Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1002 - 117: The Focus of Long-Lived Races

Chapter 1002: Chapter 117: The Focus of Long-Lived Races

"I think he must be lamenting the passage of time, lamenting the regret that life cannot be replayed," Freya said subconsciously. "But for beings like you, with such long lifespans, it’s probably hard to relate the fleeting beauty of fireworks to your extended existence. That’s why he got stuck, I guess. Since that’s the case, why not try to think about it from a different angle? Think about the insects in the forest, many of which only live for a year, and some burrow underground for years, just to emerge and get a glimpse of this world. Why not consider time from their perspective to express awe for its passage?"

"Yes, I remember reading a novel, umm... who was it by, I’ve forgotten, anyway, it was from a long time ago," Lina also nodded and said: "The book fantasized about a strange creature that is born in the water in the morning, only to live for a very short day and die at night, dissolving back into the water. Such beings truly have ephemeral lives like fireworks. If..."

"Exactly, exactly," The girls’ conversation was quiet, but the dirty and sluggish elf overheard them and suddenly looked up. Without paying any heed to the girls who brought him inspiration, he leapt up on the spot, excitedly waving his hands, looked up, and laughed loudly in the common tongue: "I’ve got it, I’ve got it, it should be like this, hahaha, so stupid of me, why didn’t I think of it before, hahaha, fantastic, fantastic."

The girls were stupefied, watching in amazement as the strange elf in front of them ran off into the distance, shouting like a madman, unsure of what expression to make. After a long while, Catherine gave a dry laugh and said: "You elves really do have strong personalities, hmm, quite unexpected."

"Heh, sometimes we do focus intensely on one thing," Flare said, not feeling offended but simply chuckling: "You humans find it hard to focus like that, because your time is short, with too many things needing to be done in those brief hundred years and so many hopes to fulfill within that century. Therefore, you must divide your energy among various tasks simultaneously. But we elves are different, we have ample time to do what we want to do; when we work on every single thing, we can be fully invested, without needing to consider other matters. Even if we have other hopes and requirements, we can attend to them after the task at hand is complete. Hence, we are more focused than you, and what you just witnessed was no exception. Don’t believe me? Look to the right, do you see the person holding the wood over there?"

Following Flare’s direction, they saw an aging female elf sitting high among the aerial roots on a swaying vine, cradling a flat piece of wood in her arms as if swinging in a vine-swing in midair. However, her attention was not at all on the swinging, her eyes were firmly fixed on the wood in her arms, her fingers continuously fiddling with it, pausing after a few touches to ponder intensely.

"She is a master of musical instruments, already a master a thousand years ago. When your City of Knowledge first held a New Year’s performance for the whole Yarran World, she was invited to be the final performer. Although I was too young at the time to attend, I heard she changed between fifty-seven different instruments during her fifteen-minute performance on stage, causing quite a stir in the City of Knowledge," Flare explained with a soft gaze at the elf above, whispering: "She is proficient in all the musical instruments of every race in the Yarran World, including the Sea Race’s conch and the Red Tree Drum from the marshes, and she even managed to restore the Spiral Lute, lost since the Goblin Era. Yet even so, she still feels she has a great regret unresolved, which is why, for ten years now, she has been sitting there every day, immersed in her own world."

"Humans can be very focused too," Vivian disagreed with Flare’s remark, retorting: "Us mages can also be focused on researching a problem at any time, and there’s no difference from what you’ve described."

"It’s different, your focus is on a field of study, not a single problem," said Flare, shaking her head: "Indeed, you mages can focus on the study of a specific field, like Magic Array Studies, but the brevity of your lifespan means you have to spread your energies across different points of knowledge within that field, otherwise it would take several generations to achieve the final results. Unlike us, where our mages can devote all their energy to deeply studying the core Four-fold Oscillation of magic arrays and once fully understood, they can turn to study the Radiative Divergence of mana lines. Perhaps we seem slower in the short term, but in the long run, our understanding of each problem is deeper than yours. Just like this master musician, when she learns a new instrument, she sets all the others aside, completely forgets them, her vision solely fixed on the instrument at hand. As for now, she must have tossed away all she ever learned into a corner of her consciousness, just for her current purpose."

"What is she actually doing?" Lina asked curiously: "It looks like she’s playing an instrument, but there are no strings on that piece of wood."

"She had mastered all the instruments in the Yarran World, and now her biggest regret is not having an instrument of her own," Flare explained: "She believes that everything she has learned is actually someone else’s creation. She aspires to invent an instrument unique to herself, one that would merge her name with the instrument itself."

"It turns out she’s innovating a new instrument." While the other girls may not understand, both Catherine and Freya, who had gone through a complete system of education, knew how difficult it was to create a new instrument. The emergence of any instrument was a product of long-standing traditions, painstakingly refined and perfected by countless musicians over time. For a human to create a brand new instrument from scratch was nearly impossible; only a long-lived elf could hope to achieve such a feat. Catherine always harbored admiration for someone so unwaveringly dedicated, and now was no exception. Although she knew the other would not take notice, the knightly girl still saluted her with knightly decorum before asking: "Has there been any progress? What exactly is being created?"

"An Eleven-String Piano that is played while cradled in the arms," said Flare: "In fact, the instrument has been made, but without the corresponding playing techniques, the existence of the instrument is meaningless. Hence, she is now researching the playing techniques that belong to this instrument... huh?"

Not just Flare, almost everyone let out a surprised murmur, their gazes all shifting in unison toward the same direction.