The Martial Unity

Chapter 3228: Forest of War

When Rui woke up, he was already quite eager for the day.

His head turned towards Amare, who had messily lain next to him, sleeping in a strange position. The light of the morning Sun illuminated the little cabin they had slept in while the chilly air was rejuvenatingly cool.

”Wake up.” Rui patted her. ”We have a lot to do today.”

”...”

”I know you’re awake, quit pretending.”

”...”

He heaved a sigh as he headed to get refreshed and dressed, pondering what they were in for. Although they were supposed to tour the Genoran Continent that day, Rui wasn’t entirely sure about what they had in mind.

From the outside, the Genoran Continent was entirely green, drowned in all manner of vegetation, but his experiences last night had shown him that that did not mean that dark elves didn’t have a profound amount of infrastructure integrated into nature itself. Among the things that he was most eager to see, he was particularly eager to see the dark elves training for combat and war.

Despite the fact that they were extremely pacifist, he knew that they were quite profoundly capable in combat. They had to be, otherwise they would have never been able to protect such a large continent from predatory civilizations.

He was particularly curious about the Nature Path’s application in one-on-one combat, although he suspected that many of their measures involved strategic-level solutions rather than enhancing individual combat.

After all, nature was omnipresent across the entire continent. It made sense to protect the continent as a whole with the power of nature rather than individually fight each and every combatant who came to the continent.

By the time he was done, Amare had finally gotten up.

”Ah, that was such a good sleep,” she murmured sleepily, her eyes half-closed.

”You slept too late because you got too excited for your own good,” Rui huffed. ”Get ready quickly, the delegation will probably be here soon to guide us.”

Her amber eyes lit up at the prospect of exploring the wonderful continent, quickly adhering to his words. Rui, on the other hand, glanced at the little wooden communicator that he had gotten in the house as a way to remotely contact the dark elves.

Despite being, it had a screen made of chitin, the same substance that comprised dragonfly wings. Interestingly enough, the communicator had a wide range of functionality, not too unlike that of the commpads found in human civilization.

It was even capable of glowing and lighting up a screen with the power of bioluminescence, something that elves had likely observed in certain flora species and had harnessed in the form of a systemic technology.

The little wooden organic communicator contained contacts of some of the elves that Rui had met up until now, including Veruschia, his guide.

Curiously, he hit her contact, heightening his senses as he observed the functionality of the communicator. Instantly, he could sense the internal processing system light up as a series of high-speed bioelectric signals shot within the organic device.

’Interesting,’ Rui’s eyes lit up with a hint of intrigue. ’There are some flora species that make use of electrical signals, but the elves have completely mastered the underlying biology and biochemistry and have learned to integrate the system into biotechnological products.’

Time slowed down in his eyes as the high-speed signals and processing that took the tiniest fraction of even a millisecond were clearly perceivable to him. Soon enough, the device then fired of a series of radio signals that traveled through the air as waves.

”I suppose radio signals are too practical to possibly ignore for any civilization,” Rui remarked knowingly. ”If even the elves are using it, then it is likely that all civilizations are using it.”

Human civilization used esoteric substances that had strange properties to communicate, although that put a bottleneck on the amount of communication technology they had at any given point due to esoteric material constraints.

However, given that Julian has already begun working on integrating true world and esoteric technology, it was likely that this wouldn’t be the case forever.

”Done!” Amare drew his attention, appearing before him with crisp Martial attire so soon. ”Let’s go!”

She clasped his hand as she dragged him out with enthusiasm.

WHOOSH!

”Our guides haven’t even arrived yet.” Rui heaved a sigh.

”There she is.” Amare’s eyes lit up as she spotted an older elven woman in the distance, garbed in a long, somewhat formal organic attire, drawing closer to them atop an extended branch.

”Sage Amare, Prince Rui,” Veruschia greeted them with an amicable smile. ”If you are ready, then we may continue our tour through West Genora.”

”I look forward to it.” Rui nodded.

”I can’t wait!” Amare exclaimed.

”Then, let us get going right away,” Veruschia remarked with a nod. ”Today, we wish to show you our elven warriors and where they train. As well as how they train.”

She turned towards Rui with a knowing expression. ”I believe that you have been especially eager to learn about this aspect of elven culture, Prince Rui.”

Rui nodded eagerly. ”It is something I’m quite inclined to learn about.”

”Then, without further ado,” she continued with a serious tone. ”Let us head to the Forest of War.”

Rui’s eyes lit up as they began picking up pace. ”Forest of War?”

She nodded. ”The Forest of War is the only place in the entire continent where we elves practice war. We learn to harness the power of nature to protect ourselves, our people, and our continent from outsiders. We learn how to harness the power of nature to inflict harm upon others.”

”Interesting,” Rui’s eyes lit up with curiosity. ”Does all combat training happen exclusively in this place?”

”Not quite,” she shook her head. ”Elves begin learning how to harness nature for self-defense and combat from a young age within their tribes and communities. It is only after they reach adulthood at the age of sixteen that the most talented warriors among elves join the Forest of War, where they elevate their skill.”