Though Satya had prepared all he could, was there really any way he could sleep that night?
The forest was quiet, eerily quiet, and the fire only made it worse.
He was tired as well, but that tiredness was not physical but mental due to using all of his willpower to bend reality to his will.
"Why couldn't I have learned air magic? Is that really hard?
If only I had air magic, I wouldn't suffer from this heat,"
Satya said to himself.
Yet after some time, Satya fell asleep.
Maybe it was because he was mentally tired, or perhaps he willed himself to sleep.
But no matter what,
he needed that sleep for what was to come.
Even as Satya slept,
the forest watched without a change in its attitude.
It was indifferent to anything except making sure to keep its prey trapped.
Yet now that prey had harmed it, so the forest, or maybe its will, realized that there was no point in continuing this facade of normalcy.
The forest was utterly quiet,
with nothing disturbing its silence except the burning of its own part, a tree that used to be part of it.
The branches of many trees,
they were all burning, and as the last of them turned to ash, morning came.
This morning was an unusual morning for Satya. There were actual sounds of wind
and of the leaves swaying, like the sound hadn't gone anywhere in the first place.
Now Satya was face to face with a predicament on how to get out of this forest.
Since I know marking trees and terrain is pretty much useless in this forest, I won't do it.
Instead, I have to find a way to make the forest eternally still or make it so it doesn't follow me at least.
Since I have nothing to do, I will walk forward for half the day today and walk back for half the day to notice the changes in the forest.
Before that, it's time to start rationing my food, so I will eat little today, but I will still drink a lot of water as that is infinite for me since I have a way to make it.
So Satya started on his lonely walk through the forest again, except this time he wasn't feeling lonely, worried, or anything like that, but a fire of ambition burned in his eyes, the glow of that fire such as that of the eternal blazing sun.
Satya continued on his walk till the sun was in the middle of the sky.
Now it was time for him to head back.
Satya was taking note of his surroundings during the entire way, so he noticed the peculiarity of this forest very well.
So he noticed that whatever he had seen some time ago, and it was gone from his vision after some time, could be noticed in the distance if he really focused his eyes, yet when he went there, it was gone, except when it was in the direction he was walking in because if it was in the direction he was walking in, it stayed there.
During the entire journey, he had noticed everything he had seen since the start.
This proved his theory that this forest was revolving around him.
Yet being the center of attention isn't always good,
especially being the center of attention of a forest that has a will.
Walking and noticing his surroundings had Satya lose track of time, and now
there was the glow of a golden sky,
meaning to say that the evening had come.
Satya returned to where he had started his journey,
except he noticed something that he hadn't noticed in the entire journey.
The burned tree, the fireplace, and the ash never moved places.
They were still as statues
or as they were always supposed to be.
But everything around them had changed.
This sight of a familiar burned tree and the ash of a campfire in unfamiliar surroundings made a suspicion rise in the heart of Satya.
"Maybe the forest cannot change the place where a fire had been."
To get more knowledge, Satya got closer to the makeshift protection bed he had made, and there he noticed that the water and the terrain inside the circle had changed. The water was drained completely, yet the circle was untouched, as if nothing had even come to change the surroundings.
To confirm his suspicion, Satya didn't sleep that night. He made a torch and began his trip to the last campfire he had made before this one.
"If my suspicion is true, I can get out of this forest,"
Satya thought excitedly and hurried his steps.
Because Satya was in a hurry, he arrived at his last campfire in the middle of the night.
There in the dead of the night, there was no sound except the sound of his torch burning.
There Satya saw the tree that he had cut to make the circle of fire, but that didn't faze him because he was keeping track of them in the day and had already seen them once or twice.
But when he saw the campfire,
it filled him with vigor, and even though he was tired and hadn't eaten anything, he rushed back to the circle of fire he had made.
He couldn't just sleep in the open while knowing that this forest had something lurking, or maybe the entire forest was that thing.
