Soon, the people realized what had just happened, the silence turned into cheering.
"Someone just reached the shrine."
"The record has just been broken, in just 1 step someone reached in the shrine."
The participants who shifted their attention from the trail to see who came first had their heart wavered and were now just climbing, not moving on.
When people who spend their entire life to rise high suddenly find themselves in the bottom of the cage, they either break themselves or break the cell and when the one who thinks one has broken the cage finds out the cage broken wasn't not even theirs, they reach their limit.
When the princess saw herself at the bottom. She started to remember the expectations placed upon her and the gazes that would always be pointed at her. When one is trapped in a cage, one can also consider the cell to be the shelter that would protect it from the outside.
The gazes were no longer there, and she was not the center of attention anymore when she was at the bottom. She felt a moment of relief but also felt that she did not belong there.
She took a calm breath and started climbing again. This time she was able to complete the climb in just 10 steps, with her 11 steps from before she had reached the shrine in a total of 21 steps.
Like that, another young high elf was able to reach the shrine in just 15 steps. The high elf had red hair, blue eyes, and a muscular body.
Many of the participants had shown exceptional results, but they got little attention from the elders. The concentration of the elders was now solely on the young boy with spatial Magic.
Spatial Magic was considered rare even among the elves. Only the high elves who would have practiced it for 1000s of years would be able to completely master it. Sometimes few exceptional were born who were talented in spatial Magic from their birth, but it would take 100s of years to completely master it even for them. The ancient elf king was the only one who could master it in just a few years. But now another like the ancient king had appeared.
The shrine had the statues of three elf gods.
The elves would come to pray here. The prayers would then be listened by the gods, and a prayer born out of virtue would be fulfilled, and the one who prayed with integrity would be blessed by the gods.
But the gods were not the only ones who listened to the prayers.
Some prayers would come out of desires. Prayers born out of desires would also be listened too but not by the gods.
The brighter the light, the greater would be the shadow. The prayers born out of desires would gather and give birth to darkness, and the darkness then would hide among the gods.
The elves could not see the darkness present among their gods, but I could see it.
The darkness showed me the shape of my original body and smiled.
When the darkness smiled, I smiled back.
It then disappeared after giving a blank expression.
It was now time for the second trial.
Out of thousands, only two hundred had passed. The two hundred included only 12 elves. The rest were high elves.
We were taken underneath the shrine. There was a cave.
"The participants now would have to enter the cave and exit through the other side."
"In this trial, many lives could be lost, no judges are watching, be careful."
We entered the cave, a straight path, and the track was surrounded by various trees and plants.
The trees and plants seem to produce a high amount of mana. With every step, the concentration of mana on the floor would increase.
As the elf bodies are continually absorbing mana, the higher concentration would improve their mana pool and increase their strength. However, if the elves could not handle the higher concentration of the mana, then their mana pool would overflow, and sometimes that could also lead them to their demise. The bodies were made so that they could not control the mana absorption process and simply choose not to absorb the mana in the surrounding.
Those who were able to expand their mana pool would keep walking and find the exit.
I could simply choose to not absorb the mana and keep walking, but I wanted to see if I could improve my own mana pool.
But I could not absorb more than my capacity.
It was one of the flaws of the replica, it could not improve step wise step. Neither could it level up; it would remain the same way it was created. The only way to improve it was to evolve it, but I did not know the required conditions for the evolution of the replica right now.
The pace was filled with mana, meaning no matter how much I use it, I could simply absorb it again. It gave me a perfect chance to create chaos between the elves and the high elves.
The cave was suddenly filled with darkness. But the participant knew the path was straight, so the participants kept on walking.
[You killed a High elf]
[You killed a High elf]
[You killed a High elf] *200
The one who came out first was the high elf princess. After the humiliation in the last trial, this time, she came first. Looking at the judges in front of her, she made a prideful face.
Then the one came out was the red-haired elf, after that was me.
The princess looked at me and gave me a look like she was saying, 'I was the one who won this time.'
I ignored her.
Then the ones who came out were the 12 elves.
But the time kept on passing, yet no one else came out.
The people began shocked as only 12 elves, and 3 high elves had come out. Others had just disappeared. Deaths had happened before only 2 or 3 in numbers.
