*Thump*

The elves looked as their Queen slumped forward in her throne and then face-planted on the ground. The exchange in Zhang Dong’s soul dimension only took a couple of seconds. Back in the real world, it looked like the Queen was staring at him for a moment before face diving into the floor.

“Protect the Queen!”

“...”

“Stop, I’m fine…”

The beautiful woman raised her hand up into the air while her face was still on the ground. She stood up in an instant while having a bloody nose. This was quickly healed without even needing an incantation. The guards were still confused about what was happening and the party of heroes was in the same boat.

Only Zhang Dong and the elven Queen knew what was going on. After giving the old woman a scare in his soul dimension he let her soul go back into her body. He did not put any soul locks or curses behind like he did with the Vice-Principal.

He wanted to seem as a magnanimous spirit Emperor and not like a despot. The other elves might choose to attack or not work with them if something like that happened.

The Queen looked at him without much of a change to her expression. The bloody nose vanished along with the blood after some kind of healing magic was cast. It was more akin to the regenerative arts that his own Zhang clan liked to perform than to holy element healing.

She advanced forward towards where he, Beatrice, and Isabella were standing. The girls were down on their knees but he was still standing. The guards parted ways for their queen that was slowly walking towards him. The woman was wearing quite the flowy dress similar to cultivator robes. There were even some small forest spirits lifting it up from behind her and keeping it from being scratched up on the floor.

“My Queen what are you…”

The elves expected the Queen to order an attack or something close to it. Instead, they saw her lowering her head in front of this white-haired man. The man nodded as if this was something natural, the other just stared at the strange sight of the elven queen bowing before an unknown person.

“Silence! Pay your respect to the Spirit Emperor, you all are being disgraceful.”

Soon everyone was down on the ground and kneeling before him. His face didn’t change as he just waited.

‘Haven’t had a full throne room kneeling before me ever since I did that one lecture…’

“You may raise your heads.”

Only when he called out did the elven queen listen. Following her example, the other elves did the same. The members of the royal family went googly-eyed at the scene before them. In their eyes kneeling before Zhang Dong was akin to them kneeling before Beatrice, a low Baron’s daughter.

“I will let this transgression slide this time, now I think we have some things to discuss.”

“Yes, great spirit.”

The members of the royal family could not believe Zhang Dong’s tone. Even less that this powerful elven monarch was fine with it. The moment she called him a spirit emperor the other elves started to shake in their boots as well. This was mostly due to this race being quite close to astral beings due to their roots.

They came from the world tree, which was also rumored to have been created by some kind of ancient spirit emperor. Now they had one before them, one that could be at the same level as their ancestor.

‘Good, this speeds up things…’

The rest was history, Zhang Dong asked for their library and then absorbed all of their knowledge. The elven magic was mostly following the nature element and was quite extensive. The knowledge that they had gathered was superior to what the humans had, at least to the one in the magic academy. If the royal family was hiding something in their castle could be a possibility.

Takeshi and the others were relegated to background characters while Zhang Dong and his two summoners got all the attention. They all were wined and dined by the beautiful elven males and females while he was back doing his thing. After absorbing all of this knowledge from the elven library he needed some time to digest all of it.

With it, he would probably be able to push his own barriers to the next level. The elves specialized in them, defensive ones and even ones that could lock people up for thousands of years. If he ever needed to seal an evil being that was hard to kill he would be able to.

“Please Queen you must not!”

A few days later the hero party and Zhang Dong were back on the flying ship. With the biggest change being that they received a massive ship from the elves. It was apparently made from the trunk of the world tree and would be able to receive hits from a demon lord class monster.

The two magicians that stood against him were now holding back the elven queen. For some reason, the old woman wanted to come with them. Her people weren’t so keen on this as they needed their monarch that was also the best mage here to stay behind. The queen was the key piece of their protective barrier, without her the demons would be able to slip in unnoticed.

