A slender woman in a black hooded robe lay under a bush not far away, appearing severely injured, and the intermittent cries for help were coming from that direction.
I didn’t expect anyone still out in the forest who hadn’t returned. Judging by her condition... could she have been present when the incident at the ruins occurred?
Celine imdiately led the group over, and then I heard her exclaim, "Apprentice Priest? What happened to you?"
I hurriedly squeezed through the crowd with the Sandora Ball in my arms, and to my surprise, the person lying on the ground was soone I had t once before: Qing Ye! She was the elf I encountered at the tavern on the first day I arrived in town, along with so muscular adventurer nad Leon... uh, "fit adventurer" would be more appropriate. I never imagined eting her again under such circumstances.
The elf priestess nad Qing Ye was currently curled up in Celine’s arms. Although no visible injuries could be seen on her, her pallid face and the constant twitching of her lips indicated that she was in great pain. Her pointed elf ears were an abnormal pale blue, and this unusual color spread from her ears to her neck and the lower half of her face, suggesting poisoning. Celine shook Qing Ye’s shoulders vigorously. Although Celine didn’t seem to know this outsider priestess, she recognized her attire at a glance, "Wake up! Wake up! What on earth happened?"
In Celine’s continuous calls, Qing Ye finally regained so consciousness. She squinted at the surroundings, suddenly grabbing Celine’s arm: "Leon... Leon is trapped in the Ancient Tower! Go save him, he’s trapped underground in the Ancient Tower!"
"We were about to go, but we need to ensure your safety first," Celine said quickly while tearing open Qing Ye’s sleeve. It was then we saw the extent of the elf’s injuries: her arms were as red and swollen as if scalded by boiling water, with so skin already ulcerated and oozing pus, "This is bad... it’s a third-level curse... there’s no way to treat this, your body is already starting to break down."
"Don’t worry about !" Qing Ye sohow found the strength to almost push Celine away, "Go save Leon, he’s still alive! I know my condition... I was exposed to the Taboo Crystal. Leave here; this is the forest... the Mother Tree will take ."
Qing Ye’s voice grew more high-pitched as her breathing beca increasingly rapid. An unnatural flush began spreading across her cheeks, a sign of impending death. I and Sandora were ready to step in and help, but a word she suddenly ntioned caught off guard, and I couldn’t resist calling out, "What did you just say? Mother Tree!?"
Despite the urgent situation, Celine had enough curiosity to glance at , "The tree spirit that elves believe in, Scholar, don’t you know?"
"Oh, nothing, I just didn’t hear clearly," I quickly waved it off, thinking it might just be a common na. After all, it’s not only Tree Elves that have a Mother Tree; almost every world with elves has a similar symbiotic or worship relationship with a large plant. Many Otherworld elves even refer to their Elf Tree as a Mother Tree. I then glanced at the increasingly weak breathing of Qing Ye, "Leave her with ."
"You?" Celine was a bit puzzled, "She’s already... beyond saving, and she might carry curse dust, which is untreatable."
"I’m just staying with her for her last journey," I signaled Sandora to release so Spiritual Interference as I spoke in a somber tone, "You can’t just leave soone here to... well, quickly take the others to the ruins, I’ll catch up shortly."
Under Sandora’s Spiritual Interference, Celine didn’t show much suspicion toward my cryptic explanation. Instead, she nodded readily, then gestured to all the adventurers, "Everyone, follow ! Don’t fall behind!"
The large group soon disappeared into the depths of the forest. I bent down and patted Qing Ye’s cheek. She was now nearly unconscious, and upon sensing contact, she began to murmur incoherently, "We stayed at the ruins as instructed... guarding, preventing anyone from accidentally entering once the ruins’ door opened... sounds ca from underground, Leon went in to check. Then, two buildings beside the tower exploded..."
It seed she mistook for Celine, and apparently, at that mont, all she could think of was her lover and reporting the situation at the ruins.
"It’s severe radiation, direct exposure to highly radioactive material. Luckily, she doesn’t have radioactive dust on her; otherwise, Celine would also be affected by now," Sandora said while floating to Qing Ye’s chest, releasing a faint golden light to protect her soul. This way, even if her body died imdiately, we could easily resurrect this elf, "Let’s get her treated first, then catch up with Celine... hopefully, those blockheads understand the danger of radiation sources."
A distorted light screen enveloped us, and in the next mont, we were in a silver-white alloy chamber, a place lined with coffin-like equipnt: a comprehensive dical chamber on the Imperial Admiral.
"Starship mainfra, are the dical facilities ready?" I laid Qing Ye flat in mid-air, using an anti-gravity field to keep her suspended to prevent further bodily harm, as I shouted into the air.
The voice of the starship mainfra echoed from all directions, "dical chamber ready, auxiliary treatnt equipnt in position."
