The engraver in the inner world takes charge of the meeting in the rebuilt ranger’s hut which ends up being fairly well positioned in the village the system built. We had expanded it quite a bit to accommodate more people instead of what our meager permanent population that a couple of dozen buildings might indicate we need to the system.

Everyone sits around a large table and I simply wait for the engraver’s question. And then it comes:

“What are the numbers of the enemy?”

“Four thousand Elves gathered on the shores. They waited for the stream of people from their island to run out before setting out just 3 minutes ago.”

“Can we get a direct feed to the island?”

“Not yet, but I will focus on that as soon as. I don’t know why the system cares about that island, but it is like most places that Pando can’t reach on his own. He has to continuously apply a lot of pressure otherwise the system pushes his roots back. There are hundreds of places like that around Earth and we are working on more permanent solutions. But this time I will take an active role in pushing while we don’t leave.

“That is a good idea, just don’t take too long. I know that would can provide help even for this far away, but in our first conflict I would appreciate it if you could come with us.”

I look at him, trying to see beneath the surface. To absorb what was going on in his head burdened by the lives of the people that he would be taking in combat.

“I don’t want to cause anyone to become less vigilant, but best as I can tell, the main mass of the enemy is level 45 and I doubt their Arch Druid is higher than 70. Though that is a lot more uncertainty. I think that we can use this opportunity to train our people with less experience. Even the lowest leveled ones would be able to hold out while our more experienced people stay on the lookout to stop any ambush or a new tactic.”

Everyone nods around the table and I even feel a chorus from a small group of a dozen people just outside that hear my words.

“Let’s keep it simple. We don’t want to take this too far and it would be dangerous to assume this is in the bag given how much is known. But I think we can tentatively say that it will be a learning opportunity for our younger members.”

We settle a few last minute details and warn the 5 nearest concentration to the elves just to be safe.

In another ten minutes, we are at full blast through the sky as my soul has recovered enough. Still, as my mind whirls, I try to make sense of everything.

We should take about 8 hours to arrive at full speed.

I rarely needed to rely on the brute force of my soul in a fight. I could save myself from some of that strain if I slowed just a little, which would only delay us by 40 minutes, but this was the first attack and taking our time felt more dangerous than rushing ahead.

Even at relatively high altitudes, I‘m still getting intermittent updates. Pulses of mana as I pass near enormous comm rune arrays sending text. Most only a few words long messages to save on mana, but still that lets us keep updated on the position and actions of the enemy.

The hundreds of people that returned to my inner world and the new additions who migrated from nearby to start learning everything we came across after they ‘bailed’ on the instance. Many were just in sheer denial, but there were plenty of people with other motivations including people from groups like Lord Max’s coalition who send people to get a head start building the infrastructure to support them when everyone returned to Earth.

Even our village had chosen a few people to return, even if they were the ones that would have returned on the first month either way.

Any nerves I have slowly settle as the fight approaches and I look at the dozens of people around level 20. Alone they would have no business even defending against the group of Elves, let alone going on the attack. But they weren’t alone, nor did they head out without proper equipment.

As much as two and half centuries that our stronger troops stayed locked in the inner world limited their preparations, which gave plenty of time for the smithies and other crafters to exercise their craft.

Every single one of us stands in fairly uniform pieces of armor and weapons made long ago. Even after the metals I brought with us ran out, the automated mining tech that was developing well after we felt the instance came in handy to search out more sources on Earth.

The mines over here were far sparser and had their own difficulties, often being even more restricted than old Earth’s mines, but we managed to get enough of a supply of all the basic metals from copper to gold. Though there didn’t seem to be a single Mithril mine anywhere in Pando’s domain. Maybe they were in one of the voids, maybe they were far too deep, but for now, paying too much attention to that seemed counterproductive.

I had elves to confront.

Slowing with the ease of breaking a huge momentum compared to physically pushing to gain that speed, I skin the tress as dozens of wide portals open up and everyone steps out in practiced motions.

In a single second. The 500 that just joined us and the 800 that returned with me stayed at their back. To not get left behind as they start running, nor warn the enemy of our specific capabilities, I put the craft in the inner world in a highly practiced motion and bleed off the momentum from my flight by rolling on the ground.

The sounds are dampened after decades of fine tuning and developing manufacturing techniques and runes to mitigate those problems. Even The metal armor of the people inside was nearly silent costing only a mana point or two every hour. Even the oldest designs here have negligible mana consumption and add a smidge more flexibility to the people wearing them.

The contents of the books that Backwood gifted me may not be all encompassing or very profound, but they gave us a solid base to develop from. Dozens of small but meaningful changes over the years from experimentation should help give us a small edge.

A few seconds afterward, the first scouts of the enemy forces come into my perception field edge. They are alert, smelling the air like goblins, as others strain their ears on the lookout for dangers on the horizon.

