Chapter 27: A New Species? - 27
The rest of the week passed by in a flash. Before Zhou Fan knew it, it was already friday. As he was putting the last book back on the shelf, he looked at the clock and noticed that it was time to leave. Zhou Fan said goodbye to Lu Chen before he headed home.
When he arrived, Zhou Fan didn't waste any time. He immediately went down the hole and made it back to his beasts.
When they saw him, they all ran to him in excitement. If they were dogs, their tongue would be out, and their tails would be wagging. Zhou Fan had recently come to the conclusion that the beasts were young. Although they were huge, he had a feeling they were almost as young as him.
Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so easy to tame them. He also wondered where their parents were. Maybe they all died after giving birth? Did the beasts come out of an egg?
Either way, Zhou Fan wasn't too concerned. Since he had the weekend off, Zhou Fan decided to further explore the cave with the beasts.
Although it seemed like he had explored it all last time, Zhou Fan realized that there were a bunch of tunnels that led to unknown places. Perhaps there were hundreds of caves like this.
For a while, Zhou Fan had wondered why no one else had discovered these places. After a short time of thinking, however, he realized that the snakes in the tunnel were enough to kill any trespasser. Even an army.
Also, they were even present in the other tunnels. Now that he was on the topic, Zhou Fan was worried that the snakes would attack the beasts. It would be bothersome to protect them all while traveling. However, Zhou Fan was confident that he could do it.
After resting with the beasts for a while, Zhou Fan decided to waste no more time. He set off to one of the random tunnels. Specifically, the tunnel most opposite to the one he came in through. When he reached the tunnel, Zhou Fan prepared to test out the snake's reaction to the beasts. He sent Zhuque in since he had the best healing ability.
Contrary to his expectations, Zhou Fan was astonished to see that the snakes had no interest in Zhuque. Even when he stepped on them, they wouldn't react. Maybe it's because they were born down here.
Although one could come to the conclusion that the snakes simply didn't attack, Zhou Fan had already tested that.
On Thursday, he threw a deer into the pit. The moment it hit the ground, it was covered, killed, and eaten by the snakes. Hence why Zhou Fan was surprised to see that they didn't attack Zhuque.
When Zhou Fan sent in the rest of the beasts, they still didn't attack. In fact, when Xiaolong stepped in, they started to make a path. Even then, it didn't seem like they were scared of him. It was more like an instinctual reaction.
Since the path was cleared, Zhou Fan lit a fire ball on his palm and walked on the ground with the rest of the beasts. One thing to be amazed at was the fact that there was no poop on the ground. They might just have a poop hole or something.
They continued walking on for an hour before they could see some light at the end of the tunnel. They slightly sped up their pace in anticipation.
When they finally broke through, they were amazed to see a cave the size of the last one. The most obvious difference was the giant crystal hanging from the center of the ceiling. Instead of blue, it shone a green light. The green was similar to the light of healing Zhou Fan created earlier. However, just like the last crystal, it contained no Qi whatsoever.
Another easy to spot difference was that, unlike the previous cave, this one had a single terrain. Forest. It was lush, green, and in the center stood a giant tree. Although the other trees had varying sizes, this one was more than 5 times bigger than the second biggest.
It almost touched the giant green crystal hanging from the ceiling.
All of a sudden, Zhou Fan noticed a wooden arrow shooting at him from afar. Although it seemed slow to him, it was going quite fast. When it reached him, he grabbed it with his hand and started to look at it. As he was doing so, he shot out a massive ball of water in the direction the arrow came from. It wasn't enough to kill the attacker, but it will put them out of commission.
GLULP!
The water hit the area and destroyed a fair amount of trees around it. Zhou Fan was quickly done examining the arrow. It was roughly made, but it could've killed a normal human if it hit them in a vital area.
Zhou Fan signaled to the beasts to go over to the area of impact as he quickly flew there. When he arrived, he noticed three people knocked out on the ground. 2 men and a woman. In fact, he couldn't call them people. Or at least in a human sense.
They looked like most humans he had met and the only difference was their long pointy ears. Examining them, Zhou Fan saw that once again, they contained no Qi in their bodies.
After looking at them for a while, Zhou Fan quickly made up a name, which he was used to by now.
"Elves." He proclaimed.
Although they seemed similar to humans on the outside, Zhou Fan wondered if their insides were the same. Before anything else, Zhou Fan almost wanted to experiment on them. He wondered if like the beasts, they would need their own special kind of Qi.
Or maybe they were similar to humans. At least, what he assumed humans could do. He resisted the faint urge to cut them open and once again splashed water on their faces in order to wake them up. This time, he made it icy cold.
Chapter 28: World Tree - 28
After being splashed with cold water, the elves awoke from their short slumber. When they realized what was happening, they jumped to their feet and backed away warily.