A small compartnt door at the corner of the chamber slid open silently, and an octopus-like autonomous machine floated in. This little robot, just off the production line and part of the comprehensive dical system, circled Qing Ye’s ’body’ (the latter now in a state of suspended animation) twice. Following protocol, it first inserted a needle into the target’s body, and a robotic voice ca from the autonomous machine, "Assessing target life form, resetting dical system paraters... checking the onboard match library... match found, patient race: Tree Elf, symptoms: severe radiation sickness, organ necrosis, body nearing death. dical chamber adjusting to G-R35 mode... Ergency patient! Imdiate treatnt required!"
The autonomous machine suddenly emitted a sharp whistle, then carried Qing Ye toward the nearest dical chamber. Sandora and I were left standing there, stunned. Did that ’octopus’ just say what I think it said?
The dical chamber had already begun operating normally, and I gestured for the autonomous machine that was about to return to the Gnaku over: "Did you just say the patient is a Tree Elf?"
"Repeating report: Patient race: Tree Elf, with slight genetic mutations, suspected hybrid result or natural mutation caused by geographical isolation. This unit is equipped with a logic library and recognition module personally designed by Lord Bubbles, ensuring the accuracy of the above conclusions."
Even as an autonomous machine, this ’octopus’ robot possessed the ability to read facial expressions. Noticing my peculiar look, it proactively disclosed its system – though of course, I wasn’t doubting its judgnt.
With a wave of my hand, I let the autonomous machine return to standby. I turned my head to look at the golden light ball beside : "Things are getting interesting... Tree Elves."
Tree Elves, the last clan of the Old Empire, were the race Harlan saved in passing, and also served as foreign envoys for the New Empire. They had gentle personalities, were good at communication, loved to travel, and possessed a resilient nature as well as outstanding technological talents. In theory, the Tree Elves within the Empire were all the survivors of this race after the "Day of Calamity," but it seems our information might need to be updated again.
"It seems the Tree Elves who survived back then were not just the batch that fled with the Green Star," Sandora, who is currently in the form of a sphere, has no expression, but I can still imagine her signature look of interest, "I heard the Tree Elves were a single-race civilization during the Old Empire era, but the Tree Elves on this planet live together with other races... they might be newcors."
"Did they drift to this world after escaping the Imperial District?" I pondered other matters, "In that case... the universe we’re in shouldn’t be too far from the Old Empire’s territory. Of the ’refugees’ we’ve found so far, the farthest traveled is the Fifth Fleet of the Exile Fleet, which almost reached the communication limit of Leaving World Garden. The Tree Elves shouldn’t have gone farther than the Fifth Fleet. So this world..."
Sandora imdiately gave an order before I could finish: "Ship’s main computer, attempt to contact Leaving World Garden, then report the communication results."
A mont later, the ship’s main computer reported back, the results were the sa as two days ago: "Communication failed, the signal is severely distorted, the strength is insufficient, unable to decompose."
"Communication failed—but it seems not because of distance, at least not solely due to distance." Sandora gave a serious look—I guessed her current brightness signified a serious mood.
Qing Ye is in poor condition... well, actually, she’s dead. She died a second before being sent into the dical chamber, so we need so ti to wait for her resurrection. Naturally, we can’t just stand idly by during this period; we should take so action: playti is over.
The words "Tree Elf" jolted Sandora and from our initial ntality of casual tourism. We realized that this world might not be rely a remote, desolate universe unrelated to the Empire, as we initially imagined. Oh, it might indeed be desolate, but from now on, it can’t be said to have nothing to do with the Empire. At the very least, we can confirm that a group of the Old Empire’s descendants fled here, and based on experience, anything related to the Old Empire spells trouble.
The Tree Elves reached their peak and had already explored virtually their entire universe. Although they hadn’t developed Void technology, they experienced a technological leap under the Empire’s guidance for several years. Even if they had fled to another universe, they would still have the resources to pioneer a new world. However, in this world... At least the Tree Elves on this planet clearly do not rember having such advanced technology, or perhaps they rember but chose to abandon it. Overall, they now live with ancient races, living in a lifestyle where travel ans walking, and communication ans yelling—where is their technology?
Tree Elves have long lifespans. As long as they have sufficient nutrition and do not commit suicide mid-way, living tens of thousands of years is not a problem. The Tree Elves on the Green Star in olden tis managed to sleep their way to today through collective slumber. Even if they did not sleep, a natural aging cycle of 70 to 80 thousand years would not exceed two generations. What does this an? It ans that the Tree Elves on this planet, at most two generations back, had experienced the Old Empire! It ans Qing Ye’s grandfather might have known Harlan! It ans if her grandfather was a bit adventurous, her father might have experienced the era of interstellar voyages during childhood! The era when every household had a spaceship, and the Solar System was considered suburban—where has all the technological glory gone?
The older generation of Tree Elves on this planet must know the reason for technological decline. They should have personally witnessed how the Lost God Sect rose... wait a minute, it’s very likely they founded the Lost God Sect themselves!
