Yun was happily keeping pace with Laurence. He was as exhilarated as his companion. A wolf would spend most of its life hunting and stalking its prey, so the amount of time that Yun spent running from things with Laurence was a novelty to his hereditary memories.
They were still being chased by the Tuinians over a day and almost five-hundred miles since they ran from the cavern. At this point Laurence as unsure whether giving the leaf back would actually stop them at this point. Windread had been quite adamant about how they would be killed for their transgressions, but Laurence still was not really sure why the Tuinians had been so protective of the tree. He assumed it was something to do with religion, but when he learned how it would sometimes make people do crazy things for no reason he lost interest. Despite his father being a priest, he did not have the most favourable view of the religious, and it was not something that the man dissuaded in Laurence. In the end, his curiosity over the tree much outweighed his curiosity towards the society, and so his predicament occurred.
Laurence was impressed by their perseverance, but irritated by the fact that they would not give up. While they could not travel as fast as Laurence, they did not seem to need sleep, so he lost massive amounts of ground every time he rested and restored his mana.
“What should we do about the Tuinians, Yun?” He said during the second night. He had been trying to think of a new option to sort out them following him, but nothing he could think of would stop them. He felt that they would follow him right up to the stele to the next floor.
“Brother? Make new tree?” Replied Yun.
Laurence thought Yun was joking, but then he remembered the awe that Windread and the two other Tuinians had shown when he presented them with the statues. The more he thought about it, the better an idea it seems. “That’s brilliant, brother!” He replied. “It’s so simple, I don’t know why it wasn’t the first thing I thought of.”
“Because brother was busy.” Yun paused. “They are coming.” Yun could smell them coming from miles away, which was useful to the two friends, but it had on occasion backfired when they were upwind of a large tornado diamond vein. The diamond veins were the only thing providing air to the caverns. It seemed like the entire plane was underground, with the ebbs and flows of the day being dictated by the intensity of energy in the salamandrite veins.
Laurence began packing up the campsite they had made to rest in, and stored it all in his bag. He had no reason to be meticulous with his clearing of the camp. For the first ten hours they had tried to scrub clean their tracks, but no matter what they were still followed. It was like the Tuinians knew exactly what path they had to follow to keep up with Laurence. They had some way to follow the boy, but how he knew not. Within a minute the only thing left of the camp was the shards of salamandrite that made up the campfire residue.
They kept running. Each time they stopped Laurence would pull out the leaf and some other large shards of gems, shifting them into a new form. He did not need the entirety of the leaf to make his sculpture, so he broke up the leaf into its three compound materials then used half the resources of each one he had to begin trueforming. Each time he sat down to rest he would spend less than a minute shifting the materials into a new shape, the rest of the time he would spend using the Inner Flame Formation to restore his mana to its fullest and his body to its peak. It seemed like his hammer gained a greater luster with each use of the formation, and Laurence’s control of his mana seemed to be improving at the same time.
The second day came and went, and Laurence was halfway through his creation by the end of it. He had discovered it was actually quite hard to create something without his full focus being placed upon it. Through a lot of stress, he continued running and forming, then resting and running again until he finally reached the black stele that signified his exit from this plane. He realised he had done something bad, but this was the only way he could think of to rectify his misdemeanour. He was just doing the last touch ups on the statue when the Tuinians began pouring into the room like a flood.
With his back to the door Laurence still seemed fearless, despite being quickly surrounded by hundreds of angry clansmen. He smiled at the building crowd. Soon one would break, and attack him. He could feel it in their aggression. They were waiting for something, presumably their leader, but the man had not yet arrived. Laurence decided to talk to the crowd while he waited and formed the last few details on the statue.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have committed a great crime against you. Please forgive me.”
In response to Laurence talking there was a murmur that sounded like someone walking up a gravel path. He could not tell if it was a positive or negative murmur, but the crowd seemed to be riled up more by his words than before. Perhaps it was because of the crowd mentality, perhaps because of the way he had spoken to them, or perhaps even because they did not fully understand what he said. Only Windread had shown any real grasp of understanding when it came to the common tongue so Laurence assumed that his words were falling on deaf ears.
“In reparation for touching your great tree, I have spent time and effort constructing a small memento that I think you will appreciate.” He continued. The statue in his hand was glowing brightly, it was nearly complete but Laurence needed a little bit more time to complete it. He decided that talking would slow them down enough so that he would have his chance. He bet wrong.
One of the Tuinians decided to take offence at what the boy was saying and ran at him, taking a swing with the large pick that he had been carrying. Laurence shifted to the side, still smiling but sweating a little. Soon a second Tuinian moved in on the action. He had a spear, and began thrusting it at the boy. These two kept swinging their weapons, hoping to connect and claim revenge for Laurence desecrating the tree, but each swing Laurence moved out of the way of. It became like a dance, with the boy dodging at the last moment. Eventually their screams of rage at the futility of their current actions summoned their leader.
Laurence looked Windread in the eyes and said “A gift for you all.” Then he placed the statue on the ground. He bowed and walked through the doorway behind him, leaving the Tuinians to stare at the beautiful miniature statue of their sacred tree. Windread walked over to the statue and carefully picked it up. He held the statue high in the air and let out a roaring rumble of joy. Today would be a fortuitous day to the Tuinian people of the gem tree.
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