"Who are you!?" The leading elf male yelled.
Zhou Fan was immediately astonished to realize that they spoke the same language as him. Although the world was mostly unified by one language, english, he had assumed that these elves were cut off from the world. Therefore, they should have spoken a different language. Instead of thinking too much, Zhou Fan theorized that they used to live on the surface. Who knows what happened to cause them to be down here, unknown to the rest of the world.
"I come in peace, probably." Zhou Fan said. Although he did mutter the last part under his breath. If they shot another arrow at him, he might just kill them off.
"Who are you, no, what are you!?" The elf girl in the back asked in a slightly loud tone.
Zhou Fan was confused to hear her question.
"What do you mean? Do you not know what a human is?"
"Human?" she said, confused, as if he was speaking in a different language.
Zhou Fan quickly understood that she had no idea what a human was. In fact, he didn't know what they called themselves. He had named them earlier because he assumed that they spoke a different language.
"Have you ever left the cave?" Zhou Fan wondered.
"Of course not! The snakes do not allow it." She said as if it was an obvious fact.
"Wait!" The leading elf said. "You wouldn't happen to be from outside the cave, right?!" He said, almost shouting.
Zhou Fan looked at the elfs face and realized that their situation is much worse than he previously thought.
"Indeed, I am from the outside world." Zhou Fan said.
The elves' expressions got visibly excited.
"Please! Follow us!" They said.
When they turned around to lead him, they started to run. Zhou Fan started to 'speed' walk behind them.
It wasn't long before they made it to a gate. The gate wasn't exactly made of wood. Instead, it was simply wooden branches forming a natural looking arch.
"How did you do that?" Zhou Fan asked. Although he could shape wood like that, he would have to use Qi to manipulate it, and from what he has seen, elves couldn't use Qi.
"The door? Do you not have doors outside?" The girl asked, perplexed.
Zhou Fan looked at the girl with a deadpan expression on his face.
"Never mind." He said before quietly following them the rest of the way.
On the short journey, Zhou Fan came to learn the three elves names. Lily, Mark, and Steve.
Lily was the girl, Mark was the leading male, and Steve was the guy who hadn't said anything since his appearance. Although, Steve has been giving him wary looks the entire way.
One minute after passing through the arch, they arrived at the middle of the cave. Here, there was a clearing area and the tallest trees in the cave. Including the huge one he saw earlier.
Mark pointed at the big tree and said, "That is the world tree. It is sacred, and no one is allowed to touch it besides the queen. Even then, she can only do it twice in her life. The day she inherits the throne and the day she passes it on."
When Zhou Fan heard Marks words, most of his confusions were cleared up.
Although sparse, he could see a couple of elves walking around. Some were carrying baskets, while others were simply walking. When they saw him, they all stopped and stared at him for a second. They seemed to notice that his ears were short.
Zhou Fan proceded to ignore them and observe the village. Around the world tree, there were many smaller trees. Although small next to the world tree, they were quite huge. On those trees hanged many tree houses.
Zhou Fan had read about those before. What really astonished him was the bridges connecting every area. There were even big plazas and other gathering spaces.
"Sir," Mark said, interrupting his thoughts. "Please follow us, we are going to take you to the queen."
Zhou Fan was surprised to hear that, he didn't think that he would see the queen so quickly. Zhou Fan walked behind Mark and Lily. Steve had gone off after they reached the village.
It was then that Zhou Fan realized he had left the beasts behind. He was so caught up in the current events that he forgot about them completely.
'Meh, they'll be fine', he thought.
Along the way, Mark talked about the village with Zhou Fan. According to him, there were 129 elves living here. They seemed to have trouble breeding, and one would be lucky to have two kids after 100 tries.
Zhou Fan continued to follow the elves, and it wasn't long before they came to a large palace. Like the other buildings, it was hung up in a tree.The tree it was hung up on was the second tallest tree in the forest. It was also the closest to the world tree.
They made their way up the closest stairway and made it to the palace entrance. The palace was completely made out of wood. Even then, its beauty was undeniable.
Seeing the two guards stationed at the gate, Mark walked up and talked to them in a hushed voice. However, Zhou Fan could naturally hear them.
"We have found an outsider. We must have an audience with the queen." Mark whispered.
The guards' faces instantly changed. Their relaxed and slightly lazy expression twisted in an instant as one of them ran into the palace at his top speed.
As they were waiting for him to get back, Zhou Fan observed the remaining guard. He was clearly very on guard, however, he was trying to be discreet about it. Almost as if he was afraid of offending Zhou Fan.
Zhou Fan ignored him and continued to wait for the guard to return.
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
121 Power
stone You may also Like
Paragraph comment