Each moment that our relatively silent march comes forward, they get more and more agitated until a pair is certain that someone is approaching and they send pulses of magic through their encampment. There is no more hiding our presence as even the vibrations of our march can be felt through the ground.

More and more of their scouts on the lookout confirm our presence and either whistle or send mana pulses, but it won’t make much of a difference when we are 300 meters away from them.

The slowest of us can sustain the 30 kilometers an hour for a while and the enemy doesn’t take off running in the opposite direction.

Third seconds later, we come into visual range in the closed forest.

The Aether is thick in the air and everyone’s heartbeats thump in their ears, especially for the inexperienced recent additions. They had barely even fought mobs in the forest, let alone other sentient creatures, but everybody understands our circumstances.

The enemy encampment at first is relatively organized, even as they leave their tents and other tasks to attend to the attack on them. But I can almost feel the change.

In a cinematographic picture of the scene with my perception field, a taller elf, acting like their commander orders others around. Though he doesn’t feel like an Archdruid. He looks at one of our taller combatants around. Not a giant, just a 6 foot 5 relatively muscled guy that was standing just beside the mainline of new recruits. I can feel his squinting eyes while he activates the system’s analysis skill.

I instinctively know what will pop up in his interface.

Level: 195

That surprises him more than anything else and then he goes on overdrive, seeming to analyze a dozen people and he doesn’t like what he encounters.

“They just found out we have level 150 people plus in our attack force.”

Chuckles travel around me, as not just our side takes this seriously, the enemy realizes we can wipe them out if they aren’t very careful.

The last 50 meters of the charge, holding spears at the ready, even the brief time is enough for the enemy to fully get into positions in an impressive show of coordination that would have made me dumbfounded before the system. Now it was still impressive, but training that wasn’t limited to months or years removed a lot of variabilities. Training that spanned decades was the norm. Thousands of people with skills and stats to help them become something more they would never have been without the system.

All of that, however, we already knew. Though their show was impressive and we had plenty of green troops an enemy fighting outnumbered us three to one, our spears were steady and thousands of roots extend simultaneously all around them ensnaring the enemy.

Not very quickly and the individual soldiers show a lot more initiative and nimbleness than the goblins I was used to fighting.

Then comes the clash of battle. Even with our better weapons, as every single person on our line wields either a staff to channel magic or a spear to stab the enemy, instead of mostly swords the enemy's reactions even as they are skewered in fatal blows are immaculate. Like veterans of war knowing that even if death is certain, they can do a lot of damage in between.

Against our second and third lines, they lose badly, but each of their reactions gives an opening to another of their side to take advantage.

And then it hits me. They have actual experience fighting superior opponents. Probably whole strategies surrounding using a larger force to overcome that gap, and I start to even feel the very faint swirl of Aether in the air shifting to consolidate all their preparations.

But no matter how well trained they are or their numerical superiority, overcoming hundreds of people three times faster, stronger, better equipped and accompanied by superior magical support was too much.

The Arch Druid leaves all the minutia to the commander and wields all the power that his meager stats allow.

An impressive feat… for a level 78. Dozens of druids fail to advance an inch through the root network, failing to even conscript other biomass for their spells. Even the archdruid can’t control more than a single sapling. But though that is their preferred mode of attack it isn’t the only one and soon a fireball with a hint of Earth and even nature mana shoots straight to some of our more vulnerable fighters.

With enough power to kill or main a dozen, I take the attack seriously and with a stream of Qi, I reinforce a hastily erected shield midair. A fraction of a second and the collision comes breaking the shield even before the attack dissipates, but the brunt is gone and the worse it could do is singe a few eyebrows.

And as I watch the loose tongues of flame wash over our newest recruits, I smile at the fact they don’t even lose a single strand of hair.

I try to come up with a dozen different initiatives, each with the help of a few seeds aiming at discovering what might work against these new opponents. Because so far, our main opponent had been goblins with a side of feral beasts which were the only ones we learned how to fight against.

But this enemy is different. They are more logical and strategic showing a desire to survive. Then the unidirectional trend of the fight shifts instantly when I see a new set of runes.

A skewered elf, nimble even in its stumbling falls to the ground. I try to grab him with a few roots, but the Arch Druid halts this and all my attempts closer than a dozen meters from him. Then a golden glow emanates from a pair of magically inclined elves and I watch with perfect clarity the wound closing. An Elf that would have been completely out of the fight takes a step forward not five seconds later.

And my hope that this is an isolated incident is washed away a hobbling Elf gets his Aquiles tendon reattached by another pair of healers, fifty meters to the other side even as a third pair of healers gets in position.

That won’t be enough for them to overcome us, the difference is just too stark in this particular battle. Their lines will crumple before their healers can make a difference, but this changes everything in the long term.

And then they surprise me again: with barely two hundred lost troops, they start to retreat.