Elven houses are all made of trees, and their appearance is relatively small. This was true even for the patriarch's house. The first time I walked into the elf's house, the most direct feeling was freshness and elegance. When Ling Chen walked in, Aoki was standing in front of the wooden table, as if he had been waiting for him for a long time, and when he saw Ling Chen walk in, Aoki said with a smile: "Come, young human, please take a seat." ”

After saying hello, Ling Chen sat down opposite Aoki and asked straight to the point: "Patriarch Aoki, you called me, did you want to tell me how to get out?" ”

Aoki sighed and shook his head: "I'm ashamed, I've already asked my mother, but she doesn't know how to cross the barrier to the outside world outside the Ring of Nature, in fact, frankly, when I saw you appear in my elven clan, I knew that you would never be able to go out like us." ”

Ling Chen's brows furrowed deeply: "There really is no other way?" ”

Aoki nodded with a heavy face, then stood up, paced a few steps, looked up and said: "There are some things that are the secrets of my elf clan, and I know that only the previous patriarchs have always been, but you don't belong to our elf clan, these things, I must tell you first, otherwise, you may not be able to feel at ease." ”

"What's the matter?" Ling Chen also stood up and asked cautiously.

Aoki turned around, looked at him and said, "Do you know why there is such an invisible barrier around my clan that can be entered and cannot be exited? ”

Ling Chen thought for a moment and said, "Just now Cai'er told me that that barrier was set up by the ancestors of the elf clan in order to prevent the elf clan from stepping into the outside world again. ”

"That's right." Aoki nodded: "This is indeed the original intention of the appearance of my clan's barrier. Our elven clan has a very high prestige in the Forgotten Continent, and its comprehensive strength is also exceptionally strong. If you have heard the legends of my elves, you should know that what my people hate most is war. But this kind of thing has never been interrupted in the Forgotten Continent. In order to forget the long-term peace of the continent, our ancestors even did not hesitate to join the war, using their strength and lives to destroy those ugly creatures, even if it was possible to bear the price of extinction. And, under the fierce battle in the end, the vitality of our elven race was greatly damaged, but our ancestors never regretted it, because they successfully eliminated those terrible demons, and also eliminated the most terrible haze of the Forgotten Continent. They originally thought that without those terrible demons, the Forgotten Continent would be peaceful, and there would be no more wars that should not have occurred. ”

However, they found out that they were wrong. The human race they have been guarding has no demons that they fear, but within the clan, there are frequent wars due to conflicts of interests, and each war is accompanied by the disability and death of countless living beings. Even, the human beings they have always guarded and close to want to use their kindness and want to use their power for their own personal gain. Moreover, at that time, the elven race was severely damaged, and its comprehensive strength was less than one-tenth of its heyday, and the human beings who had always shown mildness and closeness to them also reduced their fear, and began to fight the idea of those treasures of my elf race......"

Ling Chen: "......"

"Our ancestors were finally completely disappointed and desperate, petitioned the great moon god of the Luna Clan, and then returned to this place where the elves were born, and built a maze outside, so that no one could find it, and at the same time forged an invisible barrier, completely sealing the elven secret realm, so that all the elves could not leave...... Because they believe that if the elves are always in the outside world, they will one day be tainted with greed, arrogance, violence, and adultery. At that time, it will be the time when the elves will be completely 'destroyed'. ”

Aoki finished speaking briefly, and looked directly at Ling Chen: "Young human, do you think that what our ancestors did was too extreme, and with their own will, they blocked the descendants of the elf race. ”

Ling Chen was silent for a moment, but still nodded.

"Well," Aoki sighed, "actually, you don't need to think that this is an offense to our ancestors, because it is. ”

"You don't want to be locked down?" Ling Chen's words blurted out.

"Hehe," Aoki laughed self-deprecatingly, "Our ancestors were faced with the great damage of the elves and the deep disappointment of the human race, and they endured a feeling of 'all thoughts are lost', so they made that decision that was actually too impulsive and extreme. They blocked the whole clan at the beginning, because they didn't want the elves to be contaminated with evil, but blocking the whole clan would make the elf race one day, in the true sense of the word. ”

"Why?" Ling Chen said in surprise. There is no war, there is no filth, and the lifespan of elves is several times or even ten times that of ordinary humans, how can they perish in this place where there are no negative factors?

