Grand Adventures of the Witch King

Being a Lumberjack for a Princess' Gift

Spirit Guards were a special type of spectral beings from the dead souls of living beings and they could be either human or animal, this was from a special art within his tome. They were akin to familiars but these were dead spirits and they had to die by his hands without the spilling of blood so that he can create them, for now, that is.

And they were pretty powerful too, not only affective against physical attacks but also as their names stated they could do spirit damage on an another living being too, that and they could move about invisibly to even when attacking.

Unfortunately, due to them being spirits they would deal about 40% physical damage of their strength when they were alive, however would retain their full strength when dealing spiritual damage.

Such damage can shatter the spirit of lower-leveled beasts or living beings, for example to when he first tested his boar spirit guard that he named Bennie to charge at a Wild beast level mouse-like beast the size of a cat, to the normal eye the mouse just froze and then flopped to the ground and began frothing in the mouth while twitching like it had a seizure as its eyes rolled deep in its skull.

It was alive as the heart was still beating but it was akin to it being brain dead, a side effect of having its spirit shattered.

Not one to waste such a precious resource, he turned it into an energy talisman to power or heal himself in case of trouble as he couldn’t make healing potions, this was what he could work with.

He did the same with the boar and bird not willing to let their bodies go to waste, a true way of letting them serve him in spirit and body. Of course along the way he met some beasts that were at early level Fierce Beast and a bunch of Wild Beasts, and those that bothered him he killed and either added to his Guards or as energy/essence talisman. 

Now at this moment, he was looking for that crazy deer, the Noni, or even his green-eyed stalker, that jacked up jaguar.

These two would make fine collections and additions to his strength. The Noni was the same in ranking with Bennie when he was alive but the former could battle against Peak level beasts because of its armor and vitality.

The Guen was a high-level Fierce beast the same as him, but now with his spirit guards, he could take it on fully to ensure that it could become his spirit guard.

Though he honestly hoped to find the Noni first and get it before going after it.

This would ensure that there was no blood spilled, blood spilling was for battlefields. He knew that in the next few realms, he would cause bloodbaths and he was no stranger to wars the only difference this time would be that he was going to bathe in the blood of his foes.

Shaking his head from such a stray thought that had wandered his head, Ezekiel backtracked his steps to where he last spotted the Noni.

Reaching the tree that he sat on when the beast was having its stroll in this forest the previous day, he dropped onto the ground and began to check the details he could find from the tracks using Ullo’s skills and expertise in hunting and tracking beasts.

From what he could tell there were a lot of beasts that had passed by here since yesterday, this got him thinking that he needed a wolf or dog type Spirit Guard, for they could track the spiritual scents of the targets much like how they used to track prey when they were living, with such guards there were barely foes that could escape his pursuit back in the day.

“Pied.” He suddenly called softly as his pupils turned green.

Chirp!

A soft and delicate call was next to his ear; it was the little round ball of ugly feathers that he had captured, but there was a change to its features, now it was slightly transparent with a pale blue body that looked somewhat like a ghost as it sat completely still on his shoulder staring at him unblinkingly with its black round eyes that had become a ghastly green color, waiting for his command.

“I want you to scout the area, a radius of about 15km, and see if you can find my other friend, the Noni. He and I have an appointment with destiny, I don’t wish to miss it. Go now my little friend and report back his position to me as soon as you find him.”

With a chirp of affirmation, it shot off with such swiftness and agility that was surprising for its round shape, but as a creature that had survived in this place for so long had to have some skills and abilities.

The other reason was that the meat of the little fella was very disgusting to any being as if it was a rotten carcass left for days in the hot sun, this is how its flesh stank the moment one cut it open after killing it.

‘Sigh, to think the gods would be so cruel to such a sweet-voiced birdie that even its meat can’t be eaten at all.’ Ezekiel mused as he shook his head.

He named it Pied, for what he was going to use it for and as a memory to his old friend that had the talent in both magic and music.

