Alchemy Master

Chapter 1096, Astonishment

Translator: Silavin

Within the Elf Race’s territory, at the base of the Tree of Life.

The Pavilion King, the Elf Queen, and every senior member of the Elf Race stood gathered beneath the Tree of Life. Each gaze carried within it a trembling, barely contained excitement, every pair of eyes fixed upon a particular point along the great tree’s expanse.

Comprehension of the Life Scripture had always taken place within the Elf Race’s palace.

So many of the Elf Elders could no longer remember how many years had passed since any Elf had last entered the Tree of Life itself to seek the opportunity to comprehend it.

In the chronicles of the Elf Race, it was perhaps tens of thousands of years since anyone had entered inside to do so.

At the farthest reach of their collective gaze, suspended at a particular point along the Tree of Life, hung two faint traces of pale green light.

There, within those two points of radiance, were Little Ling’er and Avril.

The Life Scripture was the most closely guarded Secret Technique of the Elf Race, and across all of history, only Royal Elves of extraordinary constitution had ever possessed the right to attempt comprehension of it.

Others, including High Rank Elves and even certain Royal Elves whose natural gifts fell short of the mark, did not qualify.

The threshold for comprehending the Life Scripture was simply too demanding. Even if those Elves had been granted the opportunity, their constitution alone would have been insufficient, and they would only have squandered the Elf Race’s sacred resources.

And so, each time an Elf was granted the right to attempt the Life Scripture, it became a great occasion for the entire Race, drawing the attention of Elves without number.

Of course, amongst those who had attempted it, there had been no shortage of failures.

Beyond that, what captivated the Elves above all else was the time each successful Elf had required.

As a general rule, any Elf who failed to fully comprehend the Life Scripture within half a year was counted as having failed.

The shorter the time required to comprehend the Life Scripture, the greater the genius, and the higher the heights they would reach in the years to come.

The current Elf Queen, for instance, had required only a single month to achieve comprehension when her time had come.

A month, measured against the full sweep of Elf Race history, stood as an exceptional result. On the strength of that achievement alone, she had rightfully claimed the throne as the Elf Race’s Queen.

And as events had proven, she had indeed gone on to become a Supreme Expert through the sheer force of her extraordinary constitution.

As for Avril, she was the most pure in Bloodline the Race had produced in the span of over tens of thousands of years. Based on the estimates of the Elders, the time she would need to comprehend the Life Scripture was expected to fall even shorter than what the Elf Queen had required.

As for Little Ling’er.

Not one of the assembled Elves genuinely believed she would succeed in comprehending it.

In all likelihood, this had simply been the Pavilion King’s way of acknowledging that Qin Yichen’s kindness to the Elf Race was too vast to go unrewarded, a casual promise made in the spirit of gratitude, nothing more.

So the assembled Elves harboured no real expectation for her.

…

A Princess whose Bloodline purity surpassed even the Elf Queen’s had at last arrived at the day appointed for her to seek comprehension of the Life Scripture.

The outcome, whatever it would be, filled every member of the Elf Race with keen anticipation. They wanted to know whether Avril would ultimately surpass the time the Elf Queen had once taken.

A breeze moved through the air. The space beneath the Tree of Life held a perfect, held-breath stillness. Gaze after gaze locked onto those two faint traces of pale green light suspended within the great tree’s expanse, and more than a few Elves did not permit themselves even so much as a single blink.

Beneath that silent, concentrated vigil, half a month slipped past in what felt like an instant.

Then, at last, the Tree of Life stirred.

From one of the two points of light suspended within it, an eruption of green radiance blazed suddenly forth. Wave after wave of brilliant light, witnessed by eyes wide with disbelief, came crashing outward from the Tree of Life in an unstoppable deluge, flooding across the sky and spreading to its furthest reaches.

An endless torrent of green light poured from the Tree of Life, rolling outward like a breaking tide, surging ferociously toward and into one of the two points of radiance.

