Why can't humans do it too?

"First, let's confirm how much Mr. Monkey actually knows about elves?"

"Not many. From the records, it seems that elves are everywhere on this planet, very small, and are a necessary element for casting magic... Is our information wrong?" Suer thought for a moment before answering.

“That’s right~” Xin Ke said lightly, “So what about the fifteen races?”

"I know that too. From first to last, they are: Gods, Fantasy, Elves, Dragons, Giants, Winged Elves, Forest Elves, Goblins, Fairies, Mechs, Demons, Vampires, Moonlit Singers, Beastmen, and Seafolk..."

And then there are us—the human race.

He swallowed his last words, but even though humanity had never gained the recognition of any race, Sull still firmly believed in his heart.

It's not fifteen races, but sixteen.

We can also call it civilization.

Incidentally, the ranking of races is not determined by combat power, but by their affinity for the Elf Corridor, specifically their magical affinity.

Those who possess a circuit within their body that connects to the elven corridors of the outside world can use magic, and this is precisely the kind of circuit that humans lack.

"So, could the third-ranked elf species be related to the ubiquitous elves on the planet?" Noticing Xin Ke's intention in mentioning the fifteen races, Su Er asked curiously, "I thought they would be those... energy creatures that gather in clumps?"

Suer struggled to find the right words.

"That's too superficial," Xin Ke said with unusual seriousness when discussing academic topics. "Do you know the difference between organisms and life?"

'Even Mr. Monkey isn't calling out anymore...' he thought to himself, while respectfully saying, 'Please speak.'

"That's a good attitude, isn't it?" Xin Ke teased Su Er as she turned the steel gate in front of her. "Among all races, those below the seventh rank are living beings, and those above the seventh rank are life."

Noticing Suer's thoughtful expression, Xin Ke, who had turned halfway around, curled the corners of her lips under her hood. "That's right, it starts with the Forest Elves—races below them, including the Forest Elves, possess physical bodies and reproduce through conventional means, so they are defined as living beings. But those races above the Forest Elves directly possess energy or a certain concept that represents will, so they are called life. In a sense, it can be considered a watershed moment when common sense no longer applies."

“For those guys, they are irrefutable proof that the impossible is possible… so the term ‘energy creature’ that you mentioned can be applied to all races ranked above the Forest Elves,” Xin Ke said, suddenly stopping in her tracks. “Like those Skywing races, although they have a respectable ugly appearance, their bodies can be said to be formed from a high concentration of elven energy… you could even call them twisted monsters~~”

The wise one didn't respond. Although Suer didn't know exactly what had happened in the past, he had already figured it out—Miss Nielbaren definitely had a grudge against the Skywing race.

But judging from this young lady of the Nielbaren family's personality, it wouldn't be unreasonable for her to make enemies with anyone, right? After all, she—Pfft!!!

The muttering in his mind was abruptly interrupted by a fatal punch. Su Er's eyes widened, and he clutched his stomach as he knelt on the ground, experiencing firsthand what it meant to see stars. His vision was still blurry, and everything in his sight was flashing back and forth.

The culprit has been found; it is the forest elf with long, light golden hair who is walking in front. He hasn't even retracted the small, white fist that is sticking out from his dark gray robe as evidence of the crime.

"Didn't I already tell you, Mr. Monkey? You need to hide your malice properly~~~"

From this angle, Suer could clearly see Miss Nielbaren's smiling, sunny expression. Just by looking at that lovely smiling face, no one could imagine what kind of atrocity this guy had just committed, right? Suer nodded seriously and solemnly affirmed.

"You're right!"

So the conversation continued.

"So to be precise, all the elves scattered across the entire planet are elves, and there are currently no independent elf species with intelligence," Xin Ke gave an unexpected answer. "In the beginning, the divine species flowed out from the Elf Corridor and were born. They are the origin of all things, the direction of all things, and even the essence of various races was created from the Elf Corridor... Ah~ I've gone a bit off-topic. Anyway, elves are very small in size~, and their bodies shimmer with blue and white light."

