292 Newly-born Silver Species Part 1 of 2 (1/2)
A white-winged bird-type magical pet landed in front of me with a letter for which I had been waiting a long time.
”It's finally here?”
The letter's contents were quite simple—there were only two sentences: ”I took care of things for you. The official invitation is inside, so hurry and come as soon as you can.”
The letter was a reply from my old friend and classmate Kaid. It was only a matter of time before I went to the Cloud Tower in the Mage Country—what was really important was how I went. I would receive treatment that would differ depending on whether or not I had been invited.
That was why I had written to Kaid a while back, asking him to help me out. I divulged a bit about what was going on so that the Cloud Tower would officially send me an invitation.
There were many things I needed to discuss with the Truth Overseers. However, not only did I have old friends amongst the Overseers, but I had many old enemies there—enemies who probably wanted me dead. In order to have an equal (and peaceful) status to communicate with them, I needed to give myself the identity of a diplomatic envoy.
Not to mention that this diplomatic envoy status of mine would be quite real. After all, the wood spirits would definitely need to establish a relationship with the Mage Country. Their representatives would be me and—
”Rosa, why are you the one going? What about your sisters?”
”Big Sister Samantha didn't want to go so she left it to me. Little Sister Jill didn't want to go either—she told me to not bother her with anything that wasn't about battling.”
When I thought of the other two Virtues, I recalled Samantha, who was always terse and vicious with her comments, and Jill, who seemed to be a battle maniac. Indeed—neither of them were appropriate for diplomacy, and that Rosa who was always smiling was probably the best choice among them.
When I first arrived here, Rosa had also been the one to greet me. That pure and friendly smile of hers was indeed an excellent diplomatic tool, especially since she would be soon dealing with a group of old virgins—er—old artifacts, and since the elderly were always instinctively fond of—er—willing to protect young girls, this was obviously going to be a huge advantage.
I could already predict the commotion that would happen when Rosa and the wood spirits appeared in the Cloud Tower. After all, the wood spirits would be considered cute by the beauty standards of any species, not to mention how the elderly always doted on young girls.
Besides, the circumstances of their birth made it even easier to establish a friendly relationship with the mages. They were Amelia's daughters.
No matter if it was because they were the creations of the Cloud Tower's rather famous (or infamous, depending on how you looked at it) archmage Amelia, or simply because they were the first intelligent species in history created by a mage, the wood spirits would definitely be loved by the mages. Of course, the fact that they all appeared to be cute young girls would add points in their favor, and for certain groups of people, it would be super extra bonus points… There's nothing wrong with being a gentleman pervert! A forever youthful (young) wife was the dream of all men, wasn't it!?
Cough, setting those subjective factors aside, just from the objective and tangible benefits, the Mage Country would not only want to establish a friendly relationship with the wood spirits, but they would even look forward to a formal alliance.
Although the wood spirits weren't all that numerous as a species yet, they were an entirely new Silver Species. Their current power levels and future potentials were astonishing. With the Holy War right at everyone's doorsteps, why would they refuse such a strong ally?
Of course, there might be those with ambitions of stealing from or conquering the wood spirits. Not every Truth Overseer was the type who only cared about the secrets of magic. The wood spirits would have to make a display of sufficient power.
That was why I was in no rush at all. The first impression was the most important; the first time that the wood spirits were shown to the world would be critical. Rather than rush to show everyone but then be looked down upon, it would be better to arrogantly arrive late. People would remember them much more clearly.
Wood spirits also had astonishing potential as they were a Silver Species, something incredibly rare in today's age.
This wasn't the ancient era where Silver Species were incredibly common. This was an era of Iron Bloodlines, where the humans of the Iron Tribe [1] dominated the world.
There were incredibly few Silver Species in today's world. The most obvious examples were probably the Four Elven Aristocracies, but the superior elf species mostly consisted of the elven kingdoms' royalty and nobles and were incredibly few in number. The only Silver Species with a high population, the dark elves, had weaknesses such as their fear of light. Moreover, after they fell into depravity and transformed into dark elves from night elves, their racial talents tilted far too much towards the mage job classes and lacked the ability to perform in other job classes. Some people already considered them to be a relatively strong Bronze Species.
Every single wood spirit was, at the minimum, in the Silver rank. In the Forest of Dreams, wood spirits would be improved to the upper tiers of Silver rank and could even reach the lower tiers of the Gold rank with the assistance of the forest's magical plants and strengthened outer shells. That was my assessment of the wood spirits' potential as a species, and Ayer, too, had agreed with me.
When taking the average potential of a species in the world of Eich, the wood spirits were considered top-class. In case my words weren't enough to make people understand, I could show them a comparison between the wood spirits' base stats and other species' base stats in order to make them easily understand just how scary wood spirits really were.
