Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
When elves died, they would have themselves buried under the Tree of Life. Their bodies would be decomposed by the Tree of Life and once again become a part of the Tree of Life. All started with the Tree of Life, and all ended with it. It was the circle of life.
The Kingdom of Sylve no longer had the Tree of Life, but the tradition lived on. Every elf would ask their family to bury their body under a special Tree of the Undead after they passed away. This peculiar plant could decompose even the body of an arcanist. And, after a year, beautiful white flowers would blossom on its branches.
Most saints and wizards chose similar paths. Their bodies could be extremely dangerous, even after they had died, and could attract much unwanted attention. Most wizards chose to be cremated or to carry out their funerals in other special ways. No matter if they were a common man or a saint, death was painful and, moreover, a significant ceremony of life.
The cemeteries of elves were full of Trees of the Undead. Each tree represented an elf who had passed away. Despite their beautiful exteriors, Trees of the Undead symbolized death and withering. They invoked sorrow and solemnity because the elves had ascribed them such meanings.
Dark night fell on the empty cemetery. Elf Queen Wendy stood alone under Wolfe’s Tree of the Undead. Bouquets formed a small garden beneath it.
The leaves in the cemetery whispered in the night breeze. Wendy’s black cape trembled in the breeze as well. The cape’s hood covered half of her beautiful face. Her hair danced freely over her cheeks.
Lu Zhiyu, who was also wearing a black cape, set a bouquet beneath Wolfe’s Tree of the Undead. As the wind rustled their capes, he turned and looked at Wendy.
“Wolfe asked me to give you this,” said Wendy as she reached out her hand and passed something to Lu Zhiyu. Lu Zhiyu took the item and realized that it was a tower badge, the same one Lu Zhiyu gave Wolfe when he graduated.
“Did Wolfe leave any word?” Lu Zhiyu asked as he looked at the badge lying in his palm. Exquisitely engraved on the badge was a tower on top of the black ridges. It was the first tower. And now, time had changed everything. Everything and everyone had changed or faded away.
“Not a word!” Wendy answered. Her face appeared as a blur within the hood.
Lu Zhiyu held the tower badge tight in his palm and closed his eyes. A shadow flew through his mind’s eye, and it brought back the memory of standing in front of Leves’ grave in the tower cemetery.
“Every birth brings death! Even the word ‘birth’ insinuates the inevitability of death. As if everything was predestined! Not just humans, but every existence will eventually fade away!”
Wendy stood under the Tree of the Undead, listening to Lu Zhiyu’s speech and watching him. Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around herself and could not help but laugh out loud, as if she had heard something ridiculous.
“Hah hah…ho ho… Is this how the almighty creator looks down on us mortal beings? Is that what we, the lives you created yourself, mean to you? Is every faded life of such insignificance?” asked Wendy, eyes brimming with tears. Her eyes were filled with sorrow and obstinacy, but she did not let tears spill out. Reaching a certain level, saints could control their bodies fully, even their instinct to cry. Such complete control of one’s instincts and desires elevated life to a state without any physical bounds. However, at this very moment, Lu Zhiyu felt one must have lost something when gaining such an ability.
Lu Zhiyu shook his head. He did not get emotional because of Wendy’s misunderstanding. “I am just saying, death awaits every existence. It completes the circle of life.”
Lu Zhiyu looked at Wendy. His calm, unemotional eyes were inscrutable. Wendy looked into his eyes. She saw the beginning and the end of the world, endless reincarnation, the birth and death of countless lives. Yet one stood still inside, observing the creation and destruction of everything.
Wendy saw everything and felt everything the one felt. A great sense of loneliness and pressure fell over her. She could not breathe under such horror.
Lu Zhiyu turned his face away, looked to Wolfe’s Tree of the Undead, and said, “Being immortal is lonely and painful. Being immortal is the cruelest punishment one can endure if one cannot find the purpose and goal of life. Are you certain you wish to go down this path?”
Wendy gazed at Lu Zhiyu’s figure. The overpoweringly tall figure spoke of loneliness all of a sudden. He seemed somewhat thin in the night breeze of the cemetery. It seemed the immortal figure could vanish into thin air, like mist. Wendy felt a painful feeling pass in waves through her chest to her throat and nose, and she shouted at Lu Zhiyu, “One day I shall be stronger than you! I will find a way to surpass you, even if you are the creator, the dominator of the world, an existence I cannot comprehend!”
“So what?” asked Lu Zhiyu.
“I will imprison you in my world until the origins of existence die out, and eternity and immortality crumble apart!” said Wendy.
“How terrifying!” answered Lu Zhiyu.
“It’s alright. Because I shall be there with you until the end!”
—
Year 536 on the Wizard’s Calendar.
The arcane kingdom of elves rose gradually with the leadership of Elf Queen Wendy. Though elves could not match the population or influence of humans and other races, they had a far greater proportion of wizards.
The original wizard system was developed and perfected by countless wizards over thousands of years. It was far more refined than the arcane system. The wizard system had many more categories and wider applications on civilizations.
Take witchcraft as a simple example. The complicated lower-level witchcrafts and average alchemy items might seem unimportant, but they formed the very foundation of the wizard civilization and supported its development. The wizard system could not be supported or go far with just a few high-level destructive witchcrafts.
The wizard system could now support an entire civilization, embrace different races, and march forward as expected. On the other hand, arcanists were just rising. Even though the arcane system was based on the wizard system and the divine system, it still had a long way to go until perfection.
However, in that very year, the arcane kingdom of elves progressed from developing internally to expanding out of the Sylve Continent, beginning to march forward and explore. The arcane system was finally being perfected by the efforts of Elf Queen Wendy and the many elf arcanists of the past centuries.
Arcanists started to come into the world of other races in the Starsoul World. Elves started to influence the rest of the Starsoul World and went into a phase of rapid development.
In the holy land of the wizard civilization, word came from the tower that the owner of the tower, the Thousand-faced Witch, the mythical wizard Catherine, was about to make a breakthrough. At the same time, through the development of the arcane system, the help of Lu Zhiyu’s note, and her discussions with him, Elf Queen Wendy found the key to a breakthrough and became a level seven arcanist.