"Huff...huff..." Sul asked, panting heavily, "And what about magic?"

Even without using magic, the Forest Elves' physical abilities far surpassed those of Sul. At the very least, climbing up and down various pipes and steel walls didn't make Xinke sweat much, and she didn't even have trouble breathing. On the contrary, Sul was exhausted.

"Ah~, so this is what you care about most?" Xin Ke touched her chin and continued, "It's like an extension of your own limbs. You can clearly feel something being released... I find it hard to describe this feeling clearly. You can't understand this flow of spirits unless you experience it yourself."

"Why would Mr. Monkey care about this? Or is using magic every monkey's dream? Unfortunately, Mr. Monkey's magical aptitude is just too poor. It's impossible for him to not even be able to see magic... Mr. Monkey? Mr. Monkey?!"

To be honest, Su Er completely ignored the usual sarcastic remarks that followed. He excitedly grasped the key point in the first half of Xin Ke's sentence—this was the feeling! He knew this feeling!!

Although there are still some differences, when facing Asano Shirasu, Suer did feel as if his soul and body were extending.

"Miss Nielbaren!" Before Xinke could get angry because the monkey hadn't responded to her rare well-intentioned science lesson, Suer jumped up, his eyes practically sparkling if they could light up. "Is there such a thing as casting magic without using elves?!"

To be honest, his reaction was a bit too obvious and too excited, but he really couldn't control himself.

Chapter Fifty-One: Blood of the Forest Spirit

As soon as he blurted it out, Suer realized his mistake and quickly tried to salvage the situation, asking, "Even in cases where the number of elves is extremely low, can magic still be cast?"

Unfortunately, it's no longer effective.

She wasn't the type with a bad memory; both her thinking speed and associative ability were highly developed. Xin Ke immediately caught Sul's clumsy attempt to cover it up. The confusion caused by the magic that had failed a few days ago still lingered in her mind.

"Did Mr. Monkey ever cast a spell?" she asked curiously. Even Xin Ke herself didn't realize how much more excited she became when discussing academic topics. "When? In what form? This is a major evolution for beasts! I knew the spell's failure before wasn't my fault… Damn it, why am I in a place like this? If only I could go back to my workshop…"

Muttering to himself, the elf with light golden hair got so excited at the end that he even subconsciously bit the tip of his thumb. Although it looked very cute, Suer didn't like it at all—the gaze that swept over his body from time to time was like beams of light cutting through every inch of his muscles.

"Well, if I could cast magic, would I need to run for my life like this? It's completely impossible," Suer said with a stiff smile. To be honest, it was questionable what Asano Shirasu said before he died: that no elven activity had been detected. The elven aptitude of the orc race was extremely poor, not much better than that of humans. What if he was wrong?

"..." Without affirmation or denial, Xin Ke simply looked Su Er up and down with suspicion. "It seems to make some sense. So what exactly caused Mr. Monkey to choose to leave his tribe? Humans like Mr. Monkey should be quite rare even in your tribe, right?"

"...It's just because of some unavoidable reason," unable to answer, Suer could only mumble vaguely, "Let's not talk about this anymore, are we almost there?"

"Hmm~, it seems you want to keep it a secret? But it doesn't matter, you'll expose everything sooner or later, including why that magic didn't work on you before—I'll find the answer myself." Without any intention of hiding her thoughts, Xin Ke turned her head and continued walking forward. "As for the answer to Mr. Monkey's question before, you can't cast magic without the help of spirits~. You can cast magic by directly manipulating spirits, or you can cast magic by destroying spirits, but it's impossible to cast magic by bypassing spirits. That's an ironclad rule. Although Mr. Monkey has some spirits left in his body from his breathing and other behaviors, the number is too small. Theoretically speaking, it's completely insufficient to cast any kind of magic. Even if he could cast it, the power would be pitifully small."

