CHAPTER 65: TOO FAST TO FOLLOW

The Elven Kingdom occupied the continent’s finest lands and had the most resources. Add in their incredibly long lifespans and their dislike of change, and they’d basically stayed the same for tens of thousands of years, seemingly maintaining a constant state.

But not every elf liked this kind of environment, so many young elves chose to travel abroad, settling in the Highland Kingdom, which had friendly relations with them.

But Bonnie Sunstrider, as a high elf with the Sunstrider surname, had adventurous genes that made her choose to head north instead of staying in the "safe zone."

Walking through a border town in the Gray Fort Empire, watching the bustling marketplace, listening to the merchants’ calls and smelling the tempting aromas from the food stalls, Bonnie entered an extremely excited state.

This was a scene you’d never see in the Elven Kingdom or Highland Kingdom—or rather, this was a scene created by decades of steady reform in the Gray Fort Empire. If she’d come here thirty years ago, she definitely wouldn’t have seen such vitality.

But thirty years was just a blink of an eye for elves. Bonnie had never heard her traveling sisters mention scenes like this. Especially when she heard that the town square actually had wandering minstrels and circus clowns performing, she got even more excited.

"Huh? Why are so many people gathered over there?" Just reaching the square, before Bonnie could find the circus and minstrels, she already saw a crowd gathered around the bulletin board in the distance.

The Gray Fort Empire had the highest literacy rate among all human kingdoms, thanks to His Majesty the Emperor’s reforms. Even so, there weren’t that many people who could actually read—most were listening to literate folks reading aloud.

Before Bonnie could get closer, she’d already caught the gist: "His Majesty the Emperor is recruiting excellent magicians. Requirements are understanding runes and expertise in magic array research. If you understand charging-type arrays, you get priority hiring with excellent benefits..."

"Recruiting mages..." Bonnie Sunstrider looked at the announcement with interest. "I can understand understanding runes and being good with magic arrays, but what are these charging-type arrays?"

She could tell this was some research project recruiting people, which was exactly why she was curious!

If they were posting announcements in such a remote town, they must be selecting nationwide. After all, this little backwater town might have three or four mage apprentices at most, let alone official magicians.

What was the Gray Fort Empire up to?

Even when she looked away from the bulletin board, the minstrels’ stories and circus clowns couldn’t get her attention back.

She had way more curiosity than most elves!

After struggling with it for who knows how long, she just went ahead and followed the announcement to the registration location. As an excellent druid, she had pretty good experience with runes and magic arrays. She got in almost effortlessly and got the answer she wanted.

Sunset.

Golden light spilled across the ground as Bonnie finally left the local lord’s castle, but her expression was even more... bewildered than when she’d gone in, like she’d been hit by some kind of shock.

Feeling the slight chill under the setting sun, Bonnie finally snapped back to reality and took off running, instinctively starting to search for some special dense forest nearby!

As she ran, her legs began to change. Woody grain kept spreading, looking pretty weird. After a moment, her legs looked like trees, plunging into the soil. Countless roots spread out, directly connecting with the underground tree root systems, and massive amounts of magic power began rapidly spreading through the tree root networks.

Deep in the Elven Kingdom.

A "forest" seemed to sense the magic power from afar and actually started slowly writhing toward the town center.

The branches rustled and swayed—even the most imaginative human would have trouble picturing seeing a scene like this in the Elven capital.

"High Elf Bonnie Sunstrider sends information, requires Council of Elders evaluation."

After these "treants" reached the town center, a low, hollow voice echoed in front of the Council of Elders.

If Ren saw this scene, he’d definitely be shocked. The elves actually had some kind of network-like technology that could transmit information through the root systems of the elven forests. No wonder they’d always been so resistant to the Magic Net...

Ren might even suspect that his incomplete Data Craftsman authority was missing pieces because of this underground root system... network!

But this technology obviously had major limitations—you had to be in special forests that had been modified by druid skills to transmit information.

Over tens of thousands of years, elven druids had only managed to forge about a third of the elven forests, plus the forest areas where the Elven Kingdom bordered the Highland Kingdom and Gray Fort Empire.

And not all elves could use it—only high-level forest elf druids could manage transmission... because the energy consumption for signal transmission was just enormous.

Even high-level elves only used something like Morse code for transmission, not complete sentences—a huge gap compared to the Magic Net!

You could say they could send messages, so they didn’t have as much desire for the Magic Net.

But this time, the information Bonnie Sunstrider sent back left the entire Council of Elders silent.

"Bonnie Sunstrider, what are your plans next? Return to the Elven Kingdom or..." After digesting all the information Bonnie reported, one of the elders asked.

Bonnie sent back a very decisive reply: "I will fulfill my promise to the lord who provided the information and go to the Gray Fort Empire’s capital to join the Magic Conductor research team."

That’s just how elves were.

No matter the situation, if they willingly made a contract, they would definitely complete it.

The Council wasn’t surprised by this answer. They just reminded her to be careful and cut the connection. The idea of having her steal knowledge from the Gray Fort Empire never even occurred to the Council members—that’s just how elves were!

After communication ended, the Council’s silence deepened.

It was almost frighteningly quiet.

After who knows how long, the Grand Elder finally spoke, breaking the scene’s silence: "I think we should also start using the Magic Net in small amounts. The changes outside are... just too fast, fast enough to exceed even our elven reaction speed. I shouldn’t need to tell you how powerful the Teylir Emirates’ beastmen are in battle, right? But them, with 100,000 troops..."

The Grand Elder didn’t know how to evaluate it for a moment.