Chapter 340: Chapter 340 – Farewell Banquet (Extra Long Chapter)
By the time Joshua and Ciri arrived at Farucci’s Mansion it was already very late at night.
Elder Safran slowly walked over to Joshua and said, “Son of Chaos, please forgive our sudden departure.”
“I’ve antic.i.p.ated that you all will be leaving. Compared to your departure, I am more concerned with where you all might be planning to establish your new home at.”
Joshua ran his eyes across the indoor garden. He soon caught sight of the Flower of Farucci.
Gallolie seemed to have something that she wanted to speak to him about. But, when she saw Elder Safran and Priestess Oranka talking with Joshua, she decided to wait till later to speak to Joshua.
“The mother of the Daughter of the Forest is willing to shelter us. As such, we will definitely be somewhere within Farucci’s territory,” Following Joshua’s gaze, Elder Safran’s gaze also landed on Gallolie, “When the Holy Tree wilted, I had thought that our race will have to endure endless darkness for hundreds of years to see the dawn of the Holy Tree’s germination. But, with the help from Son of Chaos, the Holy Tree was able to radiate with life in a short month. To our race, this is a grace that cannot be described with words.”
Joshua could hear a tone of respect from Elder Safran’s speech. Unfortunately, Joshua was not that good with formal-speak.
While Joshua was pondering about how to respond to this great druid, Elder Safran took out an arrow and handed it to Joshua.
“This is a keepsake from our race,” said Elder Safran, “The father of the Daughter of the Forest, Archduke Blackwood, has also received one such keepsake from us. It meant that we will forever view you as our ally, Son of Chaos.”
Does this mean that he had received the maximum level of affection from the Blackwood Elves, reaching a level of veneration?
Joshua held the arrow shining with a light green. A large quant.i.ty of nature system rune inscriptions were carved on the surface of the arrow. There was also a jade-green originium crystal embedded on the arrow. It does not seem to be an ordinary arrow.
“Son of Chaos, you’ve created a miracle,” Elder Safran continued.
“A miracle?” Joshua examined the tip of the arrow, “Elder Safran, what if I tell you that I am still not satisfied with the current growth rate of the World Tree?”
Joshua’s reply caused the Elf Elder that could be described with the word ‘ancient’ to become silent. Elder Safran turned to look at Priestess Oranka. He once again saw the same expression on her face. It was the expression of shock.
“We had thought that the speed of growth for the Holy Tree was limited, that the desire to see the Holy Tree germinate in a couple years was excessive enough to make one laugh. But, because of you, Son of Chaos, our excessive expectations were transformed into reality. Time and time again, you’ve changed our old-fashioned perceptions.” Elder Safran slightly lowered his back toward Joshua. It was a gesture of ‘awaiting for order,’ “If you possess other means capable of speeding up the growth of our Holy Tree, please tell us.”
“You don’t have to be this serious. I am not going to be asking for you all to do something epic like slaughtering a dragon. I only have two simple requests.”
Joshua raised a finger. Elder Safran and Priestess Oranka’s pointed ears lightly perked up in antic.i.p.ation. They were extremely concentrated.
“Firstly, ensure Gallolie’s safety. Should those people from the Heresy Tribunal become aware that your race’s Holy Tree survived, they will definitely not hesitate to continue on with their slaughter. If the Flower of Farucci was to wither before she fully blooms, it will be an enormous loss for all of humanity... no, for the entire world.” Then, Joshua raised his second finger, “Secondly, have the elven priestess Luvita continue to study music. Make sure to properly find her a teacher upon your arrival at Farucci. Of course, it would be best if my contractee, the Duke of Bones, is to become her teacher. Her talents should not be buried in the forest.”
“I will convey this to Luvita. But... Son of Chaos, I do not think Luvita’s singing voice is inferior to those human opera singers.”
Priestess Oranka was confident that the Blackwood Elf Priestesses’ singing voices were not inferior to Farucci’s human opera singers.
