Chapter 522 Timber!
Eisen looked around at the tree and chose to for now simply cut slightly into the giant Ironbark tree so that he had a slight guideline, so that he could make sure that the back-cut was really on the same level as the notch-cut later on.
This would really be an intense impact later on, that was for sure, so Eisen really had to be careful not to mess this up.
Once the guideline was finished, Eisen started looking around the area a little bit. He wanted to find the best direction for the tree to fall to. Although, since there was really nothing around here, any direction would be fine. It was just that Eisen wanted to look for a place with the hardest ground to make sure there would be as little damage to the terrain as possible.
Eisen planned on reinforcing the ground through his element later on as well, of course, but that didn't mean that he could simply let it fall down anywhere. A solid base was always important, after all.
Once he found a good place where a lot of the roots above the ground had somewhat gathered together, Eisen figured that it was the perfect place and simply directly made his way back to the tree to get started. Considering the size of this Ironbark tree, Eisen thought it would be the best idea to put an outline onto the log again to make sure the notch was even and really the right depth more easily.
After that second guideline was done, the old man simply got started. With all his force, he swung the Draconic Demon Axe into the wood as deeply as he could. It was hard enough to just make the guidelines, due to the strength of the bark, but actually trying to cut the notch into the wood was a challenge in and of itself. The enormous size-difference didn't really help all that much either, but Eisen was positive that he would be able to handle it all pretty soon.
Eisen cut his way through the layers of the Ironbark tree, cutting away at at the area contained byt he guidelines taht he made before until he had finally cut away roughly a third of the way of the tree's total diameter.
The scrap would that was created through this alone was a literal mountain, and Eisen had sigurd properly save it all inside of the dungeon so that Eisen may get the chance to look for some way to use it later on if he could.
After the notch was finished, something that took actually half the day, Eisen made his way to the other side of the tree to get started with the backcut.
Eisen swung the large axe into the wood over and over again, cutting deeper and deeper. But since it was far harder to get deep into the log just like this, considering how thick the log was, Eisen had to improvise a little bit. He pushed in his element that was turned toward rock inbetween the thin gaps created through the axe, compressing it as much as absolutely possible. Of course, Eisen always made sure that the rock wasn't in the way when Eisen was hacking at a certain part of the log.
But what Eisen was trying to do was simply slightly decompressing a few parts of the spots inside the mass of compressed elemental mana. That way, the extra pressure from below would hopefully accelerate the act of the tree toppling over.
And it only took a couple more hours until the old man started hearing a couple of cracks here and there created in the wood just through it slightly leaning forward. But it wasn't falling just yet, so Eisen figured this was the perfect time to make sure everyone was really inside of the dungeon right now, so that nobody would end up accidentally being injured, and then covered the area where the tree would hopefully be landing with his element.
He tried to make sure that it was the hardest that it could be, before Eisen returned to the far side of the log and continued cutting into it. And once it really started slightly tilting forward, Eisen chose to do something that you usually should never do when felling a tree, since you would never be able to completely control the way that a tree was falling.
But this time around, Eisen was confident that it was a bit easier to actually control, and even if he couldn't, then he may get crushed for now but would then simply be forcefully logged off for an hour on the other side. And that was something that Eisen could deal with, really.
The reckless thing that Eisen did was simply push his fingers into the crack that had formed inbetween the two parts of the log through Eisen cutting into it, and while decompressing the parts of his element that were also underneath, Eisen pulled and pushed the main log upward with as much force as his body could muster.
Of course, that wasn't all. Eisen also had the others help a little bit. Caria and Sal were working together to actually pull the log down on the other side, while Melissa prepared bees to bring them away from there the moment that the tree started falling in that direction. That was something else that you normally should never do when cutting a tree.
Either way, what those two monster-teenagers did was quite simply. Sal connected parts of the roots to the log using his magic threads while turning that whole system of threads into a three-dimensional magic-circle to increase the pull. In the meantime, Caria tried her best to actually directly use the roots to physically pull the log toward them. Like that, they were using both magical and physical means to help the tree topple over.
Soon, the log started cracking more and more, and Eisen could feel that he started needing less and less strength to push against the bottom of the log, so he yelled toward Melissa to get her to bring Caria and Sal away from where they were standing.
After a little while, Eisen noticed that it had really become inevitable for the tree to fall, so he removed his hands from the bottom of the log and just watched. It was really an incredible sight. Such a giant thing, simply felled within a single day. Eisen couldn't really help but chuckle at that.
The tree hit the ground not too long afterward, producing an enormous quake on the ground paired with a gust of wind that nearly blew the monster-children off their feet. The old man was pretty sure that the tree was damaged considerably even though he placed his element there, but at the very least, the main part of the log was laying there now. Eisen would simply cut away parts that amounted to a third of the whole tree's wood before preparing it like the guards wanted to take it with them. They most likely wouldn't be able to transport any of this in a single part, after all.
And Eisen didn't mind doing that either, since it would still help him level up both his Woodcutting skill, as well as his woodworking skill.
When the dust that was pushed around by the tree finally subsided, Eisen looked forward at the tree and quickly made his way over toward the leftover stump. With a quick jump, while holding the three monster children, Eisen managed to get there pretty swiftly, and then just took a look around. The horizontal log really stretched out for hundreds of meters. Quite a surreal sight, it was something that Eisen could only repeat to himself over and over again.
\"Well then, this is pretty nice, huh?\" Eisen pointed out with a light chuckle directed at himself, before he just stretched a little bit. And as his bones and joints started cracking a little bit to relieve the slight pressure and tension that had built up, Eisen noticed that there were some people trying to get his attention from the side.
Because of the loud crashing sound, the dust, the quake, and the gust of wind, it was practically impossible for the guards inside of the dungeon not to notice that something happened out here. In no way did they expect that it was just the giant tree being felled already… They really didn't think this would happen anytime soon, really.
Since they managed to relax pretty well inside of the dungeon, they seemed a slight bit disappointed at having to ride on carriages for a couple of days soon again. Although, since it would take a couple of days to properly prepare all the wood like they wanted to have it, that wasn't really an issue.
It took Eisen nearly a whole day to get through the log once, so there was no way that he would be able to finish preparing it by tonight. So the Guards didn't really have to worry about that.
\"So, I'm done for the day. You guys can just leave it like that for now, I'll get to work tomorrow morning and try to prepare the wood for you as soon as I can. But for that, I would also need some kind of preferred dimensions that you would like the wood to be cut into, otherwise it's just going to be my own choice.
\"O-Oh, yeah, sure…\" The Guard Captain muttered quietly while looking at the giant man as he shrank down back to regular size, deactivating his draconic demon transformation, and Eisen simply kept stretching himself a little.
With a smile on his face, glad that this was handled now, Eisen made his way toward the dungeon and stepped inside, before Sigurd opened a gate for him so that he could get to where the others were at the moment.
They were just relaxing in a pretty nice part of one of the Forest floors as if having a picnic outside. Reading, eating, training, all that kind of stuff.
\"Wait, you're done already?\" Bree asked excitedly, and Eisen lightly chuckled, \"I felled the tree just now, yes. But other than that, this is still going to take a while. I'm going to be working on something using that wood right here, after all. And then there's going to be the thing about removing all the leftover roots in the ground, and then preparing the ground properly to turn it into farmland, before spending a couple of days just speed-farming together with Jyuuk and Xenia. So… we'll be here for a little while.\" Eisen explained to the others, \"So go ahead and relax for now. Because after I manage to get my level up to 300, we're helping out the other Originals do the same, and then we're heading to the Giant Country.\"