Mount Kailash

In the Tibetan region near the Himalayan mountain range is another mountain range, sometimes called the Kailash mountain range. The tallest peak of which is Mount Kailash, a peak sacred to 4 religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Bön. However, in the present age of the Third Millennia it is commonly referred to as the site of Lab 444. The same one the Chinese from the PRC era had labelled Death Lab, not only because of its serial number but also due to the fact that they tried to engineer new divergent races of humanity. With the arrival of the Merfolk, the scientists in Lab 444 believed that in order to bring order into the world, there need to be more powerful races, because only a multipolar system is sustainable.

Take Cold War II for example, after Mexico, Brazil and Argentina modernized completely sometime in the 2500's they formed the United American front with the US and Canada while the newly modernized Eastern Africa allied with China and North Korea in the Dual Eastern Afro-Asian alliance the world became extremely unstable and the first Nuclear War erupted resulting in the destruction of half of South America, Africa and Northern China. Clearly a bipolar world was unstable and thus, to balance out the merfolk, more races would be required. So that there would be more than two powers in the world.

To this end, Lab 444 created the Elven race, a group of beautiful, extremely thin and tall humans with pointy ears capable of harnessing some strange radioactive powers which allowed them to pulverize their opponents, merfolk included. The end result, these Elves took over the entire Kailash mountain range, one of the territories where Silvercross had no influence. Even the mighty nation of Silver Cross had to think twice before invading the Kailash range. Fortunately, the scientists back at Lab 444 had ingrained "Nature Appreciation" into the elves genes making them all tree huggers so they really never left the mountains or forests and hated modern cities the most.

The next race which Lab 444 created before the Chinese military, which had once sponsored them, cut off their funds and blew them off the face of the planet was the dwarves. Yep, the bulky little fellows who were master forgemasters and created extremely advanced weapons which were said to rival those of Lab 13. They also loved mountains, but they liked to live on the inside of mountains, and they too inhabited the present day Kailash range.

Thankfully Lab 444 was destroyed before they finished the creation of their Angel and Demon races…

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"Mom, I just started school at Silver Cross Academy so don't you think I might be penalized for skipping the second day of class?" Chen Xie asked while panting.

Yesterday, his mom had speedily packed all of her equipment. After notifying some close friends that they were going on a long hike, the mother and son duo had all but sprinted out of their homes with their bags and ran all the way to Mount Kailash. Geographically speaking, it should have been at least a week of hiking for them to arrive, but in the middle of the night when darkness had completed descended, Chen Xie's mom grabbed him by the handle on his backpack and started jumping. Yes, jumping, from mountain to mountain. Chen Xie was smart enough not to scream despite his initial terror.

Everytime they stopped jumping and continued hiking, Chen Xie understood that it must be because his mother had sensed a patrol. This raised his perception of his mother to a whole new level. Who could possibly guess that his mother who looked like every other beautiful housewife was actually this strong? In the course of a single night he quickly extinguished any thoughts he had had about his mother being an average live stream chef.

"Up ahead is the 11th 11th grade Elven Village," Liu Qingmei introduced.

"Uh… what is that supposed to mean?" Chen Xie was confused. 11th 11th grade village? So the 11th village with a bunch of 11th grade students?

"After all these years of development, the Elven race has increased in population and at the same time, have evolved. The first generation elves who used to use radiation to kill their enemies have all died off and their offspring slowly got stronger. Naturally, there were discrepancies in the strength of the radiation they can emit and their control of that radiation. Thus, they created a rating system to evaluate the ability level of their people. 11th grade is the lowest grade and it implies that the elves in the village all have an ability average of 11.

Essentially, this ability index is obtained by averaging the results from their radiation power and control tests. To get a score of 11, the intensity of the radiation they emit should be able to kill a pigeon, a score of 3 is required to kill merfolk and a score of 1 represents that the intensity of their radiation can kill Deinococcus radiodurans, the extremophile bacteria known to be able to withstand the highest level of radiation. Meanwhile a control score of 11 means that the radiation can be controlled to burst only in the side they are facing while a control score of 2 implies that they can control the radiation can be controlled like a thread and sent through the hole in the back of a sewing needle without touching the needle itself."

"Then what is a score of 1 in the control department?" Chen Xie asked.

"Score of 1, oh to be able to not just control the radiation like a thread but to limit its radius of effect. That way after the thread pierces through and kills a merfolk it will stop moving and not keep going further to strike the human behind the merfolk," Liu Qingmei nonchalantly explained.

"WTF? You can control something like that?" Chen Xie was flabbergasted. Radiation was essentially a super powerful stream of photons, to make them harmless after a certain distance would require a massive amount of strength to bring them out of the frequency of Gamma rays back into the infrared or UV ray spectrum.

