Almost an entire week had already passed since the Forest of Life had emerged on Jundra.
Nobody was speaking about the possibility of reclaiming Juna, but that didn't bother anyone.
Instead, the government and military were trying their best to find ways to converse with the Elves.
After receiving the report that the Elves could fly through the air irrespective of the fact whether they were merely at the Prym rank or at the Origin rank, it was clear that they were far more advanced than the human race.
Not even the Prometheus Originals with wind affinities could fly. There were many stronger Elves than powerful human Originals as well.
Thus, it was for the best if mankind could forge friendly ties with the human race.
Based on the little knowledge humans had about Elves from various fairy tales and other stories, they knew that Elves were exceptional at using mana, were talented in the ways of alchemy, and their strong connection to nature allowed them to do miraculous things.
However, there was a big difference in knowing something and seeing it for real.
While the Forest of Life had looked weird and as if it had been thrown on devastated lands that were hard to nourish, the environment around the Forest of Life began to flourish.
The Forest of Life was expanding by spreading out its nourishment, and mana density. The spores and seedlings of the Forest of Life were getting scattered all around under the influence of the wind that rustled through the forest.
In the end, the spores and seedlings settled down around the Forest of Life, where they would grow and blossom once the time was ripe.
Everything the Originals witnessed in the past several days seemed miraculous. Most of the Elves had finally returned from their scouting mission, and the Originals, who were sleeping outside the Forest of Life, could only cast envious gazes at the Elves that were flying through the air.
Their speed was rapid, and every single motion was full of elegance. Observing the Elves was something one could do for hours. It was simply too bewitching to see one of the most beautiful races moving around.
However, there were a few people, who were entirely unbothered by the Elves' beauty.
They cared more about other things, such as the potential dangers the Elves might harbor, the fact that there was a manifested Divinity Fragment, or that two young Originals were the only humans who had received the forest's permission to enter it.
Even after almost an entire week had passed, Nial and Mathias were the only Originals inside the forest.
But even their life hadn't been as easy as the other jealous Originals imagined. For four days, they had been teaching the human language to the Elves. They were quick learners, which was why they had made considerable progress in such a short time, learning most of the language.
Now, it was only important for them to practice speaking in the human language for a longer duration, and become fluent in it so that one might not even notice that they had just learned the language.
While Mathias had been slightly frustrated at the Elves for being so slow at learning, his earlier opinion had changed completely.
Right now, he was not even sure whether he should admire the Elves for how smart they were, or because of their beauty, elegance and strength.
After almost an entire week had passed, it was obvious that Nial and Mathias had not just stopped at teaching the Elves their language.
Valvian didn't explicitly demand it from them, but he asked Nial and Mathias if they were willing to spar with the Elves at the Origin and Prym rank after they had learned the human language in a near-perfect manner.
"We should fight you guys? But..why?" Mathias asked, not sure if it was really necessary to spar with the Elves.
From the beginning, Mathias could tell that even the weakest Elf's mana control was way better than his own.
It was not even an exaggeration for him to say that their control over mana was manyfold higher than that of humans.
Only Nial's mana control could somewhat rival the weakest Elf's mana control.
And this was also only the case since they had entered the Forest of Life. Somehow, the extremely high vigor of the Forest of Life allowed Nial to absorb mana and annex it passively.
He didn't need to focus on it and his body absorbed everything around him instinctively.
Mathias was oblivious to the fact that the Ankh on Nial's Odyssey seed was being nourished by the vibrant life that surrounded Nial's entire existence for the last few days.
Even Nial took quite a while to notice what was going on.
'Since the day the Ankh had activated itself once, everything feels a little bit weird.' That was everything Nial could conclude.
There was nothing else for him to say. His mana veins were still growing and his control over mana had already been high from the get-go.
Adding the improvements he made with the intense practice of the Control of the Ancient Monarch technique, Nial could be considered to have worked his ass off, just to reach the same threshold as the weakest Elf possessed innately.
This was somewhat disappointing but also a means to motivate Nial to work even harder.
After all, he once again realized that he was far from being strong enough to protect his family.
'Even if I were to find my family now, I wouldn't be able to protect them…I wonder if Sabrina is really the person Hana spoke about. If that's the case, Sabrina's terminal illness should have been cured. That would be great.'
Before, Nial hadn't been able to think much about Sabrina's illness, but over the course of time, he had naturally begun to believe that the Heaven's Gates organization had somehow cured her.
He was not even sure why or when he had begun to believe this, it just happened naturally.
Whenever he thought about his family, Nial's mood plummeted. It had been so long since he last saw them, and he missed them dearly.
Thus, when the question about a spar appeared, Nial was the last one to deny or complain.
"But where should we spar? My fighting style is a little bit…destructive, and I don't believe that it will be helpful for the young Elves if I were to hold back. It won't help them figure out how strong mankind's combat prowess is." Nial stated, indirectly revealing what the Midnight Elf had planned to achieve when he had asked Nial and Mathias to spar with the Elves under him.
