Elves: majestic and beautiful creatures who live in tune with nature’s many mysterious energies. They’re one of the most plentiful and most diverse races that exist in Tharrelan, also known as the Dimension of Elves. You might be asking, “What’ve elves got to do with Marcel?” Well, you’ll know in a little while as Marcel is about to be kidnapped by them. 

It’s currently night up in the floating islands and Marcel is happily sleeping on one of Alverona’s lavishly decorated rooms. He’s sleeping so peacefully that he cursed whoever it was that woke up, not literally of course.  

Marcel was sleeping happily, twisting and turning in his sleep like many do as they’re asleep when he suddenly felt his body unable to turn as he wanted. His response to this phenomenon was sudden as he never felt paralyzed in his sleep, thus there must be danger in his room. Sure, he would like to continue sleeping and ignore the paralysis but the vine on his left arm was tingling, telling him that he might be in danger. That thing only acted up when he was in danger, so he wasn’t going to ignore it now. He opened his eyes to a sight that was mildly infuriating. 

He... was being kidnapped in his sleep by elves? Yes, it seems that he is indeed getting kidnapped by elves, the night assassin kind, Moonshadow Elves. 

Realizing what was about to happen to him, he tried to struggle to no avail, then he remembered that he had a weapon to freeze these tyrants who have committed the grave crime of disturbing someone’s sleep, Sigurd. He tried to call Sigurd, the solution to his problems most of the time, but then he heard something that infuriated him from his now sassy Informer with the Demon Lord’s voice that he sometimes, couldn’t help but blush too. 

<< Notice: As a result of members of the elven race successfully kidnapping master without ill intentions, all your magic-related abilities, as well as your immense physical capabilities, have been sealed. Countdown to unlocking begins in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1. >> 

<< Seal complete! Seal with automatically vanish after 24 hours. Please hold on! >> 

Demon Lord informer said and shut up like it always did when it gave him a surprise. 

“What was this all about,” he wondered panicking, but he didn’t get an answer as the next thing he noticed was his mouth being covered and falling into a deep sleep. He was thus, truly successfully kidnapped and while he was unconscious, his kidnappers brought him to their home dimension, Tharrelan, the world of elves. 

He woke up to the sights of the Moonshadow elves the next time he opened his eyes again. 

Ah, the Moonshadow elves; a species of elves with grayish-black skin with thick silver-gray hair of varying lengths. They shared all the same characteristics as other elves except for their skin tone, the pale color of their eyes ranging from silver to light gray and purple, and their unique black markings around their eyes and arms. This better enhanced their stealthy aura, making them the perfect race to conduct espionage, stealth, and assassination duties. They were the dark warriors of the elven race. 

“Why the hell was I kidnapped?” “What’s happening?” “Why did Alverona not save me?” “Am I in danger?” “Will I die?” are some of the thoughts that ran through his head right after he remembered his Informer’s message to him right before he fell unconscious. Just to confirm that it was indeed the case, he tried to call Sigurd out of his informer and learned that his connection to his one-of-a-kind sword had somehow become unstable and thus, he couldn’t call it to him.  

“Ahhh!!! This is why I preferred using my own spatial magic instead of that damned inventor!” He gnashed his teeth in anger as he sat upon the unfamiliar bed. As if he hadn’t heard his informer’s notice, he tried using spatial magic to grab a spare sword before he finally remembered that all his abilities, including and except his physical strength which had been significantly limited, were currently sealed. He sighed out of exasperation and calmed down again after clearing his mind while trying to figure out his next move now that he was stuck in an unfamiliar place as a kidnapped victim. 

As Marcel continued to fully contemplate what his current situation entailed and his next move, an elven man came in and he... was beautiful. 

Sunfire elves are types of elves with distinct bright golden hair with tanned dark skin. Their hairs, like strings of golden woven together, carrying the sun’s rays in each strand. Sure, all elves were beautiful, but these sun-tanned beauties were a league of their own. Once again, why must all the races of the demon realm be so beautiful? Sure, Marcel gets to pay tribute to the ultimate beautiful man every day and, if he should manage to leave this place unscathed; the goddess-like beauty Alverona too but if everyone else also looks good too, then he feels like his standards of what should be called beautiful will slowly change forever. He doesn’t want that! 

