Chapter 246: Carriage - 246
Zhou Fan opened his eyes and quickly got off of the bed. He hadn't changed his clothes or taken a bath sunce the fall, so he was still covered in dirt.
As he opened the door, he was met with the same elf group as before.
"We are here to show you to the bath and wash your clothes." The elf in the lead said.
Zhou Fan wasn't surprised as it would be weird if they presented someone who could be elf royalty while he was filthy.
"Alright." Zhou Fan said as he walked out the door and followed the man. The rest of the group stayed behind near a bunch of carts.
After walking for three minutes, Zhou Fan and the elf man reached a pool of water. It was clean, but it still had traces of dirt in it.
"We drew this bath up specially for you. If you are willing, would you change into these clothes so that I can wash yours?" The elf man asked.
Zhou Fan nodded and went behind a tree where he changed his clothes. Naturally, his clothes were formed from Qi, but they could still technically be washed if he willed it.
As the elf man walked back to the village with Zhou Fan's clothes, Zhou Fan laid down in the pool.
In an instant, all the dirt and grime from the fall disappeared from his body. He let some of it be absorbed by the water to avoid suspicion, but most of it was directly erased.
For thirty minutes, Zhou Fan laid on the pool floor while staring up.
Although this wasn't quite what he had in mind when he thought of sitting in a river, it was a start.
'This may end up being interesting.' Zhou Fan thought to himself.
As the thirty minutes passed, Zhou Fan sensed the elf man returning and stood up.
Zhou Fan's lower body was hidden by the pool walls, so the man simply handed him a towel and his clean clothes before walking away towards the village.
Zhou Fan discarded the towel and dried himself on before snapping his fingers. The clothes dispersed and were reformed as he did so.
Then, he began to walk to the village in silence. The walk was much nicer than before despite the path being in an open area.
As Zhou Fan arrived at the village, he saw that the carts and wagons seemed to be fully loaded with whatever the group was bringing.
As Zhou Fan was spotted, the old elf walked up to him.
He led Zhou Fan to the only carriage as he spoke. "We will be leaving in three minutes. I decided to bring the five you met before with us for a few reasons, but mostly to make the journey less work for us."
Zhou Fan and the old elf sat in the carriage for the next three minutes until they felt it begin to move.
Zhou Fan looked around the carriage. It was fairly big with enough space to hold him, the old elf, and 6 more people, although the elf group would not enter. The seats were comfortable and there were windows, although they were closed right now.
Zhou Fan and the old elf sat on opposite sides. They were just about as far apart as one could be on the carriage.
As the journey to the elf capital progressed, the old elf struck up some conversations with Zhou Fan.
In order to be polite, Zhou Fan talked with him.
They talked about many pointless things, but some important things came up eventually.
On the way, Zhou Fan learned about some of the elves' history.
Within the entire world, there was one elf empire. Within the empire were three kingdoms and the imperial kingdom. If one ignored the Imperial Kingdom, then they were heading to the biggest kingdom's capital.
The three non imperial kingdoms were known as the elf kingdom, the tree kingdom, and the plant kingdom.
Zhou Fan was in the elf kingdom.
The plant kingdom was filled with many plants, the tree kingdom was filled with many trees, and the elf kingdom had the biggest population of elves.
Even the imperial kingdom, while much more prosperous and powerful, had a lower population.
The three kings had been at the 4th level of the void traversing realm before the reset, while the emperor had been at the 10th level.
Without needing to think too much, it was obvious who the holder of the elves' providence was.
Zhou Fan had heard a lot more interesting information, but that had been the most important piece.
During the 4 day trip, the old elf had fallen asleep a few times, while Zhou Fan had remained awake with his legs resting on the seats across from him.
He spent most of the time looking outside of the window.
Eventually, Zhou Fan could see the silhouette of a giant wall appearing in the distance.
It was so far away that it was actually foggy, but it signified that the journey was soon to end.
Zhou Fan woke the old elf up and told him that they were nearing. When the old elf looked at the distant walls, he laughed and said that they were still five hours away.
Zhou Fan nodded and continued waiting.
Surprisingly, after only two hours, the carriage came to a sudden stop. The stop knocked the old elf out of his sleep.
He was about to storm outside angrily, but he suddenly heard a shout.
"Bandits!"
The old elf's eyes widened as he began to rush out of the carriage.
"Who the hell has time to rob? Why aren't they cultivating? Idiots." The old man muttered to himself as he was rushing out.
Zhou Fan just sat there with an amused expression on his face.
'What a trope.' He said to himself.
He looked outside and saw fifteen archer bandits with their bows pulled back.
Zhou Fan reminisced as he saw such a scene. His last run in with bandits had been so long ago it was hard to remember.
If he was right, he had only been at the foundation establishment realm and scared them away with a quick attack.
As the elves fought for their lives, Zhou Fan stared at the sky with a fond look on his face.
