Discussions

We were outside in seconds after rushing out the doors. My mother turned to me out in the open air under the bright green glow. "Chelsea, I know you haven't mentioned it, and we can talk about it later, but we need to make it three trees in before we can slow. Don't hold back!" The mana flowed around her, and her body almost disappeared in sudden acceleration.

I was startled for half a second before I let the Mana flow through my body to the maximum. Off I went leaving after images in my wake to the untrained eye. I quickly caught up to my mother and parkoured through the trees using mana-enhanced muscles. My mother wasn't surprised and matched me. It turned into a race between us as we swung through the tree, hopping on roofs as we made our way through the city.

Things blurred around us, but neither wanted to fail in front of the other. We passed the third tree we originally made our stop point. We still had to make it to the Center of the city, so we made our bodies go to the limit.

I felt the air on my skin and through my fur, and I started to become nostalgic. I remember the days running through my school, running as fast as I could through buildings. Through the parks and small little mall they had for us. As I went, I started to pull mini stunts that I used to practice in my previous incarnation. My mother was behind me as I entered the zone, watching me as I moved.

Soon we were coming up to the ultimate destination, and I received a message from my mother. She told me we were there and that we needed to stop. I sigh to myself, coming down from the freedom of movement I was in. I needed to do this more often, I thought, as I started to slow down before coming to a stop. We received a lot of stares, but I still did a double backflip twisting myself at the same time to look at my mother.

The smile on my face spoke for itself, and she was shaking her head at me. "Chelsea, I do not know where you learned that from but pay attention." She chided me with a smile as we both used mana to clean any sweat off ourselves. Now both being presentable, we started to walk at a leisurely pace to see a large, almost fortress building in the trees with large walls around it. I raised an eyebrow, thinking about why you would need walls in a tree. I looked around and finally noticed we were on the highest branch. There was even actual sunlight hitting the building and how high up we were.

It started to make more sense why there were walls now. This was a capital building in a medieval world. Walls still bore meaning against rebels and such. It made little sense to me still, but I ignored it.

We finally were walking up to the building, and I sensed a mana fluctuation from the front. Not long afterward, an old-looking elf came out to greet us. "Lady Silvermoon! It's great to see you again after so long. The messages we have received showed great news between our nations!" The man was overly friendly at the moment with my mother. She smiled and came up to the man as I stood a setback. She was the senior official, and although she hadn't told me to, I would watch first.

"Elder Greenleaf, long time in person. Your messages have made a friend in me, though and your actions back up your writing." My mother spoke back fondly, "This is my daughter Chelsea; she is the current Heir to the Silvermoon tower." The Elder turned to look at me for the first time. His eyes widened in surprise. My loincloth and small top attached to my collar surprised him. "She is as powerful as you see." She smiled, largely looking at me and the Elder nodded.

"Yes, although I do not like her clothing choice, someone at that age is nothing but a prodigy!" He exclaimed while looking at me, "You already even converted your body to your mana choice, increasing physical compacity and mana compacity. Amazing you even did your hair, little one!" The Elder looked at my body without looking at the skin. "Little one, do you mind if I touch and examine your body?" He asked politely, and I shrugged my shoulders.

"Sure, go ahead, Elder, as long as my mother is okay with it," I deferred to my mother, seeing if I should allow this Elven elder to see more. She nodded quickly, and the Edler smiled brightly. He was not shy after getting permission to touch my biceps and thighs. The mana worked through his hands, entering non-intrusively into my body.

"Amazing! Chelsea, You have converted to such a density of mana. You can use your mana throughout your body without worry! I even have to hold back while you can let it roam free. This is what most Wizards hope to achieve. I even sense some Spacial traces on you. High tier mana specialization!" He started to gush more, and my mother wore a proud smile on her face.

"Elder, we are here for a meeting?" I asked simply, and the Elf elder woke up.

"My apologies. I love to study mana, and you are a perfect specimen to study, little one!" He told me without shame, and I laughed. His head turned to the side, and I put up a hand, hoping to stop laughter faster.

"Elder, sorry for that; I am just like you though Mana research is my favorite pass time. However, I haven't been able to do much of it over the past couple of years. That does not mean I wouldn't love to be in a lab with you to study the mysteries of it!" I told him with a smile, That frown turned into a smile, and the Elder and I started to discuss experiments. My mother joined in with her research as we entered happily into the large capitol building.

Inside was beautiful and ignored. I couldn't care less about the cultural artifacts as we discussed research theories about integration into mechanics I was thinking of pursuing. The Elder was fascinated with this and expressed a deepening curiosity as I discussed it with him. My mother even looked shocked at some of my unproven theories. She was questioning whether they would work or not as well. The Elder continued until we entered into a room with a large feast of fruits and foods on it.

