The Magic Empire for 20,000 years

Chapter 181 This is the Sunset of the Elves

Larklas, the king of the Sun Elves, wandered through the magnificent palace complex, occasionally entering a tower room to examine the beds, tables, chairs, and cabinets.

The princess and prince told him that the beds, tables, chairs, and cabinets were made in Eldoron, the land of men.

The king left the room in the tower and walked along the roads of the palace complex.

A horse-drawn carriage sped by.

The carriage was sturdy and durable, with a spacious interior; it looked extremely robust. It clearly didn't seem to be an elven creation.

The palace eunuchs and ministers told the king that it was a carriage produced in the human kingdom of Eldoron.

That evening, the royal mages came to greet the king.

They held a grand magical performance to celebrate the return of the Sun Elf King from the realm of the gods.

What a magnificent performance it was! The mages made flames bloom in the night sky, wove starlight into ribbons, and summoned the spirits of the celestial realm to dance together.

However, Wang had no interest in watching the performance.

He noticed that many of the wands, staffs, magic boots, and robes of the court mages were made by humans.

At dawn the following day, the king boarded a magnificent gilded chariot and, surrounded by guards and attendants, toured his kingdom.

The elves on both sides of the street knelt before the king.

The king saw that many of his people were dressed in human clothing.

"It seems that the elven kingdom and the human kingdom in the east have closer economic ties than I imagined."

The king's voice grew increasingly cold: "Why should we buy so many of their goods? Aren't our own elven kingdom's goods good enough?"

"Because the goods produced in Eldoron are very cheap and offer great value for money. That's why many people choose to buy them," Princess Lia explained from the side, trying to gradually mend the image of the human kingdom in her father's mind.

“They’ve made a lot of money off us,” said the Sun Elf King. “What have humans done with that money?”

In the following days, the King of the Sun Elves remained silent, quietly inspecting the various industries.

Wang flipped through the mountain of account books on the table and learned that the Elf Kingdom had exported a massive amount of extraordinary materials to humanity over the past 17 years, far exceeding the total amount exported by the Elf Kingdom in the previous century.

Wang entered the magic wand workshop, which had been passed down for thousands of years.

He saw the renowned wand maker adding elven packaging and labels to wands made by humans, and boasting about his own craft.

After more than a decade of neglect, this former master of the Sun Elf staff had forgotten the craft of his ancestors.

—The king remembered that in the kingdom of the gods, he had met the master's ancestor, who told this elf prayer who had died eighteen hundred years ago: his descendants had gloriously inherited his work and become the most famous staff-making masters among the sun elves. The best elf mages were proud to use the wands crafted by his descendants.

“You have abandoned the skills of your ancestors. This is probably not what your ancestors would have wanted to see.” The king’s tone was as cold as a thousand-year-old glacier.

"It's like this, Your Majesty." The master smiled helplessly:

"There's nothing I can do. I'm too old, and what I make can't compare to what I used to make. In terms of cost-effectiveness, it simply can't compete with the wands made by the human mages of Eldoron."

"But it's good now. I can label 100 wands a day, all in my name and my apprentice's name."

"Work is much easier than before, and I haven't lost much money!"

Seeing the Sun Elf King's expression grow increasingly grim, the master quickly offered another explanation:
“Your Majesty, I admit that it is not entirely honest to label goods produced by humans.”

"But it's not just me, everyone does it. All the Sun Elf wand workshops, robe workshops, and alchemy workshops have done similar things."

"The workshop still needs to operate, and the apprentices under my command still need to eat."

"This is an unspoken rule in the industry."

"Anyway, it's not like we can't make money."

Laclais stared at the ugly face of the former master before him, who was smugly pleased with his easy work and effortless wealth. He could almost hear the disappointed sigh of his ancestral master from the divine realm.

Wang did not criticize the master, but simply left indifferently.

The sun slowly sank, the afternoon light fermenting into a crimson sunset, and the cool evening breeze rustled the treetops. The king walked alone through the paths of the Sun Elf royal palace complex, countless thoughts racing through his mind:

Why has the world become like this?

Why has the elven kingdom fallen to such a state?

"The traditions of the Sun Elves, the past of the Sun Elves, the pride of the Sun Elves, the way of life we ​​were once so proud of..."

"Everything is gone!"

"It's only been less than 20 years!"

Compared to the elves who slowly witnessed life change and gradually accepted it over a decade or so, the Sun Elf King Larklas returned from the kingdom of the gods.

He felt as if he had just attended a grand banquet. After a night of revelry, the whole world had become something he couldn't comprehend at all.

The King of the Sun Elves stood with his hands behind his back in the blood-red sunset, listening to the court musicians playing cheerful songs on instruments made by humans, and watching the palace maids enjoying fruits, vegetables, and bread at a table made by humans.

He saw the blood-red setting sun slowly sinking below the western horizon.

In that instant, a terrifying sentence flashed through Laclais's mind:

"This is the sunset of the elves."

This chilling sensation that seemed to pierce his spine, this terrifying feeling that sent shivers down his spine, spread throughout Wang's entire body.

……

"Teacher, there's something I've never understood."

Before the majestic golem army in Eldoron in the east, young Gretel gazed towards the distant western elven kingdom and asked his teacher a question.

“I’ve heard a theory before. Trade made some of the Sun Elves fearful and resistant because it overturned their way of life that they had always been proud of.”

"But isn't it normal for lifestyles to change?"

Gretel personally experienced these 30 years of dramatic changes. He was born in an era when humanity was extremely poor and witnessed how Eldoron gradually rose to glory over these 30 years.

The dragon bloodline fixed his physical age, causing him to often have the illusion that all these dramatic changes were just yesterday.

El-Erian shook his head:
"Throughout history, for most of the time, the lifestyle of the vast majority of intelligent races has remained largely unchanged throughout their lives."

"Eldorlon's rapid rise over the past 30 years has been an unexpected event."

"Lifestyle includes the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the house you live in, the means of transportation you use, and the ways you entertain yourself during your leisure time."

"Behind these changes lies a shift in values ​​and a change in the dominant position of production and culture."

"What the elves truly feared in those days was that one day we would replace them and become the overlords of the continent."

"Just like back then, they replaced the dragons as the overlords of the continent."

In that brief moment, young Gret recalled a phrase his teacher, Mr. Joseph, had taught him when he first started school:

"What has happened before will happen again."

……

Twilight Quadruple.

In the palace of the Sun Elves.

"Transmit His Majesty Larklais's secret decree to all the Sun Elf families."

"Immediately summon all 30 legendary figures from the ten great Sun Elf families!"

"The King of the Sun Elves has a secret mission!"

(End of this chapter)