The elders then went inside the cave to see what happened. They found nothing. No one knew what had happened.
The elders asked the ones who came out, "What happened when you were inside?"
Everyone's answer was the same, they said, "It was all fine at the beginning, but then it suddenly became dark, we simply kept walking, and we were outside."
The elders found it hard to believe but had no choice but to believe it.
One of the high elves elders looked at the elves with narrowed eyes, "It's bizarre isn't? The ones that came out were the 3 high elves that could be considered the strongest in this tournament and the 12 elves unharmed, it could be said that the one who did this considered the 3 high elves too strong to deal with and let them go, but still, 12 elves came out alright? I wonder why it was only the high elves that disappeared"
There is always that one fool in every group who would see the situation exactly as it is laid, ignoring the facts, and if something makes sense by the way he arranged the facts, he thinks it the truth. That was precisely what the elder just did rather than logically thinking, he used his hate and superiority over the elves to fill the holes in the story. If he thought more logically, he would have found many flaws within his own theory. Well it's better for me this way
Another one of the elders who was an elf got irritated, and Tensing his facial muscles, he said, "Don't you dare make this between the elves and the high elves."
"Why would I not? this looks like an obvious ploy to reduces the competitors for the elves."
"How dare you."
"............................"
"........................"
Many of the elders began arguing.
The king had arrived, but the look on his face was calm, even the elders who were besides were quiet.
Everyone bowed and greeted the king. The king slowly looked at the situation.
He came down, slowly came towards me, and said, "SO, you are the one who everyone is talking about."
One of the advisor's form behind said, "My king this might not be the time to talk about that"
The king looked at the elves, "Ahh, yes, don't worry, the elves did not do it."
"What? What are you saying, my king?"
"Only those permitted could enter the cave. If anyone else had entered, one of my advisors would have noticed that. Meaning it was done by someone from the inside."
One of the high elves spoke while showing hostility towards the elves, "Then, it must have been one of those 12 elves."
The king looked at the high elf and showing his authority, "Don't interrupt me."
"Now, where were we"
"Ahh yes, I have lived for millions of years, and from all the experience I have gathered I can at least tell how strong someone is, and I certainly know that the 12 elves are not strong enough to kill the rest of the high elves, but all three of the high elves certainly are. "
"But my king, why would a high elf kill other high elves?"
"Yes, I wonder why? Now Then we have two suspects. One is my own daughter, and the next is the fellow high elf with the red hair."
Both of them got shocked, but I saw this coming.
The princess panicked," How could you suspect your own daughter and why is he not suspected," she said that while pointing at me.
"The room was covered in darkness, the one who did it must have had a darkness attribute, but the one who possesses spatial attribute cannot wield light or darkness attributes, that is something well known to the ones in a higher position. So, the only remaining suspects are you two."
I had known that I would not be suspected as I had already shown my spatial Magic, I had also learned some of the elders in a higher power would suspect the princess. But before they could say anything, the king himself made his own daughter a suspect, which was a wise move on his part. But also meant he had a way to clear the very suspicion. I had previously thought the king would suspect the red-haired elf but would have no way to prove it and remove his daughter of the doubt. The two high elves would remain as suspects.
The high elves who were killed were mostly grandsons of people with high authority. So this matter would not quickly end.
As the princess would be one of the suspects. The high elves whose descendants were just killed would blame the king.
Also, as it was attempted to put the blames on the elves. The elves would also revolt. The king would have been cornered, but he avoided that situation by removing the elves out of suspicion.
If he could remove his daughter from the suspicion, his problem would then be solved.
The king looked at the red-haired elf and asked, "Now, why did you did it little one?"
The red-haired elf intimated from the king's look, panicked, and said, "I, I did not do it, I swear."
"It's not good to lie in front of the king, guards arrest him."
One of the elves who suspected the princess asked, "How do we know it was not your daughter?"
"Cause my daughter had no reason to do it, but that one did. I had my advisors research about him. It seems his family had borrowed money from various families and was getting pressured by them, so his whole family seems to have committed suicide. By killing the high elves and blaming the elves, creating disputes between them would have given him a perfect chance to take his revenge."
Researched? This fast? What nonsense, he had no proof, so he just created a motive. But It was indeed a good move
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GOT IT