Chapter 145: Night Stay in the Wild Horse Plain

After seeing off the Houghtons and others, no news came the next day about the monstrous serpent dragon attacking human territories, which relieved Donald and the others. Edwina, however, showed no signs of worry, prompting Donald to ask in confusion, “It seems Yiren isn’t afraid that we’ve angered that serpent dragon and brought disaster to human territories. Could there be some other hidden reason?”

Edwina nodded in approval. “Exactly! Whether it’s our Celt region or countries like the Sirens and Gardrel on the continent, all human territories are protected by powerful forces!”

“I can’t tell you the specifics. One must reach a certain status to know them. If it weren’t for my identity, I wouldn’t be able to know these things either. All I can say is that Celt’s strongest forces are hidden within the royal family. But because they are far more powerful than ordinary forces, they are also subject to many restrictions. They only appear when Celt faces a serious threat!”

After hearing this, Donald fell into thought. No wonder there were few reports of monsters attacking cities—ordinary magical beasts often attacked humans. It turned out that higher-level magical beings were restrained by human powerhouses, while the lower-level forces were not.

Since the serpent dragon wouldn’t appear in human territories, Donald and the others felt relieved and prepared to leave the south and return to their own lands.

Since returning from the south to North County was roughly the same route as returning to the northwest, Ansel and the others joined Donald on the journey, planning to part ways at the first city they reached.

With dozens more elves than before, they couldn’t use the goblin airships to travel. So Donald spent money to buy a dozen or so carriages, purchasing almost all the idle carriages in Ironhoof Town. With four people per carriage, they just managed to fit everyone.

Most of the elves, who were riding carriages for the first time, were very interested in this mode of transportation. Having lived in seclusion in the forests, they were even more curious about the human world. However, due to their status, they could only peek outside through the windows without showing themselves.

Soon, the two groups parted at the city ahead. Ferdinand and the others headed northwest to return to their lands, while Donald led his group north, planning to cross the central part of the kingdom to return to North County.

Along the way, Donald briefly counted the gains from this journey. The statue and altar couldn’t be taken with them, but the three blueprints for magical constructs, along with the Book of Truth, allowed him to create three types of magical constructs—such as Shield Guardians—by simply absorbing energy and soul power. Unlike the war puppets from before, these constructs had structures and attributes identical to those created by real mages in this world.

However, creating such constructs from scratch required rare magical materials, which demanded a tremendous amount of energy. According to the Book of Truth, the energy needed to summon a Shield Guardian was almost as much as that required to build a town hall. Even with Donald’s current wealth, it was extremely costly. Even if the materials were gathered, their value would be equivalent to hundreds of thousands of gold sols. Fortunately, he already had a loyal Shield Guardian to protect him, so he wasn’t in a hurry to create another. The cheaper Steel Guards could be made for around twenty to thirty thousand gold sols each, and many of the materials taken from the ruins were already available, reducing the costs further.

Half a month later, the group arrived at their final destination in the North County: the Wild Horse Plains. Beyond this lay Shining Gold Town. This was why Donald had kept ordering them to hurry along, with little downtime aside from rest.

For ordinary travelers and caravans, this area was unsafe. Since the Wild Horse Plains were the only route into the North County, many bandits liked to lurk there to rob passersby. The notorious thief gang, the Black Knight Brotherhood, used to be the most powerful bandit force in the Wild Horse Plains.

But Donald didn’t care about any of this at all. It was already good enough that he didn’t bother those bandits. If any foolish person tried to attack him, that would be truly disastrous!

Besides, even without Donald, this group wasn’t easy to deal with. Elves had far superior racial talents to humans. Even young elves possessed the strength of low-level black iron mages, while ordinary adult elves were at least bronze rank. Dealing with ordinary bandit gangs was a piece of cake for them.

The reason they were pursued so desperately by the orcs earlier was that there were too many of them and they were fierce and brutal. Most of this elf tribe consisted of spellcasters, with only a few possessing strong close-combat skills comparable to human warriors—yet even those were due to magical effects, and their combat strength couldn’t last long. Most importantly, nearly half of these elves were young or children. Despite their great potential, elves have long lifespans, meaning their growth period is extended; they don’t reach full maturity until at least 100 years old in human terms. Before that, they spend their time playing and learning. Though they have some strength, it’s not as great as that of mature elves, which is why they were constantly hindered, leading to the destruction of their homeland and forcing their people to flee in panic.

