After winter set in, the ancient forest elves, led by the Elf Queen Aivelia, completed the ritual to worship their own god.
Although most elves are not affected by the cold winter temperatures, it is said in legends that winter is the season when their god rests, so the elves adhered to their beliefs and activated a conservation mode during winter.
“Sounds like humans are about to go to war again.”
After the ritual concluded, the Elf Queen and the elders began their routine seasonal meeting, and this meeting’s theme was undoubtedly about the elves’ neighbors for thousands of years.
“During winter, the ancient forest rests with our god, I think we can send more rangers to the border to monitor human activities.”
As soon as the elder spoke, those other elderly with big beards nodded in agreement.
After all, humans have been doing this every few hundred years; the elders have gotten used to it.
However, this meeting was a bit different—the elf princess Tia, though she might still need a few hundred years to take over her mother’s responsibilities from the human perspective, was now allowed to participate in government affairs.
This time, Tia brought along some very young elves to join the meeting.
“Why should we only defend our borders against a few humans? I think we can definitely send some elves among the humans, not just for gathering intelligence but also to prepare for the future.”
As soon as Tia spoke, she immediately won the approval of the young elves present; the elves had been isolated for too long. Although the legend of the High Ger Empire still circulated on the continent, the number of elves who traveled abroad was indeed too few.
The young elves were eager to see the outside world.
Initially thinking that her proposal would be met with opposition from a group of old-fashioned elders, she was surprised when the elders revealed knowing smiles.
“Aivelia, this girl is just like you were when you were young.”
The Elf Queen’s face instantly turned beet red, and she interrupted, “Elders, this is irrelevant to the topic of this meeting.”
“How can it be irrelevant? Weren’t you the one clamoring to go to the Rom Empire back then, saying the Rom Empire was nothing, and you almost got whisked away by their prince? At that time, it was His Majesty Avelis who dragged you back by your ears.”
The elders began to chat about gossip from a thousand years ago, turning the meeting room into an old tavern.
The young elves, listening to Her Majesty’s gossip, were wide-eyed, and Tia looked shocked at her mother.
Aivelia, helpless, tapped her staff on the ground, and the elven elders finally quieted down.
“So, what do the elders think about Tia’s proposal?”
As soon as Aivelia’s voice fell, an elder immediately took out a small note and read from it: “I think interacting with humans can not only enhance our magic level but also allow us to know ourselves and our enemies; in a hundred battles, we can be unscathed. To better respond to the threats brought by the expansion of the human empires in the future, I suggest sending the elf princess as an exchange student to the Royal Academy of the Rom Empire for further studies.”
While the young elves were still puzzled about why elves should learn magic from humans, Aivelia already recognized this as a suggestion she had made a thousand years ago.
Bang! Bang!
Two loud knocks interrupted the elder reading the note.
“That’s enough.”
Aivelia warned.
Seeing Aivelia, who was embarrassed and angry, the elders finally put away their thoughts and replied seriously, “The princess’s proposal is not without merit; now, unlike a thousand years ago, humans have reached a critical point in determining their own fate.”
“In order to maintain historical ties with humans, I believe we indeed should interact with various human factions.”
At this point, Tia, finally coming back from her mother’s black history, asked: “Why do we need to maintain the previous relationship with humans? I think our High Ger Empire, as the only empire on the continent, can definitely take it a step further!”
The elders shook their heads. The elder who had previously held the note stood up to ask: “Your Highness, do you know how many races and states there used to be on the continent?”
The elder closed his eyes, recollecting as he said: “Sand demons, gnolls, serpent folk, lizardmen, scaled beasts, primitive orcs…”
Another elder also pulled out a thick book, opened the table of contents, and joined in with the previous elder: “Aetheron, Felrel, Tairos, the Kingdom of the Mountains, Sorren, Jimjis.”
“What are these?”
Tia asked, somewhat confused.
“These are races and nations recorded in elven history that were wiped out by humans.”
Aivelia explained.
“A thousand years ago, humans referred to us all as ‘sub-humans;’ in the eyes of humans back then, we were merely subspecies of humans. However, since we are similar to humans, they have maintained a friendly attitude towards the sub-human races.”
“As for the races that are unfriendly towards humans…”
Aivelia glanced at the thick book in the elder’s hand.
“There’s nothing we can do about the unfriendly ones.”
Said the oldest elven elder: “When the continent was still in chaos, human envoys loved to insult the kings directly, so if a king got angry and executed the human envoy, the human army would surely rush over.”
“Isn’t that just bullying?” Tia, along with the young elves, sarcastically commented while listening to these ancient secrets.
“Do you think humans have such vast and bountiful lands because of luck?”
“If humans hadn’t forged a moral shackles, there probably wouldn’t be many races left on the continent now.”
Finally, Aivelia concluded this topic, summarizing: “Humans have a poor memory; after all, they are not a long-lived species. Events from the previous generation might be forgotten in a century or two. But humans also have an impressive memory; on the continent, they were the first race to begin recording history. Their poems even recount events from tens of thousands of years ago.”
“So, we should still maintain our distance from humans, but we must have a sufficient understanding of them. I believe Tia’s proposal is feasible; we should indeed send more elves into human kingdoms.”
The elders nodded in agreement, recognizing Aivelia’s proposal; some of them even began drafting some regulations on the spot.
Tia, thus inexplicably, saw her proposal approved; the young elves looked at one another, somewhat puzzled yet excited, discussing which human country they should go to after leaving the ancient forest.
After the meeting concluded, an elven elder came over to Tia and asked her which human country she wanted to go to.
“Probably An Zhu; I heard it’s currently the strongest kingdom among humans.”
“Yeah, An Zhu sounds great; its ruler is ambitious, much better than the gloomy Cape Kingdom.”
As the elven elder spoke, he “accidentally” dropped an envelope in front of Tia, then seemingly forgot about it and left straight away.
Tia was a bit puzzled; she called out to the elder several times, but the elder pretended not to hear because of his age. However, when Tia looked at the name on the envelope, she quickly hid the letter in her bosom.
This was a love letter from the fourth prince Ror of the Old Empire period to the elf princess Aivelia.
