The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 1934 The Great City

Leo came out in tortollan form, and waved happily toward the portal, while not speaking out loud.

Just like the Cerro packs, his people could speak to each other mentally, and he had received a thread of awareness from the Elven City the moment that he arrived.

"Oh, that's cool, he's fully become the city. I like it.

That's a unique path for a turtle, but it's working out amazingly well for him, isn't it? It's even made him a Demigod."

The Elves looked confused as Leo fell silent, so Karl tried to explain.

"The turtle gets a bonus to its growth from the people living in the city on its back. It takes a massive amount of energy for it to do anything, and it may not know how to transform like Leo does.

So, it hibernates, or cultivates, depending on how you look at it, and your people actually provide the energy it needs by simply living on its back. The mana that you radiate, the excess life force of however many Elves are in the city, are fuelling its slow path to Divinity."

The Captain frowned. "You're saying that the turtle is still alive? Our history with the Great Turtle is a long one, and our people have mourned its passing for centuries. To hear that it is not dead is... hard to accept."

Leo looked up. "I can confirm that she is not dead. Not likely to wake up any time soon, it would take too much energy. But not dead. I don't know the details, it's like talking to someone who is dreaming."

Karl shrugged. It was truly difficult to kill a demigod.

"You can likely keep that knowledge to yourselves. If my guess is right, it won't make any difference in the next few thousand years while the turtle heals from the damage it took."

The Captain nodded. "We will treat it as a rumour. There have been others like it before, shamans who said that they sensed support from the Great Turtle as they rose to power."

After a moment, an Elder of the Blue Elves arrived with a group of students in what Karl guessed were their equivalent of student uniforms.

They all matched, anyhow.

All youths, all with the same blue grey skin and white hair. All wearing the same black leather pants with white linen tunic shirts and red silk bandanas hung around their necks.

"I thought you didn't need red?" Karl asked.

"It's not that we don't use it. That's the colour for students, so that we know they're not fully trained. It's just that we've got enough and didn't need more."

"Ah, that makes sense. I will have to ask them about all the formal dress codes for the Blue Elves, so that I don't offer them things that are inappropriate. The dress code on the high sea is most likely very different than it is on land.

Especially here in the south, where the waters are cold."

The Captains nodded. "They have brought a guide for you, just in case."

"Very considerate. The only Elves we have here at the moment are the forest kind, and they're ... a bit different."

The thought made the Captains chuckle. "Well, at least they appreciate a good tan."

That they did. The nature Priestesses always had a good tan.

And very few tan lines.

The kids were looking around the docks with wonder in their eyes. They had never in all their seventy years been out of the city.

By Elven standards, they were high school students, and when they "graduated" from their time with the Darklight Host, they would only just be becoming adults.

The Blue Elves had planned it perfectly once they relayed the deal they had made with Karl.

A decade of training, a decade of work experience as Apprentices, and then they would be ready to return to the fleet to begin their careers.

With a bit of luck, they should even be on the fast track to becoming Captains.

Karl saw the calculation that they had done, but he didn't mind. These Elves all had Immortal Spirits fully formed, even if they weren't fully grown. Their species took so much longer than humans to mature that it would have been somewhere between shocking and disgraceful for someone their age not to have at least formed their Immortal Spirit.

They probably couldn't advance much further right now, as their bodies weren't fully matured and ready to begin the Void Realm transformation.

But they didn't have to be powerful, just capable of safely going outside for training.

There were ten of them in total, a reasonable number, and Karl saw that they all held themselves with a level of pride that spoke volumes about their status. If they hadn't been from the higher tiers of society, they wouldn't have that unconscious arrogance that assured them that everything would be fine no matter where they went and what they were doing.

Some of that would be shattered very soon, when they started training with the Darklight Host, but they would regain it not long after, once they were confident in their new skills.

The question was just what skills they were going to need.

Things related to sailing were obvious. But Karl would need to know about their classes and affinities before he made too many decisions.

They might not even be suited for crafting skills.

If they were, that would be great. Especially if they were suited for nature skills, so that he could start working on a base of shipbuilders for the Guild.

They knew about sailing, they knew what a ship needed, and the functional parts that made Blue Elven ships superior. It was common knowledge to all of them, and they often joked about it with the groups they traded with.

If Karl could also get that knowledge, they could build a shipyard here that would create a fishing fleet beyond anything else in the region.

A fishing fleet that could double as cover for resource gathering missions.

[ They might also know sea dungeons. I would like to try a sea dungeon. ] Leo added.

[We will find out soon.]

"Welcome, everyone. The Darklight Host will be in charge of the next phase of your training, and I do hope that you're all prepared to spend a bit of time ashore.

But rest assured, it will not be forever, only until you've learned the core skills to get you back on the ocean."