The spectacle was breathtaking beyond measure.

Below the Tree of Life, the assembled Elves were left visibly thunderstruck by what they were witnessing. Each of them was staring upward at that all-pervasive blaze of light with an expression hovering somewhere between dazed wonder and outright stupefaction.

“This… she has only been inside for half a month, and the Princess has already achieved full comprehension of the Life Scripture?”

“Heavens, I recall that the greatest prodigy recorded still required a full twenty-five days.”

“Worthy of the Princess. Does this mean… a new record in our Race’s history is about to be broken?”

“With Her Highness among us, it seems our Race is assured of another tens of thousands of years of unbroken glory!”

“Indeed!”

Astonishment was written across every face.

A spectacle of this magnitude could only be produced when someone had already had a breakthrough in comprehending the Life Scripture. Nothing short of that would trigger a reaction on this scale.

And yet, from the moment Avril and Little Ling’er had entered the Tree of Life to this instant, barely half a month had passed. Such an interval, even measured against the full breadth of Elf Race history, was a record that stood entirely without precedent.

“For a reaction of this scale to emerge now, I would believe that it will only be a matter of a few more days before the Princess achieves complete comprehension of the Life Scripture.”

“Once they have broken through the first stage of comprehension, the rest will naturally follow. Even accounting for the time that remains, she should be able to achieve full comprehension within twenty days at most.”

Amid the low murmur of speculation, the Elf Queen, the Jade Elder, and the Pavilion King bore expressions that were unlike the delighted shock of those around them. On their faces instead was something subtler, a particular quality of stillness that set them apart from the rest.

Avril, that Princess upon whom the Ancestral Tree had lavished its favour, was a being that could be said to be the most gifted.

The Elves had originally estimated that the time Avril would require to comprehend the Life Scripture would fall short of what the Elf Queen had needed.

That estimate had already assumed a figure significantly shorter than this, and less than half a month had passed.

Beneath ten thousand watching eyes, two more days dissolved like smoke.

The fluctuations emanating from the Tree of Life grew stronger with each passing hour, building like successive waves upon the sea, each wave surpassing the last. By the time it reached its apex, the resonance was like rolling thunder reverberating through the entire expanse of Heaven and Earth.

Among the many shocked expressions of the assembled Elf Elders, more than a few discovered with a start that as these fluctuations intensified, the energy within their own bodies had begun to respond in a restless, agitated manner.

It was as though the energy within each of them yearned to flow toward that blazing point of light suspended above, which burned with all the concentrated brilliance of a miniature Sun.

Immediately, those Elders felt their expressions stiffen with alarm.

Each of them moved swiftly to suppress the turbulence stirring within their own cultivation, and they turned eyes filled with grave solemnity upward toward that blazing point of light high above.

*Boom!*

At some point that was difficult to pinpoint precisely, the gathering energy reached its absolute pinnacle. From within the Tree of Life, a cataclysmic eruption of light detonated outward.

That light pierced the Heavens in what felt like a single instant, driving upward with the force and arrogance of something that would not be contained, splitting the clouds apart and spreading across the vault of the sky in every direction.

The whole of the Elf Forest, and perhaps the whole of the world itself, was swallowed within the embrace of that radiance.

Faced with a spectacle of such staggering magnitude, the face of every last Elf present flooded with an expression of pure, undisguised awe.

Even the Elf Queen and the Pavilion King showed something on their faces. It was a gravity, a weight, that had not been there before.

Beneath that convergence of countless gazes, from within that blazing point of light that rivalled a small Sun in its intensity, a slender silhouette emerged, stepping forward with measured, unhurried strides.

With her appearance, the terrifying upheaval that had gripped this corner of the world seemed to draw breath and settle, as though the presence of that one small figure had been enough to press it back down.

Gaze after gaze, without so much as a blink between them, fixed themselves upon that silhouette with a locked and unwavering intensity.