The Mighty Dragons Are Dead

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Between a landlord and his followers, there lies a game of strategy.

When the landlord is strong, the followers become self-disciplined and loyal; when the landlord is weak, the followers become presumptuous and their thoughts flicker with disloyalty. The situation on Red Crab Island is such that with a weak landlord, the followers are restless and eager to act.

Therefore.

Liszt has always been learning how to be a qualified landlord. If he were to spend his life on Coral Island, perhaps he wouldn’t need to learn anything—with the protection of his family, no followers would dare to be presumptuous. But his ambition is not limited to a small island like Fresh Flower Town or Black Horse Island.

Neither being an earl nor a marquis was his goal, his aim was at least the position of a grand duke—to ride a dragon!

The future is bright, but the road is tortuous; every step he takes now is to plan for the future, to solidify the foundation. Hence, the idle gossip behind Paris’s salary is but a small breakthrough in his attempt to exercise power tactics, an experiment in how to manage followers.

After pondering for a moment, he calmed his mind—more important matters awaited his attention.

…

Sea Serpent.

A type of venomous snake that lives in the sea, adorned with brightly colored patterns on its body.

Sea serpents are often found in shallow waters, but aquatic monsters of the sea serpent type have not been frequently discovered, and those that have been found are predominantly in the deep sea; perhaps they should be referred to as sea serpent aquatic monsters.

Magical beasts and sea monsters essentially mean the same thing.

In this world, there is no such thing as an official or internationally recognized academic name; different regions have their own terms for various species.

The author of “Secrets of Sea Serpent Aquatic Monsters” is a court grand magician from the Star Duchy. The Star Duchy borders the sea, and the author specializes in water magic, therefore he often sets out to sea in search of sea monsters. This popular science book mainly introduces sea serpent sea monsters.

In total, it records seven kinds of sea serpent sea monsters.

They include five low-level sea monsters: the Rainbow Serpent, Blue-ringed Serpent, Ice-ringed Serpent, Red-banded Serpent, and Two-headed Serpent; plus two intermediate sea monsters: the Six-Headed King Serpent and the Frozen King Serpent.

Each type of sea serpent has data introduced regarding its toxicity, magic, and body size.

Of course, the data is not comprehensive because the observation is very rare, and the research conditions are limited.

What caught Liszt’s eye was the introduction of the Six-Headed King Serpent.

“The Six-Headed King Serpent is more powerful than the Frozen King Serpent. I observed it twice; once, an adult Six-Headed King Serpent exceeding twelve meters in length, and another time, a juvenile Six-Headed King Serpent, six meters in length, with three heads that did not cast magic and were obviously weaker.”

This grand magician’s data was very solid, and he even provided hand-drawn illustrations.

The somewhat abstract Six-Headed King Serpent was very thick, with its body comprising about two thirds of its length, and the remaining one third was its six slender heads, without any distinction of primary or secondary.

It had a variegated pattern, mainly black and white.

The six heads could each cast a different spell: Water Arrow Barrage, Water Wave Shield, Water Whirlpool, Strong Water Column, Blade of Water, and Waterfall.

“The Six-Headed King Serpent and the Two-headed Serpent share certain similarities.”

“Based on my speculation, for every two meters of its length, one of its heads matures and starts casting magic.”

“The Six-Headed King Serpent feeds on sea fish and also preys on dolphins and people who fall into the water, but it will not attack ships on its own initiative. If provoked, it will release magic frantically, which can last for more than half an hour,”

“I’ve found that the six heads of a mature Six-Headed King Serpent think alike and release magic in a very orderly fashion. However, the heads of an immature Six-Headed King Serpent don’t coordinate well, and they can easily become distracted and fail to cast spells or shift their attack targets, sometimes even moving in a disjointed fashion.”

Since no Six-Headed King Serpent had been captured, the Grand Magician didn’t record more data.

In his magic books, he wasn’t primarily recording the characteristics of Sea Serpent sea monsters, but rather a secret about Sea Serpents—the wondrous reaction between the blood of Sea Serpent sea monsters and Serpent Blood Fruit.

According to the records in the book, Serpent Blood Fruit is a kind of medicinal material that can be eaten as fruit, although it is quite unpleasant to taste. Poisonous snakes are very fond of Serpent Blood Fruit; they will definitely have Serpent Blood Fruit growing around their habitats. If a hunter is bitten by a snake, their immediate response would be to look for Serpent Blood Fruit nearby to cure the poison.