Without a tribal stronghold for defense, the elves found it even harder to resist the orcs’ pursuit and could not fully utilize their abilities. That’s why Donald ended up in such a dire situation when he encountered them.

As dusk approached, several caravans and travelers they met along the way gathered together to set up camp and spend the night there. The Wild Horse Plains were quite dangerous at night.

Along the way, Donald and his group received invitations from several camps. According to these people, only by gathering together could they effectively resist bandit raids and stay safer overnight on the Wild Horse Plains. However, due to the sensitive identities of the elves in their group, Donald politely declined all offers.

It wasn’t until the sun set that Donald found a relatively clean open area, about two or three miles away from the nearest camp. Only then, confident that no outsiders would see them, did he ask the elves to set up camp.

After traveling all day in carriages, even the elves, who were usually patient, felt restless. Once off the carriages, many elves, seeing no one around, removed their cloaks that concealed their identities.

Since Donald carried equipment like tents and blankets from his space, and he had accumulated quite a lot over many trips, setting up camp was very convenient and quick—completed in just the time it took to eat a meal.

A few elf women lit a fire and busied themselves preparing dinner around the stove, while the elf children ran around the camp happily, creating a warm and lively atmosphere.

Donald sat with the teacher, Kelthas, and the elf elder Ilyas, listening as Ilyas recounted the origins of druids.

The tradition of druids, similar to that of mages, was divided into many factions, but most of them had faded into history. However, the two original main factions—Nature and Shapeshifting—had been passed down within this elf tribe.

Druids are born in accordance with the will of nature. Since there was only one High Elf druid in the world, they initially possessed powerful and versatile abilities on par with demigods, without any factional divisions. It was not until the descendants of the High Elves appeared that some elves were able to inherit the druidic legacy. However, not everyone could have the same extraordinary talents as the High Elves and inherit the entire druidic heritage. Most ancient elves could only inherit partial druidic powers, which led to the emergence of two primary factions: the Nature faction and the Shapeshifting faction.

Druids of the Nature faction are skilled at communicating with plants and animals in nature and can cast spells related to nature, including powerful offensive and defensive spells. Yet, they are most famous for their healing spells. Due to the vitality inherent in nature, their healing spells are more effective than priests’ divine spells and come with almost no side effects.

The Shapeshifting faction specializes in using natural forces to mimic powerful creatures such as beasts and monsters. By transforming into these creatures, they gain their combat abilities and traits. Legends say that even the most powerful shapeshifting druids can transform into beings like mighty dragons.

“Yet, the wild druids of the Shapeshifting faction are the hardest to train. Our tribe is likely the last druidic tribe left, and most of its members belong to the Nature faction. Even the most talented wild druid elder can only transform into two types of monsters—wind wolves and berserk bears. His strength remains at the bronze level, unable to advance to the silver tier and gain a third transformation. Otherwise, druid warriors of the Shapeshifting faction would have the strongest survival skills, and Elder Wind would not have died at the hands of orcs!”

“Then, Elder Ilya, could you tell us if there are any other legacies of the ancient druids besides the Nature and Shapeshifting factions?” “Of course. Besides the Nature druids and wild druids, there were once the Storm druids, who separated from the Nature faction due to differing beliefs. They represented the wrath of nature, believing that any act of destruction against nature was unforgivable. Thus, they wielded forces such as storms and lightning to strike down enemies who harmed nature as nature’s punishment.”

“There are also branches such as the Feral Druids, who can summon animal companions and tame magical beasts; the Beast Tamer, who guards the forests and nature, skilled in archery and natural spells, also known as Rangers; and so on. However, it is likely that only the forest elf tribes in the south still inherit some of the traditions of the Jungle Guardians, as other druidic factions may have been completely lost!” After hearing Elyia’s account, Donald suddenly thought of the conversion sanctuaries he had created, which included structures for producing druidic units under the night elves. He wondered what would happen if these elves who inherited druidic traditions underwent conversion.

Raptor Druids can control storms and use Elffire to deal with enemies who destroy nature; they can also transform into Storm Crows, making them somewhat similar to the lost Storm Druids. Claw Druids can transform into giant bears and possess skills like rejuvenation to restore vitality and Roars to enhance attack power, making them similar to the Feral Druids of the shapeshifting faction.

If all these elves underwent conversion, their strength would likely increase by at least one rank, turning them into a powerful elf army composed of Silver and Bronze-level warriors.

Elyia, the elf elder, would surely be greatly surprised upon hearing this news. But Donald has no intention of telling her for now. He has his own plans for this elf tribe, but he still needs to wait for the right moment.