“While it’s true Luvita’s sung performance was outstanding, it is far from enough for a singer to only know how to sing,” Joshua looked over to Luvita who was with Gallolie, “She also needed to be able to create her own songs.”
“Her own songs? I will have that child Luvita attempt that.”
By saying those words, Priestess Oranka had renounced a lot of the Blackwood Elves’ monastic discipline. For the Blackwood Elves, once a girl becomes a priestess of the Holy Tree, they will forever not be allowed to do something else. Their only duty was to attend to the Holy Tree till the day they died.
But, when the catastrophe of the extinction of their race came, it was this demon who extended his hand to help them. If Priestess Oranka was to record the history of the Blackwood Elves, then Joshua would be fully akin to an Emissary of the G.o.d of Nature during this period of history.
Soon, the conversation between Joshua and Elder Safran and Priestess Oranka ended. After Elder Safran and Priestess Oranka left, Gallolie and Luvita ran over.
“Mister Joshua! Could you set up a camp for Luvita? Her camp would definitely become very lively,” Gallolie was no longer reserved when talking with Joshua. It was instead Luvita who was feeling a bit uneasy standing before Joshua.
“Camp? Give me a moment.”
Out of consideration for the magic network’s server load limit, Joshua did not open the camp function for general users. Currently, there were extremely few users with camps in the magic network.
Gallolie was one of them. The second most popular camp was Belle’s camp. Then there was Tylene’s camp and Ash-colored Owl’s camp. Both of them had over ten thousand users following their camps.
Joshua opened his magic network interface and soon made Luvita the fifth user with the camp function.
“It’s done. Luvita, you can open your magic network and check it out.”
The Blackwood Elf opened her magic network and tapped into the camp interface. Soon, she entered her own camp. It was completely empty. There was no content there at all.
Luvita has seen Gallolie’s camp. There were over a thousand posts made by Gallolie on her camp. Most of them were about how she was feeling at the time and her opinion on new foods.
Even the simplest post she made – ‘It’s midnight now. So that my mother wouldn’t criticize me for staying up, I’ll be sleeping now. Everyone, goodnight.’ – a message telling others goodnight, received several thousand replies beneath it.
Because of that, Luvita felt slightly envious. By comparison, there were only two followers in her camp.
Those two followers were even Joshua and Gallolie. Her camp was also completely empty.
“You should post the first message to your camp. Then, you should change your portrait. Use this photo!”
Gallolie sent the photo she took earlier to Luvita’s magic network desktop interface. Then, she began to instruct Luvita how to upload photos.
“You first need to hold the World Tree’s leaf. Otherwise, the transmission speed is unbearably slow. But for now, you just have to hold my hand.”
That was something Gallolie obtained after becoming the host body for the Blackwood Elves’ World Tree. She no longer has to concern herself with ‘transmission speed’ when using the magic network.
“Wait, Gallolie...”
Standing on the side the entire time, Joshua interrupted Gallolie.
“Luvita, you just have to upload the picture to the Mage Forum’s server like this... Eh, tap on the upload b.u.t.ton.” Joshua pointed at the upload b.u.t.ton on Luvita’s magic network interface. “I want to test out how fast the connection speed of the magic network is now that it has grown a bit.”
Luvita tapped on the upload b.u.t.ton per Joshua’s instructions. Sure enough, the upload speed was as slow as Gallolie said it would be. It took a dozen seconds to finish uploading the photo Gallolie took of her.
“So roughly 50kbps to 100kbps? Sure enough, it’s too slow,” Joshua calculated the theoretical peak speed of the current magic network. It was still slow enough to make him sigh.
“This is still slow? Mister Joshua, back then, it will take me over a dozen minutes just to upload a photo to the Mage Forum if I don’t use the World Tree’s leaf.”
To the Flower of Farucci who has never experienced fiber optics, the speed of transfer was already lightning fast!
“It’s very slow still. The magic network of my expectations should be able to finish uploading a photo in a second or two. At that time, it wouldn’t be an issue to watch movies on the magic network.”
