Axe found in extremely spiritual wood (5)
I believe the answer is:
slash
'axe' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to change as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'extremely spiritual wood' is the wordplay.
'extremely' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (only the extremes of the word are used).
'wood' becomes 'ash' (wood from an ash tree).
'spiritual' with its centre removed is 'sl'.
'sl'+'ash'='SLASH'
'found in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for slash that I've seen before include "Reduce (a price) greatly" , "Cut; reduce drastically" , "Legendary guitarist" , "Wee stroke < /" , "Violently cut" .)