Game of the World Tree
chapter-03

▪️The Remaining Elf Believers

Evé still couldn’t understand how she had managed to connect to the internet of her past life.

But thinking of her past life’s cause of death, she began to have some guesses within her heart.

She remembered that in her previous life, she had enjoyed playing VR games on a virtual capsule moments before dying, and the cause of death seemed to be due to several days of sleeplessness…

Yes, the last piece of information that had just emerged seemed to be about her.

Virtual reality tech was a new type of technology that had become increasingly popular in recent years back on Earth. Its principle was to directly connect a person’s consciousness to the network and create a virtual reality world.

Evé suspected that it was because she had died whilst still connected to the internet so her consciousness had somehow established a kind of link with the internet world for some reason.

Not only that, but by comparing the flow of time on both sides, Evé found out that the flow of time in Saigües was about four times faster than that of Earth.

So what does this all mean?

Can she still contact her family after crossing over this side!?

Thinking of this, Evé didn’t know whether as to cry or laugh at the absurdity of it.

Why only now when she had already decided to embrace a new life and forget everything from the past.

But for some reason, she felt a bit reluctant…

Hope is such a strange thing. Sometimes when it’s completely cut off, it’s simply gone. But once even a slim chance occurs, it can rekindle so bright that it might even burn you up entirely.

“I just left like that without even saying goodbye, I still don’t know how sad my parents and sister are…”

Evé sighed in her heart.

Alas, she now had become the World Tree from another world, and add to the fact that her previous body had long already been cremated into ashes…so what use is there even if she can establish contact with her family through Earth’s internet?

She has already tried once, and her divine power seems it can only affect the network world, and cannot manifest physically on the other side. In other words, even if she projects her consciousness over Earth, Evé would at most be just an invisible mass of data without any corporeal body.

And if she wants to entirely make a copy of her consciousness and upload it into some databank servers over there, she estimated that the consumption of divine power required to do such an endeavor is even more astronomical.

Evé estimated that it would require at least tens of thousands of divine power values!

Evé sighed in her heart before calming her nerves down.

Maybe after she had become more stronger and finally escape her quasi-death dilemma then perhaps she could try again in the future.

Being able to spend tens of thousands of divine power points requires at least an intermediate level of Divinity. But as of right now, she is just a weakling with a meager divine power, not to mention she is on the brink of death too at the moment…

Mundane Divinity, Weak Divinity, Intermediate Divinity, Strong Divinity and finally Great Divinity…

She still has a long way to go!

Moreover, her current priority is something else instead…

Looking at her pitiful status screen, Evé sighed in her mind once again before closing it down.

“First order of business is stabilize my own condition! A God who’s about to die is as good as an easy mob full of golden loots. At least for now, my goal is to position myself well here in the mortal realm! I will stand firmly on my own feet first, then consider other things afterwards!”

At this moment, Evé finally decided on a long-term goal for the future.

That is to make herself strong and gain true freedom!

With that in mind, Evé resolutely left Earth’s internet and came back to the three green spheres of lights back in her Celestial Domain.

After excluding the one belonging to Beserker, she then looked at the remaining two firefly-like orbs.

Suddenly, that ethereal, gentle, and solemn prayer had came again…

This time, Evé finally found the source of the voice, which was the brightest of the two lights!

After hesitating for a moment, she probed her consciousness into it to track its location…

Accompanied by a sudden weightlessness, Evé felt her vision constantly rising as her surroundings began to bend and distort.

Soon, she exited her Celestial Domain, and her consciousness was pulled in a certain direction, flying towards it as if being pulled through a link.

After a moment of dizziness, Evé soon found herself in a towering temple.

The temple was intertwined with vines and its structure is made of ancient wood which was carved with exquisite and complex patterns, giving people a natural and sacred feeling, but alas it appeared very dilapidated, with a sense of ancient and vicissitudes of life.

In the center of the temple was an ancient altar, and the strange magical runes had already been long destroyed by cracks. Above the altar was a broken elf statue missing its head.

Where is this?

Evé was slightly stunned.

When she expanded her consciousness outward, she suddenly felt some sort of connection to this structure.

This temple…

It was actually located on her own body!

To be precise, it was on the lower trunk of the World Tree, but Evé had been observing her surroundings all along and hadn’t noticed it.

Is this considered a blind spot?

Silently complaining to herself, Evé focused her attention on the area in front of the altar.

In front of the altar, stood two elves, a man and a woman.