"Surprised?" Liu Qingmei asked.

"Of course. I never thought something like that was possible," Chen Xie replied. "But I am confused about one thing. How come the elves do not die of radiation poisoning if their body is constantly exposed to radiation. Aren't they a variation of humans?"

"What is the average length of elven hair at birth?" Liu Qingmei asked.

"Its pretty long, probably at least 20 cm long… Wait," Chen Xie stopped. "Human hair is essentially waste protein, just like our nails. Could it be that radiation that should killing off the cells inside their body is always being channeled into their hair?"

"Bingo. Elven hair is essentially a nuclear bomb," Liu QIngmei nodded in affirmation.

"..."

As the two conversed they had entered the woodlands at the base of the mountain.

"One thousand years ago this mountain was like a sword piercing into the sky, not a shred of vegetation could be seen growing on its black steel like surface. Today, after all the pollution and dust from the Yellowstone explosion and the debris from the first Nuclear War as literally covered the peak resulting in the growth of this strange forest," Liu Qingmei sighed.

"Um, why do you sound depressed like you lost something mom? Your trying to hint to me that you're secretly over a thousand years old are you?" Chen Xie asked.

"Ahem, of course not. Otherwise my body would have long since exhausted its eggs, how would you have the chance of being born then?" Liu Qingmei retorted. Seriously, sometimes her son really passed stupid remarks.

"True," Chen Xie couldn't exactly refute that.

"Lady Liu!"

"Auntie Liu!"

A bunch of sharp voices pierced through the underbrush. Suddenly the mother and son pair found themselves surrounded by bunch of children with perfect faces, slim figures and silver hair. Each of them had big round eyes looked like black moons.

"Hello there children. Auntie is very surprised to see you all here, did you sneak out of the village to play again?" Liu Qingmei laughed as she squatted down to their height to talk to them.

"Nope. I brought them out today Auntie Liu," a sweet melodious voice drifted over from above.

Looking up, Chen Xie saw a teenage elf staring back at him. She had incredibly sharp features and straight silver hair that was tied into a ponytail. A bow was slung across her back and her wrists were adorned with intricately designed cuffs that had a greenish-gold vine like pattern. From his point of view he could see an a polished and cut emerald embedded in the right cuff and a sparkling round topaz on the left cuff.

"Long time no see Arya, how have you been?" Liu Qingmei looked up to greet the teenage elf.

"I've been doing okay. I recently entered the ranks of 8th grade talents so I've been quite busy," Arya replied while shrugging her shoulders. However Chen Xie could see the trace of pride in her eyes. This led him to assume that despite coming from an 11th grade village, to reach the level of those in an 8th grade village was certainly no easy feat.

"Does this mean you might not be here the next time I visit?" Liu Qingmei asked saddened.

"Of course I will!" Arya replied hastily, "Even if I have to rush out of a training session at my 8th grade village I will still come to greet Auntie Liu when you visit. Although, I might not be able to run if you visit during my history lessons… but I can come after they end, just stick around for an hour at most!" Arya's eyes brightened.

"Haha, of course I will have to stick around. It won't feel that good if I don't get to see Arya when I visit," Liu Qingmei laughed, "and the same is true for all of you little munchkins".

"Yes, auntie loves us the most!" the little elves cried in unison.

"Auntie Liu, who is that short haired fellow?" Arya asked while staring at Chen Xie.

"This is my son, Chen Xie. He should be a few years younger than you this year," Liu Qingmei introduced. "Come on Chen Xie, go up and greet Arya. You don't have to act all shy around girls just because your mother is here".

"MOM!" Chen Xie was about to lodge a complaint when he was interrupted by Arya's sweet giggling. Then with a hint of red creeping into his cheeks he tossed a rope from his bag over a thick tree branch and began his climb into the canopy with practiced ease.

Seeing him climb up and easily balance himself on her branch Arya's eyes revealed a hint of surprise. Humans weren't known to be very nimble creatures, and of course they were much heavier and weaker than elves, so for Chen Xie to be able to climb up without breaking a sweat and stand with his back straight, he was definitely rather fit.

It should be noted that elves grew and matured slower than humans. However this mechanism of slow maturity was not as unrealistic as the ones in other works of fiction. For example, a 2 year old elf child was about as mature as a 2 year old human child, however an 8 year old elf child was about as mature as a 5 year old human, so the 15 year old appearance of Arya roughly implied that she was in her early twenties. The rate of maturity only got exponentially slower for elves as they grew older which was why a 60 year old elf had the mind and body equal to a 30 year old human.