A mage's journey begins with a battle mage.

Chapter 26 Hunting the Treants

What are you babbling about? It's pretty childish.

Since Jiang Shuzhou dared to make a move against the tree people, he must have been prepared.

The Treant's spell "Entanglement of Thorns" has a very obvious weakness: fire.

Normally, spells cast by mages wouldn't have such a significant weakness, because mages add auxiliary runes to their spells during the casting process. These auxiliary runes optimize the spells in every aspect, mitigating or eliminating their weaknesses.

This is precisely the function of auxiliary runes: to trade casting time and complexity for improved performance.

Unfortunately, as a magical creature, the Treant does not have the ability to cast spells independently; he only possesses spell-like abilities.

The term "quasi-spell" refers to spells that can be cast naturally without learning. The advantage of this type of spell is that the casting time is short and it does not require learning. The disadvantage is that the spell cannot be improved or have auxiliary runes added, resulting in many spells having obvious defects and weaknesses.

Jiang Shuzhou had long been prepared for this situation of being entangled and bound by thorns.

It wasn't about using the Spark Technique to burn it; after all, with that tiny flame, by the time the thorns were ignited, Jiang Shuzhou would probably be long gone.

"The Mage's Hand"

"Spark Technique"

Use the mage's hand to pour the gunpowder seized from the pirates onto the thorns on the ground, and then use the spark spell to ignite it.

"Sizzle sizzle sizzle"

The gunpowder burned violently after being ignited, quickly setting the thorns ablaze.

Without the infusion of root magic, the thorns on Jiang Shuzhou's body began to wither rapidly, and in less than two seconds, Jiang Shuzhou broke free from the thorns' entanglement.

"boom!"

The treant's attack came almost immediately, its giant hand made of tree branches slamming into the ground, sending up a spray of sand and dust.

"Damn destroyer! I will mercifully grant you death!"

Clearly, the tree-man has started acting up again. However, this is understandable, as research has shown that a long-term vegetarian diet can lead to irritability, and trees obviously cannot eat meat. Therefore, there is an explanation for why this tree is so irritable.

This is caused by a long-term vegetarian diet.

What? You're asking if Jiang Shuzhou dodged it?

Of course he dodged it. Jiang Shuzhou wouldn't tell you that at the critical moment, he did a perfect roll and elegantly dodged the tree man's attack.

While savoring the impressive maneuver he had just made, Jiang Shuzhou loaded bullets with his Mage's Hand, and waited for the smoke to clear before firing two shots at the berserk treant.

"Bang! Bang!"

"-32"

"-30"

As the smoke cleared, Jiang Shuzhou's bullets were loaded. Since he learned the Mage's Hand technique and practiced it, he could now skillfully use it to reload.

It has to be said that the Hand of the Mage reloads very quickly, taking less than ten seconds to reload. More importantly, multiple Hands of the Mage can be reloaded at the same time.

Although Jiang Shuzhou hasn't reached the point where he can draw a circle with his left hand and a square with his right hand at the same time, he's close. Jiang Shuzhou just needs to reload both guns at the same time, which is far less difficult than multitasking.

It's like how it's difficult for a person to do different things with their left and right hands, but it's much easier if they only do one thing at a time.

Jiang Shuzhou has now been hit by six shots in a row, without missing a single one. This is partly due to the tree-man's large size, slow movement, and lack of deliberate dodging, and partly due to Jiang Shuzhou's exceptionally high mental attributes.

"Tree Man"

Race: Treant

Rank: First Rank

Health: 137/320

Magic Power: 37/42

Spells: Entangling Thorns, Thorns, Ground Collapse

Status: Malnutrition

After glancing at the game system, Jiang Shuzhou was filled with confidence. The enemy's health had been halved, and he believed he would soon be able to complete the hunt and obtain the magic materials.

"You rat hiding in the shadows! All you do is ambush from dark corners. If you've got the guts, fight me head-on! Stop hiding!"

Clearly, Shuren knew that his current situation was not optimistic, and he could only hope to force Jiang Shuzhou to show himself by verbally attacking and insulting him.

Jiang Shuzhou was already a veteran in both cursing and being cursed, so he naturally wouldn't show himself at this moment, but instead hid himself among the messy piles of tree trunks around him.

He chopped down all these trees himself, and now his efforts have finally paid off. Not only have he summoned the treants, but he has also prepared cover.

What's even more hellish is that these trees on the ground are most likely the elders of this tree-man, and Jiang Shuzhou is currently hiding behind the corpses of these elders.

No wonder druids cherish nature so much. After all, a druid's signature spell is summoning treants. If they even cut down trees themselves, the treants they summon might avenge their friends and family first.

Putting aside his thoughts of hell, Jiang Shuzhou used the Mage's Hand again to reload.

"Bang! Bang!"

"-22"

"-20"

Two more bullets flew toward the tree-man, and without a doubt, they hit the huge target.

"boom!"

The tree-man unleashed its power, and in just a few seconds, Jiang Shuzhou's hiding place was blasted to pieces.

For a moment, Jiang Shuzhou couldn't even tell whether the tree-man was a magical creature or not. Normally, magical creatures with spell-like abilities would be relatively weak in close combat, but this tree-man was the opposite.

His magical abilities are weak, but his melee combat skills are extremely strong.

"Is the natural will of the trench targeting me? If I get hit by it, won't I be covered in bruises?"

Jiang Shuzhou strongly suspected that the will of nature had been influenced by its own agenda; otherwise, how could this tree-man be so bizarre?

Fortunately, Jiang Shuzhou was no pushover either. Thanks to his relentless attacks before the treant fully formed, the newly born treant suffered from malnutrition, resulting in a significant drop in all its attributes, especially agility, which decreased by 40%. If its agility had been normal, Jiang Shuzhou might not have been able to defeat it so easily.

"Aaaaaaah, I want you dead!"

Perhaps the treant was already in a very dangerous state, for it immediately launched a battle cry followed by a barrage of spells.

"Wooden Spikes" x6

This was his last act of madness, because each wooden spike required about 1.5 seconds of casting time. After casting these six spells, Jiang Shuzhou had already reloaded his bullets.

"Bang! Bang!"

"-25"

"-21"

Two more bullets successfully struck the tree's torso. Now, at most three bullets are needed for the tree to fall, and the operation will be a success.

Jiang Shuzhou prepared to unleash the Mage's Hand again; he still had about 50 points of magic power left, which was enough.

However, while they had enough magic power, they were running out of gunpowder.

After multiple firings and reloading, and after a large amount of gunpowder was poured out to burn the thorns, the gunpowder flask had burned out completely, with not a single drop left.

Clutching his left arm, which had been cut by splintered wood, Jiang Shuzhou was in a bad mood. The treant's counterattack had not been ineffective; it proved that large-scale magical attacks could indeed be effective against hidden enemies.

Of course, this can also be simply described as a blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse.

"Health Points 141/160"

This is Jiang Shuzhou's current health points. His health points have increased by 20 points due to the increase of two points in stamina.

"The power of first-tier spells is indeed terrifying."

With over 20 points of armor, he lost 19 points of health, and that was just a glancing blow. What would happen if he had been hit? Jiang Shuzhou felt a chill run down his spine just thinking about it.

But what followed was something even more terrifying.

He's out of gunpowder now, so he can no longer use his flintlock pistol for ranged attacks. He'll have to resort to his knife for close combat from now on.