'So, magical battles are simply battles involving the manipulation of numbers of spirits?' Suer pondered, he roughly understood.

"Then what about the divine race? Do they also need to use elves to cast spells?" Suer asked sharply.

“Don’t use the shallow eyes of a monkey to speculate about the divine race. They are magic themselves, so why would they need to go through the extra step of casting magic? That’s why, among the fifteen races, the forest elves are the most skilled in magic… It seems we’ve arrived,” Xin Ke said, opening the iron gate in front of her. Her voice suddenly lowered.

Following closely behind her, Suer noticed the forest elf's sudden change in mood and quickly quickened his pace to go around to the other side to peek out—what appeared before him was a mountain of corpses.

The two were currently in what appeared to be a crematorium-like building, with emerald green flames burning and spewing out from the opening of the huge furnace, like an insatiable maw devouring the corpses that were sent inside. Hiding at the highest point of the three-story corridor, Suer and Xinke took in this cruel scene in its entirety.

They are all forest elves.

Even as Suer concealed himself and adjusted to the unsettling scene, a large door in the building opened, and a small airship drifted in, landing on one side of the mountain of corpses before opening the opening below.

It was still the forest elves. As if it were raining, the corpses falling from the open hatches were all motionless, their faces stained with blood. Men, women, young and old, seemed to have just died. Suer even saw some limbs still twitching reflexively.

If hell truly exists, then this is the hell for the forest elves.

The stench of blood mingled with the acrid smell of burning corpses, and even faintly carried the aroma of roasted meat. Suer covered his mouth tightly and gagged silently.

The eyes of those forest elves were wide open in a furious, unseeing rage. They had resisted, but the result was not different. Looking down from above, Suer could see many hateful gazes staring blankly at him—why?

Suer looked at Xinke beside him with a questioning gaze.

why?

Why go through all the trouble of dragging the battle to your own lair to do such a cruel thing when you can just defeat them on the battlefield?

Noticing Suer's question, Xinke simply raised her hand and tapped her forehead—there were four beautiful gems there, arranged in a vertical rhombus shape. At the top was a large red rhombus gem, with two slightly smaller blue rhombus gems positioned to the left and right below it. Directly below the red rhombus gem was a red round gem. With the help of the shimmering green flames rising into the sky beside it, Suer could see that these beautiful gems were sparkling.

Because he was worried about offending Xin Ke, Su Er had not examined the seemingly decorative gems closely. Only now, with permission, could he realize up close that these gems were not decorations he had previously thought were attached, but rather closely connected to the skin and flesh on Xin Ke's forehead, or rather, gems that had simply grown out of the flesh.

“Soul Stone,” Xin Ke said softly, “is a gem that grows on the forehead of every forest elf, and it is also the mineral that the ground squirrels crave the most.”

Suer understood.

Looking down the corridor once more, the corpses of the forest elves, piled high with blood-stained faces, all shared one thing in common—regardless of their size or shape, the soul stones on their foreheads had all vanished.

This is the most brutal form of resource plunder, the most primitive form of blood and flesh pasture.

Chapter Fifty-Two: Getting Angry

Even without the need for their creators to wage war against each other over the throne of the One God, the special resources produced only by forest elves would be enough to keep forest elves and goblins killing each other endlessly.

In an instant, he understood this irreconcilable contradiction. Furthermore, Suer suspected that even 10,000 meters below the surface, the goblin species might be raising some forest elves like humans raise cattle and sheep, and periodically harvesting these automatically growing fruits.

To them, the forest elves are like flowers planted in a flowerpot, producing the minerals they need. This is the greatest value of the forest elves. In fact, due to reproductive isolation and different aesthetics, they don't even need certain special needs. The flesh and blood of the forest elves are just a breeding ground for mineral growth. Classifications such as old and young, male and female are completely irrelevant.