Chapter 247: Capital - 247
Although the elves had been at a slight disadvantage, they were able to defeat the bandits.
Zhou Fan was actually surprised as he had assumed he would need to intervene, but they managed to deal with it with no casualties.
Twenty minutes after the battle ended, the old elf got back inside the carriage. Some cuts were visible on him, but they were healing very quickly.
"We dealt with them, but we unfortunately had to use some expensive healing pills." The old elf said.
Zhou Fan nodded in response and continued to look out the window.
The old elf sighed and did his best to fall back asleep. Before he could, the group finally reached the capital.
It was even more impressive up close than it was from afar. The walls were two hundred feet tall and at six equally distanced points on the wall were floating crystals.
As the old elf noticed Zhou Fan's gaze, he began to speak.
"Those crystals used to function as powerful weapons in case of a large-scale attack from other elves or beasts, but since the cultivation reset, nobody has become strong enough to activate or use them again." He explained.
Zhou Fan nodded in understanding as he exited the carriage. Despite the clear prosperity of the capital, there was no line to enter.
The only thing between them and the entrance were two guards.
Before Zhou Fan could ask, the old elf explained.
"Not many people have left the capital or any other place since the cultivation reset. I assume that the capital will be like this for the next 5 years at least." He explained.
Zhou Fan nodded once again.
Cultivation had become such an important thing to everyone that even the most pathetic peasants cultivated.
While there were still those that had no meridians, they were getting rarer and rarer as time passed by.
After all, the more powerful the cultivator, the more likely their descendants are to have higher talent. As those with no talent died off and those with talent had children, the number of those with meridians increased greatly.
Now, only around 1% of people are born without meridians. Of that 1%, 99% are peasants and villagers.
Zhou Fan believed that one day, having no meridians would be rarer than having king rank meridians.
Cultivators may even adapt a mindset that makes them throw those with no meridians away before they even grow.
As Zhou Fan and the old elf walked up to the two guards, the rest of the group stayed behind them with the carriage and the carts.
"Halt." A guard stated. "Present your citizen ID."
The old elf raised his arm and showed it to the guard.
As Zhou Fan had learned in the carriage, nearly every elf born had some sort of citizen ID inside their skin. Those who didn't were either born secretly or had a ID in the form of a card.
"My friend here does not have a citizen ID." The old elf said to the guards.
The guards looked at each other in confusion before one of them entered a door on the side of the wall.
"He is requesting a superior. In the meantime, I will verify all of your citizen ID's" The guard said as he pulled out a glowing crystal.
Zhou Fan had also learned of the tool in the guards hand on the way to the capital.
The citizen ID was placed in an elf at birth and melded itself to seamlessly mold with the elf's body. As for the tool, it contained a database of every elf with an ID.
Zhou Fan was considerably impressed with the elves' invention. He had never seen such a thing before.
The group taking care of the carriage also had their IDs scanned before the man who went away came back.
Following him was a man in silver armor.
"I heard you don't have a citizen ID." The imposing elf said as he stood in front of Zhou Fan.
"Yes. I also lost all of my memories until I met these people." Zhou Fan said.
The guard looked at him suspiciously for a moment, likely trying to tell if he was lying.
"Well, this is a complicated situation." The guard explained. "Firstly, you don't have an ID. That is very rare. Second, your ears are weird. If you are not an elf, you are a beast that can transform into a humanoid creature. However, cultivation had been reset. If you were a beast, you would be stuck in beast form."
"In all honesty, I have no idea what to do with you." The guard said.
Suddenly, the old elf chimed in from the side. "Sir, I have a suspicion that he is a high elf."
"Hmm." The guard answered in response as he scrutinized Zhou Fan.
"In that case, I will escort you to the High elf residence. There they will test if you are a high elf. If you are, you can stay. If not, I'm afraid that I will have to ask you to leave the city. Does that sound good to you?" The guard asked.
"Yes." Zhou Fan responded with a nod.
"Then it is settled. You follow me." He said to Zhou Fan.
"As for you." He spoke while looking at the old man. "You will be properly rewarded if he turns out to be a high elf."
The old elf enthusiastically nodded as the guard walked away and Zhou Fan followed.
Zhou Fan paid attention to the old elf as he walked away. As expected, the old elf didn't even spar him a second glance.
Zhou Fan wasn't surprised. He had known the old elf only treated him as possible money from the moment he met him.
Zhou Fan took his attention off of the old elf as he walked through the big city.
As he traveled behind the elf guard, he noticed that some of the children playing outside pointed at the guard and looked with admiring glances.
"Are you popular?" Zhou Fan asked.
"It may not seem like it, but I was the fourth strongest person in the capital before the reset." The elf guard said. "My silver armor recognizes me as the vice leader of the capital guard, the most prestigious group in the kingdom."
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
121 Power
stone 
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