Chapter 371: Elf Swift Shadow Bow

Sitting in the study and gazing out the window at the environment so different from Flower Town, Liszt couldn't help but feel conflicted for a moment amidst his aversion to "killing."

In the end, he used his rationality to overcome his chaotic emotions and focused his mind on summoning the smoke mission.

"Complete the mission and receive a low-level dragon beast known as a chocobo as a reward."

Clearly.

Among the Earth Knights killed by Liszt, there was an elite Earth Knight, so the mission was judged as completed. However, he was a bit puzzled: "What is a chocobo? Something like an ostrich that is a low-level dragon beast?"

Regardless of whether it resembled an ostrich or not.

A low-level dragon beast would be a highly valuable prize: "I wonder how this chocobo will become my reward."

He only intended to stay in this castle for one day.

However, after a thorough search, there was no sign of the chocobo. Luckily, Liszt wasn’t in a rush. As long as it was a reward from the smoke mission, there would always be a right time to connect with the threads of fate and intersect with the chocobo. He began to check the new mission, and after reading the details, his eyes lit up.

"Mission: First battle victory, the loser will lose everything, the winner will gain everything, complete a thorough search of the current castle, and all gains will belong to the spoils, including the treasures in the underground vault. Reward: a spirit bug soldier."

"Spirit bug soldier?"

This weapon had an intriguing name but was actually quite cruel, as it required killing a spirit bug, soaking it in blood, to make a spirit bug soldier. After absorbing the spirit bug's blood magic, the spirit bug soldier would undergo special property changes.

In terms of value, a spirit bug soldier could fetch a dragon coin, equivalent to tens of thousands of gold pieces.

However, transforming such a beautiful creature into a weapon was a cruel act.

Liszt would never do such a thing, but he wouldn’t give up on an already made spirit bug soldier: "Although the spoils of this castle are not all mine and need to be sealed and handed over to the duke... it doesn’t prevent me from taking the most valuable items. It looks like the spirit bug soldier is in the underground vault."

He immediately called Captain Leiden: "When you were checking the castle, did you find an underground vault?"

Captain Leiden shook his head: "We only found a warehouse filled with flour and dried meat, and no underground vault was discovered."

"I suspect this castle has an underground vault. Send someone to search thoroughly and let me know right away if you find anything." With subordinates to command, Liszt didn’t need to search personally.

Soon, Captain Leiden excitedly reported: "Lord, your guess was very accurate; we indeed found the underground vault!"

The underground vault was next to the entrance of the underground passage, disguised as a wooden wall. However, after removing the wooden wall, there was a solid stone door with a special lock. The knights were searching for the key.

"Lord, we haven't found the key yet."

"Forget the key; just smash it open!" Liszt doubted if these knights had any brains. They were Earth Knights with mana; it wasn’t their own castle, just demolish it violently.

With Liszt's reminder, two Earth Knights immediately found some broken lances, infused them with mana, and started smashing the stone door. No matter how sturdy the stone door was, it crumbled under the relentless assault by the Earth Knights. Soon, a dark passage leading deep underground was revealed.

Liszt had someone bring a torch to shine into the passage. The walls were very rough.

It didn’t seem like there were any traps, and with the rough craftsmanship of this castle, it didn’t seem likely to have any traps designed. An Earth Knight was sent to lead the way, with Liszt closely following.

The passage was much shorter than expected, and after a turn, they directly reached the underground vault, which was quite small, just a tiny warehouse.

Several rows of niches had been carved into the warehouse walls, each containing eight wooden boxes.

"Open a box and take a look." Liszt commanded.

The Earth Knight immediately pulled out a wooden box and smashed the lock on top with a lance, lifting the lid. Thousands of silver coins reflected dazzling light under the torchlight. This was clearly a box of silver coins, containing at least several thousand.

Equivalent to dozens of gold coins.

"Are silver coins really worth storing in a chest?" Liszt was quite speechless. Usually, the chests hidden in secret rooms, when opened, should contain gold.

The Earth Knight was very excited: "Commander, can we divide these silver coins?"

"As long as you can carry them, I don't mind if you divide them."

"Thank you, Commander, your generosity is admirable." The Earth Knight could hardly wait to grab a handful of silver coins and stuff them into his clothes.

But he restrained himself, pulled out the second chest, and opened it again.

It was another chest of silver coins.

Four chests in a row, all filled with silver coins. No idea what the castle's owner was thinking. Gold coins wouldn't even fill half a chest, yet they used silver coins to fill four chests. If it were gold coins, each knight could take a few and leave easily.

But now it was silver coins, and we'd all need to stuff our pockets to carry them off.

There were still four chests on the wall.

Instead of silver, gold, or copper coins, these chests contained armor.

"Commander, this set of armor is very lightweight, it shouldn't be ordinary steel armor!" The Earth Knight handed the armor to Liszt.

Liszt felt it and found the armor to be very light and thin, but its hardness was not inferior to the steel armor he wore.

This made his eyes sparkle: "It's mithril armor!"

"Congratulations, Commander!" The Earth Knight immediately began to flatter him. They had divided the gold and silver coins, and Liszt should get the better spoils. This set of mithril armor was perfect.

There were three sets of mithril armor in the four chests.

Liszt was very satisfied. This mithril armor is worth at least seven or eight sets of steel armor. He didn't hesitate to accept it gratefully.

The last chest.

It contained only a bow, with greenish bow limbs and a silver bowstring. The appearance clearly belonged to the most popular style of longbow in the Sapphire Duchy. Similar to an English longbow.

It was about 1.1 meters in length, with a slight curve to the bow limbs, and no recurved ends.

Strictly speaking, this type of longbow wasn't Liszt's favorite. He knew that bow development would eventually lean towards recurve bows or compound bows. But the longbow was simple to make, not prone to internal stress changes, and easy to maintain and handle.

Grabbing the longbow, he pulled the bowstring. It was very stiff.

Without using his mana, Liszt could barely draw it. He quickly circulated his mana and drew the longbow, then let it go.

"Buzz!"

You could feel the power from the vibrating bowstring and limbs reverberating through the air.

"What a powerful bow!" After trying it, he felt that this green longbow matched his superb archery skills.

Plus, he figured this longbow must be the spirit bug weapon from the smoke mission.

Holding the bow, he said: "This bow and these three sets of mithril armor belong to me. Divide the silver coins among yourselves."

"Yes, Commander!"

Returning to the study, he closely inspected the emerald longbow in his hands and discovered tiny serpent engravings on the bow arms, visible when inspected under the light from the window.

The serpent engraving clearly stated "Spirit Bug · Swift Shadow Bow," which was the common naming convention for a spirit bug bow. "Spirit Bug" indicated that it had been soaked in spirit bug blood, while "Swift Shadow Bow" was its true name.

He took out an arrow.

Drawing upon his mana, Liszt drew the Swift Shadow Bow. He relied solely on the raw power of the bow, releasing the bowstring without using the Multi-Arrow technique.

Whoosh!

The arrow whistled through the air.

The arrow, like a beam of light, instantly struck a large tree near the castle, with the shaft buried deep in the trunk.

Smiling, Liszt was pleased with the bow's power. "Truly deserving of the name Swift Shadow Bow, its draw speed is lightning-fast, and the arrows fly like shadows. This is likely the unique properties derived from the spirit bug blood's magic power... This spirit bug bow is even more valuable than my Red Blood Sword!"