As the bright sunlight pierced the curtain of the night, Satya had arrived at the place.
He finally sat down, cooked up a meal to fill himself up completely, and slept in his bed because he was tired from so much walking.
As he woke up the next morning—
yes, he had slept the entire night and day because he was tired.
This time he didn't do anything. He had a normal-sized meal, not the rationing one, because he had to do a lot today.
"Even though I don't have a strategy, I will still try whatever I can now that I know this forest's weakness.
And that weakness is fire, so I shall burn the trees in a line so maybe perhaps I can escape this forest.
Even if I don't escape this forest, I would have gained a lot more knowledge to devise a new plan.
I won't stop till I succeed in my ambition because that's the type of person I am,"
Satya screamed to himself as perhaps a way to give himself motivation for the grueling work to come.
So Satya first cut down many long branches to use as a way to transport fire from one tree to another because even though Satya could use magic, he was only able to burn down two trees at most, and that would exhaust his will.
He could normally burn down ten or more trees, but what about this forest was normal?
Reality and the unknown will working together only put his tree-burning ratio to two per day.
Maybe that would increase as he continued to burn trees
because in this world, a person's will gets more tenacious the more he uses it.
So he cut down the branches and burned his first tree using magic.
Next, he started to use the branches to burn the next trees, but perhaps the wood was too hard to catch fire in this forest.
Maybe it was the unknown will going against reality to make it like that, or maybe it was the property of this type of wood.
That day, after working tirelessly, Satya only managed to burn down 12 trees. After that, he returned to his circle to sleep.
Yet even after working all day and using magic two times, Satya wasn't that emotionally drained.
Instead, he was emotionally energized.
Now the forest was totally silent, as it would be for the next nights to come.
Satya connected the trees by a trail of fire as a way to prevent the terrain from changing.
He knew it didn't change then, so why would it now? But it was always beneficial to be cautious.
Satya had unknowingly saved himself by doing that because even though the forest could change the terrain around an entire burnt tree to move it,
it didn't because it saw no need to do that.
But after suffering that much damage, it had to try, but even that possibility was ruined by Satya.
After a week of burning the forest, Satya had burned 100 trees, and as the 100th tree turned to ash, something changed in the forest.
Satya felt it as a normal person would feel a sixth sense.
The forest was no longer moving around him, as though it had become still,
just like it was always supposed to.
But Satya was cautious,
and after seeing his will improving so much,
he could now burn eight trees a day just by using his magic, so he continued to do as he was doing.
Even though he only had enough food for 10 more days, he still persevered.
After those ten days had passed, Satya could now burn the trees exceptionally well because there was no longer any interference from the unknown will.
As Satya burned down the 500th tree, something changed in the forest again because Satya was always taking note of his surroundings, and he hadn't heard another sound except that of a burning fire.
He noticed it.
The forest started moving, but it was starting to move in the direction of the first tree he had burned. He was a long way away from that tree, but still he noticed it because the forest wasn't keeping its mysterious vibe with this, but it was more like a panic vibe because Satya could naturally see the trees moving with his naked eyes.
The trees weren't moving in the literal sense, but the earth was moving with them,
or perhaps it would be better to say moving them.
But still, the line of fire and ash he had built remained untouched as ever.
And after another day of the trees moving, Satya finally saw the plains.
Even though he was hungry, tired, and burnt in a lot of places,
seeing the plains of grass made him feel a comfort so great that he couldn't describe it in just words.
He started to shed tears of joy.
"Finally....
Finally I am out of that damned forest,"
Satya cried to himself.
But he knew there was no one else to listen to him.
Except there was something else in the dead of the night listening to him.
It answered in an indifferent and deep tone:
"Yes, you are finally out."
"In a situation of utter despair
I am calm as a mirror lake
Reflecting everything back for its sake
Devising a plan with my wit's end
Using every last bit of my strength
Even though heaven leaves no path
I make one myself
With the fire of my ambition
I burn an entire forest"