Chapter 29: Unbridledly Arrogant- 29
The guard returned after just 2 minutes.
"The Queen has requested you meet her. Please follow me." The guard said, clearly out of breath.
The guard waited another moment to catch his breath before he led Zhou Fan inside.
When he got inside, Zhou Fan instantly noticed the queen sitting on the elevated throne in the middle of the room. The hall had long pillars reaching the floor and ceiling by the sides. Once again, everything was made out of wood.
"Hello outsider." The queen suddenly said. She looked no older than 30. She had the blondest hair he had ever seen and green eyes. Her ears were also noticeably pointier than the other elves he had seen.
"My name is Penny. I am the queen of the valeks." She stated.
'So they call themselves the valeks', Zhou Fan thought. Although he had no plan to change the name he called them, it was interesting to know.
"Hello queen penny, my name is Zhou Fan. I am the strongest human." He said. Since her introduction was so strong, he decided to elevate his status. However, he wasn't lying. He is by far, the strongest human.
When the elf queen heard him, her eyes widened in surprise. However, she fixed her face not soon after.
"I didn't expect a great warrior to come down here. Why did- how did you come down here?" She said, changing her question halfway through.
Zhou Fan stood there in silence as he contemplated how he wanted to respond. More accurately, he was considering how he wanted to continue on with the elves.
He could either become their friend, or subjugate them.
Seeing that Zhou Fan was standing in silence, the elf queen spoke again.
"There is a prophecy told among the successors to the valek throne." She started. "It has been passed down since the valeks moved down here. It states that one day, someone will come from the outside. They will either liberate us, or destroy us. While I'm not quite sure how you could destroy us, I would like to remain peaceful with you."
Zhou Fan was surprised to hear her words. However, they had no effect on his decision.
" I have decided." Zhou Fan said. "From now on, the elf race will submit to me."
Zhou Fan emphasized the word elf. Since he had named them as such, it was only natural that their name would change once they went under him.
"Preposterous!" The elf queen shouted out in a rage. She immediately stood up from her throne and let out a loud shout.
"GUARDS!! KILL THIS MAN!"
All of a sudden, multiple guards burst in through the entrances and surrounded Zhou Fan. Zhou Fan stared at them with contempt.
Zhou Fan naturally hadn't gone crazy overnight. There were multiple reasons why he chose to subjugate the elves instead of befriend them. Firstly, he could sense the ill intent oozing off the queen. She never trusted him for a second. Secondly, Zhou Fan had no connection with them. Although they resembled humans, Zhou Fan felt that they were completely different. Finally, he wanted to research the elves. Specifically, he wanted to learn their history. Since they've been enclosed for such a long time, they should have ancient records.
Watching one of the elf guards suddenly thrusting his spear towards him, Zhou Fan decided to humor them for a bit instead of instantly defeating them.
He grabbed the elfs' spear as it was about to pierce his body and crushed it. He then grabbed the guard by the neck and lifted him in the air. Before the hanging man could pass out from lack of oxygen, Zhou Fan saw a bunch of arrows coming towards him.
Instead of dodging, Zhou Fan used the captured man as a human shield. Since the arrows were coming from every direction, Zhou Fan had to swing him around like a ragdoll to block them.
By the time arrows stopped being shot, the man resembled a porcupine. Without a doubt, he had died. Zhou Fan didn't feel anything after killing him. It was weird to him. Logically, since they resembled humans, he should feel something when killing them. However, he felt like he had just stepped on an ant, even with the bloody scene before him.
"You shouldn't have shot, he would have lived." Zhou Fan said out loud.
"Bullsh*t!" The queen screamed out. "Continue!"
The elves continued their fearless attack after hearing the queens' order. The queen herself, however, was trying to suppress the growing fear inside of her.
'When he said the strongest human, I didn't think he'd be so powerful.' She thought to herself. However, there was no medicine for regret.
Seeing that the elves were still attacking, Zhou Fan decided to turn it up a notch.
As the closest man neared him, Zhou Fan punched a hole through his chest, killing him instantly.
The rest of the soldiers stopped in their tracks. Fear was written on their faces. This scene reminded Zhou Fan of the first time he killed a man. It was when the bandits attacked the village and Zhou Fan defeated the leader in one hit. An eerily similar scene was playing out right now. The look on the elves' faces resembled those of the other bandits faces back then.
" I will ask once more." Zhou Fan said while releasing his Qi pressure. Just enough to make it near impossible to stand.
"Submit. Otherwise, I will kill every elf in this room."
Perhaps if he had said this without releasing his Qi pressure, they would have continued. However, right now, they couldn't even stand, much less fight back.
After saying his words, Zhou Fan dispersed his pressure. Even then, terror was written on the elves' faces. It was likely that they would never forget what happened today.
The room remained silent for a good 5 minutes. Luckily for them, Zhou Fan was a patient person. After 5 minutes, the elf queen finally spoke up, fear etched on her face.
Chapter 30: Hidden Entrance- 30
"W-w-what are you?" The elf queen managed to stutter out.
