Elf Kingdom: Game of the World Tree

Chapter 6: Chapter 6 Regained Faith

Editor: Henyee Translations

“`html

In the Natural Temple on the trunk of the World Tree.

Natural Saintess Alice and Old Priest Samir kneeled uneasily in front of the statue.

They bowed their heads, their expressions filled with infinite joy and deep remorse…

At this moment, Alice seemed to undergo some inexplicable change, exuding a sense of sanctity and divinity.

The restored old priest also seemed to have experienced some subtle transformation.

...

The Oak Guardian Berserker stood to the side, his expression serious and fanatical, like a statue…

“Did I overdo it with the deception?”

In the Divine Space, Eve swallowed in her mind as she looked at the follower count in her status frame.

[Follower Count: 3 (Saint 1, Fanatic 2, Devotee 0, Casual Believers 0)]

The impact of Eve’s actions far exceeded her own expectations.

Originally, she thought that providing help in a time of crisis might better restore their faith, but she did not expect the effect to be so strong!

Alice, who was previously a Devotee, not only regained her faith after the turmoil but also surpassed the level of a Fanatic, becoming the rare Saint shown in the data!

And the old priest, who had been saved, also became a Fanatic like the Oak Guardian.

Eve couldn’t forget the image of the old priest realizing what had happened, collapsing to the ground, slapping himself, and crying like a child.

*Endless anticipation combined with ultimate despair, followed by newfound hope—such moments of shock and effect were truly extraordinary.*

“No wonder gods let followers suffer. Give them a bit of hardship and then a reward, and the effect is much stronger… Hmm, could this be… Stockholm Syndrome? Uh… that doesn’t seem quite right, but it’s a bit similar.”

Eve mused, then checked her Divine Power value.

[Divine Power Value: 20/500]

Increasing followers could provide her with a continuous stream of faith, which could then be converted into Divine Power, something she had anticipated from the start.

However, the amount of faith brought by high-level followers still surprised her.

Originally, she had only 10 points of Divine Power left, and she used 1 point to heal the two elves, but when they restored their faith, they provided her with 6 points of Divine Power!

This… was unbelievable.

After all, it only took her 5 points of Divine Power to awaken Berserker.

However, Eve quickly discovered that a mysterious power seemed to bless Alice and Samir during their faith restoration, causing the surge in Divine Power…

This power was somewhat similar to the power of will.

Additionally…

Killing more than twenty half-beasts, the Oak Guardian Berserker provided her with 5 points of Divine Power!

Eve found this very strange.

If the changes in Alice and Samir surprised her, then the Oak Guardian Berserker shocked her.

Though Berserker had dedicated all the life force of the half-beasts to her, no matter how one looked at it, the life force of twenty or so half-beasts at an average Black Iron Middle Rank was not enough for even 1 point of Divine Power, let alone 5 points.

But those 5 points of Divine Power just now didn’t seem to be entirely converted from the life force of the half-beasts; there seemed to be something else at play…

This power was very similar to that on Alice and Samir.

After consulting the heritage information of the World Tree, Eve arrived at a hypothesis.

Those half-beasts had long been elf hunters, with their bodies steeped in the accumulated resentment of countless elves. As the Elf Main God, eliminating them fulfilled the wishes of the departed souls.

The more powerful and intelligent a creature, the stronger its resentment after death.

Elves, being a long-lived and intellectual species with natural magical bodies, had accumulated enormous resentment from the deaths of countless elves over centuries.

Resentment was also a form of spiritual energy, akin to the power of faith. Ownerless resentment and souls would descend into the Netherworld upon a creature’s death.

Eve, by killing these hunters, fulfilled the duties of the “Elf Main God,” transforming the accrued resentment into gratitude, which then elevated into the power of faith, crossing the void to be returned to Eve as Divine Power.

Moreover, even the power of faith provided by the two priests contained traces of elf resentment!

This… greatly delighted Eve.

“So, besides expanding faith, I could rapidly regain strength by eliminating the elves’ enemies, restoring the elves’ glory, and gaining recognition from the departed souls! Furthermore, the War Sacrifice skill seems to have considerable potential, providing me with power indirectly…”

Eve drew this conclusion.

But soon, she found this idea impractical…

“The enemies of the elves I can handle… to be precise, most of them should belong to the hunting parties. However, these hunting parties are limited, and even if I wiped them out completely, I’m afraid I wouldn’t recover much vitality. As for the indirect ones, and the real culprits, I’m simply too weak to deal with them now…”

“Furthermore, the supposed abundance of resentment energy is very limited; it will likely only provide significant returns in the early stages. Relying solely on the return of resentment energy from the departed, may at most lift me out of critical condition.”