”Average beastman berserker stats: 15 Strength, 8 Dexterity, 12 Constitution, 8 Intelligence. Main stat: Strength. Racial talent: Frenzy.”
The stronger warrior tribes among the beastmen species only reached the level of a Bronze Species. And their racial talents were far too much tilted in favor of Strength, so over ninety percent of beastmen could only choose melee combat job classes.
”Average human warrior stats: 12 Strength, 8 Dexterity, 10 Constitution, 10 Intelligence. Main stat: Strength. Racial talent: None.”
This was the stat spread of an average human, which was even more pitiful than a beastman's. However, the only advantage was that without any particular racial talents or overwhelming unbalanced stat spread, humans could enter any and all job classes as they weren't limited by a species' natural talents. However, any future development down their chosen paths would depend entirely on themselves; human bloodlines contained nothing to help them out.
However, Silver Species were rather ridiculous.
Most people treated the Bronze Species of beastmen, Northlands barbarians, dwarves, and wild elves as the upper limits of what a powerful warrior species was supposed to be. However, there was one species commonly ignored by people that was actually an incredibly common Silver Species—the giants.
The most common mountain and forest giants would be five to ten meters tall after reaching maturity, giving them the power level of average Silver ranks. Meanwhile, the relatively stronger semifrost giants and flame giants were in the upper tiers of the silver rank, while some of the strongest giant species such as the cloud giants and magma giants typically had various racial talents that controlled the elements after reaching maturity. They were naturally born as talented in both physical and magical aspects, and these strongest giant species were Gold Species equal to dragons in power.
Of course, there was also a huge difference in power level amongst all the dragon species. The weakest white dragons wouldn't know how to fight in any way other than melee combat until they reached the level of Ancient. White dragons had incredibly low intelligence, equal to that of a normal wild beast. Although they technically counted as a Gold Species as they were dragons, they were infamous for their weakness to live up to the name. Meanwhile, the strongest among the commonly seen dragons species, gold dragons and red dragons, would easily be capable of defeating and killing three similar-aged white dragons in a one on three fight. And there were Legendary Dragon Species above them such as the rainbow dragons, force dragons, and time dragons, against which even Gods would need to be careful.
As for the strongest giant species, the titan giants, it was rumored that they were the creators of all other giants. There was a huge difference between them and the other giant species… nobody would object if they were labeled as a double Diamond Bloodline Species. That was because the strongest titan giants were powerful enough to slay Gods. Fortunately, this world was no longer a world where titan giants reigned supreme, and the Legendary Dragon Species had almost gone entirely extinct as well.
According to records in history, in the ancient war of stone giants, the giants had rebelled against the Gods and lost. So, Kasodia, the God of Intelligence in that era, cursed the giants to lose their Intelligence which naturally meant the giants lost their hope to reach the pinnacle of power levels. The few remaining giant species that retained their Intelligence typically hid out in snowy mountains and magma-filled volcanos… but I knew that as the Holy War continued, they wouldn't remain inactive for much longer.
”Average hill giant warrior stats: 19 Strength, 10 Dexterity, 20 Constitution, 3 Intelligence (cursed down from 10). Main stat: Strength. Racial talents: Earth Affinity, High-Speed Regeneration, Stoneskin Armor, Earthquake Spell (rare), Curse of Low Intelligence (Negative racial talent).”
From this, it could be seen that if it weren't for the fact that giants had far too low Intelligence, hill giants, a typical giant species, had racial talents far surpassing most common species in Eich today. As for why they had always been considered easy opponents that even a team of two or three Silver-ranked adventurers could deal with, it was mainly due to their overly low intelligence. Not only did they fall too easily for all sorts of traps, they were unable to cultivate in any job classes and could only pitifully rely on their own racial talents to grow.
If only giants could easily learn all sorts of martial arts, mature giant warriors would be able to easily defeat human Gold-ranked warriors, and Sword Saint giants would easily be able to slay dragons. Dragons would no longer be the top species of Eich due to their racial talents.
By the way, in a certain ”historical moment,” the fallen titans returned and regained the giants' lost intelligence, so these muscleheads became incredibly scary. That game expansion was known as ”Attack of the Titans…” fine then, the game company was probably trying to profit off of the popularity of the anime ”Attack on Titan.” [2]
Cough, getting back on topic, the wood spirits were also a Silver Species but didn't have any natural weaknesses like the giants did. Their base stats were ridiculous.
”Average wood spirit stats: 16 Strength, 14 Dexterity, 12 Constitution, 14 Intelligence. Racial talents: Soul connection to all wood spirits, Evolution by devouring (forbidden to use except when lives are endangered), Unyielding Spirit, Incarnation of Wrath, Plant Communication, Forest Traveling (the ability to enter trees), Eternal Rebirth (limited to only being effective within the Forest of Dreams).”