“Movies...” Gallolie had learned from Joshua that movies were actually created through a continuous roll of photos. The exact number of photos was enormous.
“Well, let’s shift the topic to the camp. Luvita, have you finished thinking about what the first post in your life will be?” Joshua turned to ask the Blackwood Elf.
Hearing that question, Luvita started to ponder. She has grown proficient with using the magic network in her stay in Norland. She also became very proficient with typing on the virtual keyboard.
But, after she typed the things she wanted to say, she immediately deleted it. It was just like how she was hesitant when she first stood on the stage surrounded by humans.
“If you can’t think of any heart-warming chicken soup, you just need to write a simple farewell greeting,” reminded Joshua.
“Chicken soup?” Gallolie and Luvita were unable to understand Joshua’s strange phrase.
[1. Heart-warming chicken soup = feel good motivational story.]
“Eh...” Joshua took a glance at Ciri who was eating dinner in the distance. He felt that she should be the one to offer an explanation. Unfortunately, as the mage lady has been drawing some concept art for Joshua today, she didn’t have much time to eat her meals. As such, Joshua decided to not disturb her.
“Regardless, you don’t have to pay too much attention to it,” said Joshua.
After quietly listening to Joshua’s reminder, Luvita’s fingers began to tap on the virtual keyboard again. Then, the first post of the elven lady’s camp appeared on the Mage Forum.
‘Everyone, thank you for supporting me.’
It was a very simple message. A picture of Luvita was attached to the post.
Once Luvita posted the message, she immediately started regretting. She felt that she should write more to express her thanks...
But, her regret only lasted for a short period. After all, she felt that there wouldn’t be anyone to reply to her post as there were only two people following her camp. She was different from the Daughter of the Forest with over a hundred thousand followers. It was normal that she wouldn’t receive any replies anytime soon.
However, in no time at all, her camp’s two followers increased to seventeen. Then, it jumped to over a hundred followers. Many replies also began to appear beneath her post.
‘Miss Luvita is leaving already?’ Replied by: Ash-colored Owl.
‘No! I can’t accept this!’ Replied by: Song of Shallow Forest
“Daughter... Daughter of the Forest.”
Seeing the enthusiasm from the people of Norland, Luvita found herself at a loss as to what to do again. Slightly stunned, she started to scroll through the comments one by one.
“They must be your fans. You can give a short reply to their messages,” Gallolie could see Luvita was pleasantly surprised and recalled the time when she first came in contact with the camp function. Then, Gallolie suddenly recalled something else and reminded Luvita, “Oh, keep in mind that there will be some malicious individuals among them too. You can tap on the b.u.t.ton below to delete them.”
“Mn.”
Soon, the Blackwood Elf lady began her life’s first camp journey.
Gallolie only instructed her for a short moment before Luvita started becoming one with the users visiting her camp. Because of that, Gallolie turned her attention to Joshua.
“Mister Joshua, this... is truly a brief reunion.”
Gallolie casually picked up two gla.s.ses of alcoholic beverages from the nearby long buffet table. She handed one of the gla.s.ses to Joshua.
“If Miss Gallolie is willing, you can continue to stay in Norland,” said Joshua after receiving the gla.s.s from Gallolie.
“I would love to stay. Unfortunately, I am extremely worried about my mother. Furthermore, I needed to return to partic.i.p.ate in my father’s funeral.”
Gallolie’s expression turned gloomy. It was completely different from her cheerful look earlier.
The Flower of Farucci was actually feeling very heavy like the Blackwood Elves. She not only experienced the burning of the Blackwood Forest, her family was also met with unimaginable misfortune.
Her father suddenly pa.s.sed away. Perhaps, only Gallolie knew how serious of an impact this was to her.
Even so, the Flower of Farucci behaved much stronger than ordinary girls.
“My apologies in showing you this side of me,” Gallolie knew of her duty very well. Apart from the World Tree of the Blackwood Elves, there was another reason why she came to Norland.
