Chapter 104
Although not a legend per se, the lifespan of elves is usually around twelve hundred years, and they reach adulthood at around two hundred years old.
Although elves have a relatively a long period of youth and ages very slowly, they still gradually show signs of aging right after eight or nine hundred years.
In human terms, Carlos is already equivalent to an old man in his fifties or sixties.
Carlos often heard the thousand-year-old elders in his clan talk about the former prosperity of the Elven Kingdom. Unfortunately, ever since he could remember, his experiences were mostly leaving home, hiding, and wandering outside.
After the World Tree fell, the elven race still persisted living within Florence for several hundred of years, buts with many races gradually persecuting their kind, the elves had no choice but to leave their homeland one after another.
It has been seven hundred years ago since the Rageblaze clan left this Elven Forest. Being able to come back here and see the revived World Tree as it is, Carlos felt like it was all entirely a dream.
But the fact is, they have really came back and settled in the holy city of Florence!
The Elven Forest is still as rich as he remembers.
Or perchance, with the revival of the Mother Goddess, it has become even more abundant than ever before.
Except that there are fewer animals around Florence than Carlos imagined, the resources here are so abundant that they don’t even need to worry about food.
Because as long as you walk within the forest, you can discover countless berries. And if you know some natural magic, you can even quickly ripen some forages in the forest.
The magic in the Elven Forest is quite abundant, and many fruits can be easily ripened, consuming only a trace of guiding magic.
If there is a plant in the yard that can produce berries, then the elves don’t even need to go out. They just need to ripen the plant whenever they are hungry.
This is the kind of life Carlos couldn’t even imagine before.
Because when he was born, the Mother Goddess had already fallen, and the Elven Forest was not as great as before.
At this moment, he also understands why the older elves would be so nostalgic for the past and call the Elven Forest the heaven on earth for the elvenkind
The Elven Forest, after the revival of the Mother Goddess, is indeed as as if it belonged to the heavenly realm instead.
At the same time, this also allows Carlos to vaguely imagine how powerful the Elven Kingdom was thousands of years ago at its prime.
And Carlos knows that the reason they can come back is because they have regained the Mother Goddess’s divine protection.
The protection of the true gods is the greatest reliance of any intelligent races in Saigües.
At this moment, Carlos is even more devout in his faith in nature tham ever before.
He has finally grown from a shallow believer to a truly devout one.
“If you want to continue living here, if you want the elven race to rise again then we must strengthen our race and strengthen the power of the mother goddess!”
Carlos decided to dedicate the remaining three hundred years of his life to the future of the mother goddess and the elven race!
After thinking about it, he has plans to open a small forge here in Florence.
He had inherited his father’s forging skills and was a skilled blacksmith with extensive experience in making magical tools and equipment. Most of the equipment of the Rageblaze clan was also personally made by him.
However, the ups and downs of the past few hundred years had gradually weakened his body and skills.
But after coming to the forest of the elves, he planned to pick up his blacksmithing mantle once again.
The development of any wise race cannot do without tools, and weapons and equipment are even more a necessity during battles.
Under Carlos’s observation, he found that although most of these numerous chosen ones had equipment even some of which were quite splendid, they did however do a poor job of maintaining their equipments.
Not only that, many people’s weapons and equipment were badly damaged, and they seemed to have no intention of repairing them.
How odd.
Of course, What the Elder elf didn’t know that this was because the players engage in battles too frequently, and it’s common for equipment to become damaged.
Some players have indeed considered repairing their equipment, but alas they simply don’t know how do it properly.
The contribution store can repair equipment, but the price seems too gut wrenching, almost as much as exchanging for a new set of equipment which is absurd.
Therefore, many people choose to secretly offer their scrap equipments to the goddess after it finally becomes useless, while also using their contribution to acquire new equipments.
Using their contribution to exchange for a new set instead of doing any sorts of repair.
As a result, all the equipment that Carlos saw players are using was not maintained or repaired properly.
When Carlos planned to open a new forge, he was troubled because there were very few people from the Rageblaze clan and his clansmen have just arrived in the Elven Forest and almost all are very busy.
He found that he couldn’t find any apprentices to assist him for his plans.
At this point, Carlos thought of the Chosen Ones.
But he had some doubts in his heart:
“Lady Alice mentioned that I could seek help from those Chosen Ones, but… would they be willing to become my apprentices?”
The Chosen Ones were beings personally summoned by the Goddess, and their status in Carlos’s eyes was like that of divine messengers.
Being an apprentice in a forge was a dirty and tiring laborious job, and Carlos didn’t plan to seek any profits from this endeavor. If they were to become apprentices then there were no other benefits apart from learning some forging skills.
The Chosen Ones had such great powers that they could even build cities like the City of the Chosen.
Under these circumstances, why would they really be willing to assist him?
He hesitated for a day and still couldn’t make up his mind until he went to sleep that night…
Then, Carlos had a dream.
In the dream, he saw the kind and generous Mother Goddess herself before him.
The Mother Goddess praised his faith and bestowed upon him an ability to assign tasks onto the chosen ones.
“Call upon thy name in your heart, and you shall have the necessary permissions to do your endeavor.”
The Mother Goddess instructed in his dream.
When Carlos woke up the next day completely dazed, thingking of his bizarre vivid dream.
He felt that he had probably been thinking too much during the day, which led to such a strange dream.
He absurdity laughed and was about to get up, but then suddenly stopped.
“Mother Goddess…”
He pondered for a moment, and with a try-it-out attitude, he devoutly called out in his heart:
“Praise nature, praise life, praise the great spirit overseer- Evé Yggdrasill!”
As he thought of this, Carlos was shocked to find that his field of vision had abruptly changed!
In front of him, there suddenly appeared a semi-transparent white box, on which was written in elvish tongue;
“Task Management Permissions.”
“Oh my Mother Goddess! This…this is not a dream!”
He took a slow deep breath and drew the symbol of Mother Nature on his chest.
After some investigation, he discovered that this “Task Management Permission” was indeed an ability to assign tasks!
Not only that, the control of this strange ability only required his consciousness and could be easily be hidden at any time, reappearing when called upon.
The permissions included various functions that he had never heard of before, such as “Task Settings,” “Reward Settings,” and “Favorability Adjustments,” as well as a user manual.
After reading the user manual, Carlos had some clear understanding of these bestowed abilities.
“This is truly an ability to assign tasks to the chosen ones! And all the functions are aimed at the chosen ones!”
Carlos was shocked.
This is the power of an Old Ancient Ones!
The Mother Goddess is truly benevolent, granting her followers such powerful abilities!
After further understanding the rules, Carlos grasped that the Mother Goddess’s true intention was to assist the chosen ones in reviving their race and increasing her power.
Of course, the followers could also use this to have the chosen ones help them with tasks.
And those strange rewards known as experience points and contribution points were all aimed especially for the chosen ones.
The user manual explained that those rewards were the goals that the chosen ones had been striving for, and the followers could use them as exchanges to have them do things for themselves!
Carlos was excited.
He suddenly wanted to try it out.
“These rewards…perhaps they could help me get one…no…two apprentices!”
His eyes gleamed with excitement.