Aoki's eyes darkened, his voice became heavy, he sighed, and said, "Because, the ability of elves to reproduce is too weak. In our race, for every ten elves born, the average six are male, and only four are female, and among the ten female elves, there will generally be two non-fertile, fertile, lifelong, and can only give birth once, and at most one at a time, there is no such thing as 'multiple births' that you humans will have. In this way, in this closed world, you should be able to imagine the end of our elven race. ”

Ling Chen was secretly shocked in his heart. The ratio of men and women in the elf race is so imbalanced, and the ability to reproduce is even worse to the abnormal, if this is really the state, then every generation, the number of elves in the elf race will decrease considerably, and in the long run, it will not take too long, only a few thousand years, and it will wither away.

"Hehe, there's no way around it. In the past, it was normal for elves to marry humans. There are always more male elves than female elves, so many male elves are combined with human females, and can raise multiple elven offspring through human females. Therefore, at that time, the elves will not decline in numbers. But after being blocked, alas. ”

Aoki let out a long sigh, venting his worries and helplessness in his heart, and then continued: "In addition to what I just said, there is another terrible fact, and that is...... Here, although it will be much purer than the outside world, it has become a gorgeous cage because of the surrounding barriers. No matter how gorgeous it is...... Also a cage. ”

Ling Chen was silent, waiting for him to continue.

"No matter how beautiful a place is, if you stay for a long time, you will get bored, and you will want to leave here and see what the wider world will be like outside. But we have no way to get out of here, so we can only warn our younger generations about the horror of the outside world and the squalor of the outside world from generation to generation, so as to erase their desire for the outside world, and we can only maintain the peace of our race in this way. It is also under this influence that young elves will reject and fear the outside world, but despite this, their yearning for the outside world is impossible to completely erase. It's just that there is that barrier, and all the elves can only helplessly stay in this beautiful cage, even if they have a heart, they can never get out. ”

With another long breath, Aoki said in a heavy voice: "Young humans, I am telling you this just to let you know that in fact, we have been longing to get out of here. Just to prevent the elves from dying out completely, we must not stay in this closed world forever. It's just that, as I said before, the barrier that blocks this place cannot be destroyed even if all the strength of my entire clan is exerted. Those who can break that barrier should only be the moon god clan mentioned by the ancestors. But at the beginning, it was the ancestors who took the initiative to petition the moon god to return to seclusion forever and no longer care about the affairs of the mainland, and now they are in a closed world, and there is no chance to contact the moon god. Therefore, we can only stay here for generations, and now, even you, like us, will stay here forever. ”

Aoki said these words, mainly to tell Ling Chen the fact that after he entered here, it was impossible for him to leave. Because even the patriarch of his elven clan longed to get out of here but couldn't.

"Don't you have the Ring of Nature? Why don't you send you out with the power of the Circle of Nature? Ling Chen thought of the spatial power that had teleported him thousands of miles away before, and asked puzzledly.

"The reason is simple, the Circle of Nature can indeed achieve spatial transmission without all barriers, but it is ineffective against us elves. Because this kind of random teleportation that is thousands of miles away is biased towards the offensive type, it is very likely to teleport to extremely dangerous areas, so when the Circle of Nature was generated, it avoided teleporting to the elves. But for you, it can work entirely. Aoki explained.

Ling Chen was even more puzzled: "But, I was obviously sent away with Cai'er before, isn't Cai'er an elf?" Or your daughter. ”

"No," in Ling Chen's surprise, Aoki actually shook his head and said meaningfully: "This matter is a secret of my clan, and I can only tell you that Cai'er is not a pure elf. Nor my biological daughter...... Just bury this matter in your heart, don't tell others, especially Cai'er. ”

Ling Chen was shocked in his heart, and thinking about Cai'er's appearance, it was indeed very different from other elves. When he first saw Cai'er, he was most concerned about her too small body, and at that time he directly thought that the elves of the elf clan were so small, but when he saw Yingxue, he saw a lot of other elves, and the other elves in the juvenile form were obviously similar to those of humans when they were the same age, and they didn't find one as small and delicate as Cai'er.

If Cai'er isn't a pure elf, then what is?

At this moment, there was a knock on the door with a "knock" in his ears, and then Yingxue's cold voice: "Father, the ancestor and the ten elders have arrived. ”

Aoki turned around and said calmly in the direction of the door, "You all come in, the ceremony can begin." ”

Rite? What ritual? Ling Chen was puzzled.