Swinging the sword like Hoatan taught her she launched herself at the older boy opposite her.

Hoatan remarked she was fast and stronger than she looked so should always use that to her advantage.

The boy went to block the sword aimed for his body, however, the movement was merely a feint with her quickly re directing the sword hitting him squarely in the head.

“Ow” The older boy said feeling the light whack against his wooden helmet.

Hoatan clapped smiling brightly and said, “Well done, your doing very well for such a short time of training, I’m sure you’ll end up a master of the sword just like your Father if you keep this up.”

It had been months since she started practicing the sword and bow with Hoatan. It was standard practice for young elves to learn to use both weapons, having long lives they prided themselves on being skilled, adaptable warriors in both range and melee combat. Since elves have long lives and most end up eventually reaching their limit in cultivation, instead of focusing on cultivation they spend a significant amount of time improving their strength in other areas like their mastery over weapons.

Ava found she enjoyed practicing with both weapons, though preferred the sword. She found her stronger soul helped her massively progress in both the sword and bow under Hoatan.

She was a quick learner and had impressed him but still needed to go a long way to meet his strict standards of what an elf component with either weapon looks like.

Satisfied with what he had seen so far, Hoatan brought the children who had been weapon training for a light exercise session to finish off.

“Now let’s do a quick core exercise, remember what I told you, having a strong core is essential for all Warriors, you should know strengthening this area is essential to all warriors since it where they store their Qi. Therefore this is the most important area to target during your exercises, having a weak core is unacceptable for any warrior who wants good future achievements.” Hoatan stressed to all the children carefully before he demonstrated the exercise to them.

Ava repeated the exercise and felt a warm feeling in her core.

‘This feels good’ she mumbled.

‘Of course it does, this is the vital area of all warriors in this world. What you feel now is the dantian, a fist sized organ responding to the stimulation of the natural energies your encouraging through this exercise. It is where you will store all of your Battle Qi in the future once you begin your cultivation as a warrior, so having a stronger, larger dantian is very beneficial. You have already been unconsciously developing your own dantian from circulating Astral Qi around your body regularly.’ Cense added.

Ava thanked Cense in her mind and went back to the exercise. The spirit had been very useful since coming to this world, she had no idea where she would be without him at times.

She felt he kept her sane despite being obnoxious most of the time.

The first few years where she could only garble and whine would have been even more torturous without him around.

Even now she has to speak simple and not go overboard, so she was glad she was able to freely talk to him.

Suddenly the training session was cut short as a young male elf came heaving into the training ground with a grave look on his face.

He rushed to Hoatan and looked like he was about to pass out from exertion before he said, “We’ve received urgent news from the Greenwood clan, they have requested we hand over even more of our food and supplies, the humans have arrived a few weeks ago and are launching heavy bombardments against the border defence wall. We have managed to repel them back for now, but the humans are even stronger than expected and we are taking losses, there is an urgent request for more supplies as our only hope is to drag this out.”

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Hearing this a serious look appeared on Hoatan face before he told us all the session was over for today not expecting them to glean much from the conversation.

Heading back home with her mother who seemed to turn pale after listening in to the frantic young elves words to Hoatan she kept consoling her, “Everything is alright, your Father will just be a bit late back home that’s all”

Everything has been progressing rapidly since the months she had spent training with Hoatan.

She had firstly passed her fourth birthday since arriving at this world, and had grown in the past year, she wasn’t sure if it was the nourishment of Qi but she appeared a few years older than she actually was.

The other children were surprised she was the youngest there since she was as big as any of the seven year olds.

Additionally the war with the humans had finally begun.

After a long year of preparation, the elves had done their best to fortify Fort Gasden which was apart of the border wall separating the Elven lands from the humans.

She knew that the Evergreen clan had been in charge of protecting it for generations and it had never once been breached.

This was one of the reasons why the Elves arrogance grew, believing the humans would never have the capabilities to enter the Elven land having a well secured fort and wall protecting the only realistic accessible route for the humans to use.

The elves strictly controlled who was able to enter their lands and had maintained a control over the area in the Greenlands with the richest resources.

Human rulers eyed the lands greedily for centuries but every Kingdom that attempted to breach the fort failed.

However now all of the human kingdoms have been united by a strong human emperor forming the largest human army which have ever launched an attack on the fort in history.

At the same time although the Royal clan had sent a detachment to aid, they have not been able to launch their full support due to a problem with the Darkwood clan.

The Darkwood clan ruled over a area containing many magical beasts.

Usually there would be a cycle of beast tides which would occur, however this time one happened much earlier than expected, meaning not only where they unable to lend assistance, the Royal clan also had to divert a portion of their strength as well.

The tribe had already had to give out all their surplus resources to supply the Evergreen clan with to send to the army at Fort Gadsen, now they would have to send even more.

She had no idea if the elves even had the capability to hold the humans off, since the gloomy young elf who arrived today came across as desperate.

However she knew only the basic information she had gotten from the gossiping elves around her.

She had no idea how much of it is even true as most of it came from the Royal clan in order to appease the annoyed elves at the tribe who resented them a bit for not lending much aid.

‘Looks like it’s time to speed up my plans.’ Ava thought.

She was rushing for time trying to pick up as much as she can before problems start to escalate further. She had no choice but to plan for the future.

‘I need to find a way to learn from that herbalist, maybe I can even find a way to study a bit from the mage under his service.’ Ava thought.

Ava wanted to speak to the herbalist earlier since he was one of the most respected members of the tribe and had plenty of useful things to learn from. However she was worried about her age, that it would come across as too unusual, so far she was able to play off her shenanigans using the excuse of just wanting to exercise similar to the other children so she could follow the older children just like any other child would.

Nonetheless learning herbalism from the old man was very different, children her age don’t usually have the capacity to make such advanced decisions.

‘I have no choice, I don’t know when I’ll get another opportunity and it may prove vital.’ Ava thought.

After discussing with the spirit convincing herself if it was a good idea or not, they came to the conclusion she had to do her best to learn everything she could from the tribe and the only person of importance remaining was the herbalist.

“Mum…” Ava said looking up at her with her big blue eyes.

Her mother stared back at her with a questioning look that said, ‘You want something don’t you?’

This maybe harder than she thought realising acting cute may not be enough this time.