Extraordinaries start to age slowly when they become mana entities, but he is no doubt young-looking to an experienced eye. However, he is not proud of himself, and neither is he happy with his current achievements or content with them. If he were content then he wouldn't be going to the tower of heaven to participate in the trial that holds once every Origin cycle.
The power is a Sovereign is not easy to acquire. A plane might not produce a sovereign in 20 origin cycles. It is just that the number of sovereigns in the realm only increases over the years. This is because each Sovereign of law has eternal life, and the seed of power that they condensed is indestructible.
Even though there are more and more sovereigns in High Heaven, the effort to become a real sovereign remains tedious and almost impossible for some to achieve in a lifetime. So it is a great achievement to become a sovereign at the young age of 5 Origin cycles.
People who don't know Gehald might call him talented, or hardworking, or both for his achievement at such a young age, but his age mates from his plane will tell you that he used to be of a rather normal talent, well for a high elf, and also lazy.
He didn't use to be regarded as talented. Things changed for the better after the last demon attack on his plane. He became zealous about training. Perhaps he was scared straight by the fighting and bloodshed.
High elves of the High Life plane hardly fight bloody battles because of their peaceful nature-loving personality and because they have very powerful members in their race who protect them from danger.
A lot of powerful people want the Life tree, which is the specialty of the High Life plane. These Life trees are truly rare in the Void universe, so they set sight on high heaven. These powerful people don't want the trees for their vitality and life-extension abilities but for their use in the creation of the cosmos of a world god.
In the past, the high elves had to compromise a little because even though they had powerful members in their race, they couldn't just hole themselves up in their realm and refuse to go out. They were pressured from all sides for the treasure that they had. In the void universe, you don't keep what you don't have the strength to protect.
The arrival of the realm lord changed the standing of their race and high heaven in the upper realm since then. His presence brought protection to the high elves since no one wanted to fight with a talented realm lord who was rumored to have become a sovereign of law in less than an origin cycle.
So with the deterrence of a realm lord and well-known powerful members of the race in the upper realm, no one was stupid enough to attack their plane. Well, no one except the demons. The plane coordinates of the High Life plane are common knowledge among the powerful extraordinaries, but no one is rash or foolish enough to barge in.
If someone of power and influence wants to visit the realm, he or she would have to be given entrance to it through the planar portal at the ancient battlefield. It is an act of disrespect or war to bypass a planar gate. Only truly confident and powerful people can do it and get away with it, people like the little tyrant.
But all this etiquette and niceties mean nothing to demons. They wanted some life essence. The Life trees of the high-life plane have it, so they attack to get some. It is that simple for them. They didn't even think about winning the invasion war. Their only aim is the Life trees.
Numerous demon lords who wished to become demon kings came together and formed an army to attack the plane. They used the plane coordinates to create a portal from the abyss directly into the plane and attacked.
The elves fought valiantly to protect their guardian trees, and only after months did they manage to beat back the hordes of demons. The sovereigns did not take part in the battle since there were no demon kings among the attackers. They could have wiped out the impudent demons easily but decided against it to let members of their race see some fighting.
High elves don't have fighting experience. Because apart from a few skirmishes between tribes, they hardly get attacked by anyone, and they also don't have any interest in other planes. They are at peace with nature and have few enemies. This decision to allow the younger members of their race to fight changed the fate of Gehald.
Before the last war with the demons, Gehald was just another King-level extraordinary of his race. He was a king of the law of life, and there were a lot of them because it was relatively easy for them to rank up to the king level, especially in the laws of life.
The difficulty of ranking up after that is more than 100 times the previous effort. Even though it was still easy for high elves, the strenuous training was just too much for Gehald. He had decided to take things slowly back then. After all, he was still young, so he had time for more fun in his life.
Fun in the life of a high elf is dancing, singing, eating, arts, sex, and sleeping. But all these came to an end when the demons attacked.
A plane-wide order came down from the race council. He was mobilized, so he had to stop having fun and go to battle. When he and the others found out it was the demons attacking, they weren't surprised. Their recent history of 1000 origin cycles has only recorded demons as assailants of their plane.
He was excited to see and fight the demons, but it wasn't as fun as he thought it would be. He went, saw, and fought. It was a life-changing experience for him and many others.
He, in particular, experienced something unique, not the slaughter and the unrelenting attacks of the demons. Sure, he nearly died many times, but who didn't? However, not a lot of elves could say they were nearly possessed.