The two were now holding her back as she wanted to join the party to go against the demon scourge. After Zhang Dong corrected some of the deficiencies in her spell-casting she started acting like a devout disciple. She probably wanted him to fix more of her spells, just like an old cultivator finally finding a good master to follow.

“Hey, Mr. Leigong the elves really like you… I thought you were a married man?”

Beatrice and Isabella looked at him with scorn. He had been seen wandering out at night to go teach the elven queen a thing or two. The girls imagination went into overdrive and came to a conclusion that he was having an affair.

“It’s not like that, you two idiots!”

He shouted at the two girls while shaking his fist.

“Great spirit, let us follow you instead of our queen.”

In the end, the two elven women that were the queen’s trusted guards went along for the ride instead. The queen’s reason won out over her desire to learn more. With these two in tow and a full elven team of warriors, they departed from this kingdom.

‘Next stop the dwarves!’

Now that he had the elves on his side it was easier to control the situation. The elven ship was many times larger than the human ships that were now trailing behind them. He was also able to banish the royal family members from getting on this particular flying vessel. Though this only made the heroes a bit cranky as they enjoyed the companionship of the others.

Takeshi even decided to remain on one of the other ships with his princess. Zhang Dong didn’t care enough to play chaperone. He had explained everything to the youths beforehand but their hormones were getting in the way. The only thing he could do was hope that they wouldn’t go too far with their romance.

The journey continued and they soon arrived at the dwarven kingdom or its entrance that looked like a giant active volcano. Smoke and lava were coming out from it but there were also large statues of dwarven warriors and a large gate.

This large gate would lead to the land of the dwarves. They were a peculiar race that liked to live underground or burrow into large mountains or in this case a volcano. There they would dig for metals that would then allow them to create their contraptions.

They were known for being a race of craftsmen that spent most of their lives tinkering away. The flying ship technology was invented by this race, they also created a vast array of golems. The hero party here was in the need of better equipment and repairs. The weapons from the dungeon were nice but they still lacked compelling armor.

“So, this is the entrance into the Underlands.”

Beatrice commented from the side while bouncing with anticipation. Isabella also looked quite interested in this place they were going to. The two were still only young girls that haven’t really been able to see the outside world for themselves quite yet.

“So it is, think the dwarves will be as cooperative as the elves? Do they revere spirits perchance?”

He asked while not being too sure. If the dwarves were like the elves it would help Zhang Dong on his journey quite a bit.

“Those uncultured dwarves have no respect for that what is holy.”

One of the elven mages chimed in while narrowing her eyes at the large structure below. It seemed that the small drunkards and the tree huggers didn’t get along that much. One race loved nature while the other used it to their advantage no matter the cost. They lived underground where the sun didn’t shine, without it things like plants were rarely seen.

“Is that so… this might be a problem.”

Besides their outlooks on life, there was another problem with this race, they had no monarch that could rally them together. Zhang Dong was only able to speed things up as he had forced the respected monarchs from the human race and the elven race to act. On the other hand here there were many underground cities and many people trying to be the next Dwarf King.

“Let’s go to the old capital, probably the most influential people will be there.”

The biggest city down below was right here in this very volcano. This was also the plan that they agreed on. Even if they didn’t have the help of the majority of dwarves they could get some from this city. It was apparently very modern and if they could just get another ship and some golems it would help in the future battles.

Zhang Dong was hopeful that the others wouldn’t need to act and that he was enough to defeat the enemies. However, in case that there were too many enemies to handle he needed his people to at least be able to defend themselves while he took out the bosses.

“Let us descend, we will need to switch to the smaller boat to get through that gate.”

Everyone nodded and the giant Elven ship descended downwards. The most important members of the crew would be switching to a smaller boat while going underground. Even though they were going below earth the dwarf craftsmen made enough space for flying contraptions like this boat to maneuver there.

Soon everyone descended into the cavern below. After showing the guards some credentials their identity as emissaries and heroes was cemented. The large gates started to open, it was as if the two huge statues were opening them up for the party to see.

‘Hope this is the last stop… I might be running out of time…’