“Oh, you’re awake! Good! No time to waste...” The golden-haired elven man who just came in said to Marcel. He nodded to Marcel’s kidnappers afterward and before he knew it, he had been brought to a mountain, somehow. They probably put him to sleep again to move him. Maybe they're trying to really keep him from escaping. Ah, how much Marcel misses his powers already. 

After Marcel awoke, he saw what he can only describe as one of the most beautiful sceneries that he’d ever seen in his light. Above the mountain was a bright golden light that illuminated its peak, filling the place with rich energy. Its light traveled far and wide to create a sort of domain of its own. At least, Marcel’s Spirit Eyes didn’t seem to be gone from the system sealing away his powers as he clearly saw spirits encompassing the mountain; mainly fire and earth spirits that danced gracefully, following the light’s path down. The spirits seemed curious as always and the moment he locked eyes with some of them, they flocked to him, especially the fire spirits, raising his body’s temperature, albeit only slightly and the elves seemed to have already noticed it.  

One of the Moonshadow elf kidnappers nodded to the others and suddenly, he raised Marcel in a princess carry and they quickly headed for the mountain, showing no signs of stopping before the thick piece of rock that stood in front of them. Just a while ago, when they just arrived, the mountain was about a kilometer away but after one of his kidnappers picked him up and started moving, it didn’t even take two minutes before they reached two-third of their destination. He and the others were heading straight for the mountain which seemed to have no opening; well, until suddenly, about five meters away from it, a hole abruptly opened at the bottom and an elf; the Sunfire kind, stood in front of it. 

The elf standing in front of the cave looked like the elven man who ordered the Moonshadow elves to take Marcel away; beautiful as well and the assassins nodded to him and passed right by him, entering the mountain. They entered the mountain and headed deeper inside, finally coming to a hollow hall inside it with the motif of a temple inside. This was the innermost center of the mountain and above them, illuminating the cave, was a giant sun-like orb high above them, floating at the peak of the hollow mountain. It illuminated the entire cave as well as the outside with its warm golden rays. It heated the entire cave with its light but strangely, none of those present seemed to be bothered by it, including the Moonshadow elves who brought him there.  

When Marcel was brought inside the center of the mountain or what the elves refer to as the ‘Temple of the Sun’, he noticed three people inside the entire cave. Dressed in bright orange clothes with sun and fire motifs over them, they stood right before a stone altar place directly under the orb above which caught the orb’s rays and illuminated an orange hue. These three were all beautiful men with enchanting looks that gave them a holy-like presence as they quietly stood before the stone altar with their stoic expressions. They maintained their silence even after Marcel was brought into the cave and continued to do so until something happened a short while after. 

A few minutes of silence passed since Marcel was brought inside the cave and finally something happened again. A fire ring suddenly appeared out of nowhere, right before the stone altar. As Marcel wondered what was happening, a familiar face suddenly popped out from the ring of fire. The Sunfire elven man from earlier who ordered the Moonshadow elves to bring him to his current location appeared from the fire ring.  

He appeared inside the cave from the ring of fire, wearing the same clothes as the three who stood to watch over the temple in silence and carrying a staff with a small stone just as bright as the orb above embedded in it. 

The staff he was holding is unique. Its origin had to do with the roots of the tree which sits at the center of the demon realms, Yggdrasil. The staff was made from the roots of Yggdrasil with the roots on it personally carved by the Demon Lord as a gift to the Sunfire’s originator who led to the creation of their race. The orb above is the source of the Sunfire elves’ unique nature and their primal connection to the earth: The Sunstone. From its energy absorbed by the originator of elves, came the ancestor of the Sunfire elves who gave birth to the current Sunfire elven species; elves granted direct control over fire nature by the stone who couldn’t quite become a sun. It’s because of this stone’s existence that more powerful new generations of Sunfire elves are born; one of which Marcel will soon meet. 

