Three months had passed since Jack got Zhi’s approval to leave the Cosmos. Although Jack felt a bit bad because Zhi had organized the best training conditions for him, he was still happy to go out tempering himself. Until now, he had never been the kind of a person to sit in the safety of his four little walls and only wonder what is behind them.

Before Jack left, he used up all his Contribution Points by purchasing all kinds of Elixirs and other useful things. However, the vast majority of his Contribution Points went towards a Custom Artefact order he put in. Since he provided all of the resources as well, the cost for manufacturing the Artefacts wasn’t that large.

However, the big but was that he ordered an extremely big amount of daggers, cloaks, spears, light armours and heavy armours alongside various other weapons and armours. These weren’t meant for himself to use but rather for his Troops.

Raelag at the time emphasized more on personal strength than his Troops over all quality. At the time, they were well equipped but now so long has passed that many new Formations and special combat armours had been created. By upgrading his Troops equipment, he efficiently upgraded his own strength as well.

He wasn’t stupid or condescending enough to think that he was a Heavens Chosen Child or something. Rather, he thought of himself as a person with no home and no family. Although the intelligent Dark Elves were still always respectful to him, Jack was slowly starting to trust them more than himself.

Especially now that he was in the Ashan Cosmos. When he first arrived there, he had summoned all of his Dark Elven Troops and set up a little temporary base to wait for the right timing. When he first arrived here, Xia Hao had provided him with the current distribution of power and even commented with a sigh, “Even though so much time has passed, the glories of past have fallen to the ruin of time and now the cycle repeats itself.”

Jack didn’t understand the meaning behind these words at first but when Shadya had explained that none of the Empires that had existed at their times exist any more and from their information gathering, they aren’t even mentioned in the history records. This had baffled Jack as he had thought that the Empire Raelag had built would carry on his legacy and stand for thousands of years.

The ShadowBrand Clan that Raelag had lead to prominence had declined and was now nothing more than a word on a history paper. The Island was vast but since most of it was a Danger Zone, the usable land was miniscule. “The ShadowBrand used to dominate all of these islands. Now, we only have one little island and we can at best use only 15 to 20 percent of the land.”

Shadya looked at the map one of the scouts had obtained from somewhere. She then raised her head and looked at the youth at the opposite side of the table.

The young man was looked around 15 to 16 years old, with lightly tanned skin. His hair was as white as first snow and what was interesting was that his ears were slightly pointed. No one knew the reason behind this but when Jack first arrived and started training as usual, he suddenly felt his body heat up. Thinking that he had made some sort of a breakthrough, Jack felt happy but immediately after that happiness turned franticness as his body kept getting hotter and hotter.

Soon he started feeling pain all over his body as it transformed. He became a bit taller as his skin adapted the lightly bronze hue that all Dark Elves had and his ears turned pointy. After the transformation was done, Jack felt lighter than before and more in tune with Energy in the surroundings than ever before. However, when Shadya saw his appearance for the first time, she nearly flipped the switch.

After several speculations and experiments, they could simply not find a reason for the transformation. Since they did not know what had caused it, they had no way of thinking on how to reverse it. Even though the transformation of the body surprised Jack, it did not bring him any harm. His body had even become stronger and better than before, so for now Jack decided not to mull on it.

He kept looking through the records and forming some theories for it but it wasn’t his first priority. His life here had become several times easier here thanks to it, so he was in no hurry to reverse it. They were currently deep in the Dark Elven territory and this place was one of the few remaining free Citadels of the Dark Elves.

The rest had fallen to either destruction or slavery and so the Dark Elves were quite vary of other Races. Most of all, they hated humans as they enslaved the other Races to do their dirty work for themselves. Since Dark Elves were far more beautiful than humans, all of the women that were enslaved ended up as a slave to a noble or as a worker in a brothel. So, humans were not very welcome on the island or in any other races domain for that matter as well.

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Jack looked thoughtfully at the map and said, “If we manage to win the Rite of the Clanlord, we will be able to gain full control of the island?” Shadya nodded her head to the question and said seriously, “These traditions were set in stone even in times when Raelag rose to prominence. At that time, he obtained the position of Clanlord for the Shadowbrand Clan.” Jack thought for a moment more and said, “Even as an outsider?”

