Super Righteous Player
Chapter 871 - 408: The Emperor’s Teacher

Chapter 871: Chapter 408: The Emperor’s Teacher

"Jiu’er is playing the role of Philip’s mother now, isn’t she..."

Annans’s expression suddenly turned somewhat strange.

Although he still found it difficult to associate that delicate elven girl—with her bright golden curls and bright emerald eyes that shone like a doll’s—with Philip, the dead fat man.

But looking at Jiu’er now, he could probably imagine what the "The Rhetorician" Philip looked like in those days.

"...But, a foster mother?"

Annan suddenly realized something, "What about Nafry Flamel? Since she was able to come back as the cornerstone of this nightmare, doesn’t that mean she didn’t die at least until after Philip had grown up?"

"Nafry left Philip quite early."

Victor replied, "Elven and human social structures are different... At least after the Empire period, elven parents seldom leave their children. After all, elves occupy a high position in the hierarchy of the Empire, and no one would force them to abandon their children and go abroad, nor do they need long-term work.

"To take a step back, even if they left their homeland, they would certainly go to places with curse energy facilities... Then, building a house would simply require ’imagining it,’ and the old house could be instantly reconstructed."

Whether facilities or the surrounding environment, precise imagination alone could instantly rebuild them. There was no need for construction time, much less money or materials—curse energy was such a convenient thing.

That’s also why there was such resistance to "abolishing curse energy."

Even though many elves knew in their hearts that the use of curse energy was creating tremendous pressure on the world... it didn’t lead to an "immediate disaster."

The elves had an invincible unified great barrier, combining the power of twelve True Gods and twenty-four Wizard’s Towers, which meant that even if the whole world was submerged in the Grey Mist, with its density higher than the clouds, it would not affect their lives at all.

Rather, since the Grey Mist was targeting the "entire world," it hit everyone.

To the east of the Living Desert lived the "Blood and Charcoal People," who had exiled the elves during the early second generation. The devastation the Grey Mist wrought on the world was likewise theirs to endure—and because the Living Desert stood in the way, they couldn’t come to settle the score with the elves.

The Living Desert, as a disaster of the era, was not merely a "conscious vast desert."

Since it had consciousness, it likely also had the power of a curse.

To put it simply—since it had gained sentience, wasn’t it natural for it to pursue the absorption of supernatural power?

A desert larger than the peak territory of Aesirland was, in itself, an incredibly massive "demon." Once one entered the territory of the Living Desert, they would be eroded... their Transcendent powers slowly, steadily devoured. And as long as someone "lost light" on the desert surface, the entire person would be instantly consumed by the irrational desert.

—Only light could maintain the sanity of the desert beneath one’s feet.

The Living Desert, however, wasn’t limited to slowly devouring Transcendent powers.

Because in its sane state, it had Wisdom and understood sustainable development—

It would drain about eighty percent of a Transcendent’s power each day to avoid killing them outright and then wait for their natural recovery. The longer one stayed in the desert, the less power the desert would take, with a minimum going down to fifty percent, thus "encouraging" Transcendents to survive within the desert.

If a Transcendent who was prey of the desert tried to leave, however, the resistance would increase—if they were close to the desert’s border, the resistance they faced would be even greater.

Even during its rational daytime, it would strike with deadly force, striving to kill escapees—and after draining them, send them back to the gathering place as a warning.

It didn’t welcome mortals at all. In fact, if a Transcendent was too weak, or if a mortal came directly, it would quickly kill them and throw them out.

Because the desert is greedy, and it is always thirsty.

There are not many "oases" inside that can sustain life—they find it hard to resist the urge to swallow these waters and nutrients. The only reason the desert preserves them is simply to provide some sustenance to the Transcendents trapped within its body, to prevent them from dying abruptly... just like a farmer saving some rice to feed the chickens.

Only the "gods," who had reshaped their bodies in the Light Realm and no longer needed food or drink nor a vessel, and the adult dragons who, even with their Transcendent powers suppressed, could still fly over the desert using their physical strength alone, could traverse the living desert multiple times.

One of the reasons the Elves began using magic power promptly after they first arrived in Aesirland... was to exact revenge on the "people of blood and charcoal."

Because they used magic power, the whole world had to be eroded by the Mist.

However, they had anticipated this and had already erected a great barrier when the Mist began to spread.

By the time the Mist covered the entire world, perhaps it could also be considered a method of eliminating enemies...

As for whether this would have side effects?

—Of course, it would.

The Elves saw very clearly that the overuse of magic power would confine them within the area of the great barrier, making it difficult to expand outward. Then, when the population reached a certain limit, conflicts would become increasingly fierce.

And as magic power was extracted, the world would become more and more fragile. If the Mist Realm was weakened to a state weaker than the next realm, then, as the worlds drew close, the world’s walls might suddenly collapse—the people of this world could suddenly fall into the Otherworld and never return.

But these problems.

They would all fall on "the last generation" to bear.

What if, before that, they used magic technology to develop the ability to cross worlds?

—What if their technology had advanced to the point of being able to absorb the "Blood of the World" from the neighboring world, instead of extracting the Blood of the World from their own world?

Many "what ifs" made it impossible for the Elves to cease using magic power.

They could not sacrifice their current living benefits, nor could they completely overturn the tradition and technology tree of their entire civilization... to protect a future generation they would never see in this lifetime.

Protecting the future of strangers... was simply too illusory.

"And not long after Nafry gave birth to Philip, she went on to help her father with lecturing tours all around."

Victor paused, then answered softly, "At the time, I was constrained by my own identity and did not stay with them immediately. But I always kept an eye on their actions.

"The biggest difference between Nafry and her father Ernest was that she gave up on ’persuading everyone’ from the very start. Ernest lectured in every Elf city, convincing others of the irreversible catastrophic harm of magic power to the future, telling them we could build a magnificent civilization without relying on magic power...

"But Nafry did not do that. From the beginning, she decided to convince the upper echelons of the empire, that is, the ’Sages’ who had the power of speech—even the Emperor himself.

"Nafry persuaded many people, myself included, of course. Initially, to protect myself, I did not immediately join the group that advocated ’banning magic power,’ did not go to lecture in every city, and did not use my influence to impact others.

"What I did was very simple. It was something that even now would be deeply taboo to the people. It is the greatest ’sin’ I carry with me."

Victor said quietly, "Because aside from teaching the Lady of the Storm at that time...

"—I was also tutoring the Emperor’s children, responsible for teaching them the lessons of life."

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