The Magic Empire for 20,000 years

Chapter 56, Section 53: The Elven Royal Court, The Manifest Destiny

a few hours ago.

West side of Eldoron.

In the woodland brimming with surging magical power.

Towering, exquisite white spires pierce the sky. Paths paved with snow-white stone bricks meander through the forest, transforming into secluded and beautiful trails. Clear, sacred water gushes from fountains, reflecting the sun's seven colors.

Elf Royal Court.

In the heart of the continent, in all elven cities and villages, and in every elven family, there is a regime that is universally recognized and upheld!

In a beautiful palace that blends perfectly with its surrounding natural environment.

In the magnificent and spacious hall, seven elven court mages sat in their respective chairs, savoring fresh fruit tea and chatting happily.

Each of these court mages is a legendary mage who has surpassed the ninth level!

Those in this hall are only a small fraction of the 42 legendary mages and 60 legendary professionals in the entire elven race.

This is the foundation of the Elf race, the foundation of the strongest nation on the continent!

Although these dozens of legendary figures belong to different elven families and serve different masters, they are still incredibly formidable.

At that moment, the wooden door to the hall was pushed open with a creaking sound.

An elegantly dressed, slightly aged elven court mage walked in.

“Alamir Goldfleur, you’ve finally come out of your shabby mage tower. It’s been over 100 years, hasn’t it?”

A moon elf mage playing a harp smiled at the sun elf mage who had just entered the hall.

The sun elf mage, known as Alamir, had a noticeably colder and more serious expression, and shrugged dismissively.

"Your Highness Seymour, watch your words."

"It's only a century. In the elven race's pursuit of the great art of magic, it's just a fleeting moment."

Alamir's statement was slightly exaggerated, but within a reasonable range.

Even the most ordinary elven civilians have a lifespan of over 700 years.

These legendary elven mages would spend about two thousand years in this mortal world before heading to the elven kingdom.

Moreover, unlike lowly humans who have no divine protection, after an elf dies, their soul can retain their memories and enter the elven kingdom of Avanto to enjoy happiness—for an elf, the death of the body is merely the beginning of another journey in life!
"In the more than a century that I have spent exploring the art of magic within this tower, has anything noteworthy happened?"

Alamir glanced around and asked a serious question.

The legendary elven mages exchanged glances.

"Nothing noteworthy seems to have happened."

"The elven kingdom remains peaceful as always, and no enemy dares to set foot on elven land..."

"The Elven Royal Court remains the ruler of all civilized races on this continent, the supreme beacon of the civilized world."

"We lead the four great civilized races of elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings, resisting dozens of barbaric races such as orcs, goblins, kobolds, and gnolls, preventing them from encroaching on this civilized land in the heart of the continent."

"The giants and dragons are no longer as glorious as they once were; they are either hiding in the wilds of the continent or have fled to other continents."

"By the way, speaking of races," an elven mage said, as if remembering something, "what do you think of humans, this newly emerging race?"

"Humans?" The other sun elf mage seemed to have heard a rather unfamiliar word.

"Is it that new race that suddenly appeared less than a thousand years ago?"

"Yes, that's the race!"

“I remember a few years ago, humans established a large settlement in a small river valley on the east side of the continent.”

“Speaking of humans…” The moon elf mage Seymour suddenly became interested, a sly smile spreading across his face as he spoke in a teasing tone:
“Alamir, during your seclusion, that new race called humans did indeed accomplish something significant!”

"What's the big deal?" Alamir remained serious, merely raising an eyebrow.

He certainly didn't think that humans, such a newly born and lowly race, could accomplish anything of noteworthy to the Elven Royal Court.

"Shortly after you went into seclusion, those human mages who know magic actually built a floating city and ran up to the sky!"

Alamir frowned:
"What? A floating city that has been suspended in the air for a long time? Humans can actually do something like that?"

In his mind, only legendary ritual magic could possibly cut through mountains, invert them, and allow the floating city to rise into the sky.

“Of course it wasn’t done by a single human. It was completed by human mages who gathered the strength of one or two thousand people and spent many years using a large amount of precious materials,” said the moon elf mage Seymour.