If he remembers well, his friend got so angry once back in medieval times that he drowned an entire town for not paying him for his services with nothing but a flute, of course, the stories say otherwise.

Standing as he dusted himself, Ezekiel willed the still invisible Bennie to remain vigilant mentally. He needed him to be on guard for he had to prepare a gift for his little mermaid princess.

“I don’t have much time so I have to make a little something that would draw her to me so that I can get to work on her, to think I would meet such a gift so early, I would be damned if I let it go to waste.” He said as he stared at the sky and saw that it was about 4 hours away from sunset.

Due to his magical power or ousia coming from a trans-dimensional plane that was probably outside this universe and many others, that caused a problem with him being able to perform elemental magic within his current world.

Ousia was akin to water, in a word; plain.

And performing elemental magic was like painting a picture on a white canvas. He had no elemental affinity whatsoever the moment his body rebuild.

This is why Gianna caused him to almost lose control and kidnap her that moment she told him about her affinity with the water element. It was unfortunate that he was in the building stage.

If he had the water or plain oil, then Gianna’s water affinity was like paint dye to him that he could use. But the process was more complex than that, for she was the key to him being able to interact and manipulate the water elements within this world without the need of having to create runes and sigils much like he had to do back in his past life as being that had elemental affinities were pretty rare and Gianna was a top-class one as she too had been blessed by a deity that had water divinity shooting her quality to the divine realms.

There were methods on how he could have affinities back then, well to be honest only three for each one of the paths.

For the Holy, he had to create a bond with a person with the affinities he needed, and they had to be alive until he completely copied their affinity after a couple of years of course there were a lot of rules that had to be followed and all that.

Demonic was easiest and most brutal of them all, kill that person, mush them into a ball that is soaked in a ritual that has ingredients of that affinity and the ate it.

The normal was somewhat easy but expensive, painful, and tiresome, one had to first find materials that were rich in the affinity he wanted and that cost money, time, and energy. After that, he had to inscribe runes of that affinity directly into his flesh.

He always needed 4 elemental affinities, water, earth, air, and fire. So one can imagine the pain of etching each element into his flesh. Each element had one rune each.   

But with his new technique, there was a difference, especially now that he noticed Gianna’s interest in him for this made changes on how to get Gianna’s affinity as well as make sure it was not noticed by her race’s goddess as he at the moment was not even close to being ready to battle any deities.

And that meant he had to use the holy path’s method, well a modified one that was special that even the goddess herself wouldn’t see anything wrong. But the problem was that he had to be in the second realm to even create such a link.

“So now all I have to do is make sure there is a bond ready for when I get into the second stage, this is to ensure that there are no misshapes, a perfect guarantee that when the moment is ready there won’t be anything that would ruin my harvest,” Ezekiel muttered for a moment as he went into deep thought.

For the bond, he had to make sure she was intimate with him in both body and spirit.

One would wonder, why not seduce her? She seemed like she was attracted by his charm and could easily fall for him without him even trying that much, but there were always problems that can arise.

Gianna is young, easily susceptible to change and she might even live quickly making his plans go to waste, heck it didn’t even have to be her as she might even remain loyal after all his labors, but what could protect her from being forced? Aphrodisiacs, love potions, and spells could exist. And he needed her pure, from what he could tell Gianna was indeed pure, a virgin.

So what he wanted was to create a firm foundation and protection that cannot be shaken by even magic or even if the gods themselves decided to take matters into their own hands. 

“I need something to lure her to me and then when the time was right turn her to the stage that would make her kill and fight for me with her whole heart without hesitation no matter who it is. Now that I think about it, this is like creating a yandere.” Ezekiel pondered at this, before shrugging, she must become his along with three other girls that had the elements of earth, fire, and air.

Having confirmed his thoughts, Ezekiel changed his eyes green like when he was creating his first spirit guard and began to look around at the trees as he pondered.

