Two hours later, Elf Elder Falco and more than ten other elders from smaller Elf Tribes arrived at the City Lord’s Mansion in the center of Moon City. After being hosted by Zhang Yi and finishing lunch, none of them were smiling anymore.

When Zhang Yi and his group stepped out to prepare for the afternoon’s task of forming the Elf Alliance, only the elders and leaders of the small Elf Tribes remained in the room.

After confirming that Zhang Yi’s group had indeed left, Elf Elder Falco gritted his teeth and said in a low voice, "Amos, where in the world did this Elf Corps come from?"

"I don’t know either!" Elf Elder Amos said with a smug look on his face. "But from what I’ve observed, the Elves here truly believe in the great Elf God, and their faith is even more devout than ours! They even built a statue of the great Elf God in the center of the city. I watched them build it myself! The way I see it, no matter where they came from, they are definitely loyal to the great Elf God!"

"Besides!" Elf Elder Amos suddenly lowered his voice. "With our strength alone, how are we supposed to overthrow the Moon Elves? How can we bring back the great Elf God? Don’t you see the situation we’re facing? We must seize every opportunity and contact every one of our kin who dares to resist the Moon Elves! Otherwise, we’ll truly be out of chances!"

"Even if this suddenly appeared Elf Corps is indeed strange," he continued. "Logically, there shouldn’t have been such a large Elf Corps out there, and one that hadn’t been discovered by the Moon Elves, no less! But it’s still possible, isn’t it?"

Faced with Elf Elder Amos’s barrage of questions, Elf Elder Falco actually calmed down. He nodded and said, "You’re right! No matter what, they are indeed our fellow Elves, and they do believe in the great Elf God! It’s not like they’re worshiping the Moon God instead of the great Elf God!"

Hearing this, Elf Elder Amos clapped him on the back. "We’re both getting old! If we die, and the remaining new generation of Elves all listen to the Moon Elves, then the great Elf God will truly have no chance of returning! We both know how badly the Elf God was wounded! If no faith is offered to the great Elf God, how can he possibly recover?!"

"The bastards!" Elf Elder Falco suddenly cursed. "Those Moon Elves are absolute bastards!"

Elf Elder Amos chimed in with a curse of his own, "Without the great Elf God, how are we supposed to resist the Beast God’s invasion?!"

...

And so, after a full afternoon of negotiations, the various Elf Elders and leaders reached an agreement with Zhang Yi. To counter the military threat of the Moon Elves and for the sake of the great Elf God, all Elves who believed in the great Elf God would pool their strength and act as one.

First, Elf High Priest Shamiel was recognized as the leader of the Elf Alliance. Second, the existing Elf Elders and leaders would establish the Elf Mage Academy, dedicated to teaching talented Elves magic. For the Elves in the other tribes, a portion would be left behind in their original tribes to avoid suspicion during the Moon Elves’ inspections. All remaining young and talented Elves were to come to Moon City to receive unified training from Elf Corps Commander Feiyana. Feiyana was appointed the military commander of the Elf Alliance, in charge of all military affairs. Meanwhile, civilian matters concerning ordinary Elves would be jointly managed by Elf Queen An Nobel and the remaining Elf Elders and leaders. In short, the entire army would be under Zhang Yi’s command.

Regarding the taxes collected by the Moon Elves at the autumn harvest, the tax in kind would be provided by Moon City. However, for the faith tax, each Elf Tribe was required to provide some of their old, sick, or disabled to worship the Moon God, using the Elf Holy Grail to condense a Stone of Faith to be handed over to the Moon Elf inspectors.

That very afternoon, carrying tokens from their respective Elf Elders and leaders, 1,200 able-bodied young Elves arrived at the outskirts of Moon City. This number of Elves was as large as the total number of soldiers in the corps under Zhang Yi’s command.

Without hesitation, Elf Corps Commander Feiyana split the original Elf Corps into two regiments, and did the same with the Mage Corps. Each regiment would have a thousand soldiers. All the original Elf Soldiers were promoted and assigned to the other Elf Corps to serve as Noncommissioned Officers. The 1,200 new Elves were split in two and integrated into the two Elf Corps. One regiment remained under the command of Elf Corps Commander Feiyana herself, while the other was given to Elf Elder Amos to command. However, in Elf Elder Amos’s regiment, aside from his own position as commander, all the deputy commanders, battalion commanders, and captains were the original Elf Noncommissioned Officers who believed in the Great God of Nature. To put it bluntly, Elf Elder Amos’s command was merely for show. It was an insurance policy to give hope to the Elves who would join Moon City later and prevent any trouble.

During this process, the [Fanatical Faith] achievement that Zhang Yi had obtained was also subtly taking effect. Many of the potential problems Zhang Yi had anticipated simply never occurred. In accordance with Zhang Yi’s plan, the objects of faith were also modified. For example, the statue of the Elf God was carved with Zhang Yi’s face. Furthermore, the prayers praising the Elf God had the title "God of Nature" specially added after the "Elf God" designation. For the Elves and Elf Elders who came to Moon City later, they felt something was odd every time they prayed, but couldn’t quite put their finger on what it was. After all, the object of their prayers was still the Elf God, so they didn’t dwell on it.

...

Day by day, time passed. After the autumn harvest, the Moon Elves who came to collect taxes showed a rare expression of joy. They even offered a few words of praise to the Elves who had stayed behind, remarking that they were finally willing to believe in the great Moon God. Because of this, the vanguard suicide squads for the spring battles against the Beastmen would not be chosen from their cluster of tribes.

The Elves who remained in the tribes had to play along with the Moon Elves on the surface, promising to work even harder next year. In reality, all these Elves were wondering when the great Elf God’s Moon City would train a large enough Elf Corps to defeat these detestable Moon Elves and welcome back the great Elf God.

If, in the end, Zhang Yi could replace the original Elf God without anyone being the wiser, then it wouldn’t really count as deceiving the current Elf Elders and leaders.

Just as Zhang Yi was accumulating his strength, and the time in the Main World reached January, allowing him to load a new Divine Domain Card, urgent messages from Elf Scouts began arriving one after another, passed up the chain of command until they finally reached him.

"Report! There’s new movement from the Beastmen! An urgent matter must be reported to the leader of the Elf Alliance!"

"Report! There’s also a major development from the Elves’ Main City, from the Moon Elves! The Elf Alliance must prepare at once!"