“No, no, that’s not what I’m asking,” Alamir said.

"I mean, the human race actually knows arcane magic?"

“I taught them,” Seymour said with considerable pride. “That was about 300 years ago? Or 500 years ago? I can’t quite remember.”

"At that time, my attendants and I traveled to the East and encountered humans who had just established their first city-states. We then taught them magic."

Yes, Seymour Moon Whisper is the moon elf royalty who, centuries ago, taught magic to humankind.

“What, Seymour? What are you doing teaching humans this kind of thing?” Alamir’s tone suddenly turned stern.

"Don't you think it's interesting to watch those hairless monkeys learn magic from scratch?"

Seymour smiled as he recalled what had happened.

"Do you even know what you're doing, Seymour!"

Alamir angrily reprimanded:

"Do you think teaching magic to those inferior races is a fun thing to do?"

"You have committed the sin of blasphemy against the elven gods!"

As a typical Sun Elf, Alamir despises all other non-elf races.

In his mind, the world consists of a perfect pyramid of racial gradients—

At the top are the Sun Elves, followed by the Moon Elves—these two subspecies of elves are collectively known as "High Elves".

The second tier consists of other minority elven races such as wood elves, wild elves, aquatic elves, winged elves, and dark elves (future drow elves).

The third tier consists of civilized races such as dwarves, halflings, and gnomes.

Although they are of lowly status, they are tolerated to some extent because the dwarves can help them forge weapons and the halflings can help them herd livestock.

There must always be some lowly races to do the menial work that elves are unwilling to do.

Below the three tiers, goblins, orcs, kobolds, and humans are all considered low-class, and even their names sound disgusting.

Alamir, like the other Sun Elves, firmly believed:
This pyramid-shaped ladder of civilization is part of the rules of the universe.

It was the divine mandate bestowed upon the Elf race by the Elf Gods to rule over all races!
This is why he was so angry after learning that Seymour had taught humans magic.

"You taught those barbaric races arcane magic, breaking the rules and allowing those lowly races to access things they shouldn't have access to."

"You moon elves are always so careless, disregarding the teachings of the gods and ignoring our traditions!"

Alamir harshly criticized.

Seymour retorted with considerable dissatisfaction:

"It's not that serious."

"It's because you Sun Elves are too conservative; you can't tolerate any new things."

“Even the smallest things are dragged into theocratic authority and elven traditions.”

"If I really commit the sin of blaspheming the elven gods, the priests will definitely come after me."

Before Alamir could retort, another moon elf mage asked curiously:

"By the way, Your Highness Seymour, why do those humans want to build floating cities?"

"It seems so. Those humans who learned magic felt that they were no longer the same species as those who didn't know magic, so they collectively went up to the sky to isolate themselves from the civilians on the ground," Seymour said, revealing what he knew before.

“Oh, I’ve heard about that too,” said another elven mage, Sheila. “Those noble mages high above the heavens organized a hunting expedition a few years ago (more than a decade ago) and killed some commoners who didn’t know magic.”

"Hmph. As expected of those uncivilized, inferior races." Alamir sneered.

"But it's fine, anyway, those human mages are going to die anyway."

After saying this, Alamir turned to the moon elf Seymour and said sternly:
“Seymour, no matter how you try to justify your sins, you have indeed committed a transgression against the teachings of the gods!”

"In order to make amends for your mistake and avoid incurring the wrath of the gods in the future, I must personally travel to the land of the Eastern humans."

"What do you want to do?" Seymour asked, somewhat bewildered.

Alamir pushed open the door and stepped out, his tone firm and unwavering:
"Of course! Annihilate all human mages and sever the magical heritage of humanity!"

[1] I really like this kind of atmosphere:
For humans, a history spanning ten generations is but a small segment of the long life of elves.

[2] Some readers who like to think may ask after reading this chapter: Is there a bug in the original history regarding Alamir's behavior?

In the original timeline before the protagonist traveled through time, did Alamir do what is happening now?

Could it be that history was altered in some hidden corner, allowing Alamir to leave the pass ahead of schedule?
How strange!

This involves a more important main storyline later on, so I won't spoil it, but it's definitely not a bug.

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(End of this chapter)