‘Mermaids love music, even if they might be of a different world one can tell they do as I could hear from Gianna’s silky smooth voice that she likes to sing. So I need a musical instrument to create that link in her soul binding her to me, the best thing I can create in such a short time would be a harp.’

With that in his mind, Ezekiel scoped for a tree with an older spirit, trees had spirits too but aged slowly, the older the spirit, the powerful it was especially in this place.

This tree’s branch would make the body of the harp and he needed one that had an old and strong spirit to make an excellent harp for the spells and charms he was going to put on it for the link that he wanted to create, one that was invisible to all magic and bind her in such a way that it would seem natural.

The spirits of trees were different from those of beasts and people. For trees they had their spirits spread out like veins in a human body, from the root, a round white spirit sat and reached out towards the leaves, much like a reverse root system within the tree. The larger and thicker the veins and ball were, the older and better it was for him.

Like this it took Ezekiel a good hour to search carefully, for what he was going to create was for his future progress and advancement, which meant he had to find the best he could.

Finally, he met one that fell in his requirements at least, the first thing one would say when they saw it would be to call it a stump, but it was as tall he was and was thick enough for 5 grown men to encircle it while holding hands.

From the outside, this looked like a dead tree that had been destroyed by some Fierce beast long ago, but in his vision, it was the oldest tree he saw around him so far and it was still alive.

“You will do perfectly.” Canceling his green eyes, he placed his hand on it and gave it a quick look as he drew an ax from his dimensional pocket.

Ezekiel then walked around the broken tree, there he saw a single large branch as thick as a barrel grow out from the stump and he activated his eyes once more and saw that it had a thick spirit vein in it. With a smile, he lit the blade of the ax with his flame.

Determining the place where to chop it off, Ezekiel channeled his strength and gave a mighty chop, cleaving the branch from its stump with one swing as he saw from his vision that he cut off the vein from the rest of the spirit and trapped it in the fallen branch, normally the spirit vein would have retracted back but he made sure that didn’t happen.

Picking up the branch with one hand, he inspected it for a moment. The branch had dried up instantly due to his flame as he had willed it to do, otherwise, it would waste time to wait for it to dry on its own.

Still keeping his eyes on, he once more lit up the ax and began to chip the branch down. To the naked eyes, it was nothing but trimming the branch down at strange points. Soon enough it was small enough to be held well comfortably within a hand.

Quickly replacing his ax for a carving knife, he quickly got to work and trimmed it down to an even smaller size, his hand flying as sawdust and chips flew from it, he had carved and sculpted a lot of things back in the day and adding the strength and dexterity of his new body, he was like a machine.

20 minutes later Ezekiel gave his work a blow as his eyes turned normal, “Perfect. Next some spiders and a fish.”  It was nothing more than a curved heart-shaped wooden frame, the inside was hollow and the wooden frame was no thicker than two fingers laid together, but this was just the beginning stages for his magical harp.

Chirp!

Just then a sweet tune of his second spirit guard called out to him, he waited until it landed on his shoulder as his pupil turned green. This was spirit communication being activated so that he can hear what his little guard was saying.

There was a staring contest for a moment, before Ezekiel broke into a smile, “Good job, my little friend. Now I need you to follow him, once am done here I will follow you using our link.”

With another chirp it was off once more, the Noni had been found and it was no more than 12km south-eastern position from where he currently was. This was good news for him as he would have one of the strongest beasts in his arsenal very soon.

Turning around to the stump once more to pay his last respects in his normal icy blue eyes, they suddenly squinted at a small creature or to be specific, the small spider walking over the bark of the stump.

“My dear friend it seems like you are being so generous to me this day, for that let me repay you for your help today.” A flash of green-lit upon his palm, it was a green glowing skeletal claw.

Crushing it, his hand caught fire as the cracking of bones echoed from within it. He then placed it on the stump, soon enough the stump started to look more vibrant.

“That is my payment.” He didn’t have to but he felt like it, he then turned towards the little spider, “And this is my mine.”