Chapter 87 A Princess Bed

The giant clam's shell was notoriously difficult to pry open. The fishermen lacked the necessary tools and were at a loss.

Lister didn't insist either; as long as the black pearl was trapped inside, it couldn't escape. After the colossal squid was dismantled and its decaying body thrown into the sea, Lister instructed his men to carry the giant clam back to the castle for further study.

The enormous clam, with its peculiar shape, drew the attention of many townsfolk along the way. Upon reaching the castle, all the servants came out to witness this strange sight; none had ever seen anything like it.

"Teacher Marcus, do you have any idea how we can open it?" Lister inquired.

Marcus pondered for a moment before suggesting, "It's incredibly strong, and its two shells are tightly clasped together. However, its outer shell is irregular with numerous crevices. We could insert a stick to pry it open. Ordinary wooden sticks won't do; ideally, a thicker iron rod would be best. But I doubt such an iron rod exists here."

Iron was highly valued, and no one would waste iron ore to forge a specific rod just for opening a giant clam's shell.

"Maybe we could use fire," Carter proposed.

"The shell is too thick; fire would hardly harm it," Lister countered, considering the black pearl inside that might get cooked if exposed to excessive heat.

"Let's try hooks then. Two hooks on each side of the shell, and we'll pull them apart with horses to pry the shells open," Marcus eventually thought of a crude but practical solution.

However, the result was satisfactory.

As the two horses pulled on their respective ropes, they nearly snapped it, finally prying open the giant clam. The clam now stood upright like a flower in bloom, its opening not too wide but enough to reveal the "straps" that supported its shell - the adductor muscles.

Marcus gripped his dual short swords, channeling his battle aura to sever one of the straps.

Snap!

The horses, still tugging with force, split the clamshell into two, unable to close it again. Liszt's gaze was already fixed on a cluster of protrusions on the inner wall of the clam. Round and plump, they contained the pearls.

"Cut them open carefully. There are pearls inside, so don't scratch them."

"Yes, sir!"

Marcus took up the knife himself, meticulously slicing through the membrane of the protrusions. When the largest one was cut open, a shiny black pearl, the size of a basin, was revealed.

"There are more beside it. Cut them all open and retrieve them." Liszt was thrilled.

He wasn't yet sure what he could do with these black pearls, but finding such enormous ones was an incredible discovery. In his hometown, they would undoubtedly fetch an astonishingly high price at auction.

When Marcus finished his work, he had extracted sixteen black pearls of varying sizes.

The largest was as big as a basin.

Next were two that were nearly the size of basketballs; then came three roughly the size of soup bowls; and finally, a multitude of smaller ones comparable to apples, oranges, and table tennis balls.

After cleaning them, Liszt held the largest pearl in his hands and suddenly felt a trace of magic flowing within it. Swiftly, he activated his Magic Eye, and he saw a deep, vortex-like magic within the black pearl, tinged with a pale blue color, which was the hue of water attribute magic.

"It actually has magic?"

He had previously used his Magic Eye to inspect the giant clam without detecting any magical traces. To his surprise, these black pearls possessed magic.

"Sir, these black pearls seem to have magic?" Marcus also noticed the anomaly but, lacking the Magic Eye, dared not make a definite conclusion.

"Certainly, they do possess magic."

Liszt caressed the black pearl, his mind wandering to the knight novels he had read. One of them mentioned that the sirens' songs could calm the tempests at sea. A great knight once captured a siren and crafted her into a magical artifact.

This artifact allowed a ship to navigate steadily through storms without being affected.

What mermaids were, no one knew for sure. Some claimed they had heard the sirens' song, just as Kosto had just stated that he had once listened to their melodies. However, there was no record of what mermaids actually were, and most people believed them to be mere figments of sailors' imaginations. This tale had nothing to do with the Black Pearl.

What connected the dots for Liszt was the notion that mermaids could be used to create equipment that protected ships from storms.

"These Black Pearls—can they also be crafted into magical gear to resist storms? After all, they're water-infused magical items with potent magic. They might even rival the gems produced by dragons. It's uncertain if they can suppress sea storms, but they should be suitable for making magical equipment."

Without mages, the Black Pearls couldn't be studied.

Liszt felt there were other potential uses for them—for instance, as air conditioners.

"Teacher Marcus, Mr. Carter, everyone, do you feel the air has become cooler?"

Marcus pondered, "I don't sense any coolness, but the humidity in the air seems to have increased. The Black Pearl must be condensing the surrounding moisture."

"In any case, these are excellent items. If we were to sell them, how much do you think they'd fetch?"

"I've seen fist-sized white pearls before. I've heard that a single one like that would cost at least five gold coins. I speculate that a similarly sized black pearl could sell for ten gold coins? As for the largest black pearl, Your Excellency, I cannot estimate its value—it's an entirely new kind of pearl."

"It possesses a rich magical aura, definitely more valuable than the white pearls. However, the castle isn't in urgent need of funds at the moment, so we'll have to reconsider its price." Liszt was not entirely satisfied with Marcus's appraisal.

He felt that even if the black pearl was worth twice as much as a white pearl, it was still undervalued. Its true value might be far greater than anyone could imagine.

So he said to Carter, "Mr. Carter, please move them to my study." He kept a ping-pong-sized black pearl in his hand, turning it over and examining it carefully.

"Certainly, sir."

A moment later, Carter returned and asked, "Sir, what should we do with the opened giant clam? Can its flesh be eaten?"

"I think it can... Hmm, let Hiddleston try it first. If it's poisonous, we'll just dispose of it."

"And the two shells?"

"Clean the inner walls of the shells, I want to see if they've been fossilized."

Fossilized giant clams were precious jewels in Liszt's hometown, one of the Seven Treasures of Buddhism. In the West, giant clams, pearls, corals, and amber were considered the Big Four organic gemstones. Fossilized giant clams were the whitest substances in the world, formed from the fossilization of the inner wall of the clam.

"A giant clam of this size should have some fossilized parts, right?"

However, Liston soon realized his mistake. Though the giant clam was enormous, there were no signs of it being petrified. It was then that he recalled that a living giant clam couldn't possibly turn into jade. Petrification required time, much like how jade was formed through millions of years of sedimentation and refinement.

Petrified giant clams were the result of dead ones buried in sand for millions of years, slowly turning into jade.

Since it wasn't petrified and couldn't be made into jewelry, Liston's mind wandered to an unconventional idea. "Mr. Carter, what do you think would happen if we turned it into a bed?"

As he spoke, an image from his childhood cartoon flashed in his mind – Disney's Little Mermaid, where the princess always slept inside a seashell.