The tattooers continued working. It was true that several had accepted being tattooed. The magical ink would help me select who would serve as our shock troops. Most would be cannon fodder. To be fair to those human scum, all were showing magical potential, so if necessary we would equip them with some offensive magic enhancers. If I configured them well, they would be usable only by humans, so I could recover them after their deaths. I had to admit that the spectacle of eliminating that filthy hippogriff helped us win their trust. If it had not been for that meddling spy, the formula would have taken full effect, and we would have half the city of slaves ready for our tests... sorry, now allies.
The previous night was a contained disaster. Placing a containment field in the area where we set this trap was the second great success of the night. The first was the drug—it could not fail. It was in the torches, in the food and drink. Even those who accepted clothing had doses of this. Yet we anticipated there would be spies, so my mercenaries were alert. The glow on any of the attendees' clothing was a sign of a magical item. It was intercepted, and the person was kindly forced to consume something so strong it would nullify the effects of their enchantments. The interesting thing was not finding the guild spies—that was to be expected, as they were not pleased that we had taken so many of their guild members—but a light, something as intense as only true mages could produce. The bad thing was that it was very far back in the rows, far enough to escape... It did not matter! The Elf King on this continent was me. My father would not find out.
This farce was very convenient to me. On the isle, I was suffocating. My sister was used—as she should be, since she was a fool—but I would not allow myself to be used. I did not have excessive magical potential, but that allowed me to substitute it with skill. I reviewed elven magics, the powerful spells, and simplified them. After three hundred years, I could use high-level spells without consuming practically anything from my soul stones' magic. But nothing with my strength until a year ago, when the expected event allowed me to use this. To continue using it, I had to apply my brain. The result was the best of ideas.
When the king outlined his plan to return our magic, he did not inform his people. We all expected a total explosion—returning to the continent to see giant craters instead of the cities belonging to any of the peoples who abandoned us after millennia of begging for the crumbs of our magic and technology. But one day we woke up, and our magic was back. We all wanted to go out and use it—to move, to create giant waves, to do great harm to those who had laughed. But he stopped us. He was there—the most powerful of us. All his potential made him look like a beacon that dawn. But I knew something was not right. I had always remembered him—he did not have all his magic back.
So while everyone was performing spells they had long stopped practicing, I probed my own power. I found it incomplete. It was beyond the limits I grew up with, but at that moment I realized I needed something useful—to get out of here, or I would waste my power. As soon as I heard he needed a contingent to deploy on the continent, I had an idea. It only took me two months to develop.
The typical plans of the elves involved taking everything by force. Our armies had discarded thousands of lives before—it was never worth taking hostages. They had nothing that interested us. We could not need more slaves. But now, now those beings who survived our massacres due to their own biology were dead or dying. That was why, and because we needed not to lose that magic, we had to achieve reuse—something none of the elves considered. But I knew exactly what I had to do.
When I explained to my father, I did not tell him that magic was lost if used—that was something he must not know. I chose four hundred of the young elves. The king could not be happier. All the sages, the warriors of his armies would not come. I would pay all the expedition's expenses. After telling him I would use my troops and take a foothold on the continent to eliminate existing threats, no one objected. The high council was guided by the great elf king—they always had. That was why he chose them. Being the only candidate for the throne, there could be doubts from others. But my father did not want to pass it on—no elf did. Normally, we killed to receive. We lived an average of a thousand years. Children were adults at two hundred. Only the king had lived without being killed. But I did not want his throne. That was why I left, why all the stratagem.
When the humans left in the morning with their "power tattoos," they little knew the reality of those objects. Those with no color and remaining black had very low levels. They would provide us with magic without realizing it. As they lived their lives, the runes would send magic to the containers at each recruitment center, in each city. Thus we could use magic without problems, all the time. We would always have more—much more. And if my old father came, he would find an army that answered to me, Silverleaf. I would avenge my sister with the death of a stinking aristocrat. After doing so, I would direct my weapons at the elves who wanted magic and all those who believed me king against that bastard the Dark Lord, who, following my father's orders, condemned an innocent elf to the hell where she now was.