Chapter 559: The Unbreakable Hemp Rope Vine

"Oh... roar..."

On the cliff of the volcano crater, Leo hung his head, completely drained. He had been breathing dragon fire for a solid ten minutes, completely depleting his magic power to help Liszt undergo dragon breath tempering—this time, there was no pretense; he was genuinely exhausted, too exhausted to even take a potion.

The flames died down.

Brushing off the ashes from his body, Liszt exhaled deeply. It had been a while since he had such a satisfying training session. The results from just this one session equaled half a month of solo training. No wonder dragon knights were regarded as the most powerful combat force in the world; the aid dragons provided in training was simply immense.

And Leo was just a hatchling, less than a month old.

Without firsthand experience, one couldn't grasp the thrill and joy of training with a dragon. It felt like stepping out of a sauna after a session of dragon magic cultivation, an indescribable sense of comfort. During dragon breath tempering, it felt like a full-body massage, with bones cracking and popping.

Looking at the dejected Leo, Liszt knew he had 'squeezed dry' this unruly little Fire Drake.

"I likely need five days to absorb the gains from today's training. If sessions are too frequent, my body won't be able to handle it. After all, a human's physique can't match that of a dragon," Liszt said, flexing his limbs and assessing his current physical condition.

Then he turned to Leo and said, "Rest well. This is the magic potion you've earned. I'll have Acheronides prepare a heap of fish for you by the seaside in three days. In five days, I'll return with your favorite beef, and we'll continue training at today's pace."

"Oh... roar..."

Leo responded weakly, quietly swallowing the Giant Kelp Magic Potion Liszt gave him.

Patting Leo's belly, Liszt waved his hand, "Go on, head back to the volcano and train hard. I don't know how long this volcano will last, so seize the opportunity while you can. With the volcano's magic power, the aid of the potion, and my training, your growth will be greatly accelerated."

"Oh roar."

Leo nodded understandingly, then flapped his wings and plunged into the magma of the volcano crater, vanishing from sight. Liszt changed into a fresh set of clothes and returned to the cabin at the foot of the mountain to rest.

...

The next morning, he was awakened by a series of "dodo" calls.

"It's the dodo bird, a species unique to this island. Even the island's name comes from the dodo bird," Liszt muttered. He had seen the dodo bird a few days ago—a bird slightly smaller than a turkey, somewhat ugly, flightless, but good at digging holes. When startled, it would hide in its burrow.

No matter what was happening outside, it would keep its head down and stay hidden.

Back then, the descendants of the sun, when they had no food, would dig up these bird holes and pull them out one by one—unfortunately, dodo bird meat was incredibly unpalatable, like chewing on dry wood, almost impossible to swallow.

Liszt had no interest in them whatsoever.

But letting them keep making noise outside was too disruptive to his sleep. He wasn't ready to get up so early, so his mood soured.

He decided to get up and head outside to shoo away the dodo birds.

The dodo birds were about a hundred meters into the woods, seemingly holding a noisy gathering. It was unclear how many dodo birds were going wild.

As he approached, he realized the dodo birds weren't just going wild—they were surrounding a thick, black snake as wide as a bowl. He recognized this snake; he had hunted one before in the forests of Thorn Ridge. It was a dark-attribute magical beast that could cast dark magic—Black Vortex. A shadow serpent.

On the ground were a few puddles of what looked like corroded dodo bird remains, clearly the work of the shadow serpent.

But this didn't scare the dodo birds away. They were frantically circling the shadow serpent, trying to peck at it, one after another, hopping and flapping their short wings like windmills.

Seeing this, Liszt immediately activated his mana and charged forward. With a quick dash, he grabbed the shadow serpent by the neck, his mana instantly enveloping it.

With a gentle push, he stored it in his gemstone space.

Then he kicked the dodo birds away, "Scram, all of you. Stop making noise, you bunch of tasteless pests." After driving away the dodo birds, he began inspecting the shadow serpent in his gemstone space. In just a few breaths, the shadow serpent was completely lifeless, dead beyond any doubt. Except for Virginia Truth, who existed in a soul state and was parasitized within a soul container, no living being with a soul could survive in the gemstone space.

Fundamentally, Liszt speculated that the gem space belonged to a kind of "alternate plane," with incomplete rules that couldn't support the existence of souls. Even Virginia, whose parasitic soul container was stuffed into the gem space, would become frozen, unable to even dream.

According to Liszt's experiments, Virginia could dream within the soul container, existing in a dream-like state. She could faintly sense the passage of time, though not strongly; at most, she could feel a slight difference between a day and a month passing inside.

But when placed in the gem space, this sense became chaotic, and she could no longer perceive the passage of time.

Therefore.

The ability to annihilate souls was used by Liszt for hunting—low-level magical beasts couldn't resist his mana encasement, so he could capture them easily.

This didn’t work on humans with mana or high-level magical beasts.

Because mana could be resisted, it couldn't fully encase them, and thus they couldn't be sent into the gem space.

The complete skin of the shadow serpent could fetch over a dozen gold coins, and he didn’t want the dodos to ruin it by pecking or to damage it himself. So he used this method to directly annihilate the soul, leaving the snake's body intact.

"Not bad, the dodos are weak in combat and left the snake skin undamaged. This is in perfect condition; fifteen gold coins should be a decent profit."

The snake skin could be sold, and the remaining parts could be used as snacks to go with drinks.

Earning fifteen gold coins without much effort, the dissatisfaction from being disturbed from his peaceful sleep had completely dissipated. Just as he was about to leave, he noticed a cluster of vines wrapped around a Human Skull Tree. Looking closer, he saw the vines climbing the trunk, almost blending into the Human Skull Tree.

On several nearby Human Skull Trees, there were also climbing vines.

"This... must be the Hemp Rope Vine, my reward," he quickly realized, walking towards that Human Skull Tree. As he approached, more and more Hemp Rope Vines became visible.

Sure enough, it was a large patch.

These Hemp Rope Vines weren’t magical herbs, just ordinary plants with small leaves and not very thick vines. Some bore pale yellow flowers, while others had seed pods. Without looking closely, it was easy to miss the flowers and pods, which explained why, despite being only a hundred meters from the cabin, he hadn’t noticed this patch of Hemp Rope Vines.

"What use do these seed pods have?" Liszt picked a few, rubbed open the shells, and found black seeds inside, resembling sliced watermelon wedges. "They’re so small, they don’t look edible. Maybe I should collect a specimen and some seeds to ask others about."

He tried to pull down a Hemp Rope Vine.

The vines were tightly entwined and wouldn’t come off, so he prepared to yank them hard. However, as he increased his strength, something awkward happened—the Hemp Rope Vine didn't break. Instead, he ended up breaking a wrist-thick branch of the Human Skull Tree, but the vine remained intact.

"It's so tough!"

"Is it called Hemp Rope Vine because it’s as tough as hemp rope?" Liszt's eyes lit up. If it’s really that tough, the Hemp Rope Vine could be incredibly useful.

Ropes are widely used in daily life.

Currently, humans use hemp ropes made from flax and sisal, which, although strong, are prone to rotting. Especially the fishing nets used in the territory, which, after being soaked in water for three days, require two days of drying to prevent them from rotting.

"If the Hemp Rope Vine is better than hemp rope, it's definitely a specialty worth promoting!"