Chapter 152: The Greater Picture and One's Stance

Deep in the northern snowfields, even in the month of July, the world remained a sheet of pristine white.

Gales howled and froststorms raged, as if capable of destroying everything in existence.

Master Bobak stood alone upon a precipice, clad in nothing more than a pair of fur shorts, his upper body bare, his long green hair and beard whipping wildly in the freezing wind.

He had just concluded his communication with Leo, a faint trace of a smile still lingering at the corners of his mouth.

"Humanity..."

A thousand years ago, Chisael had spoken those very same words. Regrettably, having witnessed the malice of the world and the complexity of the human heart to the point of exhaustion, he ultimately chose to give up on trying to heal the world.

Yet Bobak felt that mortals could still be saved.

Directly below the cliff where he stood lay the colossal carcass of an ice dragon, its dorsal bone spikes reaching almost as high as the ten-meter-tall precipice.

Its skull was grotesquely twisted, its neck snapped, and the soul fire within its head had long since been extinguished.

An undead frost dragon—an evil entity transformed from a dragon's corpse by a necromancer over the span of decades, possessing the power to command death and frost, rendering it even more formidable than it had been in life.

Every single frost dragon was harder to slay than a living dragon.

After all, they had already lost their lives to begin with.

Beyond the corpse of the frost dragon stretched an army of tens of thousands of undead, crowding almost the entirety of the frozen plains.

Minotaurs, bear-men, boar-men, gnolls, orcs, and even a scattering of humans.

There were also massive beasts such as snow bears, saber-toothed tigers, and direwolves.

Most of their bodies had not yet decayed; some merely had torn skin, resembling dried corpses with their hide stripped halfway off.

Others had half of their muscles and all of their internal organs completely vanished, their gums and nasal cavities directly exposed to the open air.

Several more frost dragons circled in the blizzard behind them.

These lifeless entities had ceased breathing long ago.

Within their skulls burned cold flames of the soul, spilling forth from their hollow eye sockets.

Those hollow eye sockets, glowing with eerie blue frigid light, were all turned toward the south.

Yet Bobak stood upon the cliff, blocking their path of march southward.

The army of the dead, sworn to annihilate all living things, paused in brief hesitation and re-organization before surging toward him once more.

Bobak slowly clenched his fists.

"He gave up, but I have not."

...

Accompanied by Freya, Leo embarked on the journey home without a moment's rest.

Regarding the Atrium and Lord Chisael, Bobak's narration and Danis's explanations had both been somewhat vague and ambiguous.

Yet during their casual conversations along the road, Leo discovered that Freya actually knew a great deal.

Despite her demeanor of lacking cognitive capacity, her family background and scholarly lineage were among the absolute finest on the continent, and her actual age was by no means inferior to that of human elders.

Even through merely listening to bedtime stories and absorbing them through constant exposure, the ancient history she knew surpassed that of most ordinary people.

Through their casual chats, Leo gathered a rough outline: over a thousand years ago, the Elven Arch-Druid Chisael established the City Beneath the Mountain, the Atrium, vowing to unite all races and build an equal, harmonious society.

To meet the demand for food, he cultivated tuber seeds native to the southern tropical regions into the antler cassava, perfectly suited for survival in the northern borderlands.

He repeatedly improved wheat seeds as well, enabling them to bear grain in the freezing north.

To resolve communication barriers between races, he simplified the elven language and created the Common Tongue.

The official language currently utilized by the Orantis Empire was none other than this Common Tongue, which also served as one of the foundational pillars of the empire's unification.

To alleviate ethnic tensions, he formulated the Basic Law of All Races and instituted the Grand Council of Atrium Lords.

The legal philosophy of the Basic Law of All Races exerted a profound influence across various peoples, while the system of the Lord Council was fully inherited by both the orcs and the northerners.

Alas, a truly perfect social society has never existed in this world; conflicts and opposition between races are eternal, and class stratification is bound to emerge.

Bolstered and empowered by the aid provided by the elven race, the multiplying orcs grew dissatisfied with the northern grasslands, beginning to encroach upon the territories of other races, gradually occupying the entire northern bank of the Anzenor River and enslaving the majority of populations.

Thus, in the end, Grand Lord Chisael's dream shattered. Imbued with disillusionment amidst the wars instigated by the orcs, he chose to retreat back to Teldrassil to slumber.

This action became a source of ridicule for later human historians and literary figures, being disparaged in various historical texts and romanticized epics.

Yet Freya stated that to this day, Chisael remained universally recognized within the elven race as one of the greatest elves in history.

Because he had fulfilled the most common elven dream—going out to play—and made the choice elves desired most—returning home to sleep.

Countless elven tribes within the Teldrassil Highlands were simply waiting for Chisael to eventually die of old age so they could erect a statue of him and worship it!

Indeed, the legendary elven Arch-Druid and Grand Lord of the Atrium, Chisael, had lived for over a millennium without dying, and was currently still slumbering within the Spring of Magic in High Court.

"Grandpa Chisael had the power to defeat the orc race; mighty elves can defeat everyone! But Grandpa Chisael said that once the orcs were defeated, another race would rise up and start a new round of wars."

"That's why he brought his kin back to High Court and stopped playing with the races down the mountain."

Freya trotted along behind Leo, playing and chatting simultaneously.

Finally, she issued a threat: "If you guys keep fighting all the time, I won't play with you anymore either!"

Leo hastily coaxed her: "No more fighting, no more fighting. I only want to save people."

"Then I will help you!"

Leo had never anticipated that this trip would proceed so smoothly, directly resolving his greatest dilemma.

The tantrums, the desperate badgering, and the threats against Freya that he had prepared beforehand all turned out to be completely unnecessary.

Master Bobak merely sensed his emotions in a simple manner and offered his utmost support.

If judged by the doctrines of elven druids, Master Bobak's actions constituted a severe violation of those very teachings.

The existence of antler cassava was never intended for the human race to begin with; once humanity acquired the method of consuming antler cassava, it was equivalent to obtaining the key to conquering the wilderness.

Faced with an absolute demographic advantage, the living space of the various wilderness races would be squeezed to nothing in a very short time.

Sooner or later, these alien races and wild beasts would be reduced to rare protected species.

However, given humanity's current level of environmental awareness, at least ninety-nine percent of these alien races and beasts would face extinction before the remainder began to receive human attention.

Yet these matters were not things Leo needed to fret over for the time being.

Aside from considering the grand picture, people also had to maintain their own stance.

No matter how objectively Leo viewed the world, his stance would always remain firmly on the side of humanity; it was impossible for him to truly view all living beings as equal in the manner of an elven Arch-Druid.

As long as he maintained the correct stance and exerted his utmost effort, his conscience would remain clear.

With the food crisis resolved, half the prerequisite for saving lives had been achieved.

The technique for purifying antler cassava was actually remarkably simple.

Aside from the selection of ingredients and additives, it was virtually identical to the production of tapioca starch known to Leo.

Such a simple technique? Could humans of several centuries ago really not have figured it out?

Regrettably, they truly had not.

Those whose lives depended on antler cassava lacked the time, energy, and knowledge required to research how to consume it safely.

Those who possessed the time, energy, and knowledge would never direct their focus toward such a toxic substance.