The Defeated Dragon Chapter 98

98 – Conjecture Regarding the Flame Mushrooms' Cultivation

Although Liszt could see the loss of magic power, but as he was not a wizard, he could not investigated the cause of the loss. However, as a scientific-minded transmigrator, he had his own unique insights.

“What is the biggest difference between the old and new shiitake beds?”

“According to Crookedneck Bob, the conditions of most shiitake are about the same, with some differences in temperature, humidity, and nutrition ratios at best.”

“Therefore, the fact that the Flame Mushrooms could grow in the Crookedneck Bob household's shiitake bed indicated that they should not be so strongly rejected by the other shiitake beds. However, after such a long time of configuring the new beds, each ratio tested had still failed to support the Flame Mushroom seedlings. It should not be an issue of bed ingredients.”

“If it's not an issue of bed ingredients, then of what?”

After short time later, he deduced that the biggest difference between the old and new shiitake beds lied in the shiitake growing on the shiitake bed!

The shiitake settlement had been cultivating shiitake for a very long time and there had never been cases of invasion of other types of mushrooms. Yet suddenly, the Flame Mushrooms appeared. This indicated that the Flame Mushrooms were quite likely a variation species of shiitake. This variation might not be an independent new species but rather, an associated species of shiitake.

Mushrooms were fungi, and fungi were always strange. Perhaps there was a symbiotic relationship between the mycelium of the Flame Mushrooms and of shiitake.

Therefore, he said: “Teacher Gort, tell the serfs to try cultivating the Flame Mushroom seedlings together with shiitake seedlings .”

“Cultivating them together?” Although Gort had no idea what was going on, but he still did as he was told.

When Crookedneck Bob heard what Liszt had said, he became very energetic: “Sir Lord, I will try cultivating them together! I will definitely cultivate the Flame Mushrooms for Sir Lord!”

“Remember not to tamper with the shiitake shed as to not to damage the Flame Mushroom's cultivation environment.” Warned Liszt.

It didn't matter that the speed at which the Flame Mushrooms were cultivated was slow as he still hadn't reached the boundary of having to rely on magic ingredients to promote his qi. However, if all the Flame Mushrooms were to dye out, then he would go mad.

……

In the blink of an eye, five days had passed.

Every day, Liszt would go to the shrubs where the thorns sprite worm's worm stalk was located to take a look at the progress of the fertilization and logging. The logging team was experienced, and now that they were equipped with the sharp axes forged by the blacksmith shop, they became even more efficient. They managed to clear a large area around the shrubs.

Basically, the trees inside the area of influence of the thorns sprite worm's worm stalk had been cleared.

Firedragon horse quietly grazed on the weeds. Although it was already pregnant, yet it didn't show. It still could be ridden normally. According to Marcus, riding it for the next few months would not be an issue.

Inside the box, the thorns sprite worm reclining atop jade powder wiggled comfortably.

These days, Liszt could clearly feel that the thorns sprite worm was in a good mood, which was quite abnormal. In general, the mood swings of sprite worms were very minute. After all, no matter how mystical sprite worms were, they were still essentially worms and thus could not express a great range of emotions.

“Does this little fellow really believe that it can evolve?"

He quickly ignored this thought once it manifested itself in his mind as the chances of the sprite worm succeeding were too slim. Therefore, the more hopeful he was, the greater the disappointment would be once the sprite worm failed. It was better not to hold unrealistic delusions.

At this time, Blair, who was in charge of supervising the work, came over.

“Sir.”

“Have you found anything?”

Blair said with some hesitation: “I don't know if it is of importance… Many thorns sprouts, which are already half a finger long, appeared in the surroundings of the shrubs.”

Raising his brows, Liszt followed Blair to take a look at these thorns sprouts.

Indeed, tender yet spirited thorns sprouts appeared from below dead leaves on the open field where trees were cut down.

