A tall elf made his way through a crowd, his physique defied all typical expectations for his kind. His towering height and muscular build made him stand out from the other elves around. His broad shoulders and chiseled arms were no doubt the result of intensive training.

Despite his imposing size, thanks to his elven heritage he was moving with grace, weaving his way through the packed main plaza of Herzal, the Elven capital. His sharp and angular features were softened by a charming smile he nonchalantly flashed in a friendly manner as the people recognized him. He seemed to radiate an almost tangible warmth that made everyone around him happy and comfortable.

“Oracle! Have this apra, it’s on the house!” a merchant in a stall called out to him, she was holding up a round red fruit.

The elf turned and smiled at the merchant, giving her his best signature smile. He raised his hand and the fruit flew directly to it. The merchant blushed at the sight of the man biting into her juicy fruit, she returned to her business as he walked away, splitting the crowd. She found a few triangular gold coins on her counter that weren’t there a second prior and couldn’t help but giggle.

The tall elf munched on the fruit on his way to his destination, he looked like this was the best day of his life, although the onlookers would know he always looked this way. A few bites later, the whole fruit had disappeared. He licked his lips, and adjusted his wavy golden blonde hair as he walked up a set of stairs. A gust of wind made his open, sky-blue shirt flutter, flashing to whoever was willing to look at it a strong torso, sculpted like a piece of art to be an ode to the word ‘muscle’ itself.

More people were calling out to him but he could only give everyone so much attention, waving to them with a friendly smile as he walked by. He only stopped again once to ruffle the hair of a kid who had been staring at him dumbfounded in the arms of his mother.

His sandals slapped against the stone steps as he made his way up the high stairs. Herzal was a city built over an oasis in the desert, it was a sacred place of the elves, older than the system itself. It had been built vertically to allow for a better repartition of the water. The elves held an autonomous water-producing relic that created magically enhanced water all year round. It was proudly exposed to all, and well guarded, at the highest point of the city. Its clear and fresh water streamed down the grooves before making its way to the oasis’s lake under the foundations of the capital.

The higher the man climbed, the fewer and fewer elves occupied the streets that were lush with the vibrant green vegetation growing around the streams.

Beside his open shirt, shorts and sandals, the man wasn’t wearing much else than a large gold necklace. The pendant on this necklace had the same shape that could be found everywhere in the elven city. It was a small triangle, sitting point up on the base of a larger, upside-down triangle, and the ‘reflection’ of the small triangle was cut out from inside the large one.

He could have flown directly to his destination but he enjoyed the pleasure of a simple walk among the streets. It helped him feel grounded in reality, a feeling that he sorely needed after his last god-given jobs. But his enjoyment was short-lived as he was on his way to deliver yet another message from his capricious Goddess. And the recipient this time was none other than the carefree new saintess he had the ever difficult task of training and managing. He had dealt with a lot of different people throughout his life, but this one was a real head-scratcher even for him. She made him miss the previous old and decrepit saintess, who had at least had a lovely heart. Alas, the blonde hobgoblin having failed at her first trial, her lifespan had been very limited.

He sighed, for he could already see the saintess from afar, on the highest level of the city.

This girl was someone he knew very well, as she was a fellow elf, and he knew them all. Or so he liked to think. The problem, beyond her generally lazy and carefree attitude, was her obsession with swords. The storage item he provided her with had been filled to the brim with them, and she was currently sleeping on the crossguard of her newest creation.

A so-called ‘Elven and Dwarven collaborative masterpiece’, a fifty centimeters wide, seven meters long, self-healing, meteoric steel ‘sword’ forged in the heat of a volcano.

He walked up to the base of the sword planted vertically in the city ground and looked up at the girl sleeping on it a few meters above, squinting as the sun got in his eyes.

[Saint - Lv. 199]

“Morning Star, get down right now, you have work to do,” he called out, unable to repress his smirk.

The woman in question grumbled from atop her giant blade and a shower of flaming swords rained down from the sky over the Oracle’s head. He crossed his arms and waited, shaking his head disapprovingly as the swords were all deflected from their path, landing in a perfect circle around him.

“Are you not done damaging the city floor? Is it too hard to sleep on a bed? This is the fourth time this week, Morni-”

“Stop using my full name already!” the woman complained from atop her sword, now hanging upside down, latched onto the guard with her bent legs. At first glance she had relatively short blonde hair that refused to follow gravity and hang down, but she also had one single long braid. This braid was made of hair that she had never cut, not even once in her twenty-two years of life. It was more than three meters long already and moved like a snake under the control of the Saintess’ telekinetic powers.

The man gave her his best smile, “Of course, Mornn, so come down now and listen to your assignment.”

It was the woman’s turn to sigh, she dropped down from her sword with an elegant summersault and with a thought, unloaded her many swords from the ground, gathered them into a bundle and stored them into her own triangular symbol necklace. “What is it this time?” she asked, staring at the man in the eyes as they were the same height.

“Are you not going to clean up your mess?” he answered pointing at the burned holes in the polished stone floor.

“When will you stop nagging? You’re not even wearing your uniform!” she complained. And she had a point. She had no objections to using it herself, but the man dreaded wearing his ‘work clothes’. His Goddess would never cease to pester him about them, She had designed them Herself. But he had always disliked the feeling of wearing the skin-tight gray and gold suit, even if he still wore it in battle for its magical properties. The only part of it he liked to use were the wooden sandals he was wearing right now.

“Anyway. Sun has spoken! You will depart right now for the beastman continent!” he declared with exaggerated panache and an assumed mocking grin.

“What?! I just came back from the isles!”

“Hey if you have complaints, go discuss it with Her. Your assignment this time is to wait for another Saintess and to compete with her on the trial.”

“Wha- Really? I don’t even know what the second trial is!”

“If you do worse than her you’ll be assigned to the frontlines for the next year. Have fun,” done with his task, he waved and started walking away.

“Wait, wait! I don’t even know what the other Saintess looks like!”

“You’ll know when you see her!”