Ok, back to the man! After he arrived, he had a conversation with the three elven men. He spoke words and guess what; Marcel could not understand, courtesy of his current lack of any abilities thanks to the system who’d locked them away, meaning that his Informer, which would have normally translated the unknown languages he heard into comprehensible words, like draconic language and elvish, was also currently unavailable. It looks like the Sunfire elven man can also speak the same language he speaks because he understood the words the man spoke earlier back in the room that he woke up in but what language it is; he doesn’t know. 

After the man ended his conversation with the three men, he turned to the Moonshadow elves who nodded, and quickly after, Marcel found himself strapped to the altar where he had no choice but to be in the sunstone’s direct line of fire. His body felt uncomfortably hot after he was strapped to the altar and it was just about to get worse.  

The man began speaking again and as he did, the sunstone seemed to get brighter and closer to the ground. Soon, the immensely sized sunstone was in the mountain, only three to four meters away from Marcel’s body. It was ginormous but it somehow managed to fit perfectly above him like the mountain was much bigger than he’d imagined, probably because of spatial magic. After the sunstone stopped getting any closer after those three-four meters above him, the man uttered a few more words and suddenly, a beam of bright light hit Marcel. It was very low in intensity and Marcel felt nothing from that strike. Strange but, after he was hit by the beam, he could suddenly understand the man’s words. 

The man’s words were bizarre but basically, he was calling down the sunstone to manifest the power of old which it granted their race to come bond with Marcel’s body. After his words which seemed more like a spell to call forth the sunstone’s power, the giant orb flared up, turning a bright, intense golden hue and the sunstone shot a pure beam of energy towards him, injecting his body full of rich sun power, so hot that it hurt. He felt so much pain, like his entire body was being singed to ashes but the pain was still strangely bearable. He could hold on as the blazing hot beam of light invaded his body, probably because of his natural affinity to fire and his blood as a hero which made everything somehow go his way.  

After a short while, his immense luck stepped in and something magnificent happened. He stopped feeling intense pain, although the sunstone continued to inject him full of its rich power. His body erratically began absorbing all the energy that the sunstone directed at him at an incredible pace that the man who’d called upon the sunstone’s power as well as the Moonshadow elves who brought Marcel in, were astonished at how much power his body was freely absorbing. If it was them, that much would be enough to incapacitate them for years, even if they were as powerful as the man who called upon the sunstone’s power and the three men.   

Marcel slowly began to feel comfortable after a while of being bathed in a steady stream of sunstone’s power and the longer he stayed inside, the less painful it became. Eventually, he felt no pain and when the elven man saw no abnormal or irregular reactions of pain from Marcel, the sunstone stopped emitting any more power and slowly flew back to its original position at the very top of the cave. 

After the sunstone had returned to its location at the top of the cave, the Sunfire elf man, came to him and asked, 

“Are you okay? Do you feel any pain? Did you sustain any injuries?” The man asked worriedly. He’d been very surprised by the amount of energy he’d just subjected Marcel to absorb at the hands of the sunstone that he was panicking about what to do if Marcel was injured and ‘that person’ found out about it. He doesn’t want to deal with ‘that person’s mountain-moving anger, so he must make sure that no harm comes to Marcel, be it physically or mentally, although he currently isn’t very sure about the mental part though because he sort of, kind of, tortured the little hero into absorbing an entire lake’s worth of pure natural energy and then some.  

“No, I’m fine!” Marcel answered timidly. The man, as well as the few other people in the cave, were shocked when Marcel gave his answer because they were sure that their plan had worked, kind of. They were very relieved when they heard him say that he was fine. The three men released him from the altar after he answered. 