My mother grabbed some food, as did I. We continued to discuss when other elves started to join in. The discussion started to turn to other types of mana with machinery as well. I got into a heated debate with one Elf elder, though.

"Look, if you use wood as a base for mechanics, you have to enchant it as a baseline. Gears with wood would be cheap but weak and prone to needing replacement shortly. This would take up time and effort while losing space to add even more enchantments!" I told him this for the third time to state my point, so he understood.

"Yes, but it could be used on easily replaceable parts that don't need many enchantments!"

"I understand what you are saying, Elder, and I get it. It's just that if you used, say, Iron and enchant that it would last more than enough time to make up the losses eaten by making wood the base. Wood can only be used as an emergency fix. You are wanting to use wood since it is in abundance neglects the fact there are other materials out there in abundance!" The argument didn't end there, and I had to walk away from the stubborn old Elf.

The day went on in debate when one Elder ended the discussions. "Ladies! Elders!" We all turned to him in the middle of discussions or debates. "We are here for other reasons than research!" We all suddenly remembered that we were not in labs to study as someone had brought out an alchemist set. They were about to start while my mother was with him, pulling out ingredients. I looked at them and noticed it was actually an explosive potion that needed skilled hands to work on.

"We are literally in the center of government pulling out Alchemist sets!" I even blushed, and so did a dozen other elders as we all were in deep debate. "Look, everyone, sit down and let us discuss the growing tension in the world. Not our latest results! Nations are about to go to war here!" We all sat down and looked around the room. I leaned back in my chair, realizing I had a lot more in common with these old Elven elders than I thought.

Elves lived a long time and were some of the strongest mages in the world, if not the strongest. Their lifetime was long, and many used that to increase their life even longer. Mana could slow down aging when you incorporate it into your body. It was one of the things the First Elder I met told me while in the discussion. This is why it was critical to learn. I regretted using the system to have this ability even more. I shook my head and looked toward the speaker leaving unnecessary thoughts out of my head.

"Look, The Human Empire has been attacking with Slaver capturing our citizens for too long. The Kingdom or Arlin also has slavers invading our territory," My mother stood up and started to tell the Elders around the table, "Could you imagine the dwarfs coming up to steal your people in the night? In their own homes? Taken and enslaved for the rest of their lives just because they look cute? Do they want a pet? A status symbol? Right now in the Empire, a Cat-kin or Tiger-kin go for increasing prices since they are 'In Trend' Elves were in trend before that. Hell, They still are, and you know it!" My mother was getting heated thinking about it. "I do not want the elven people to send troops; I want you to stop the dwarves from attacking us while we let the Humans know we will not keep taking their shit!"

I was surprised at how direct my mother was being, and I sat back, looking around the room. Many elves were thinking after the short words my mother made. "Look, Lady Silvermoon, I understand your anger. The thing is that the Dwarves have been strong allies with us over the years. Although we have been getting closer with Bunny-kin and the Beast-kin nation for years, you have not with the dwarfs!" An Elf Elder spoke to her directly, and I decided to put in my two cents.

"I am not sure that is fair, Elder," He looked towards me with the rest of them, and I was put in the hot seat. I remained seated, though, as I spoke, "The Dwarves recently actually tried to arrest me on false charges. I used their laws to free myself before I came here. They tried to imprison the Heir to Silvermoon Tower with false charges to keep me as a hostage in the coming conflicts. Who knows what would have happened to me while in their 'protected' custody." I paused for a minute as Elven elders were thinking about that too.

"Now, I know I do not have as much experience as anyone around this table, but that doesn't make my next question valid. What happens if we lose this conflict? The Dwarves are the only people you are attached to. On the other side of this forest is the ocean. So the dwarves will completely control all land-bound traffic into the Forestry. Is that something you are willing to see happen?"

The elves' eyebrows went up on that thought. It was as if we had no chance to lose in their minds. This meant that the Elves believed in our people, which was fantastic. "We are not asking for you to join us with your soldiers. We are asking you to put diplomatic pressure on the dwarves to stay out of the conflict that we have with the humans."

More elders started to discuss, and my mother looked at me approvingly. We needed the flank to be clear without pressure from the dwarves. Sending troops to the passage through the mountains to the Elven forestry would be an even larger disaster for us. The Dwarfs we could barely manage, but it would be better without the added pressure.

"Could you imagine my mind being snuffed out without being able to research some of my theories? This would be a tragedy, right?" I followed up and received some laughs from the elves.

"Look, we can't just decide this right now. Let us discuss some trade deals as well!" One of the elves piped up, and the day of discussions turned from the war. We were smiling, though, as mana flowed through the room with hidden messages and out loud discussions. A trade deal was about to solidify between our people showing the favor the Elves showed the beast-kin people.