The male elf was very old, with white hair and beard, leaning on a cane and wearing a gray ceremonial robe. He exuded a sense of dusk and decay, with deep sadness and despair etched deep in his eyes.

Evé’s attention quickly passed over him and focused instead on the female elf in front of her.

She was a beautiful elf girl, about sixteen or seventeen years old in appearance, kneeling on the ground with her hands clasped tightly around a leaf-shaped emblem. She had her head slightly bowed with her eyes closed, and was whispering a prayer.

She had all the stereotypical classic beauty that legends often attributed to elves. Her pointed ears, slender neck, and delicate features looked incredibly holy and pure. Her fair and delicate skin was as white as the first snow, and her golden, silken hair flowed like a waterfall to the ground, adding a touch of maturity to her youthful countenance.

She was dressed in a gorgeous ceremonial gown as well adorned with more intricate greenery etchings in comparison to the older male elf. Golden patterns and vine motifs decorated their gowns with solemnity and sanctity. In addition she made people feel inferior and unworthy to her innate natural grace and nobility.

Evé then tried to bring out the elven girl’s information through her mind.

[Name: Alice Swiftwind]

[Race: Elf]

[Occupation: Priestess of Nature ]

[Level: 23 (High Iron)]

[Patron God: Evé Yggdrasill ]

[Faith Classification : Devout Believer]

[Title: Nature’s Saintess]

…

Everyone likes beautiful things.

Seeing that her only devout believer left was such a pure and beautiful elven girl, Evé’s initial disappointment dissipated in an instant.

As for the other person, he was only a shallow believer.

According to the information, the old male elf in front of the altar was named Samuel Swiftwind, a 30th-level nature priest and druid.

Both of them were mid to high level iron-rank professionals, with the old elf being the highest and only one level away from advancing to the upper level of Iron-rank.

Unless something unexpected happened, these two would be her core advocates.

Evé nodded inwardly in satisfaction.

Her next agenda was to communicate with them and find a way to rekindle their dying faith.

Evé thought for a moment, planning to use a bit of divine power to respond to them with some reluctance, but the elf girl had finally stopped praying.

She opened her emerald eyes, wiped away a teardrop from the corner of her eye, sniffled slightly, and then struggled to stand up whilst propping herself up on the ground.

Turning around, she gave her waiting companion a forced smile, and Alice’s crisp voice was somewhat hoarse and depressed:

“Grandpa Samuel, the final prayer… is over.”

She has been kneeling here for three days and three nights, and all her remaining hopes have eventually turned into despair.

Watching the girl’s despondent expression, the elf elder named Samuel sighed.

He concealed the sorrow in his eyes and tried to comfort her, saying, “Well…this is something we can’t help. No matter how much we persevere or hope, eventually we must accept this harsh reality…”

As he spoke, he then raised his head and looked at the broken statue above the altar. In his cloudy eyes, there were faintly shimmering tears.

“Her divine majesty, our patron goddess…she really has fallen…”

Silence.

It took a moment of realization but finally, a weak broken sobbing sound echoes faintly within the temple’s Grand Hall.

After the Saintess had eventually regained her bearings, the elderly elf sighed deeply before saying:

“Let’s go…”

“After guarding this place for thousands of years, we no longer need to persist here anymore…”

As he finished speaking, the lights representing the two believers in the world tree’s divine space dimmed even more and were about to go out…

Evé: …

Oi, Oi! Listen, Is it really okay to give up your faith like that when your god has finally come before you?!

Didn’t you guys wait for me for a thousand years!?

What am I going to do now that the last two believers of mine have become like this…

Evé felt extremely depressed.

Originally, she had wanted to perform a miracle and raise the elf girl’s favor to fanaticism, then develop the other shallow believer into a devout one.

However, she didn’t expect to be met with such nigh game-over scenario right off the bat.

She rationally judged that if she didn’t act now, then these only two indigenous believers left would soon be saying bye bye to her.

Stay calm, she reminded herself. She had just inherited the mantle of the Nature Goddess and that every beginning is always difficult. If worse comes to worst, there’s still good ol’ Berserker…

After consoling herself, Evé then decided to use her divine power to prove her existence, but suddenly she noticed something and temporarily suppressed her original plan.

She scanned her consciousness at a certain direction in the distance, and breathe a sigh of relief.

Her divine power was still too precious to be used wantonly.

My, My! What a lucky coincidence.

Just as she was about to do something reckless, someone then offered her a far better choice, and now it seems there are even more efficient and cost-effective ways to persuade these two…