In the mountainous region of Elven Kingdom, there was a single family that was renown to all of kingdom as the family of sages, though only the head of the family and its Founder was the sage in question.

They were respected, revered, and feared even by members of Elven Royal family, and it is said that the Elder, Lady Ewig, the Founder, and the Greatest Elven Sage in known history, has more than enough power to wipe the entire Elven Kingdom off the face of the globe. She was less of a mage and more of a force of nature, and the closest thing Elves had to an omnipotent and omniscient goddess. Provoking her was a great mistake that could have dire consequences.

But overall, the Elder was a rather benevolent figure who was just most of the time.

Many elves over the years have gone to her in hopes of learning and achieving a higher level of power. If they passed her trials, they would be granted the knowledge they were seeking. Alternatively, if they completed one of her quests, she would grant them anything they desired as reward. Though, over the last 2000 years, only a little over a dozen have actually managed to pass her trials and even less have managed to complete a single quest she assigned to them.

Considering that the Elder had access to every type of magic known to humanity, completing her trials would allow one to get ahold of magic that they could never have had otherwise. And completing a single quest would obligate her by contract to fulfill a single request no matter how absurd. Emphasis on the absurd.

Sara: “Even more elves have come to visit granny”

Sarael, better known as Sara, was the youngest granddaughter of the Elder, Lady Ewig. She was currently on the path to become an arch elf. To do so, she needed to study all kind of knowledge available in the world, learn higher level magic, and achieve a breakthrough.

An ordinary elf had mana reserves a little larger than that of a human being and possessed an average lifespan of 1000 years. But if an elf managed to achieve a breakthrough and become an arch elf, then his or her lifespan would be several times longer and their magical power will skyrocket.

It would be something that is very appealing for any elf that heard it if not for how next to impossible it was to achieve.

As far as Sara was aware, there were only two known Arch Elves currently among the living: Lady Ewig, and her son, Marcus, Sara’s father.

According to her grandmother, there were other Arch Elves in the Ancient times, but they were all currently not among the living.

Needless to say, becoming an arch elf was probably one of the hardest things for an elf to achieve.

It took her grandmother several centuries to become an arch elf, while her father managed to do so in half a century. Her father’s case was considered abnormal and because of it, he is considered a born genius by elf standards.

To make the matters even more complicated, apparently her father, Marcus, was only a half elf and half unknown species, and yet he managed to achieve a breakthrough in record time.

Apparently, because of his heritage, her father’s hair was black while one of his eyes was a green elven eye while the other one was a crimson one. But the weirdest part was the extra appendage that he had, a single wing that he could sprout from his right side, but not the left. Naturally, since he only had one wing, he could not fly without using flight spell.

Sara herself was only ¾ an elf and ¼ unknown species, but according to her grandmother, all the non-elf features she had, she inherited from her paternal grandfather.

Like her father, she too had a single wing, but on her left side rather than her right. Aside from that, with the wing tucked away, she looked indistinguishable from a normal elf.

With her half elven father managing to become an arch elf only in half a century, since she was mostly an elf, she knew she also had the potential to awaken just like her father and grandmother.

Though, she sometimes wondered whether her father managed to become an arch elf much quicker than normal because of the power he inherited from his father. Since she was the granddaughter of that man, her blood was probably too diluted, so there was a chance her potential was the same as that of an ordinary elf.

Sara had already been training and learning as much as she could for the last 80 years. Even if becoming an arch elf took some elves many centuries, she still felt frustrated, often comparing herself to her elven prodigy of a father. Even if her elder siblings had no such ambitions and were content to lead a simple life, she could not bring herself to give up, even if all her efforts so far produced next to no results.

Even if one were to take a shortcut and go to Lady Ewig to pass her trials, one needed to pass 3 of them in order to even have that chance. Passing 3 trials was absurd when most struggled to pass even 1.

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In terms of quests, it is said that to achieve a breakthrough, an elf needed to complete only 1, but to this date, only two have actually managed to pull it off. One became known as the First Hero of the ancient age, and the other one was Sarael’s own grandfather.

But apparently, her grandfather did not complete the quest in order to achieve a breakthrough since he was not an elf, which was not the most absurd part about it. The most absurd part was the fact that he is said to have completed the quest in a single day, something that was never done before or after him.

After learning of her grandfather’s epic feat, Sarael practically flew into her grandmother’s place to enquire her if the rumors were true.

It turns out, it was even more absurd than she imagined. Apparently, about 1500 years ago, the world was plagued by one known as the Dark Dragon Emperor, one of the two Dragon Emperors that were present at the time. Without a doubt, he was the peak of what it meant to be a dragon, towering over Dragon Lords and Dragon Kings of the past.

