Alz had already given several batches of crossbows to his tribe's warriors and it was gaining farm within the southern guardhouse, but that was limited to the guards and hadn't spread to the younger trainees like Maya. As such, this was the first time she had seen a crossbow.

"This is a crossbow, it should be more suitable for you." Alz said as he handed the crossbow over to Maya.

During their time together, Maya had ranted about her lack of strength affecting her aim on several occasions, bringing the crossbows to his mind. After all, one of the primary motivations behind its design was to overcome this.

He was already intending to give her a crossbow to repay her favours, except that he had originally planned for it further into the future. However, the incident earlier made him change his mind, deciding to make it for her now instead.

As she was sitting in on their tribe's discussion before, Alz didn't really have qualms showing her this workstation. Also, Alz had intentionally led her through a path that avoided the other areas of his workshop on the way here, so there was little chance of her finding anything.

Besides, there were elves he had to be on guard with, but she wasn't one of them as far as he was concerned. At the very least, Alz knew her character well enough to trust that she wasn't one who would spread such information around carelessly.

Maya carefully received the crossbow from Alz and held it tightly to her chest with a blissful smile, shedding tears of happiness at the reunion.

"Thank you." she thanked him again, the third time since they departed. Her words this time sounded more heartfelt than before, extending from the deepest reaches of her heart.

The form didn't matter, as this was still her precious bow. One that she had seen Alz slowly building from its fragments, something that she had all but given up on before.

After half a minute, she finally released it from her chest and started observing it, tinkering around the mechanisms with great curiosity. Looking at this, Alz chuckled by the side and walked up to her side.

"This part here......" Alz then started to explain the basic mechanisms behind the crossbow and the way it worked.

Halfway through his explanations, Alz shook his head and sighed as he saw the lost expression on Maya's face, clearly not following his words. A nostalgic feeling began to rise within him, reminded of the times he tried to explain things to Polon in the past.

"Follow me." Alz cut off his explanation halfway and started leaving the workstation. Hearing this, Maya immediately reacted and followed behind him while tinkering with the crossbow in her hands.

After a short walk, the pair soon arrived back at the field. Alz continued to lead Maya into the field, finally stopping somewhere in the middle of the field.

"Try shooting at that." Alz handed Maya a quiver and pointed at a tree about 150m ahead, with concentric circles carved at one section of its trunk.

With the strong eyesight their race possessed, there wasn't much trouble before Maya saw the target Alz mentioned.

"That one!?" Maya immediately asked, turning towards Alz with wide eyes.

"That one." Alz made a light nod and affirmed her.

"But it's so far." Maya said as she looked down at the weapon in her hands.

"Don't worry, you can reach it." Alz confidently replied.

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Alz then drew his own crossbow and loaded an arrow, firing towards the target. He did the entire process slowly, allowing Maya to observe him closely during this time.

*Whoosh*. The arrow cleanly sliced through the air, landing directly at the center of the round markings.

Maya's jaw slowly dropped as she stared at the arrow that had embedded itself into the tree's bark, slowly turning towards Alz with disbelief.

She looked down to her own crossbow with eyes that were burning with excitement, recalling the arrow that was just fired moments ago.

Maya took a deep breath and closed her eyes, replaying Alz's actions in her mind. When she reopened her eyes, she drew an arrow from the quiver and loaded it on the crossbow before proceeding to cock it, readying it for the shot.

She slowly aimed the weapon at the target, steadily pulling back on the trigger. *Whoosh*. The crossbow jolted backwards when the arrow was released, pushing strongly towards Maya's hand.

The arrow cut through the air as strongly as the previous shot, but it went by the side of the tree, missing the target markings completely.

"I can do it too!"

Maya tightened her grip on the crossbow, her body quivering with excitement. A wave of ecstasy ran through her body as she saw the distance her shot covered, setting aside the matter of accuracy for now.

She had always been struggling to match the other elves in range, even when compared with the training counterparts close to her age. She was confident in her aim at closer distances, but her accuracy always fell off whenever the distance increased.

Yet, this weapon didn't possess that problem, allowing even her to fire such strong shots. She didn't understand how it worked, but there was one thing understood at this moment, that this weapon would change many things.

"Again." Alz shouted.

Maya turned to stare at deeply at Alz, before revealing a radiant smile. Her smile was extremely bright, far brighter than any expression she had made ever in a long time. Even the sunflowers around seemed to dim for a moment, overshadowed by the radiance of her smile.

However, Alz's eyes were locked onto the target in the distance, missing out on this sight beside him. Maya pouted slightly when she saw this, but she quickly returned her eyes back to the front and reloaded the weapon, firing more shots towards the target.

By the fifth shot, Maya started getting used to the recoil, learning to adjust the weapon and follow through with her shots.

By the tenth shot, her arrows started landing on the tree, with one arrow out of the past five landing within the target marker.

After emptying the fifteen arrows in the quiver, her shots all landed on the bark of the tree, with three out of the past five shots landing within the circular marker.

Alz nodded with a satisfied smile as he looked at this, clapping his hands by the side when she finished the arrows.

"Well done." Alz honestly praised her, feeling surprised by this result as well.

Her accuracy and ability to adapt was top notch even among the warriors he knew, achieving a better result than most of his tribe's warriors back during the first time he borrowed them the crossbows.

After all, while it was similar in many areas, there were still things that worked differently from the conventional bows most elves were used to, requiring time to adapt.

Even though he had heard her complaining and saying things like how her shooting would be better than the others if he were stronger, that was ultimately just her side of the story and he didn't know how true it was nor did he bother to find out.

However, from this alone, it was immediately apparent that her claims were not baseless, also reflecting how much effort she usually put into her archery as well.

"Of course!" Maya replied with a smug smile, carrying no signs of her depression from before.

"It was the right decision after all."

Alz unwittingly smiled at her reply, feeling glad that he decided to help her out now. While she still couldn't compare to his three childhood friends, she was one of the closest elves to him in the capital without doubt, and one who had helped him much.

It felt to see her exit her depression, to be able to return to her usual self and smile again.

"It's getting late, you should go back soon." Alz said as he looked up at the skies, noticing that it was already quite dark.

When he chanced upon the incident after his duty, the skies were still around its brightest. However, a fair bit of time had gone by with the everything that happened, and the light in the skies was already fairly dim.

Factoring in the time it took for the return trip, it was probably about time for her to return before it got too dark.

There were also some signs of damage in the dorms and some fragments left from the incident before which Alz highly doubted that Cruz would clean up, so their tribe might worry even more when they found out that she was missing.

Maya blinked at Alz several times with a look of surprise before saying, "Go back? What are you talking about? I'm staying here today."

Alz's mind blanked out for a moment at the unexpected reply before reacting, "Go back, the others will worry about you."

"You're telling me that?" Maya immediately shot a question back, striking him where it hurt.