The Mech Touch - Chapter 7436: The First and the Second
Chapter 7436: The First and the Second
Chapter 7436
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The Terran leadership stunned everyone.
Though a number of parties had discovered that the Terrans hatched a secret plan, no one expected for them to go so far!
The Terran Alliance unveiled a new race!
Compared to humans, the elves who had just completed their extraordinary metamorphosis appeared superior and more refined in many ways.
The formerly flawed and malformed test pilots had shed their various ailments and transformed into the ideal representations of what people thought of as elves.
This was not a charade. The Terrans would never make a big deal just to make humans appear as otherworldly creatures.
This was real.
Elves were real.
As the mists surrounding the front stage slowly drifted away, many people gained the opportunity to study the newly transformed elves in greater detail.
Ves utilized both his spatial and his spiritual senses to make sense of the new humanoid individuals.
Their special piloting suits partially blocked his observations, but he could still glean enough clues.
The so-called elves truly regarded themselves as such. Their posture, their body language, their mental activity and most importantly their spiritualities had all shifted so far from the human range that they had entered into a different territory.
Even if ‘elves’ were only a single step removed from humans, that did not change the fact that this separation existed!
Ves had been in the company of dwarves enough times to become familiar with the subtle sense of alienation among human-like species.
Though many ordinary people still regarded high-gravity variant humans as part of their own race, in truth they functionally treated each other as groups belonging to different species rather than subspecies.
Ves had the same feeling when confronted by the elves. Even if they still counted themselves as members of the same pan-human civilization, this did not change the fact that they had likely become reproductively isolated!
Even if it was possible for humans to turn into elves through radical augmentation and ritual processes, what mattered was that there was no way for humans to naturally procreate with elves, just as was the case with humans and dwarves!
Unlike what might happen in fantasy stories, half-dwarves did not exist in reality.
Even if they shared plenty of DNA between each other, they still possessed way too many deviations to allow for natural childbirth across species.
In the very few cases where a human and dwarf couple wanted to have children, they usually had to employ the services of geneticists to produce a designer baby.
Of course, that baby usually possessed traits that predominantly leaned towards a single race rather than a mix of both.
This was because carelessly combining human traits and dwarf traits usually resulted in a lot of regrettable outcomes!
Ves believed that the same would apply for these elves. Half-elves could not exist because the differences between the two species had become even more extreme!
At least high-gravity variant humans still had somewhat normal red blood running through their veins.
In the case of these elves, their hearts likely pumped out milky white Woodsap through their empowered and transformed veins!
As shocking as it was to be confronted with the birth of a new race of humanoids, Ves at least had to admit that the Terrans and Gaia did not work together in vain!
The results impressed Ves. Not only had the elves been blessed with beauty and grace, their spiritualities had fundamentally grown stronger and more specialized.
Humans generally tended to possess a mix of affinities.
While they have strong tendencies or special talents depending on their upbringing and experiences, most humans tend to possess broad but relatively shallow compatibility with a wide range of E energy attributes.
Not so for the elves. Their affinity for attributes associated with ‘life’ and ‘nature’ had skyrocketed. Even the worst of the elves gained a high affinity for the wood element, the life element and to a lesser extent the earth element!
Though Ves still managed to observe individual deviations and other variations, he still found it remarkable that every elf possessed a strong predisposition to the same elements associated with Gaia!
When Blinky examined deeper, it became clear why this was the case.
Every elf gained a relatively strong and unbreakable bond with Gaia.
It highly resembled a pact.
Ves’ expression shifted when he realized this. The pact served as a permanent bond.
This had massive implications for every elf.
The most immediate consequence was that every elf placed themselves under Gaia.
This granted them a very easy and straightforward channel to strengthen themselves through contract cultivation.
So long as they gained Gaia’s approval, they should be able to grow very quickly and strengthen their already strong affinities towards wood, life and earth!
At the same time, Gaia gained benefits as well. The more elves produced by the Terrans, the more permanent devotees she gained.
Even if the elves did not invest too much time in worship, the pact ensured that they still had to pay tribute to the True God that helped them assume their exquisite forms!
As the immediate commotion died down, the two hooded figures finally chose to reveal themselves to the audience.
Both figures lifted the hoods from their heads, thereby exposing their beautiful faces as well as the obvious elf ears on the sides of their heads!
Despite their similarities, they also possessed numerous traits that set them apart from each other.
The male elf possessed a broader build and a martial countenance. He also exuded raw power that reminded Ves of his recent experiments with Destroyer particles.
“I am Caracalla Shuku, the Second Elf to appear in the Red Ocean.” The tallest elf spoke with an ethereal voice that echoed with power. “The Shuku Ancient Clan is one of the earliest and strongest proponents to the elf initiative. Together with other like-minded Terran groups and professionals, we have forged a pact with the True God known as Gaia to turn fantasy into life. Though we have encountered a great amount of opposition, we still forged ahead with our chosen course of action because we strongly believe that we can only survive the Age of Dawn by embracing its possibilities to the fullest. We willingly trade away our humanity in order to protect and serve the Terran Alliance.”
