Imperial Crown.

Chapter 550 A Thousand-Year Scheme

The sun shines brightly, the autumn air is crisp and clear. The pool water babbles, and the surrounding area is lush and green. Birds, insects, and fish chirp and sing in turn.

Scattered pieces of clothing lay scattered beside the bluestone slabs, like petals falling from the sky, the outlines of thin gauze skirts still faintly visible. Birds sang, flowers bloomed, and the water shimmered. On the bluestone slabs lay a naked body, legs slightly parted, cheeks flushed, and ivory-white back covered with pitiful bruises and handprints.

"Raven! You villain! My mother will never let you get away with this!" Luna Raigor sobbed helplessly, and when she was tired of crying, she raised her head and began to threaten Raven with her crystal pendant (snot bubble) dripping.

"Sh-(shenhe)-"

Raven frowned and gave a soft shout, carefully sensing the changes within his body. Sure enough, the blood curse within him, the so-called Immortal Mark, had indeed melted slightly, like wax, after this wondrous journey. Moreover, the melted blood curse had changed from scarlet to a brilliant gold. Then, like a lubricant, it slowly blended with the battle aura and magic power within Raven's body, transforming into a deep, nebula-like aurora color.

"It's useful," Raven said, "but not very useful." He was unwilling to give up. If he tried to refine the Eternal Life Mark this way, he feared he wouldn't be able to finish it even by the time he exhausted his life essence and died in bed. Moreover, Raven discovered that the fourth-tier Luna Laige seemed completely clueless about this kind of cultivation, perhaps due to her inexperience. He didn't feel any decrease in his battle qi. This made Raven somewhat doubt Anno's words. Perhaps the elven saintess wasn't trying to absorb his battle qi? Or perhaps… it was because Luna Laige's cultivation level was too low; after all, she was only a fourth-tier mage.

"One, two, three, four, one more time."

Raven caught Lunaraige trying to sneak away without any mercy. In his eyes, the elves were nothing more than cultivation resources, no different from magical plants. A dozen minutes later, Raven had become the most holy sage in the world.

“It has indeed melted a little more.” Raven said with some annoyance, kicking the lifeless Luna Raig on the ground, and asked, “You just said who your mother was?”

Upon hearing this, Luna Lego finally regained some of her composure and roared, "My mother is the elven saintess Daiyunyi! Raven, you're dead! If I go back and tell my mother, she will definitely refine you!"

Raven: ...

Raven was speechless. It turned out that the Elf Saintess had not only lived for thousands of years, but also had such a grown daughter! "How old are you?" Raven asked.

"Emmm," Runa Raeko wiped away her tears, "Anyway, I've lived for over 400 years. I've never left the forbidden area. Raven, tell me, is it fun outside?"

Looking at the innocent-looking Luna Lego, Raven suddenly felt a pang of pity for her. "You came to find me just for this?" But then Raven hissed. 400 years? That couldn't be right. His ancestor Don Quixote had been dead for at least 1000 years. Where did this 400-year-old maiden come from? Could it be that the Elven Saintess was actually capturing male extraordinary beings who came to the Forbidden Zone to have children with? Thinking this, Raven's expression became uncertain. "Then do you know who your father is?"

Luna Lego looked at Raven with a strange expression, seemingly surprised that he would ask such a question. "Don't you know? Our elven race reproduces by relying on the World Tree! My mother, Daiyunyi, lives on the World Tree! There is an elven sacred house on it. Any elf who wants to get pregnant only needs to go in and drink a sip of the sap from the core of an eighth-tier sacred tree, and she can become pregnant! So our elven race has no males, and the only way to give birth to a pure-blooded elf is through this method!"

Raven: ...

So this wasn't a forbidden area of ​​the Elf Empire, but rather the Kingdom of Women on the continent of Miders!
"This works???" Raven was truly shocked and his understanding was completely overturned. He couldn't calm down for a long time. This damn world was really a huge makeshift operation! Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck him, and he vaguely grasped something, but he couldn't connect the dots completely.

"You don't even know this? Aren't you from the Middles Continent?" Luna Lego asked in surprise, her eyes wide.

"You're right, I really am not," Raven thought to himself. He then pressed, "What exactly did you mean by 'refining'?"

“Every hundred years, the Beastman Empire and the Human Empire would send many high-level extraordinary beings for my mother to refine and absorb battle qi,” Luna Laige said, spilling the beans like beans from a bamboo tube. She was as innocent and carefree as a four-year-old child. She didn't seem like she had lived for 400 years at all.