Children with diarrhea or women with difficult labor can be treated with Serpent Blood Fruit.

In the Star Duchy, Serpent Blood Fruit is very famous, since a large number of poisonous snakes live there, and the landlords have to plant a lot of Serpent Blood Fruit, to treat snake venom at any time. The Grand Magician originally only wanted to study the connection between Serpent Blood Fruit and snake venom in order to create an antidote to make money.

But after cultivating Serpent Blood Fruit with snake blood once, he found that the Serpent Blood Fruit grew extremely vigorously.

He began catching all kinds of snakes and feeding Serpent Blood Fruit with their blood, until one time, he used the blood of a Sea Serpent sea monster and suddenly discovered that there was a problem with the Serpent Blood Fruit—it had given birth to a Serpent Blood Fruit Sprite Bug. After repeated exploration and spending an unknown amount of money purchasing Sea Serpent sea monsters,

he finally concluded that the blood of low-level Sea Serpent sea monsters had a tiny probability of stimulating the Serpent Blood Fruit to ferment a Sprite Bug.

No experiments had been done with the blood of intermediate Sea Serpent sea monsters, so it was unknown what the chances were.

This should have been a shocking discovery. With such a discovery, it would be possible to cultivate a large number of Serpent Blood Fruit Sprite Bugs to make money. However, when someone calculated the costs for him, he was rendered speechless—twenty low-level Sea Serpent sea monsters could probably cultivate one Sprite Bug.

The average purchase price for a Sea Serpent sea monster is 160 Gold Coins—low-level Magical Beasts definitely wouldn’t sell at that price, but Sea Monsters are hard to catch, and their prices are generally inflated.

That is to say, he would have to spend 3,200 Gold Coins to cultivate one Serpent Blood Fruit Sprite Bug.

However, the local market price for a Serpent Blood Fruit Sprite Bug is only 2,000 Gold Coins—cultivating Serpent Blood Fruit Sprite Bugs with Sea Serpent sea monster blood would bankrupt him.

The Grand Magician angrily shelved his money-making plan.

And he wrote his findings into this book, “Secrets of Sea Serpent Aquatic Monsters”, and decided to publish and sell it—he believed that at least he had discovered a method of cultivating Sprite Bugs, which was still meaningful.

“So.”

Liszt lifted his head from the book and pondered, “The Dulu Miqita that chased Ach might just be an immature Six-Headed King Serpent, with four heads capable of magic and a body length of about eight meters? And since snakes like to eat Serpent Blood Fruit, perhaps I can use Serpent Blood Fruit to lure the Six-Headed King Serpent? Or maybe disrupt the magic casting of its four heads?”

He closed the magic book.

He knew that Serpent Blood Fruit was key to hunting Dulu Miqita, and he needed to buy a batch of Serpent Blood Fruit—but it seemed there were no Serpent Blood Fruit on Coral Island, at least it was the first time he’d heard of such fruit.

“According to what the Grand Magician has recorded, the blood of Sea Serpent sea monsters can induce the cultivation of Serpent Blood Fruit Sprite Bugs… If I could delve into the principle behind it, perhaps I could unlock the secret of Sprite Bug cultivation.”

Unfortunately, Liszt didn’t have the ability to delve into these secrets for the time being, nor did he have any magicians under him who could do the research.

“If I were to kill Dulu Miqita, its blood might be used to cultivate Serpent Blood Fruit, and I might succeed in nurturing a Serpent Blood Fruit Sprite Bug in one go. But the risk is not small; it would be better to sell the blood of an intermediate Sea Monster, which could fetch a better price.”

The materials from the body of a low-level Magical Beast are worth at least a dozen or so Gold Coins, sometimes even several hundred Gold Coins.

The materials from the body of an intermediate Magical Beast should be worth at least ten times that of a low-level Magical Beast; selling them for several hundred to a thousand Gold Coins isn’t difficult.

Rather than wasting snake blood on growing Serpent Blood Fruit, it’s better to sell it for Gold Coins.

Liszt took out a Gold Coin and spun it on the table, “Before that, I need to act immediately to buy Serpent Blood Fruit, and purchase them in large quantities!”