“I am Yenya Aduc, the First Elf to be born in the Red Ocean.” The female elf spoke with her pleasant and lyrical voice. “I can sense your apprehensions. Do not be afraid. We are not here to supplant the human race. We exist to complement them. We do not compel every Terran to make the same sacrifice that we have made. Your leaders have decided early on that humans will always retain a place in the Terran Alliance. They have merely chosen to expand its citizenship eligibility to elves. In our ideal vision, both humans and elves shall work together in harmony to expand our shared nation.”
The male elf spoke up from that point. “To that end, I am pleased to announce that my clan shall be the first to undergo a complete elf conversion! Once the last formal member has taken a sip from the Grail of Rebirth, we shall henceforth be known as the Shuku Ancient Elven Clan.”
The Shuku Ancient Elven Clan!
If this truly came to pass, then that would represent a massive shift in human-occupied space!
Though Ves argued whether the Shukus still earned the right to call their clan ‘ancient’, the fact that they openly described it as ‘elven’ meant that they were utterly serious about abandoning human identity!
This was an earth-shaking decision that hardly anyone could imagine just a few years ago!
The human identity held great value in most people’s eyes.
Humans had conquered half of the Milky Way, and only stumbled during the latter days of the Age of Conquest because they set their sights on each other!
It was only after the start of the Age of Dawn that red humanity had begun to doubt many of the assumptions that they took for granted.
Even so, many humans still possessed a lot of faith in their species. They believed that it was inevitable that one human or another would pull off a few miracles and magically gain the upper hand in the ongoing wars against the filthy aliens.
Yet now they learned that the leaders of the Terran Alliance did not possess the same unflinching faith in the human race.
Though Ves believed that not every Terran chief agreed with this radical initiative, it still enjoyed enough support to realize its ambitious goals!
This implicitly meant that a significant portion of Terran leaders had already given up on the presumption of human supremacy.
The onset of elves meant that the Terran Alliance would henceforth become a star nation where humans and elves reigned together!
Ves could already foresee a huge amount of problems resulting from this sharing arrangement.
Plenty of ordinary Terrans would oppose the rise of elves, especially if the latter tried to wrench away power from other humans.
At the same time, the elves with their superior contract cultivation and qi cultivation conditions would definitely be able to gain a great amount of competence in multiple fields.
This could easily cause them to develop a superiority complex, thereby making a lot of enemies among humans!
Of course, the Terrans should be smart enough to anticipate all of these problems. If they worked thoroughly enough, they should be able to keep the tension between the two races to a minimum.
Even if the Terran Alliance started to fracture due to racial conflict, it was not Ves’ responsibility to solve this problem.
What he cared the most was how well the elves could pilot his Woodsap mechs and whether he would get blamed for creating a new race.
Fortunately, the two unnaturally tall elves put enough emphasis in their claims that they acted unilaterally. Ves should not bear the blame for providing the conditions that made the elf initiative possible.
Of course, he did not believe that everyone would be rational enough to accept this explanation.
No matter what, the very clear ties between elves and Woodsap mechs meant that Ves would always get blamed for enabling the rise of a potential rival to the human race!
“Ugh…”
“Any Terran citizen is eligible to become an elf.” The female cupbearer explained. “Yet not every human possesses the heart to undergo this crucial transformation. To become an elf is to accept a life of servitude. We are naturally gifted in various arts, which also includes piloting Woodsap mechs. As the cost of assuming elthood is not small, the Terran Alliance reserves the right to allocate you to where you can best exploit your talents.”
The male elf grinned in an aggressive manner. “So long as our alien adversaries continue to threaten the human lives that reside on our border planets, we must never falter. Service is mandatory for all elves. We are not weaklings that can only frolic through gardens or hop across trees. We are soldiers who are ready to dispense justice on behalf of the Mother of Earth.”
This should definitely deter many Terrans from chasing after this transformation.
Those who only sought it out for shallow reasons would definitely turn their tails and run as fast as they could.
Not every individual possessed the stomach to step onto the battlefield and stare death in the face!
Therefore, as long as the Terrans maintained the current stance, the amount of people who would actually undergo the process should not be too great.
The Shuku Ancient Elven Clan must clearly be the exception to the rule.
Its leaders had made a huge gamble. From what Ves could recall, the Shukus had not invested as much resources into their Red Ocean colonies as many other ancient clans.
This caused the Shukus to be caught with their pants down after the Great Severing.
Given that they were unable to do well in many industries, they decided to turn themselves into elves just to obtain a first-mover advantage!
The thing was that if the Shukus successfully pulled it off, the Shuku Ancient Elven Clan would definitely be able to assume a leadership position among the other Terran clans!
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