“To restore the glory of the Elf Race, I must have enough helpers—meaning, I need to gather the remaining elves. Additionally, for followers to provide me with power through War Sacrifice indirectly, a large base is needed to gradually accumulate strength…”

“This number would likely need to be at least in the tens of thousands, probably even hundreds of thousands to millions…”

“But how many elves are left?”

Having “overheard” the conversation between Alice and Samir earlier, Eve had a pretty good understanding of the elves’ current state.

In short, it was a case of the tree falling and the monkeys scattering, with fewer than one in ten surviving. The remaining elves were in hiding, and much of their once-glorious civilization was lost…

“If there were truly enough time to gather kin, my faith would almost be restored. In that case… this doesn’t count as a shortcut…”

“Furthermore, rebuilding an elven civilization is even more difficult; the population base needed for a civilization is immense.”

*The more Eve thought about it, the more disappointed she felt.*

“Still too weak. If it were the World Tree in its prime, there would be no worry about the population issue. You could just use Divine Power to create Primordial Elves.”

The Primordial Elves were the first generation of the elf race, the first batch born from the World Tree.

“However, if I truly had the power to create Primordial Elves, there’d be no need to rebuild elven civilization to restore my strength. It’s a deadlock!”

Thinking of this, Eve felt helpless.

Creating Primordial Elves consumed too much Divine Power for the current Eve.

More precisely, the effort of generating the soul of a Primordial Elf was too taxing for the unstable World Tree.

Eve held the divine authority of “Life,” theoretically possessing the ability to create souls.

But in her current state, her ability to create souls was almost lost. If she forced it, the required Divine Power consumption would be disproportionately large compared to a normal state.

To put it into perspective, if the cost of creating a soul in peak times was 1, then in a weakened state, the consumption could be as high as 10…

Forget about creating souls; even just “enlightening” Berserker’s soul cost her 5 points of Divine Power!

That’s right, “enlightening” the soul.

When enlightening Berserker, Eve forced the use of her ability.

Of the 5 points of Divine Power consumed, most went into the soul, with only a minimal amount spent on bestowing life and silver rank strength to the Oak Guardian…

Given Eve’s current state, creating a Primordial Elf’s soul from nothing would require consuming even more.

The creation of just a body wouldn’t be as costly.

But if no soul was endowed, the born entity would be mere shells, utterly useless.

Of course, as Eve regains strength, the cost of creating souls will gradually decrease… Eventually reverting to the normal state of giving birth to Primordial Elves.

At that time, she might not need even 1 point of Divine Power to create a soul!

But that’s too far away, and Eve couldn’t wait that long.

This was essentially a matter of time and efficiency.

“Must I slowly gather kin and restore faith to gain strength? In that case… it’s likely to take tens or hundreds of years?”

*Too long!*

Moreover, she was not without enemies. Inheriting the World Tree, Eve also inherited the enemies of the previous World Tree, including some ancient beings who were themselves True Gods!

The World Tree’s body had remained stable for a thousand years because the previous World Tree had exhausted herself using a curse divine art during the final battle.

Under this divine art, no one below a True God, except Natural believers, could approach the World Tree’s body.

Following the divine wars, the magic of the Segis World had declined, the Heavenly Realm’s connections with the mundane plane closed, preventing True Gods from descending, and making the mundane world’s True Gods enter slumber…

In such circumstances, the World Tree had survived.

But when Eve inherited the legacy, the divine art was already broken.

If Eve lacked enough strength and remained in a dying state, even a couple of enemies with Legendary Power could threaten her existence.

“It would be great if I could find a large number of souls. With souls, I could focus only on the body. I’d be able to cleverly create elves… Then, the population issue would be solved. Followed by gathering the remaining kin, strengthening faith, and rising up gradually…”

But… where could she find souls? Because of faith, the souls in this world were mostly claimed! Moreover, she couldn’t enter the Netherworld…

Even if she found usable souls, they’d have to be willing to serve her.

“Too difficult.”

*Eve lamented as she aimlessly surfed the web in the Divine Space’s network…*

“Wait…”

Suddenly, as if connecting some dots, her consciousness trembled while she eyed the network channel of Blue Star:

“Maybe there’s a way…”

“`