the death with the other party, because he was truly an enemy of nature. However, there was no major problem now, since this was near the sea. Druids were often attacked by various forces due to their extreme beliefs, so their numbers were already small, and they would never come to such a remote place.

The problem of "enemies of nature" is also easy to solve. As the saying goes, nature is the mother of mankind and all of them are sons. Jiang Shuzhou was just a little naughty. Now he has been punished. As long as he does not do such things that destroy the ecological balance again within six months, the mark of "enemy of nature" will disappear on its own.

For now, just avoid Druids.