Shadya nodded her head but maintained her silence. She knew very well that Jack came here to train his own skills. However, after seeing the pitiful outcome of their Dark Elven race, Shadya felt sad. She didn’t want her race to blink out of existence and in her opinion only Jack could reverse this decline. Jack had not planned on taking on a new territory but rather act as travelling mercenaries. However, after feeling Shadyas despair, something stirred in him when he heard how majestic their race had been once.

As if answering Shadyas prayers, the previous Clan Lord of the AbyssFlame Clan had passed away and according to tradition, the next Clan Lord will be chosen through an elimination tournament. The requirements to join the tournament were that the person was a Dark Elf and had a personal army of 500. Besides these two requirements there were none more. All you had to do was pay a fee and you will be able to join the tournament. The last Dark Elf standing will become the next Clan Lord obtaining all control over the island.

Jack had been extremely suspicious of these two requirements for one reason: Who said that the person that won would not be a spy from another land? Contrary to his expectations, the registration went extremely smoothly. All he had to do was display his army and using a special magical tool, they made sure that Jack was not using any illusion techniques.

What baffled Jack and Shadya was that Jack was able to pass the bloodline test. This meant that his physique had not only changed from appearance but from roots. However, he wasn’t a so-called “Pure Blood” he seemed to be a mix of Dark Elven and Human. Although the examiner frowned upon this, the highest organ of authority next to the Clan Lord, the Keeper of the Law had intervened.

She had said that even though Jack is a mixed blood, he still carries the blood of Dark Elves and it seemed like it was the dominant part of his bloodline. Since Jack had no idea what was going on with his body, all he could do was assume the identity of a mixed blood that had been born from an enslaved Dark Elven woman.

She had passed away a few years after Jack’s birth and Jack was thrown to fend for himself. Years passed and he had “set free” a lot of Dark Elven slaves and after they swore their loyalty to him, they travelled to the island. Hearing about the Rite of the Clan Lord, Jack had thought about trying as well.

Although humans looked down on mixed bloods, none of the other races did as much. There were some that were quite extreme but most people knew how most mixed bloods were born. They were born from an enslaved woman that has become nothing more than a toy to the humans to vent their lust on.

So, the registration went quite smoothly and Jack was told to gather his army at the City Gates in four days time. From the registration till now, four days had passed and the time to bring his army to the gates had arrived. Most applicants would spend these few days by carefully gathering information on their opponents and making all sorts of preparations.

Jack should have been doing the same but when he was going to do so, a few of his Troops arrived before him and said, “Master, do not worry about any of it and leave everything to us.” Jack had wanted to retort but Shadya had stepped in by reminding Jack that all of the Troops were people that had worked together for thousands of years.

When it came the time to fight, then Jack should take command but until then, he should focus on his own things and trust the competence of his men. Not wanting to hurt their feelings, Jack decided to just oversee the preparations from a passive stance and let all of them do what they did best. Scouts were all accurately sent to gather information on their opponents, their strengths and weakness.

The other Troops were all familiarizing themselves with their new equipment and also did basic training. Jack truly had nothing other to do than talk with Shadya about their future plans. How to best exploit their new territory, how to increase population and so on. It was unknown when but after seeing how well his troops work, Jack started having complete confidence in them and he did feel as though they had any chance of failing.

These troops are all that have shed blood in the Ashan Cosmos and in the Cosmoses far, far away from here. Jack frowned as he asked Shadya, “How is it possible that all records of the past are gone? Shouldn’t there at least be ruins or something?” Shadya shook her head and said, “Nothing here is eternal. The Silver Cities might have records that date back to that time but they are most probably state secrets and known to only select few.” Jack then sighed as he thought about the various possibilities of improvement.

It seemed as though all Races had become reset at some point in time and all records from a certain point in history were lost. Jack was quite interested in what could possibly happen to reset civilization back to this point. From what Shadya had said, at their time, civilization had been far more advanced than what it is now. It may also be because this place is too secluded but if the general level of civilization around the world is around this level then it seemed as though even basic farming knowledge and such had declined.

*CLANG* *CLANG* *CLANG*

Jack raised his head form the map and said, “It’s the bell signalling to gather.” He then walked out of the little tent and stood in front of the already lined up troops and said in a loud voice, “The Bell had tolled! Let’s move out!”

All the troops gave a standard salute and started moving towards the City.