Chapter 334: The Sudden Second Pokémon

The birth of the apple tree spirit bug instantly reminded Liszt of numerous stories.

Before long, this would become another topic of fascination at noble banquets in Flower Town and even Coral Island, following the tales of Hiddleston the blizzard beast, the thorn fairy, and the six-headed king sea snake.

Centuries later.

The world had changed dramatically.

Archaeologists, upon digging up a piece of wood from the ground, would solemnly tell the young people, “This is the branch of the very apple tree that changed the world! Planted by Liszt Tulip, the Sacred Dragon Knight, Lord of Dragon Domain, Thorn Emperor, King of the Mermaids, and Master of Rubber, who, along with his followers, sat beneath its shade and shaped the world’s destiny.”

With the young people looking on in awe, the archaeologist would hold up an ancient copy of *Dragons Battling in the Wilderness* and recite, like a bard, “Thorn Emperor Liszt, chosen by heaven, may he live long and prosper…”

…

All of the above was purely Liszt’s wild and fanciful imagination.

In reality, after the new task appeared, he quickly forgot his fantasies and stood there, mouth agape, stunned by how suddenly happiness had arrived!

“Task: With the increasing business interactions between Black Horse Island and Flower Town, a single Flowers is struggling to handle the busy transportation. As the lord, you should resolve this issue by purchasing a medium-sized sea vessel. Reward: one small spirit.”

He rubbed his eyes, almost unable to believe what he was seeing.

So he closed his eyes, rubbed them vigorously, and rechecked the smoke task.

The reward for the task still read “one small spirit” instead of “one spirit bug,” a genuine small spirit, just for buying a new ship.

He could get it!

“A bit… hard to accept, too sudden… Why doesn’t it require five or six interconnected tasks to grant me a small spirit?” Liszt had always thought that, given the nature of the smoke task, it would be difficult to directly yield a small spirit.

Because the smoke task couldn’t conjure rewards out of thin air.

It used the power of fate like a thread, presenting the reward. One could imagine how many threads of fate needed to be altered to bring forth a small spirit.

However.

After taking a deep breath and calming down, he realized he had fallen into a misconception. For the power of fate, it didn’t need to lift a stone; it only needed to find a fulcrum to gently pry and change the entire stone, or even lift the Earth.

“If there’s a small spirit around Flower Town or Black Horse Island, could the smoke task leverage it and present it as a task reward?”

Thinking this through, everything became clear.

After all, the smoke task had once drawn the invisible dragon, demonstrating just how wondrous the power of fate can be.

As his initial excitement began to fade, Liszt composed himself, turned his horse, and rode straight toward Port Town. He didn’t want to stay on Black Horse Island any longer and just wanted to return to Flower Town, where he would use the channels of Tulip Castle to purchase a new ship.

“Marcus, take charge of the affairs on Black Horse Island. The rubber trees in the plantation have recovered and can be harvested again. Organize the serfs to gather a batch as soon as possible; I need to build a house in Flower Town.”

“Yes, my lord.”

There was nothing else to say.

Since there was still time, he directly ordered Captain Kosto to set sail and return to Flower Town.

A small horn sounded.

Soon, it was answered by a horn.

Sitting at the bow of the ship, Liszt saw a white shadow emerge from beneath the sea—it was Acheron following him. Reclining against Hiddleston’s back, his thoughts galloped freely, as if a horse had broken free from its reins.

"I wonder what kind of spirit bug this little spirit bug will be."

"It should be a wild spirit bug. I haven't noticed any signs of evolution among my spirit bugs." Among his twelve spirit bugs, eight had been hatched within the past year and hadn't had much time to develop, showing few signs of advancement.

Liszt had led them to assimilate a batch of crops and collect pheromones, but they needed time to grow.

The other four spirit bugs—the Millet Bug, Wheat Bug, Tulip Bug, and Clover Bug—were given to him by the Count. There was also a Thorn Bug, which had already evolved into the spirit bug Jie La.

"The Millet Bug, Wheat Bug, Clover Bug, and Tulip Bug probably don't have any possibility of evolution, right? They aren't of exceptionally outstanding quality."

So, the new small spirit bug was most likely a wild one.

Since it was wild, its variety would be hard to guarantee, and it was very likely to be a spirit bug of little use—because most wild plants are difficult to develop. The ones truly of value have long been domesticated and cultivated extensively by humans.

Even if it's just a weed spirit bug, Liszt would still find use for it—after all, weeds can at least help with landscaping.

His thoughts wandered.

Still, he couldn't guess the variety of the small spirit bug or how to obtain it.

He then pulled his thoughts back and began to consider the special abilities of the newly discovered rubber bug triplets—the Three Phase Power. This is definitely a form of magic.

Humans classify magic power into eight attributes: water, fire, earth, wind, lightning, light, ice, and darkness. However, magic power isn't limited to these; many forms are chaotic, lacking any specific attribute.

Liszt had read in some knight novels and magic books that the magic power of spirits is called natural magic power.

Or, it could also be called plant-attribute magic power.

Since it allows control over plants, Jie La planting thorn seeds can be considered a form of plant-attribute magic; so the Three Phase Power of the rubber bug triplets should also count as plant-attribute magic.

In fact, some people also consider the magic power of dragons as a new type of magic power—metal-attribute magic power.

Metal dragons, needless to say, can produce metal at any time, so they can be called metal-attribute magic.

Gem dragons, although they don't produce metal but gems, do so in the same way as metal dragons, so they are also called metal-attribute magic by a few humans.

Elemental dragons, although their magic power has attributes like water, fire, earth, and wind, have a distinctive effect that is clearly different from ordinary magic power, so they can barely be called metal-attribute magic.

According to this logic, holy dragons are also metal-attribute magic.

"Plant-attribute represents nature, and metal-attribute represents transformation and creation. It feels like this classification is very forced, as if people of different kinds must be divided into tall, short, fat, and thin categories." Liszt shook his head, disagreeing with this classification. Fire dragons should naturally be of the fire attribute.

Why classify it as metal-attribute?

Like mermaids, Acheronides has unique magic power, but she is inherently compatible with the water attribute and should be classified as a water-attribute creature. Fire dragons naturally have extraordinary magic power, but they release fire-attribute magic, so they should naturally be classified as fire-attribute creatures.

"In short, magic power can manifest in countless ways, and there's no need to be fixated on which specific attribute it is. The Three Phase Power is magic formed by magical power."

For now, it's unclear.

Whether this is unique to the rubber bug triplets or all triplet-type spirit bugs possess this ability, Liszt believes that in the future, he will have more of this type of spirit bug.

"With the Three Phase Power, from now on in the rubber plantation, after harvesting one batch, I can directly use the Three Phase Power to repair it. Once the rubber bug triplets have rested, we can harvest another batch and repair again... repeating the cycle endlessly. With this, my rubber supply will be virtually endless!"