Thinking of the dark gray furballs he had seen shortly after sneaking out of the submarine, Suer couldn't help but shudder. He had actually thought those furballs were quite cute.

Given this long-standing hatred, it's likely that neither the forest elves nor the goblins have ever regarded each other as living beings.

Just as most humans don't feel fear when they see the carcasses of other animals like pigs, cows, and sheep, but only think about how to cook them, they become terrified when they see the carcasses of other humans. The stiff expressions on the corpses, which are different from when they were alive, can trigger people's fear. Suer wondered if the forest elves also possessed such a deep-rooted instinct.

But more than anything, it's probably anger, right?

They were outraged by the deaths of their own people, outraged by their own powerlessness, and outraged by the atrocities committed by the goblin race...

Sul moved quietly to the back, keeping his distance from Xinke, whose emotions he couldn't read. He was worried that the light golden-haired forest elf would lose control of her rage and detonate the place.

"It seems to be more than just soldiers on the battlefield..."

As Suer was moving toward the door, he suddenly heard Xin Ke muttering to herself with a frown. Carefully observing her body exposed outside her robe, Suer noticed that even now, the Forest Spirit's hands were relaxed, not clenched into fists in extreme anger.

Is she in such a good mood? Or does she have other plans?

Sul racked his brains, trying to guess what kind of mood Xin Ke was feeling at that moment.

"Oh my? Mr. Monkey wasn't scared enough to freeze?" After a brief moment of thought, Xin Ke came to her senses and turned around to see Su Er making a move to escape. "He's got such a cowardly attitude. He wouldn't even be able to be sold as a slave if he acted like that."

"I'm truly sorry for your cowardice, isn't I?" Xin Ke's words, which were exactly the same as before, did indeed put Su Er at ease. He said in an annoyed tone, "So, does the great Miss Nirbalian have anything to do?"

"Huh? What are you doing?" But Xin Ke's reaction was even more surprised than his.

"Huh?" Sur asked blankly. "These dead people were your people, weren't they? Do you want to avenge them?"

"...For example, destroy some of the goblin's key things?" Sul suggested cautiously, watching Xin Ke's chin peeking out from under her hood. In this enemy stronghold filled with key facilities, it should be quite easy to take something down with you before you die.

“Absolutely not,” Xin Ke replied without hesitation, stating matter-of-factly, “They’re already dead, no different from the stones and dirt on the roadside. It’s unreasonable to make living people die because of dead things, isn’t it?”

"Moreover, compared to their worthless lives, the greatest loss would be if I, a genius, were to die. If they could pave a path for me with their lives, that would be the most valuable thing for them," Xin Ke said frankly, her arrogant condescension never changing, or more accurately, she never concealed it in front of a lowly monkey like Su Er.

"..."

Unable to accept such values, Suer opened his mouth as if to say something, but then realized that such behavior was meaningless.

"...So, what did the great Miss Nirbalian think of?" In the end, all Su could do was ask dryly.

"Ah~, I think I'm starting to see some progress~", Xin Ke said, closing the iron gate behind her as she left the building. "Winning this big battle and all that..."

"Win?!" Sur looked at the slender forest elf beside him in astonishment.

Did he mishear?

Is this crucial intelligence concerning victory in this infinitely long and endless war? When was it obtained?

Suer turned around as if sensing something, wondering if there was any crucial information left in the corpses of the forest elves inside the iron gate.

He had a conditioned reflex to take out his paper and pen, but he didn't dare.

"Hmm~", Xin Ke seemed to be in a good mood, completely ignoring Su Er's unusual behavior. "Yes, in short~ it's a world where all those damned gophers have been eradicated~"

"What if all the troublesome creatures, whether they were gods or any other race, were wiped out? How sweet would the air be in such a world?" With a deep breath, Xin Ke walked steadily into the depths of the dark pipe.

Su Er lowered his hand from where he kept his paper and pen on his chest, and his anxious desire to find out something ceased.

So... you're still angry, aren't you? This forest elf?