A Unique Position

Gu Haofeng arrived in Fengar's room before his father could arrive. He had a kindly face and appeared to be around 40 years of age. He had a scholarly aura and exhibited great wisdom deep in his eyes. Considering he was the head of the current Gu Clan, it was to be expected. He was a great administrator and clan head who had been able to run the present Gu Clan in relative harmony. All the auxiliary bloodlines we happy with the balanced attitude that Gu Haofeng demonstrated, and over the years the Gu Clan had become a close knit one.

Although his 6 month old memories gave an impression that Gu Haofeng loved his nephew unconditionally, the current Fengar observed him with his wiser perspective of two lifetimes. He connected a lot of dots and realized that though his uncle loved him very very much, it was not really due to being just his brother's son. While he would have no doubt loved hand valued him quite a lot for being his brother's son, it could not be more than his own child. That fact was because he was also his mother's son.

Elves had longer lives than humans, but conversely nature had reduced their reproductive abilities while providing the blessing of longevity. For every Elf there were 50 humans, and for every Middle Elf there were 50 Elves, and for every High Elf there were 100 Middle Elves in a standard Elven population. While Gu Feng did not understand the population dynamics, he could piece together from his memories that his birth was seen as a minor miracle.

With his mother being a bona fide High Elf, it was quite rare that she would be able to conceive in the first place. With his father being human this was even harder to accept. His birth had provided a very lucrative path to Gu Haofeng to bolster ties with family Templeston. He saw him as the future patriarch of family Templeston. With Gu Feng at the helm of the Tempeleston family the Gu Clan would forever become an ally of the powerful Elvish family.

The Gu Clan controlled the north-west part of the continent, while family Templeston controlled most of the north-eastern part. With the union of the families a strong northern coalition was in the forming. The marriage of Gu Biaje and Nadra Templeston, was a political union between the two controlling powers of the North. There was no love between Gu Biaje or Nadra Templeston before their wedding. Though they loved each other dearly after their 10 years of marriage, they had barely seen each other before their wedding.

Gu Feng wa thus an unexpected pleasant surprise, who happened to come along after the tenth year of this alliance. For this his uncle Haofeng began to cherish him more than his own children. At the same time he was a great delight for his uncle Nordin. Even the first daughter of family Templeston, the head of the family and oldest aunt of Gu Feng: Nimera Templeston was elaed to have heard of her sister's pregnancy.

Nimera Templeston had been heading the family for more than a couple of thousand years [1]. She was known to be an Ice goddess, who no one dared to look at. Her primary element also happened to be ice, which dominated much of the northern landscape. Nordin and Nadra were born after a 1000 and 1100 years after Nimera respectively. So while Nadra and Nordin shared a rare Elven sibling relationship, Nimera was quite grown up and aloof when her siblings were born.

Nordin had been quite unhappy for his dear sister to have been married as a political bargaining chip but could not vent his resentment against his older sister. After Gu Feng's birth he lost this resentment and was a very happy and loving uncle who would dote unconditionally on Gu Feng. Nimera Templeston had even proclaimed on the night of the child's birth that, He would become the head of the Templeston family in a 1000 years when she were to retire, and Nordin was more than happy to hear this.

As among Elves it was more common to take the mothers name it would not be incorrect to call the child Gu Feng Templeston, an amalgam of human and Elf, of two great families. He had immediately become the jewel of the Northern Crown on the day of his birth. But this also meant that the southern powers with whom the north was currently waging war, would stop at nothing to weed out this little fellow in the bud as he had the future potential to bring them to their knees.

The eastern part of the continent from north to the south which roughly formed about 20% of the continent was not controlled by any single power. It was not entirely unanimous body, in-fact the eastern continent was known to be the domain of Giants. There were scattered Blessed Giant kings all over the east with different number of Giant followers.

There were also other organizations of different races which together with the Giants formed the lower 20% of the entire population. Among them, the four Giant kings were of some repute. These giants were not really concerned with Gu Feng at all. Most giants were temperamental with a high focus on loyalty.

They were loyal to whoever they considered friends and would usually be employed among those they considered friends. They would not get involved in complex politics or courtly intrigue. They were considered quite an anomaly in the continent. In fact both the southern and northern armies had Giants in their forces. They showed no mercy to members of the same race, unless they felt loyal to them.

The humans produced Wyzards, the Elves produced Megueses while the giants produced Blessed warriors. They had unparalleled strength and power in the same class as compared to Humans or Elfs. Luckily they were even lesser number of Blessed Giant warrior Kings than High Elves. And their intelligence was definitely lacking compared to the other two dominant races of the continent.

The south-east was mostly controlled by the Kan clan while the Kun clan ruled the south-west region of the continent. Kan Kukorou was the current generation patriarch of the Kan clan, Kun Dong headed the Kun clan. For them Gu Feng was definitely a priority kill that could strengthen their struggle against the northern forces. It would weaken the morale of the northern forces and would finally let them take a few steps ahead after continues humiliating defeats of the recent five years.

The Kan clan was a human clan, while Kun clan was composed of both humans and dark Elves. The ruling members of the Kun clan were the dark Elves. The Kan clan was proficient in using poison and mechanics, while the dark Elves of the Kun clan produced the best soul poison in the entire continent. They had collaborated with each other for generations. There had been much intermarriage among the two clans over thousands of years, however no miracle like Gu Feng came along for them. The south was therefore jealous of Gu Feng Templeston.

[1] A 10000 years is an average lifespan for Elves in this universe