That's it! Raven finally grasped the key point; he completely understood. The elven race did indeed consist only of women, and they did indeed need battle qi. Therefore, high-level transcendent beings were essentially human pills, truly no different from cultivation resources. The only difference was that the elven saintess didn't capture Raven and refine him directly, but instead adopted a gentler method.

"Then why didn't your mother refine me?" Raven asked.

“I don’t know then, you’ll have to ask my mother.” Luna Lego took out new clothes from the ring and began to put them on silently. “Perhaps your cultivation level is too low.”

Raven: ...

"Go back and tell your mother that I've agreed to her request," Raven said after thinking for a moment. Having already come all the way to the Elven Empire and wasted over a year, Raven didn't intend to delay any longer. Life or death, he had to face it eventually; a man has to hold the sky up, right?
"..." Luna Laige looked at Raven with resentment, "But you, you've already..."

"Don't worry, I won't look down on you and your daughter," Raven said calmly. "Get lost! Otherwise... hehehehe..."

Hearing Raven's laughter, Luna Raigor leaped up from the ground like a rabbit and flew away before she could even put on her clothes properly.

However, in the following two months, Raven waited and waited but the elven saintess did not appear. Instead, he was greeted by several old acquaintances.

"Litanch, why are you back again?"

More than half a year had passed since they last met. Litanshi and Gilida had both successfully broken through to the fifth rank. Anno was also there, but he had once again wrapped himself in a robe, concealing his true face. Raven asked in great surprise.

"A barrier! There's a barrier! The Elf Saintess has no intention of letting us leave!" Gilida said with fear and unease. "That barrier is huge. We've walked for so long and tried everything, but we can't get out!"

"What?!" Raven was startled. He had been wondering why the elven saintess had been so silent for so long; it turned out she had been quietly setting up a barrier!
“Raven, do you believe me now?” Anno said with a hint of sarcasm.

Raven's face was terribly grim, remaining silent in the face of Anno's taunts. He suddenly recalled what the Elven Saintess had said when they first met over six months ago—Raven was the only one who had ever approached her. In other words, it wasn't that the Elven Saintess liked or loved him so much that she hadn't refined him on the spot! Rather, it was because he possessed something that native transcendents lacked, which saved his life! Two months ago, Luna Laige had confidently stated that all the native high-level transcendents who had been sacrificed had been refined by the Elven Saintess as a potion. This indirectly confirmed Raven's guess: what the Elven Saintess wanted might not be battle qi at all! Rather, it was the Eye of Truth, or the Immortal Mark within him!
After much thought, Raven realized that these were the only two things that no one else possessed!

Raven is definitely not the first person summoned from another world by the Elven Saintess; there must have been many before him! Perhaps many more will follow. Whoever successfully reaches the forbidden zone will be the so-called defiant chosen by the Elven Saintess. Or perhaps… the chosen one? And indeed, the Elven race contains something within their bodies that can truly dissolve the blood curse. If Raven isn't mistaken, this thing is most likely the sap from the core of the eighth-tier sacred tree that Luna Laige spoke of!
This is probably why the Elf Saintess went to such lengths to set up the barrier! She has been planning this scheme for at least a thousand years! How could she possibly allow Raven to escape from her grasp? Thinking of this, Raven's emotions were in turmoil. He couldn't figure out whether the Elf Saintess had deliberately caused his ancestor Don Quixote to escape, or whether the Elf Saintess was limited by her own strength and realm a thousand years ago and therefore unable to set up a barrier to forcibly keep her ancestor.
If it's the second scenario, that's manageable, but if it's the first, then that's terrifying!

In order to break through to the ninth rank, the Elf Saintess essentially laid out a thousand-year chess game! Almost everyone, including Raven, was a piece on the chessboard.

"Raven, what are you thinking about?" Gilida asked. "Are you thinking about how to escape?"

"Take me to see the barrier," Raven said in a deep voice, coming back to his senses.

“Tomorrow,” Litanshi murmured. “We’ve been walking for days before we got back here, and we’re starving.”

Raven could only nod in agreement.

Nothing more was said that night. The next day, after a hearty meal, the group headed out of the forbidden area. The Elven Empire was vast, comparable to the neighboring Orcish Empire. Strictly speaking, it was even larger than the Orcish Empire. However, the Orcish Empire was divided into 16 provinces, while the Elven Empire was simply divided into 6 regions. One could imagine how expansive the territory of a single region was. If the forbidden area were divided into three layers—the core, the inner circle, and the outer circle—then Raven and his companions were currently in the inner circle.

More than 20 days later, Raven and his companions finally arrived at the barrier, the edge of the inner circle. It seemed the Elf Saintess had gone to great lengths to prevent Raven's escape, setting up a barrier over two-thirds of the forbidden area. The entire barrier resembled a transparent egg membrane, appearing somewhat hazy, much like frosted glass. Raven and his group tried attacking it one after another, but to no avail.