Valvian just smiled faintly before he pointed in the direction outside the Forest of Life.
"If you really want to go all out, you should leave the Forest of Life, and fight outside. In our first meeting itself, I noticed that your energy is very destructive. I want to show the kids the dangers of fighting a Destroyer, instead of their own brethren." The Midnight Elf shared his honest opinion.
It was simply not necessary to lie to Nial. However, he could see that Nial frowned the moment he heard that Valvian knew about his destructive force.
'I mean I somehow expected this as the worst-case scenario, but to think that he had accepted me in the Forest of Life while telling me that I'm a Destroyer…weird.' Nial thought before he turned to the direction Valvian had pointed for them to spar.
He had not expected the Midnight Elf to have such great perception that he was able to sense the remnants of his dark energy from days before.
This complicated things further and would put him in an awkward situation if he were to meet one of the Elves' higher-ups, their older generation, or even the Empress.
However, his chances to meet any of them were close to nil, which was quite reassuring because no one else would be familiar with his dark energy. At least, nobody of the Elven race.
'I shouldn't be too worried, otherwise, my worry will eat me alive in the future.'
With that in mind, Nial left the Forest of Life for the first time in several days. Mathias was close on his heels, while two young Elves had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
They walked behind Mathias and Nial as well, but instead of saying anything, they just nodded their heads.
Nial and Mathias were familiar with the two Elves. They had learned the human language and could understand them almost perfectly.
Among all the younger Elves, they understood the human language best.
After manifesting the Dragonflame spear in his hand, Nial could hardly contain his excitement anymore. He was happy to be able to fight once again.
'It has been quite a while since I used the Dragonflame spear. Let's see if I have gone rusty, or if I became stronger!!' Nial thought while wielding the spear around his body.
Mana circulated through his body and he injected it into the Dragonflame spear to manifest a thin flame after he emerged outside the Forest of Life.
Fire was considered the most threatening element to the life of a forest. The moment a wildfire would start, an entire forest was bound to burn to death, or a part of it, at the very least.
Nial was eyed weirdly by the Originals outside the Forest of Life, and the two Elves looked at him with narrowed eyes as well.
"He doesn't even hesitate to summon his destructive forces… Valvian is right, we have to be careful while facing a Destroyer… he said that many are like Nial that focus on destruction rather than the preservation of life…" The female Elf spoke to her partner in the Elven language.
She didn't want Nial to hear what she was speaking about. However, this was mostly for her own sake and not to hide something from the Original.
"But he is loved by nature, even if he is a destroyer. Life and Death are two sides of a coin, and you know that. With the death and destruction he brings, Nial also brings life and fortune. At least, that is the case if he isn't misjudged by the mana." The male Elf replied, not thinking too much about the given situation.
Mana misjudging the character and existence of someone? That had never happened, and Nial wouldn't become the first existence, who had been misjudged by mana, either!
As such, the young male Elf was rather calm when he accessed his spatial ring to manifest a verdant green Tier-1 runic spear in his hand.
The female Elf followed his action and manifested a similar spear in her hands.
"Great runic armaments," Nial muttered the moment he perceived how special the two runic spears of the Elves were. Even if he had already learned quite a bit about runic armaments, the runic spears in the hands of the Elves were still special.
"Miranda would love to see these spears." He continued, thinking about Miranda for the first time in a long time.
Even if he didn't want to acknowledge it, Nial missed his master a tiny bit. Miranda was a great person after all.
"Hoho, so you still remember your master? You haven't forgotten about her?" The angered voice of a woman, whom both Nial and Mathias were overly familiar with, reached them.
And it was just a moment later that Nial cursed himself.
'How the hell did I miss sensing her?!'
Nial had been too excited to perceive everything in his surroundings perfectly which was why he had not scanned his surroundings properly. As a result, he missed on sensing Miranda's mana fluctuations, just because he had been too excited to fight the Elves.
Now that Miranda had appeared behind Mathias and himself, she placed her hands on Nial's right shoulder and Mathias' left shoulder which made both her disciples gulp nervously.
"Hello…master…" Mathias could barely say while turning around with a forced smile on his lips.
Meanwhile, Nial was not even sure what to say, which was why he merely blabbered anything that came to his mind.
"Master, you're finally here…we made friends with some Elves. Look at their Tier-1 runic spear! Elves are great Runiciers and Alchemists, isn't that great?"
Nial wanted to avoid his master's wrath, but he could clearly tell that this was hardly possible, thus he couldn't help but quietly add in a defeated tone.
"I won't escape your anger today, right?"
In return, Miranda just nodded her head before she whispered into her disciples' ears.
"Nope, but if you want to calm me down, beat up those Elves. They forbade me from entering this forest without permission of their 'Midnight Elf' or the human race's 'diplomats', whoever these diplomats are.."
**
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