Levant of the Southern Hemisphere

[Note: Differences between the Elves of the Zheer Continent and the humans of Douluo Planet: First, lifespan. Elves generally live for 300 years, increasing to 1,200 years after reaching level 90, and gaining an additional 100 years of lifespan for every level thereafter (after all, they are Elves). Second, Martial Souls. Elves do not have Martial Soul awakening, but all Elves possess Soul Power after the age of 12 (currently in the late Neolithic period, the Elves are still solving food issues and lack the leisure for such things). Third, Soul Ring level restrictions. Elves do not face the issue of being stuck at a level due to not hunting for Soul Rings, so aside from food requirements, there is absolutely no need to hunt Soul Beasts (this is very important). Fourth, gestation. Elves have a 24-month pregnancy, while humans have ten months. Fifth, social stability. The social stability brought by the Elves' long lifespans far exceeds that of human society. Sixth, genetics. Elves and humans cannot naturally produce offspring.]

The Zheer Continent is located in the southern hemisphere of Douluo Planet, with a climate distribution similar to South America. However, the shape of the continent can be described as a Nepalese flag with two triangles folded inward; the northern triangular block is large, and the southern triangular block is small.

The Nanshan Rainforest is located in the equatorial region of the Zheer Continent. Because it happens to be in the widest part of the continent's outline, the rainforest covers 39 percent of the land, far exceeding the size of the Star Dou Forest.

The existence of the Central Plateau disrupts the latitudinal pressure belts, making it difficult for large-scale deserts to form in the center of the Zheer Continent, turning it into a tropical savanna belt. The moist air currents from the vast surrounding oceans, combined with the mountain ranges spanning the entire western coast that block cold currents, restrict deserts to small areas along the mid-western coast.

Moving south, the triangular flag shape of the Zheer Continent, with its large and small ends stacked, begins to cause complications. While it brings a super-large bay to the Zheer Continent, the connection in the center presents an alpine climate due to the high elevation of the mountain ranges. Further south, excluding the Mediterranean climate on the west coast formed by the mountain barrier, the subtropical humid climate formed by the difference in thermal properties between land and sea occupies almost everything east of the mountains, with the expected temperate continental climate only forming deep within the continent.

Beyond that, at the base of the small triangular block, the climate transitions regularly into boreal coniferous forests and tundra/ice sheet climates.

Currently, the area where the indigenous Elf population is most dense and the level of development is highest is in the subtropical humid climate of the southern Zheer Continent. There, the transition from nomadic gathering to slash-and-burn agriculture has basically been completed; they are in the late Neolithic period, and tribes are gradually evolving into early kingdoms.

Rus Wang had visited there before, but because his own territory is in the Nanshan Rainforest and the Central Plateau, including the south in his patrol would mean a minimum of six months of travel time. He had no intention of disturbing their independent development, focusing his main energy on the indigenous Elves in the northern part of the Zheer Continent.

This area had a slower development speed from the beginning due to multiple factors of climate and environment, and because it bordered the Nanshan Rainforest, it was a disaster area for Soul Beasts that had fled there with limited intelligence. Many Elves still in the hunter-gatherer era were slaughtered for no reason.

For the first three of the past five years, the main work Rus Wang did was killing Soul Beasts, taking in Elves, and bestowing upon them high-yield crop seeds from his 21st-century past. He then taught them to speak Oracle Bone Script with 21st-century Mandarin pronunciation, what slash-and-burn agriculture was, and how to forge copper tools.

After the fourth year, having married a Female Water Dragon who had fled there, he would also pay attention to the situation of the Elf tribes under his protection while patrolling his territory.

Now it is the fifth year, and his own cubs are already one year old. It is time to take the Female Water Dragon and the cubs to see the Elf tribes he protects, so that the cubs can get to know the Elves.

Come to think of it, the hundreds of villages established by the Elves he took in within his territory—if Rus Wang remembered correctly, he had named it the Levant region on a whim?

Hmm... Levant, the land of the sun flowing with milk and honey, but ironically, it is not a Mediterranean climate, but rather a tropical savanna climate.

The initial inspection work is something Rus Wang must do. After all, his one-year-old cubs can already distinguish what is dangerous, but with their fragile physical defenses, they cannot even stop a copper spear.

After clearing his thoughts, Rus Wang decided to set off for the Levant the day after tomorrow.

