The Defeated Dragon Chapter 99

99 – A Strange Fragrant Coconut

The few kilometers long East Coast had a total of one hundred and seventy one fragrant coconut trees of different sizes.

The short fragrant coconut trees might be only a few meters tall or even seedlings that had just sprouted about. The tallest fragrant coconut tree – where the Wind Peregrine Falcon and the fruit stealing monkeys had their epic battle – was nearly sixty meter tall and leaned toward the sea.

While atop Firedragon, Liszt hid in the shade below the tallest fragrant coconut tree. He guessed that if there really was a sprite worm to be born, then it surely must born from this ‘tree king'.

Compared to ordinary plants, its worm stalk was taller, stronger, and more vigorous.

If it was before, he would have to search one tree at a time to ascertain the worm stalk. But now, he directly released Magic Eyes and looked at the top of the fragrant coconut tree.

Slight changes appeared in his field of view.

Faint light-blue-colored magic power circulated atop the canopy. It was not very distinct, but was proof enough.

“There are traces of magic power. Just as expected, the fragrant coconut tree has turned into a worm stalk. My eighth sprite worm is about to be born! This sprite worm, however, had climbed a bit high.” Liszt had no intentions of investigating it in person as climbing trees was beneath a lord.

Instead, he turned towards the fruit farmer beside him: “You are called Giggs, the manager of the fruit stealing monkeys' training ground, right?”

Giggs nodded hurriedly: “I am, Sir Lord.”

“Can you climb trees?”

“I can, Sir Lord.”

“Then climb this tree, but be careful not to damage the bark. Check for me whether there is anything strange with the fragrant coconuts.”

“Yes, Sir Lord.” Giggs immediately started climbing towards the canopy of the tree by using his hands and feet.

Although his movements were not as agile as those of fruit stealing monkeys, but he still steadily approached the canopy bit by bit. After a while, Giggs climbed down and began to report: “Sir Lord, there is indeed something quite odd. There is a fragrant coconut that looks ripe, gives off a very fragrant scent, and is very big. In fact, it is as big as a washbasin.”

Normally, fragrant coconuts were the size of a big bowl. Now, however, there was a washbasin-sized fragrant coconut. Certainly, the sprite worm was concealed inside.

Liszt smiled lightly: “Giggs, remember, this tree is a worm stalk and that fragrant coconut is gestating my sprite worm. In my stead, you have to take good care of this tree. You are not permitted to touch the fragrant coconut. Besides, I want to have someone go up once a day to take a look. Immediately notify the castle once the fragrant coconut splits open, understood?”

“Oh heavens, is it a sprite worm? That's incredible!” Giggs was astonished, before hurriedly replying, “Sir Lord, please rest assured, I will take good care of the sprite worm!”

After giving a slight nod, Liszt focused his mind and summoned the smoke mission.

He felt a bit elated. He had just completed a smoke mission half an hour ago, and now, had completed another one. This kind of efficiency was great.

Just as expected, the smoke Serpentines that appeared before his eyes stated: “Mission completed. Reward: a fragrant coconut sprite worm.”

Next, the new mission appeared in a flash: “The new milk bread brought by the caravan inspired the bakery's Renal and now he wants to make a new type of bread. Perhaps adding a bit of meat would be a good idea. Just that, he is quite fed up with selling black bread. Please help him develop a new type of bread. Reward: a treasure shipwreck.”

“A treasure shipwreck?”

Liszt's eyes lit up as he looked at the word ‘treasure' and he couldn't help but to become excited. Was there anything more exciting than finding a treasure, than getting an unexpected windfall?

This mission had to be completed.

“Renal wants to make a new type of bread; adding a bit of meat? Is meat floss bread about to be invented?”

In this world, cuisine was still limited to a very primitive food processing, comprising of roasting meat, roasting fish, boiling eggs, cooking meat, frying steaks; once sauce was invented, it became popular to add a bit of it to the meals; milk was only limited to producing cheese and pudding, it was popular to stuff them with minced meat.

The most frightening thing was that it was popular to mix intact ingredients, cover them in flour paste, and then bake the thing. The thing was given the nice sounding name of ‘pie'.

Previously, Mrs. Abby was very good at making the ‘dish' called shiitake pie. It involved mixing flour, sugar and grease into a paste, then covering intact shiitake with it and baking the thing in an oven. The pie would be ready just like that.

Liszt was not used to eat this kind of ‘pie'. It felt like an insult to his taste buds and even his intelligence.

However, there were many times when he had to endure such unpalatable cuisine. He deeply regretted that he previously hadn't gone to the New Oriental to study for a career as a chef.

Eight hundred beds of stainless steel, two hundred… (a line from an advertisement for New Oriental)

In this world, bread was the staple food; from kings to serfs, everyone ate bread. Just that, aristocrats ate white bread and the poor ate black bread. Although the aristocracy's dietary requirements were certainly pursued, yet with the limited talent of the cooks, white bread was still white bread and black bread was still black bread no matter how many years passed.

“How is meat floss bread made?” Liszt recalled the meat floss bread he had eaten, “It seems like there was a bit of meat floss sprinkled atop the bread. However, how is the meat floss made?” Liszt wasn't clear about it.

He quickly put this thought at the back of his mind, told the fruit farmers a few more things, then mounted his horse and left the oyster settlement. A retainer knight had already been sent to notify Gort. Therefore, Liszt didn't had to bother with the protection work for the fragrant coconut sprite worm's worm stalk. He was on his way to the town's bakery in order to inspect the commoner's circumstances.

The bakery, a rarely seen two-story-tall wooden house, was situated in the most prominent place of the town.

The first floor served to sell bread while the second floor served as the residence of the baker's family.

The bakery mainly provided two types of services, one was to sell a variety of black bread and the other was to bake bread on behalf of others. Not all serfs could afford to purchase black bread. Most serfs would come over with bran and other ingredients to use the bakery's oven to bake their own black bread.

Renal was a freedman and in fact, he was the richest freedman in the town. Reportedly, he already had more than five gold coins as part of his property.

He was deserving to be titled as the Flower Town's richest person.

However, some people claimed that the old drunkard was the richest person. He had sold the blacksmith shop to the lord for three gold coins and, although he liked to drink, he still earned a great amount of wealth as he was skilled at forging iron tools.

At this time, Renal was keeping an eye on the oven, waiting to take out a new batch of freshly-baked bread. However, he was a bit absent-minded. He was one of the few people in the town who could often have a taste of white bread. A few days prior, when the caravan came to the town, he had bought a piece of milk bread, which had a wonderful flavor.

This made him understand that the taste of bread could be improved upon.

“Can I make a better-tasting bread?” Previously, he had never entertained such thoughts as no one in the fief would be able to afford such bread.

Now, however, was different. The road through the Thorns Ridge had been already cleared open and the castle's caravan would go outside to trade practically once in three days. He could go outside together with the caravan to sell his bread – he just had to go to the Northvalley City as there lived many aristocrats.

“Besides, I could still sell it to Sir Lord.” Renal recalled that he had met Mrs. Abby on the day the caravan came and had a chat with her, learning that the other would only make the most basic of white bread, “Sir Lord should be tired of the monotonous white bread. The caravan's milk bread was mostly purchased by the castle.”

At this moment.

He suddenly heard his wife shouting: “Renal, come out quickly, do you here me Renal, Sir, Sir Lord is here!”

Chapter end