The man, to confirm if Marcel was speaking the truth or not, suddenly threw a blaze of fire Marcel’s way and who would have guessed the outcome. His clothes, which had somehow not been singed during his time under the sunstone, were singed into ashes, leaving him completed naked but strangely enough, his body is perfectly fine with only traces of light marks visible. The fire that the man threw Marcel’s way was enough to singe a B-rank weapon to ashes, but it didn’t even hurt him and so, he didn’t feel the need to freak out like he would have if it happened any time before just a few moments ago. 

“Oh, very good! You’ve built up resistance for fire natures. Very good! May I check something very quickly?” The man asked the naked Marcel without even flinching. Marcel also pretended that he doesn’t mind at all to decrease the amount of embarrassment he felt from been left naked at the hands of this man who didn’t seem to mind or care. The resistance was very good news, but he didn’t feel like thanking the man at all for basically torturing his body into gaining high fire resistance. He needed an explanation and stat. 

“Please... explain yourself?! This was an awfully rude way to treat someone!” Marcel was angry about how horribly he’d been treated. What in the world had he done to deserve such painful treatment? Um, then again... he was kidnapped, so eh, this kind of treatment should have been expected to some extent, ugh! 

“Sorry! I got carried away because of my feelings after meeting you! I’m sorry for the way we brought you here and treated you, but we needed to. It couldn’t be helped!” The man looked so apologetic and spoke in a gentle voice. 

“Huh? You needed to?!” Marcel’s anger flared at the man’s gentle words. This man was definitely not getting away with torturing him and only getting away with ‘...we needed to’. How much he wished he had Sigurd with him so that he could slash at this man in front of him. 

“Please, you must understand! It turned out like this because the heroes tend to hurt their kidnappers even if they don’t mean them any harm. If they don’t truly mean any harm to the heroes, the system allows their kidnapping and seals off their abilities to aid them, albeit only for 24 hours,” explained the Sunfire elven king. Is it just Marcel or is he sweating as he speaks? 

“Still, kidnapping someone in their sleep is quite despicable!” retorted the angry Marcel. He’d not only not had an undisturbed rest but was also brought to an unfamiliar place where he was maltreated. If he was a normal person, what he considered maltreatment would have been life-threatening danger as it was heavily known that except for heroes, no other race should be subjected to natures that weren’t primarily of the same nature as theirs. Even some heroes can’t handle implanted natures like Marcel had gone through at the hands of both Alverona and now this elven king. Oh, speaking of Alverona, she’s about to ruin someone’s day again.  

“Yes, but that’s about the only time when you could be taken. We normally wouldn’t use this privilege granted by the System Administrator but when we heard that the despicable ‘dragon hag’ got her hand on you, we had to act before it’s too late.” The Sunfire Elf king said with boiling fury in his eyes as he emphasized the ‘dragon hag’ part of his words.  

“Huh?! What are you talking about?” Marcel asked, not knowing what he was talking about. 

“I’ll explain in a moment. First, let me check your body.” The Sunfire elf king said. Afterward, he basically molested Marcel like a certain someone; still naked after his clothes got singed to ashes. 

He humbly looked at the man who finally noticed his nudity and conjured up Sunfire elven clothes for him. 

“Can I peer into your Informer for a moment? I need to check something.” The man asked. Marcel wanted to tell him that it was currently sealed but seeing as his status was currently emitted by a light spell created by that man, he said nothing. If you’re going to barge in anyway, then why bother asking? 

The man opened his resistance list and Marcel was surprised too as he found that his fire resistance had increased from ‘Low’, skipped the ‘Middle’, and become a ‘High’ due to something called ‘Fire Nature’. There also existed another resistance which remained unreadable, dubbed “e#R5!v?” and the man seemed to be very interested in it.  

On this other resistance were multiple seals that he couldn’t dissolve, even though he had Administrator privileges, which very few possess. The moment he dreaded the most was about to hit him hard. There was only person who could create a lock he couldn’t crack that isn’t the Spirit of the World or the children of the originators, also known as Guardians or Rulers sometimes. Amongst the Guardians/Rulers, there are only three people capable of creating such a complicated lock that even he could break. They are The Librarian, that ‘Old Hag', and the Dwarven Master Inventor. The energy on the lock feels so like one he knew and very much hated. He just hoped that it wasn’t from that person. 