Sarael knew firsthand just how powerful even ordinary dragons were and Dragon Lords treated them as some small fries.

A single Dragon Lord was strong enough to destroy an entire kingdom while a Dragon Kings were continental level threats. Sarael could not imagine just how powerful a Dragon Emperor could be if he stood higher than even the most dangerous Dragon Kings.

Lady Ewig: “My quests by definition are close to impossible by normal standards. Such is a price to ask me for a single favor. If anyone completed such a quest, I would be obligated to fulfill any single wish of theirs, as long as it was within my ability, by the power of the contract”

Once a covenant between two was established, it would create a magical contract that could not be broken, trying to do so would incur a penalty far worse than death, which is why, such contracts could never be taken lightly.

Ewig: “When I saw him for the first time, he struck me as an unremarkable fellow. He asked to take on a quest from me and to that end, to establish a contract with him should he succeed. I agreed, with the terms that I would fulfill a single wish of his if he were to slay the Dark Dragon Emperor and bring proof with him. I thought I would never see him again”

Ewig put both of her palms on her face: “Even in my wildest dreams, I would never have thought he would come back the very next day with the head of Dark Dragon Emperor in a bag!”

Sara: ‘Just who the hell is my grandpa?!’

Ewig: “And when I asked him what kind of forbidden knowledge or magic, he wanted as his reward, he said he had no interest in something like that. So, I asked him what his wish was”

Sara gulped in anticipation of her grandmother’s story.

Ewig: “He said “I would like you to give birth to my child””

Sara: “What?”

Ewig: “I was just as surprised as you are. Mind you, there were other single elven women everywhere, many young ones. At that time, I was already over 2000 years old, mind you!”

By elven standards, 900+ year old elf was considered elderly. By those standards, even if arch elves had much longer lifespan than a regular elf, a 2000+year-old arch elf woman would be considered to be pretty much a granny. Though, in terms of appearance, if a human being were to take a look at Sara and her grandmother, he would probably come to a mistaken conclusion that Sara was Ewig’s older sister or something like that.

Like elves, arch elves retained their youthful looks, but for much longer.

Sara: ‘What kind of an overpowered weirdo was my grandpa?’

Sara: “Perhaps he did not know how old you actually were?”

Ewig: “No. He had the ability to use status spell, and it’s not like I was concealing my age or anything like that. If anything, during that time I had already given up on any ideas of having any family of my own. I mean, none would want a single hag like me….”

Ewig: “At first I thought his request was absurd, but he sweetened the deal by giving me this book and telling me his true name”

The book in question was a spellbook likes of which Sara had never seen. It had so many pages that apparently took the elder a few centuries to finish it. And it’s not because the elder was a bad reader, she could easily finish several books within a day, provided she is entertained enough. The problem was that the book was enchanted, the number of pages seemed to increase as you kept going further and further, and its magic functioned in such a way, that all those pages were kept within a tiny amount of space.

Once, Sara tried to read through the book herself, and it took her an entire year to read through, comprehend, and digest a single chapter, and she was trying her best too. Whoever wrote that book belonged to much higher-level civilization. The book of was titled, Introduction to Magic, Volume 1.

Even to an elf scholar, that book was revolutionary. Sara managed to comprehend far more from that single chapter than from any other knowledge sources combined. It was no wonder her grandmother, the greatest elven scholar and sage, enjoyed it so much.

Ewig: “He said that if we ever were to cross paths again, he would give me the second volume. I am looking forward to it”

Sara: “I don’t know which one if you is weirder, grandfather for making such a ridiculous request or for you to be so easily swayed by a book”

Ewig: “Hey! That book was unlike any other book I ever read, and I should know, I read nearly every single one produced by humanity!”

Sara: “And he just happened to be a scholar who just happened to have a book that not even you had seen before, and he just happened to be someone strong enough to slay a Dragon Emperor in a single day. The more I think of it, the more grandpa seems like a fictional, made-up character than a real person”

Ewig: “He is real! The extra limb you keep tucked away in your back is the proof of it!”

Sara: “Did he also have only a single wing, like me and father?”

Ewig: “As far as I could tell, he had at least two”

Sara: “At least?”

Ewig: “Some members of his species have more than one pair, at least according to the book”

Sara: “Just what kind of a monster did you marry?!”

Ewig: “Well, we did not actually marry…. We only spent one night together….”

Sara: “That is infinitely worse!”

After calming down, Sara asked: “So, who is my grandfather? What is his name?”

Lady Ewig smiled at her grandchild’s obvious curiosity: “If you manage to become an arch elf, I will tell you”

Sara: “Aw c’mon!”