No More

Chapter 59: Redstone Part 2

I glanced at Cassie, seeing her confused. "But we are not even near that Aura Node's area. You moved it, or rather Ivor did. So what's the problem?"

"The problem, as I just said, is that it can spread, Cassie!" I yelled, making her flinch. "The Far Lands are dangerous enough, the last thing we need is purple, demonic goo spreading everywhere!"

"It's demonic?" asked a concerned Cassie.

I held up the book that was formerly inside the Astrolabe Vault. "From the accurate, and disturbing, descriptions of the taint's effects... it might as well be."

I then pulled out some iron and a crafting table. I crafted two shears and axes. I handed her one of each. "Shear a few of the leaves, and cut down the tree."

She looked at the beautiful tree. "Are you sure?"

"We need the wood," I explained. "and the saplings it drops to cultivate more Silverwood trees, Cassie."

She let out a sad sigh. I can relate since I don't want to chop down this beautiful tree, but I need to. "Okay, but why did you craft axes?" asked Cassie. "I can just use this." she formed a crimson axe, twice as big as a normal one, but light as air, with her chaos magic.

She swung the axe at the Silverwood tree, only for the axe to melt and become absorbed into the tree within a hearbeat, making it glow into a beautiful light green color.

Cassie was shocked, and stared at her empty hand where her chaos energy was absorbed.

"That won't work, Cassie." I lectured. "Apparently, Silverwood absorbs negativity and releases a positive aura. So that includes your chaos magic." Even now when I'm near this tree, I feel my anger draining away. And in return, I feel... loved.

"So this tree can stop all things that are negative?" Asked a skeptic Cassie. "That a quite a broad spectrum."

"I don't know the exact details, but yeah, it does. If the tree is intact, that is." I added. "But the individual logs is enough to prevent the spread of taint."

"So we place these around the area where Ivor found the Aura Node?" asked Cassie, shearing the blue leaves. "To prevent the taint from spreading?"

"We'll do that later," I said, chopping down the tree. I could have used [Vein-Miner] to speed up the process, but it felt good doing things the hard way every now and then.

"We're going to use the logs to make sure we're safe when I extract the elemental affinities from the Aura Node." I explained, gathering the Silverwood logs, the blue leaves, and a few saplings.

I placed a dirt block in the middle of the four pillars in the fake End, each pillar having a banner to represent a member of the Order of the Stone. I framed the dirt with Silverwood logs and placed the Aura node, still in its jar, in the center.

I smashed the jar. A wave of mixed, elemental energy was unleashed. And if it wasn't for the Silverwood... we might be dead.

But it wouldn't be from the energy that was released when I smashed the jar. It would be the Aura Node's 'gluttony' trait as it sucked in and consumed the glass shards of the jar. Again, the Silverwood saved us from being eaten.

I used the leftover Silverwood to craft a staff. "Okay, now we can do this properly." I said as I let the staff's tip near the hungry Aura Node, careful not to let it get consumed.

I willed the staff to pull out some of the Lux (Lightning) affinity as I saw strands of white-blue, electric energy flow into the staff as the Silverwood glowed a beautiful green.

"So... that's it?" asked Cassie, watching as I walked towards her with the staff in hand. "I was expecting something more dramatic."

"That's it," I confirmed. "The Silverwood staff absorbs the elemental affinities, stores it, and refines it. In turn, I can transfer it to anything and anyone. That way it's safer and easier to increase your elemental affinity."