While Rus Wang was enjoying a cozy time with his wife and children in a low-lying lake in the Nanshan Rainforest, the various villages of the Levant he protected were in a festive and busy season.

Because they are located in the southern hemisphere, villages in the Levant region generally plant corn in October-November and harvest winter wheat. After a growth period, they harvest corn and sow winter wheat in April-June.

Now the golden corn is ripe. Under the tireless transformation of Rus Wang over the first three years, the linguistically unified Elves began to use copper knives that had turned black due to oxidation to start collecting corn and corn stalks.

The former is the second largest staple food in the village after wheat, while the latter is an important construction material for village houses.

From the harvesting of corn to clearing the residual roots in the fields, and then to the sowing of winter wheat, the interval cannot exceed ten days. This is a rule summarized by the elderly in each village over the past five years.

"Elder Osuan, Elder Liana, the corn and stalks in the fields have all been harvested, and the roots have been removed."

A young Elf child said in a light tone to the Elves who had been taken in by Rus Wang in the first year.

As early as the first year, Rus Wang had taught them farming techniques. But in actual operation, there were still many mistakes, which led to Rus Wang having to hunt personally from time to time to fill the Elves' stomachs during the first two years.

Once the Elves fully mastered slash-and-burn agriculture and the craft of making copper tools, the frequency of Rus Wang's appearances decreased significantly. His behavior of protecting the Elves and imparting knowledge to them over the first three years was revered as a spiritual faith by the Elves of the Levant.

With stable food support, the originally chaotic method of communal labor and equal distribution in the Levant villages subtly gave rise to families and classes. The elders, as the highest title among the Elves, were responsible for governing the villages; blacksmiths, priests, tailors, and other specialized roles became the second class within the villages, while farmers formed the grassroots existence. (The Central Plateau has much undeveloped land. Although slash-and-burn is used, the cost of land reclamation was significantly reduced because of the high-yield crop seeds from the 21st century. The elders supported land reclamation and distributed copper farming tools, keeping the probability of landless farmers low.)

The mutual communication between multiple villages also subtly caused the Elves, who used to barter, to start using copper as the cornerstone of pricing, giving rise to early merchants and the prototype of exchange envoys.

Changes were also happening quietly. Osuan, as an elder of a large village in the Levant region, intended to marry Liana, the elder of a neighboring small village, to achieve a merger without conflict.

He chose to contact Liana during the corn harvest.

Although on the day of the harvest, the villagers of the two villages still harvested the crops of their own families and paid a portion to the village, at the harvest festival celebration, Liana did not celebrate with the villagers in the village she managed as she had in previous years.

She accepted Osuen's request and took the Elves of her village to participate in the harvest festival of Osuan's village.

As the priests chanted spells in an unknown pronunciation, using wooden boards engraved with Oracle Bone Script to pray to their patron god Rus Wang for a harvest after the winter wheat survived the winter and spring arrived.

Liana noticed Osuen standing beside her, silently reaching his left hand toward his right. While accepting him in her heart, she took his hand.

The first village merger event occurred in the fifth year.

And when Rus Wang appeared before the Elves with the Female Water Dragon and their cubs, announcing the good news of his offspring's first birthday, he did not punish the merger of Osuan and Liana's villages. Two months after Rus Wang announced the existence of his offspring, similar cases began to appear, and such events grew rapidly thereafter.

Multiple villages connected into a larger area, either through the marriage of male and female elders or through alliances. And larger areas naturally came with both external and internal contradictions. More and more conflicts required specialized Elves to handle them, and people who specialized in handling disputes appeared.

Rus Wang knew this was an inevitable process of city formation, and he did not stop it.

He drew a line in his heart, only ensuring the commonality of language and the process of Oracle Bone Script subtly changing into Bronze Script, and only lowering "divine punishment" on Elf villages that changed their language.

Rus Wang recalled the results of his two-month inspection and was very satisfied.

But just as he returned to the low-lying lake in the rainforest with his wife and children, the Female Water Dragon acted abnormally, handing all five cubs to him and entering the dense forest alone.

[Female Water Dragon, Age: 90,000 years 9,990 years]

Not good! Why has her age increased so much this month? My wife is about to face a tribulation! Rus Wang was shocked. After placing multiple layers of energy protection on the lake where his offspring were, he hurriedly chased after her.