“Okay! Let me check your body! Please don’t let it be that!” The man panicked, then he touched Marcel’s stomach and it was exactly as he dreaded. It was indeed that person. 

“No! This can’t be! That damn old hag!!!” The king said, furious. Alverona had done exactly what he didn’t want to happen to Marcel.  

“What happened?” Marcel asked, surprised about why the man was so angry. He wanted to know what filled him with such resentment towards this ‘old hag’ person. 

The man explained, “That damn hag didn’t just bestow upon you Dragon Link. She bestowed upon you a Dragon Crest or as others call it, the Dragon Root. That thing is currently inside your body and as you grow, it will keep absorbing your magic power and then, when you die, the tyrannic root inside your body will trigger a transformation inside you, turning you into one of the dragons. Damn it!” The man answered Marcel, all while still enraged with Alverona or old hag, as he called her. That woman continues to torment him to this day. When he tried, he could literally sense Alverona’s presence over Marcel and imagined her proud and satisfied expression as she looked at him be angry, which pissed him off even more. 

To be sure of this, he asked Marcel,  

“Did Alverona bestow upon you the thing she calls Dragon Link, and can you use it?” The man asked, calm on the surface. Although he already knew the answer, he still thought that it wouldn’t hurt to be told he was being deluded but Marcel’s pure nature which caused him to be straightforward at the worst of times made him lose all hope for a second, 

“Yes, she put me in her dragon throne and bestowed upon me a dragon crest. It didn’t hurt at all and after she did, she thought me how to use Dragon Link and I learned a lot.” He answered. 

“No! Your body didn’t reject that hag’s energy?! Then does that mean that you successfully absorbed both dragon and elven energies respectively?” The man looked so broken as he asked Marcel who knew nothing about what the man spoke of. Marcel looked cluelessly at the man who sensed his ignorance and got enlightened. 

“So, you don’t know about the heroes’ energy assimilation nor about why Alverona gave you the Dragon Root?” The man asked once more, just to be sure. 

“No!” Marcel answered and the man explained, 

"Then I’ll explain. Basically, Alverona wants you to become a dragon hero, so she planted a seed inside you that will grow after you die. I thought that I’d be the first since your body accepted our energy but since you said that you felt no pain at all when she planted her dragon seed inside, it means that the ‘hag’ has won.” The man looked very riled up. He must really hate Alverona to the core. 

“Please, calm down and explain!” Marcel calmed the man to explain everything in clear detail so that he’d understand what Alverona had done to him. 

After the elven man calmed down, he explained that there are ways to influence the race the hero transforms into, albeit very few, and it seems like Alverona has already had her go at it with Marcel. According to how Marcel described it to him, Alverona had not just gifted him with the Dragon Link but also given him the Dragon Crest, which also functions as a psychic connection between Alverona and Marcel where she constantly pumps her magic power and dragon essence that will eventually turn Marcel into a dragon as well as nourishes the dragon root which will form from that dragon crest. Alverona had simply established an even stronger connection between the nature of dragons and Marcel than he had by bestowing Marcel with the fire nature of the elves, meaning that eventually, his elves’ nature would disappear, and she will win the battle to claim yet another hero. 

Now that he knew and what Alverona had done, he wasn’t very happy. He had to act now or the effects of Alverona’s meddling will far triumph his own meddling. This time, he’ll make sure he gets the last laugh. He doesn’t care what he must do as long as the elven race wins the battle against Alverona. 

To mitigate Alverona’s ‘devious’ plan, he called upon all the elven kings to aid him in his noble quest to foil Alverona’s plan. Heh, good thing they all hate that old dragon crone just as much as he does, or else things would have turned out very differently. Marcel had many questions to ask, like what this ‘fire nature’ was or what was to happen to him, but he didn’t get the chance to as he was directly taken somewhere else; this time, by the king himself via his fire portal.