Gallolie stared at the Chaos Demon before her with her wine-colored eyes. The gloominess disappeared from her face and was replaced with a tempting smile.
That’s right... she must maintain a friendly cooperative relationship with this Chaos Demon on behalf of her mother.
“It’s normal for one to encounter something grieving. There’s nothing to apologize,” As Joshua spoke, he gently grabbed Gallolie’s alcoholic gla.s.s. Effortlessly, he s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her.
“Mister Joshua...” Gallolie was confused by why Joshua did that.
“Back in my hometown, there’s a law stating that minors are not allowed to drink alcohol,” Joshua placed down both gla.s.ses back on the long table. Then, he gently lowered his back and said to Gallolie, “Your mother will definitely not want to see you drink alcohol either.”
“...”
Joshua’s words caused Gallolie’s eyebrows to throb slightly. The Flower of Farucci knew very well that she needed to maintain etiquette in this sort of social setting.
If she was facing some grand n.o.bles that she wasn’t very familiar with, Gallolie would definitely smile in response. But, since it was Joshua...
“I am already sixteen years old! In my home country, I am already an adult!”
Feeling unconvinced, Gallolei puffed her not-so-existent chest. Her earlier smile was replaced by a look of displeasure.
“Forgive my rudeness. Say, how about we use fruit juice for replacement this time around?” said Joshua.
“Humph...” Gallolie accepted the fruit juice Joshua handed her in a slightly displeased manner. She glared at Joshua with her wine-colored eyes for a long time. Finally, neither she or Joshua were able to contain themselves and both burst out laughing.
“Mister Joshua, of all the banquets I’ve partic.i.p.ated in, you’re the first person to call me a child in front of my face,” said Gallolie.
“I am merely speaking the truth.”
Joshua raised his gla.s.s of juice and clinked with Gallolie’s gla.s.s. Right at this moment, a familiar voice sounded from beside him.
“That law you talked about seemed to be called minor protection law. I remember you mentioning it before.” It was unknown when the mage lady Ciri arrived beside Joshua.
“Minor protection law? What’s that?”
Ciri’s words caught Gallolie’s interest. All the things Joshua does were extremely interesting to her whether they be the movies or the television. As such, Gallolie was interested in Joshua as an individual.
“Eh... let’s not worry about that. That said, Gallolie, there’s something that I need to give you before you go.”
A thick envelope appeared in Joshua’s hand. It was so large that Joshua needed to hold it using both hands. Its content also seemed to be very heavy... It seemed like a giant parcel.
“This is?” Gallolie seemed to have guessed something. A pleasantly surprised expression immediately filled her face. She had the desire to shout in joy but she ultimately managed to contain her voice, “Could this be the script for the new movie?”
“That’s right,” Joshua nodded his head to confirm Gallolie’s guess. Then, he handed the thick ‘envelope’ to Gallolie.
“The next movie will be a ‘major production.’ I feel that I will not be able to bring forth the desired results with my own capabilities. As such, I needed the help from Madam Schroder. Or perhaps... it would be better stated that I needed the help from Farucci.”
What sort of movie will need to utilize the strength of a nation to film?
Gallolie did not ask for details. She placed her gla.s.s of juice on the table and tightly clasped the envelope Joshua handed her like it was a treasure chest filled with gold.
“I will make sure to deliver this to my mother,” vowed Gallolie with a serious tone.
The banquet continued till very late into the night. In the end, Tylene also arrived. Ynor was dragged along by her.
Joshua and Ciri ended up standing at a corner watching the scene inside the indoor garden.
“Is it really fine for you to hand that script to that n.o.ble like that?” Ciri took a glance at her fingers. They were still dyed blue from drawing all the concept arts for the script.
“Of course. I’ve been puzzling over whether or not to film that movie at this time. After all, that’s not an ordinary major production.”
Joshua was still the person who possessed the techniques to film movies. He was not worried that his movie would be plagiarized by others. Furthermore, he does not believe Madam Schroder to be a shortsighted individual.