"In a multi-race mixed civilization system that has gone through a break, the longer-lived the race, the more likely they are to hold onto knowledge, and they can easily establish a ’technological control organization’ like the Lost God Sect to achieve spiritual dominance over the entire world." As we looked at the softly humming dical chamber, Sandora and I had similar thoughts, "They have innate advantages: to establish a religion, even if many don’t follow them, they only need to wait for generations of opposition to naturally die out. They have thousands of years to gradually remodel the thoughts of other races. If there’s no race on this planet longer-lived than the Tree Elves, then it’s almost certain the Lost God Sect was established by these gentle, long-eared beings. But... doesn’t that not quite fit with our impression of the Tree Elves? They don’t seem like a race that would do such a selfish thing."
I naturally think the sa, the Tree Elves of the Empire... not to ntion establishing a mysterious technical blockade organization to rule the world. The freedom ingrained in their bones ensures they wouldn’t use their whole race to do such thankless tasks. They love change, traveling, and anything that keeps life fresh and exciting without being dull. Engaging in sothing like establishing a global organization to blockade technology, keeping the entire planet at mid-agricultural societal levels, and binding themselves to a small rock planet with a diater of only six or seven thousand kiloters? They’d stifle themselves to death!
Back on the Green Star, those Tree Elves nearly went mad as a whole because they couldn’t travel or develop, and life was too monotonous. In the end, they had to collectively sleep, spending ti by dreaming.
"Assuming the Lost God Sect was established by the Tree Elves, they certainly weren’t pursuing so kind of inherent desire to play local emperors among a group of primitive people," I said with confidence, "They wouldn’t choose to go with such a conservative route by fearing technology like a venomous snake, preserving it to prevent world wars. The Tree Elves of the glorious era very likely have so still alive today; they’ve seen higher-level worlds and wouldn’t willingly go the route of sealing all technology to prevent world conflict."
"So they sealed technology to guard against sothing more severe..." The Sandora ball gently settled on a data terminal in the corner of the wall, extending nurous golden lines from its body to connect with the terminal, "I’m releasing more probes and engineering ships to construct research stations in the deep universe. To push a race like the Tree Elves, who have such ’resources,’ into this state of decline, the ’threat’ must be enormous, and it’s very possibly from outside this planet. We’d better discover sothing in deep space... or outside the universe. But the latter has low odds, as the whole world is cloaked in bizarre interference, while ordinary Void probes almost disappear in the blink of an eye after leaving the World Barrier. Ah Jun, do you think this interference could be related to the Tree Elves sealing technology?"
I raised an eyebrow: "You’re suggesting this interference isn’t a natural phenonon, but sothing left by a hostile race? They decimated the Tree Elves’ Exile Fleet back then and made them too frightened to develop technology, fearing their mortal enemies would discover they’re not extinct yet?"
"Very possible, but I can’t explain what this interference ans. If it was caused by war... an entity capable of isolating the entire universe wouldn’t have any trouble annihilating the Tree Elves," Sandora set up the probes and floated over lightly, "But no matter what, we should focus on broader areas. The Tree Elves, after all, ca across the Void; they should have left traces in more places."
Thirty minutes ago, we didn’t elevate the events on this planet to a universal scale, but now that "Tree Elves" have appeared, even a ticulous thinker like Her Majesty Queen Sandora must make bold speculations. The reason boils down to one thing: Tree Elves, the last clan of the Old Empire, a high-tech species that nearly independently developed the Void Engine—people who have reached the upper zone in the pyramid of mortal civilization—they’re experienced!
Such an "experienced" high-intelligence race choosing to seal all technology, and even voluntarily living a dieval life among primitive people (who likely were the real native aborigines of this planet) is fundantally different from a group quarantining technology due to fear of nuclear war. To illustrate, it’s like eting a fallen wealthier borrowing sorrow through drink at a street beer stall. If this man used to be a city’s richest person, that’s one thing. Even if his story is complex, it can only serve as small talk for small citizens. But if this down-and-out man is dressed like an Arabian and casually pulls out an expired Saudi visa from his pocket... would you believe that there isn’t a two-hundred-thousand-word saga of love and hatred behind it?
To us, the Tree Elves are like such a person who once waved authority in Saudi but now borrows sorrow in Tong County’s streets. Sandora and I are both eager to find out exactly what tumultuous experiences these ill-fated Elves have been through—to end up this pitiful.
"Before the Deep Space Detection provides more information, we should try to have a good conversation with the Remnant of the Tree Elves," Sandora seed to be looking at the dical chamber where Qing Ye lay, "This young girl is too young, but perhaps her family elders or tribal elders are still around. Considering the lifespan of Tree Elves, even without Empire modifications, they could live from the end of the Old Empire to today. Hmm, supposing the world’s tiline hasn’t had any major issues."
Thus leaving Qing Ye slowly resurrecting in the dical chamber, Sandora and I once again teleported back to the surface. (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to vote for recomndations and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please check m.qidian to read.)
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