"I am a cultivator. No. I am The cultivator." Zhou Fan said, putting an emphasis on 'The'. Although he had no proof that he was the only cultivator, it didn't matter. He felt it in his soul, he was the first cultivator. If he was wrong, so be it.
By the elf queen's expression, you could tell she had no idea what he was talking about.
"... We submit." She unwillingly said. Although she had no idea what a cultivator was, she was intimidated enough to accept her fate.
"Kneel to the new king." The elf queen said to her surrounding elves. Although the elves had unwilling expressions, they too didn't have the heart to resist.
However, as they were falling to their knees, Zhou Fan spoke out.
"I am not your king," he said. "I have no intention to control or affect you in any way. Just don't try to fight against me."
Zhou Fan looked at the elf queen and spoke.
"Do you have a library?" "Yes," she responded.
"Take me there," Zhou Fan commanded.
The elf queen wasted no time and led him out of the palace. As soon as they left, the elves in the palace let out a breath of relief.
"Why was he calling us elves," one of the elf men said.
"If you're asking me, who should I ask," another elf responded.
"I believe he has named our race that," the oldest elf in the room commented.
"Preposterous!" One of the elves angrily exclaimed. "We are the proud valeks! How dare he change the name of our race!" He angrily shouted.
"Oh," the old elf sounded. "So are you going to tell him that? Why didn't you tell him to his face while he was forcing you to the ground earlier." He mockingly said.
The angry elf deflated and lowered his head. Deep inside, he knew that if Zhou Fan called them the elves, no one would dare resist.
"Maybe 'elf' isn't a bad name," one of the elves said in an attempt to keep some pride.
The rest looked at him understandingly and sounded out their agreement.
As they were talking, Zhou Fan followed the elf queen to the world tree.
"Why are we here?" He said, confused.
"You'll see," the elf queen said, trying to seem mysterious.
The world tree had a perimeter of about 300 feet. Therefore, there was a backside that was outside of the elf village. In fact, that entire area is considered a forbidden zone according to Mark.
The elf queen made her way to that area. Although the passerby's were astonished to see the elf queen roaming about, none stopped their journey.
It wasn't long before they made their way to a hill right behind the world tree. The elf queen went to a seemingly normal stone and pressed down on it.
"The library is sacred. Even I rarely go to it. Therefore, it has to stay hidden." She said.
Zhou Fan was confused why she pressed the stone. After pressing the first one, she went around pressing stones in a seemingly random fashion.
On the twentieth stone a creaking noise was heard. All of a sudden, a 4 foot by 4 foot area on the ground opened up like an entrance to an outside basement.
Zhou Fan was dumbfounded. This was the first time he had seen something like this.
"It works similar to a gate bridge." She said.
Zhou Fan recalled that the gate bridge was a bridge that could be drawn upwards and then lowered by a pulley. It was usually featured over a pit of lava in story books.
"Of course, it's 100x more advanced than that." She said smugly.
Although Zhou Fan had the urge to slap her, he just stood there and watched as she walked down the stairs under the hidden entrance. He soon followed.
Zhou Fan and the elf queen went down about 100 feet before the stairs came to a stop. In front of them, there was a long narrow hallway lit up by torches on the walls.
The elf queen grabbed the nearest wall torch and led Zhou Fan down the hallway. They walked around 100 feet before a big door appeared. Zhou Fan now estimated that they were directly under the world tree.
The elf queen walked over to the side of the door and pulled a big lever. When she did, the big door opened.
"Now this is closer to the gate bridge." She said.
Zhou Fan ignored her and walked in front of her. When he entered, he saw bookshelves lining the wall. There was no natural light, yet there were so many torches that the room was without a hint of darkness. There were roots along the ceiling and a giant one pierced directly through the middle.
"Wait," Zhou Fan suddenly stopped and said. "How are all these torches lit?"
Zhou Fan was confused. The elf queen said that she rarely came down here, therefore, it was weird that both the hallway and this room were lit.
"Ah yes." She said. "A long time ago, we elves created a substance that could burn for 2 years before it had to be replaced. We considered the invention of the ages. However, it is extremely hard to make. It took an equivalent of 1 million gold coins to make a batch the size of a barrel. Luckily, the prior elf empire was so rich that they made thousands of barrels. We are still relying on those today. Every two years, I come down here and re-light the torches." She used the word elf instead of valek due to Zhou Fan's earlier words.
2 years! 1 million gold coins! Thousand of barrels!
The more she talked, the more Zhou Fan was amazed. Something that could burn for two years! Who could make something like that? A million gold was more than an average kingdom's treasury would contain. Also, thousands of barrels meant billions of gold coins!
You would need to combine the treasury of 3 or 4 of the top 10 empires to have that amount.
"Wait," Zhou Fan stopped. "Elf empire?"
He thought he heard her say such a thing earlier.
"Indeed. Read through the library, you will find everything about the elves here."
Nodding, Zhou Fan looked around. By quick estimations, there were 2000 bookshelves here. Zhou Fan inwardly prepared himself and got ready to read.
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