“Six hundred thousand years ago, our ancestors hid themselves among the canopies. They were these small beings. Short face, long arms, weak legs, developed nails, leaf-like skin colour... just to name a few prominent features.

Our ancestor diet were primarily leaves and, occasionally, flower nectar.

Depending on the geographic location, our ancestor’s predators consist of birds of prey, snakes, big cats, crocodiles, and dragons.

The survival strategy at that time was mostly running and hiding among the leaves. This characteristics were the basis for the name leaf elf.

Fruit trees later dominated many forests around two hundred thousand years ago. This new nutritious source of food allowed a growth in population and body size.

The leaf elves begun to use these advantages to fend off predators and expanded their territory.

Elves these times can be divided into three categories. The leaf elves that remained on the tree.

The forest elves that descended onto the ground, but still lived close to the trees.

Last was forest elves that ventured into the plains, and, therefore, is called plain elves.

The next page has an artist impression of the three races.

Their anatomic disparities tie to their lifestyle. Forest elves have stronger legs, but weaker arm muscle since they now travelled more on the ground. Plain elves are those with the most developed legs. They stood the straightest on two legs. This adaptation allows them to look out for predators on the plain. Plain elves skin colour was also an adaptation to the life on short vegetation.

The elven kinds today were all descendants of at least one of these elves. Dark elves that lived inside dark places like caves, inside mountain, and underground evolved from Plain elves and Forest elves. We, Wood elves, came mostly from Forest elves with a mix of Plain elves. Fae elves used to be Forest elves or Leaf elves.

That concludes the Primitive Age.

Now let’s close the book and recall the lesson.

Can you summarise what we just cover, Gowen?”

“The Primitive Age began 600 000 years ago. We, elves, came from a common ancestor, the leaf elves. They lived off leaves and flower nectar, while hiding from predators in canopies. Fruit trees grew in large quantity around 200 000 years ago. The new addition of fruits to Leaf elves’ diet increased their population and body size. Leaf elves began to leave the trees and became Forest elves. They feature stronger legs but weaker arms. The Forest elves that migrated to flatland evolved into Plain elves. Their legs were further developed to accommodate the life on the plain. Modern elves are descendants of these groups. Dark elves came from Plain elves and Forest elves. Wood elves from Forest elves and a small number of Plain elves. Fae elves from Forest elves or Leaf elves.”

Once again, Clarinet was amazed by the boys. It is exceedingly rare to have a kid that can write and read properly at 5 years old. Now they even demonstrated their excellent learning capability and language usage. These students she had may very well be prodigies.

“Very good. Let’s move to the next section.

Approximately 120 000 years ago, the Primitive Age came to an end. Spirit animals had become a dominant force with a lot of extremely ancient and powerful individuals.

We are unsure when or how it started, but a change had taken place. Elves began to submit to these spirit animals.

Those ones are predators of the elves: the eagle, hawk, condor, cobra, viper, jaguar, caiman, old dragon (dinosaur) and many more.

Each pack of elves, sometimes it was many packs, worshipped the dominant spirit animal of that area as their God. In just a few hundred years, the practice spread throughout all elven settlements on the continent. Thus, dawned was the Age of Gods.

Sometimes, it was not a predator of our elven kinds that was the God.

It could be a beneficial god like the Sparrow god Jack who blessed the tribe of Wise Vale with good weather. Although rare, spirit trees exist. One of such trees was the Chestnut tree Ensha.

Other times, it was the strongest spirit animal of the area. The elves of Rem and the elves of Mei were preyed upon by the spirit eagle Tao. Tao was demonised into a malevolent entity by folklore. Meanwhile, the Bison god Ja’vap who chased Tao away was considered the Master of Rem and Mei.

Territory that has two co-existing predators would have two Gods. For example, the Forest elves of Ya’nark revered the Condor god Al’bachev as the god of Daylight, and the Viper god Mel as the god of Night-time. With the condor ruling the day and the viper hunting at night, appealing to these two was necessary. Since none of them intruded each other, their coexistence was long-lasting.

Of course, there were also spirit animals that would invade other territories. The ancient kingdom of Tezmahuichi was originally a small tribe worshipping the Jaguar god Tezma’gunth. With the Jaguar god led the invasion, many tribes were absorbed into the Jaguar god’s service. Their local gods were either killed, exiled, or assimilated into the Pantheon of the Jaguar god as minor deities. These religious and territory wars were a prominent feature of this Age.

Sometimes, many tribes would unite and integrate the gods into one pantheon. Elves of the Large Tribe and elves of the J’dun tribe and the Holhem tribe created the Very Large Tribe in fear of the ever-growing Tezmahuichi. Their Gods, the Bear goddess Malleen, the Caiman god Gupta Tav’vore, and Ensha, became major gods of the new tribe.

Each tribe has a different way of serving their Gods, but there was one common. Under the dominion of the Gods, our ancestors’ bloodline was cultivated. The Gods actively selected traits that they deemed favourable. Elves with these traits were called Chosen, The Marked, or God’s servant… just to name a few. They would be empowered by the Gods to reduce their chance of dying during their daily activities, while becoming more fertile to create the next generation of Favoured.

Each God has their preference, but you can see common traits that all the Gods favoured just by looking around. Extremely low dimorphism between the two sexes. Little to no body hair. Straight throat. Tall, slim body.

Surviving texts indicated our ancestors were used as servants, ornaments, and demonstration of wealth. One of the more elaborative exploits was as arena fighters.

Instead of plunging into full-blown war, the Gods invented Arena where they would pitch their best subjects against each other.

This kind of ancient sport evolved rapidly with added rules and stricter regulations occurred in a short period of time.

Empowerment by the Gods themselves was limited and then forbidden in later periods. Thus, to boost their chance, the Gods taught us magic.

With magic being a staple in combat, huge investment in acquiring and developing magic were conducted during the Age of Gods under the Gods’ directive. By the next Age, elven settlement has already obtained significant power allowing them to fight off spirit animals.

With the Gods overseeing our civilisation, we made rapid expansion throughout the continent. Villages became towns. Towns became cities. Cities made empires.

At last, nothing was eternal.

The Age of Gods ended abruptly and almost instantaneously after spanning 96000 years. Records simply stopped at that time. The great historian Alloshanha, author of the “All History”, 12000 years ago concluded the Age of Gods with only an ominous sentence.

“They left us.”

This mystery remained unsolved even till today. Whatever it is, the Gods disappeared from our world and haven’t been seen since.

In the following Age, the New Age, effects from the vanish of the Gods took its toll.

The Gods which were masters of their territory left behind a huge vacuum of power. The weaker spirit animals struggled to become the new masters. Meanwhile, the larger states underwent political unrest. It took 130 years for the new power hierarchy to form and stabilise. This small window of time is known as the Century of Decline, when empires and kingdoms disintegrated.

Right after the Century of Decline, a new threat emerged. Dragons of unknown origin began to appear in swarm. These Dragons during the New Age have no prior record. They were unlike anything the world had known. They can fly with wings and breathe fire. Some can even use magic.

The war between the new masters and these unknown invaders extended close to a millennium. Their battle reshaped the geography and destroyed many divided elven cities.

Large groups of refugees sought shelters within the Earth and became Dark elves. Others formed a relationship with the Fairy and became the Fae elves. We, Wood elves, were those lucky enough to still be alive on the surface.

The beginning of the New Age was marked with catastrophic destruction. For this reason, the Century of Decline and the Millennium War was called the Dire Period.

Let’s take a small break. After the revision, we will begin magic lesson and practice.”