I Became a 10,000-year-old Elf

“—!”

“Yes, I feel it. I can hear your voices!”

I had no idea that the experience of becoming a new being and opening my eyes to a new world could be this magnificent.

I was elated, intoxicated by it. Controlling the earth to defeat the slime was merely a trivial matter compared to this great discovery.

‘Is the earth spirit the limit for now?’

However, for now, the only thing I could directly borrow power from and use was the earth. But there was no need to worry.

The more I become accustomed to this power, the stronger and greater the bond between me and the spirits in nature becomes. It won’t take long before I can communicate with all the spirits I’m aware of.

If that happens, my goal of saving my own life and the world will no longer be a far-fetched idea.

‘Hmm, it doesn’t seem like it’ll happen in just a day or two.’

After that, I tried to gain as much as possible from this tutorial. If I could just fully master using the earth’s power through the spirits, it would be enough strength to climb the Tower.

But time was the issue. I couldn’t naturally handle and develop this newly acquired power just by practicing for a day or two.

I had to get out of the tutorial quickly, if only to avoid starving to death like others.

“Ah, good…”

Becoming a special elf was helpful at times like this. By burying my feet in the ground and basking in the warm sunlight while stretching out, I could gain energy as if I had become a tree. At times like this, it felt like floating in warm water.

Of course, my digestive system was still intact, but I was able to endure in the tutorial this way.

The tutorial is a special space that is relatively safe and stable compared to the real Tower, and at the same time provides infinite experience-yielding enemies. While most people would be unable to do so due to lack of skill, if one could endure here as long as possible and build up their skills before climbing the Tower, they could climb with better results and gain more rewards as a result.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That was a rule of the world that applied even in this Tower.

‘It probably won’t take too long.’

Although it was always daytime here as if time didn’t pass, I roughly estimated the date by my body’s rhythm.

As I repeated my training, my communion with the spirits and my power grew rapidly, becoming so strong that the enemies in the tutorial no longer dared to approach me.

100 days, that was exactly the time I had expected. I judged that it would be enough to end the tutorial and move on to the next floor.

“There are so many.”

Slimes crowded in densely. They swarmed in as if unable to withstand my provocation and wanting to settle the score. I had gathered this many by deliberately provoking them.

It was to confirm the results of my power that I had trained during this time.

“Split.”

Raising my finger with a flick, I moved the power of the earth. The earth spirit, which had grown with me, moved the ground according to my intention.

The ground I pointed at with my finger began to shake as if an earthquake had occurred and started to split with a crack.

A deep fault that could bury even a car appeared, and dozens of slimes that had been wriggling and swarming in began to fall into it all at once.

As I withdrew my finger, the split ground closed again. Before the slimes could escape, they were all crushed to death, buried alive in the ground.

‘It’s time now.’

“—!”

As I clenched my fist in joy at the sight, the spirit that popped out of the ground also jumped up and down in joy with me.

In my eyes looking at the ground, I could see an earth spirit, invisible to others, about the size of a fist, waving its short limbs and dancing while shaking its protruding belly.

Without any facial features, it looked like some kind of clay doll, but I couldn’t help but find that spirit cute in my eyes.

“Let’s go. It’s finally time to climb the Tower.”

I decided to leave the tutorial with the earth spirit and head to the first floor.

It was exactly 100 days according to my calculations. During that time, I had been completely cut off from a different space and didn’t know what was happening outside. Above all, I had never heard of anyone staying in the tutorial for 100 days.

Of course, I didn’t particularly doubt it.

Even though they say the world these days is unpredictable, what could happen in just 100 days? It will probably be nothing special.

‘I’m not afraid anymore.’

Instead, I was full of worries about the difficult Tower climb that lay ahead.

Even at this moment, others would be diligently climbing the Tower, and people outside the Tower would be praying for us to prevent enemies from coming out to reality by defeating the monsters.

Now that the preparation was over, I was willing to contribute this body to that resistance. That was my intention when I gave up everything in the first place.

The time when I reveal my name and identity to people again… will be when I’ve become someone I’m not ashamed of. For that, I had to gain fame and achieve accomplishments.

“Ugh…”

I pushed my body into the door I had been avoiding without hesitation. The same strange sensation as when I first came here enveloped my body, and soon transported me to a new space.

[Trial Tower Ended]

[Impurity detected, forcibly ejecting to the outside]

“?!”

However, the message that appeared right after was something I couldn’t have imagined.

* * *

“Cough, hack…”

I was thrown out like garbage by a strong force. It was an irresistible power. Hitting the ground with a strong impact, I gasped and coughed.

I could feel the cold touch of the ground, but it took some time for me to get up again.

“—?”

“I’m fine. More importantly, where is this place.”

After reassuring the earth spirit that was at a loss in front of me, I got up and looked around. The cold wind blowing enveloped my body.

This was outdoors. It’s strange. The second floor of the Tower I knew wasn’t outdoors.

It should have been a dark and damp dungeon-like place, but I was now in the middle of a forest under a gloomy sky.

It was a forest that felt somewhat unfamiliar.

Looking closely, the place I had been thrown out to was a huge clearing in the forest about the size of a playground, and this land with no trees or grass was full of traces as if something had been there, exposing its bare surface.

“What’s going on here?”

I couldn’t help but panic. It was completely different from the Tower information I had studied. Moreover, the message I saw before being thrown out here was…

“Let’s go up!”

Using the spirit’s power, I pulled up the ground I was standing on in one go.

My body started to shoot up several meters at once. When I squeezed out all the power I could muster now to raise the ground in a cone shape, higher than the surrounding trees, surpassing my height.

“What is this?”

Standing on a handful of ground barely a span wide with one toe, I muttered blankly as I looked around.

Endless mountains… no, it wasn’t. Something was visible in the distance. My enhanced elf vision showed me that the dot-like thing was a castle made of stacked stones.

It’s strange. Extremely strange. If this were the Tower’s space, honestly, I could understand anything happening, but for some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this place didn’t seem to be the Tower.

“–, –!”

Moreover, that wasn’t all. I slid down the pillar I had raised as if surfing, hearing the earth spirit calling me.

The reason the earth spirit called me was none other than something buried in the ground that had been exposed as I pulled it up.

“What is this.”

The ground split open by itself and spat it out to me. Taking it in my hand, I chuckled in confusion.

Completely crumpled and severely deteriorated, but clearly it must have been a white metal plate painted with paint at its core.

A familiar combination of numbers and letters. It was clearly a car license plate.

I couldn’t understand why this was buried deep in the ground here, and why something that shouldn’t exist in the Tower’s world was here.

‘Is this, perhaps really outside the Tower?’

I couldn’t help but think this.

I didn’t know why I had come out when I had just reached the second floor, but it was the Tower after all. I could understand anything happening in the Tower, just like how I had changed into this girl elf’s body.

However, even if that were the case, the surrounding landscape was hard to explain. Unless I had been dumped somewhere in an extreme remote area on Earth, this couldn’t possibly be somewhere in my home country, South Korea.

“—!”

“Something’s coming, you say? People?”

Fortunately or unfortunately, there wasn’t much time to ponder.

A faint vibration resonating through the ground in contact with my bare white feet. Sensing it through the spirit’s power, I looked in the direction of the vibration gradually approaching this place.

Indeed, I could see with my own eyes something in human form gradually approaching this place. However, when I got a closer look at their appearance.

I doubted my eyes, wondering if I had seen wrong.