Thorns, unlike those from Earth, simply looked like barbed shrubs. At best, they were as tall as a person. They weren't poisonous, didn't bloom, and didn't bear fruit. They reproduced through expanding their roots and growing new sprouts from them. Strictly speaking, thorns were wild plants and thorns sprite worms were wild sprites.

Untouched wild thicket always had a small number of naturally born sprites. With its messy wild vegetation and poor land, the probability of sprite worms being born from wild plants was very low and was by far lower than that of sprite worms being born from plants cultivated long-term by humans.

Moreover, the types of wild sprite worms that would be born in a wild thicket were quite difficult to guarantee as they could be randomly born from some weeds or some poisonous fruit trees. They were of a relatively low exploitation worth.

After being contracted, thorns sprite worms could be used to build hedges at most.

In particular, some greater aristocrats would grow hedges outside their manors to isolate themselves from the commoners.

In the Flower Town, the thorns sprite worm had no real use as the area outside the castle had been transformed into a horse farm and therefore, there was no need for hedges.

Anyway, it was also a sprite worm, so Liszt still wanted to nurture it.

“Such a big tract of thorns seedlings sprung into being in a spun of two days?” He gently pulled out a seedling. It was very tender. However, it had no traces of magic power circulating inside of it.

“At first, I didn't notice them.” Blair shook his head, “Not only me, but the serfs also didn't notice them. It seems as if they sprung into being overnight.”

Liszt carefully examined the seedling.

It really wasn't as he had imagined, it wasn't a magic ingredient thorns, but an ordinary thorns seedling instead.

Nevertheless, he decided to first summon the smoke mission to have a look. Once the smoke twisted and turned into Serpentines, he became stunned – “Mission completed. Reward: a fast-growing type of thorns.”

This meant that the mission of supplementing the nutrients of the thorns sprite worm's worm stalk had been completed. However, the rewards was rather disappointing. He got a type of fast-growing thorns instead of magic ingredient thorns.

“What do I need these fast-growing type of thorns for?” Sighed Liszt inside. Not every smoke mission would bring about a generous reward.

He stopped over-thinking it and instead turned his attention to the newly issued mission.

“Mission: without the devastation from the fruit stealing monkeys, the fragrant coconut trees can at last bear mature fragrant coconuts. However, one of the fragrant coconuts seems to be a bit different. Please find out the reason for this. Reward: a sprite worm.”

After he finished reading the mission, the regret that he had felt just a moment ago had quickly dissipated, giving way to excitement.

The reason why a fragrant coconut was different? Wasn't it because a fragrant coconut sprite worm was about to be born?!

Seeing the familiar reward, Liszt shifted his sight away from the thorns seedlings and said to Blair: “Continue fertilizing the shrubs. The logging team, however, can stop cutting down trees and instead should start building a fence. As for you, carefully observe the thorns sprouts and record their growth.”

“As you wish.”

……

A short time later, Liszt appeared in the oyster settlement.

The construction of the oyster settlement's houses was not progressing quickly, but it was already sufficient to barely settle down the several hundred serfs. The houses were no longer built in a disarray and instead were orderly arranged into lots according to the plan personally formulated by Liszt.

The lots near the sea were turned into a huge public square.

On the square stood a small hill built from multi-colored shells symbolizing the oyster settlement's specialty product – seafood.

Tall fragrant coconut trees littered the East Coast's beach. Below the cluster of fragrant coconut trees closest to the oyster settlement stood a slightly bigger house with a courtyard, which was the fruit stealing monkeys' training ground.

The few serfs most proficient at raising the fruit stealing monkeys lived there. They, who were liberated from the fields and the sea, were assigned with the task of raising and training fruit stealing monkeys. They were the glorious fragrant coconut farmers.

“Sir Lord!”

When the several fragrant coconut farmers saw Liszt, they successively knelt in salute.

“Rise. You've been training the fruit stealing monkeys for a while. Can the monkeys already be used to pluck fruit from trees?”

Chapter end