An eighth-tier expert is indeed terrifying.

“When we first discovered it more than six months ago, we could still tear some small cracks. Now, we can't break through at all.” Gilida's voice was filled with barely suppressed fear. Of those present, only he and Anno had experienced the Elven Saintess's magic and already suffered from PTSD. Facing this situation now, their hearts were naturally the most desperate. Anno was just more resilient than him. Otherwise, given Anno's personality, why would he have obediently left empty-handed?

"Then why did you linger here for so long before going back to find me?" Raven asked.

"We've been searching for a way out! We thought it was just this place that was blocked!" Gilida said matter-of-factly. "Until we searched the entire edge area and tried all sorts of methods, but we couldn't get out! We were exhausted. Then Litanshi said to try again after breaking through to the fifth rank, maybe that would work. Who knew that just a few months after breaking through, we couldn't break through anymore!"

Although it was a sad story, for some reason, Raven just wanted to laugh when he heard it. He hadn't really wanted the group to leave in the first place. And along the way, there was another detail that proved the mage's prestige far surpassed that of the extraordinary: the extraordinary must be at the sixth rank to fly. Anno, a fifth-rank mage, could already fly. No wonder there's a saying in the magic world—the fifth rank is the watershed. Because once a mage breaks through to the fifth rank, the chances of an extraordinary being getting close become extremely slim.

This filled Raven with regret. He should have broken through to the fifth rank of mage much earlier, instead of spending all his time practicing magic, combat skills, and comprehending the laws of space. If he had already broken through to the fifth rank, he wouldn't have to walk every day.

"What do we do now?" Gilida asked anxiously.

"I'll leave it to fate," Raven said calmly. "For the next period of time, I will also be focusing on my cultivation. Take care, everyone." Since he was going to break through, he definitely needed to find a safe place. Raven didn't trust the people in front of him. He planned to return to Slaanesh's Palace and have Qi Moangsou act as his guardian. That old man was extremely fond of Angel's Tears and magic crystals; otherwise, why would he have allowed Raven into the palace?

To be honest, before he knew about the barrier, Raven was constantly conflicted and anxious. But now that he knows about the barrier and there's no way to resist, he's filled with a strange sense of peace. There's a saying that goes, life is like rape; if you can't resist, just close your eyes and enjoy it.

"Are you planning to live a life of ignominy?" Anno was very clever and immediately sensed the hidden meaning in Raven's words.

"Why are you speaking so rudely?" Raven said, somewhat displeased. "My relationship with the Holy Maiden is merely one of equal cooperation."

"puff"

Litanshi couldn't help but laugh out loud. Looking at Raven's murderous gaze, Litanshi pouted. "Sorry, you know my third brother! I'm a very straightforward person, and I've undergone rigorous training. No matter how funny something is, I generally won't laugh. Unless..."

Raven, too lazy to bother with these people anymore, was like a frog in a well that can't discuss the sea, or a summer insect that can't discuss ice. He silently turned and left. Returning alone to the Slaanesh Palace, Raven retrieved the fourth-tier Yellow Sand Magic Core he had previously obtained from the Ridgeback Rhinoceros from his spatial ring. He hoped that consuming it would allow him to break through to the fifth-tier mage in one fell swoop. Raven possessed the True Ancestor's Blood Core, and with the refinement and expansion he had undergone during his subsequent breakthroughs, his magical power was at least three times that of his peers! The advantages of having more magical power were obvious, but there was also a drawback: accumulating magical power was much more difficult than for his peers. If measured in ten-year increments, an ordinary mage could accumulate enough magical power in ten years to break through from the fourth to the fifth tier. But Raven might only accumulate half. Without the Eye of Truth, he would have absolutely no chance of advancing.

patter
The golden magic core shattered in Raven's hands. He skillfully channeled the essence of the corrupted soul into a bottle beside him and began absorbing the yellow sand element, which was the earth element, from the magic core! Five to six days passed in the blink of an eye. To Raven's embarrassment, such an expensive and abundant fourth-tier magic core only increased his magic power by 1%!

The magic power within his body has now reached 98% of the fourth-tier, nine-star level.

If this ratio is followed, at least two fifth-tier magic cores would probably be needed!
However, Raven didn't have a fifth-tier magic core, and even if he did, it would be too late. Because the true elven saintess—Dayna—had finally reappeared before Raven's eyes.

"follow me."

The elven saintess spoke indifferently, her tone one of absolute authority.

……

(End of this chapter)