Chapter 505: 1/3 Germination Rate

"Mission complete, reward: a Thorn Bug."

While Liszt was riding Loki, the land bird that had mastered the Floating Spell, through the air, a swirl of smoke appeared before him, signaling mission completion.

The orphanage was now temporarily established.

The smoke mission's requirements were not strict; much of it served as reminders. Once acknowledged and acted upon, the mission was deemed complete.

"Another Thorn Bug?" Liszt's eyes sparkled. He'd just bonded with the Thorn Bug from his last reward two days prior and transplanted the insect grass to the planned Thorn Garden in the yet-to-be-built "Thorn Town." "Two Thorn Bugs in succession will significantly boost my Thorn Potion output. Excellent!"

Giving Loki's long neck a pat, Liszt called out loudly, "Loki, to the Thorn Garden!"

This Thorn Garden was the Thorn Garden of Flower Town.

"Cluck!"

Loki chirped happily, flapping its wings and turning, flying at a steady speed toward the Thorn Garden next to the dairy farm. A gentle wind magic supported Loki's body, making it as light as nothing, thus relying on the flapping of wings to realize the dream of flying.

The Floating Spell was an advanced wind magic, building upon the Light Body Spell.

The Light Body Spell was a magic that magicians inevitably studied when exploring wind magic, condensing wind attribute magic power to lift oneself or other objects to reduce weight. This practical spell was favored by magicians for mountain climbing and heavy lifting.

However, the Light Body Spell remained merely an ordinary magic; it couldn't make people fly.

Its advanced version, the Floating Spell, however, could gather wind magic to lift objects or oneself, creating true levitation. This magic was very difficult; even great magicians struggled to master it, on par with light magic's Invisibility Spell.

Yet Loki had inherited the magic circle knowledge through its bloodline, allowing it to easily master this magic, thus truly realizing flying in the blue sky.

Unfortunately, the Floating Spell allowed Loki to fly but cost it the speed of running on the ground.

Despite vigorous wing flapping, Loki moved no faster than a sparrow. Moreover, the Floating Spell had a time limit; it would dissipate every fifteen minutes, requiring recasting. Fifteen minutes was not enough to cross the sea, let alone the waters separating Black Horse Island from Flower Town.

But it could fly from Port Town to Red Tree Island.

It could also make the trip from Nameless Castle to the Thorn Garden in a single flight. After landing, Liszt directly cast the Magic Eye to find the new insect grass that was breeding the Thorn Bug. The Thorn Garden was basically full of magic herbs, all with magic feedback; the search proved challenging, but he succeeded after half an hour.

"Guard my insect grass carefully. Notify me the moment the Thorn Bug emerges!" he instructed the insect protection team.

The team members responded loudly, "Yes, Lord!"

Satisfied, Liszt departed. He now possessed three spirit bugs and twenty-nine others, along with Acheronides and her contracted five spirit bugs. His holdings now surpassed those of most viscounts, with great development potential. There was still some gap from the family fortune of an earl, but he believed he could catch up soon.

"Whether it's my strength or my spirit bugs, I will surpass the earl soon."

Imagining that glorious future, he chuckled to himself.

On the way back, he called out the smoke mission again: "You have studied the blue iron, plastic aluminum, and books with incomprehensible content left by the Sky Ship, as well as those magic seeds. Why not examine that pile of peculiar wood? Perhaps they can bring you new inspiration. Reward: A follower with amazing talent."

The strange wood mentioned in the mission content was the wood salvaged from the Sky Ship.

The wood seemed to have sprouted, very hard, not inferior to the quality of Thorn Ironwood. However, Liszt had studied it for a few days before and didn't find much information. He even planned to use it to build the castle if there was no clue; its similar branches had already been used to build the Sky Ship.

Now it seems, these strange pieces of wood hide secrets.

"But what does a follower with amazing talent mean? To let me recruit a new follower, to find among the new serfs? What kind of talent is amazing, could it be even more amazing than my talent?"

Liszt felt somewhat conflicted.

Of course, he hoped to have followers with formidable strength, but the title of "prodigious talent" was something he wished to wear on his own head.

"First, complete the task, then gradually observe this follower."

Returning to the castle, he immediately set about studying the strange wood, which clearly belonged to building materials. Its most peculiar feature was the naturally formed keel shape in the airship, indicating that this wood was highly malleable.

However, Liszt felt that this was crafted by magic.

Based on the clues at hand, it could be inferred that the Children of the Sun lived in the forest, living among trees. They possessed profound magical skills, not only able to shapeshift into bears, eagles, and leopards but also into trees. It was not surprising that they mastered magic to control the growth of trees.

This magic was even recorded in those Sun script texts.

Unfortunately, Liszt's Sun language vocabulary was too limited to understand the contents of the books: "I guess, among the Potion Seeds I harvested, there are seeds that grow into such trees... But what does the smoke mission mean by asking me to study the wood again? What secrets are still hidden in the wood waiting to be uncovered?"

In the castle, he tried soaking, burning, and chopping the wood, but apart from proving its ironwood grade, he still didn't find much useful information.

Shaking his head, he paused his study of the wood.

Walking into the glasshouse, he patiently cared for the germinating Potion Seeds, one-third of which had sprouted. The first germinated fava bean seed had already grown into a small seedling, its tender leaves looking no different from ordinary plant seedlings.

Just as he was loosening the soil, a seed was accidentally unearthed.

He was about to bury it back when he suddenly noticed that the seed had sprouted, but the sprout had withered at some point.

"The seed is dead?"

He was surprised for a moment, thought of something, and quickly excavated another spot where there was a seed but no sprout. A seed was dug up, and like the previous one, it had sprouted but died. Several seeds were dug up in a row, and except for one that had not yet sprouted, the others had sprouted but died.

"Why did they die after sprouting? Is it because they were stored for too long, and their vitality was insufficient?" Since the dead seeds involved many varieties, and there were corresponding varieties thriving, environmental issues could be ruled out.

He pondered deeply, thinking it might just be that the seeds were too old, leading to insufficient vitality.

Although it was regrettable that nearly two-thirds of the seeds had died, one-third had sprouted, somewhat alleviating the regret in his heart.

Just then, a flash of inspiration struck him.

He connected the seeds to the wood: "The seeds sprouted but died, and the wood I salvaged also sprouted once, but the sprouts withered quickly... Does this mean that these sawn wood sections are themselves 'seeds' for cultivating plants?"

Not all plants rely on seeds to sprout; there are also many plants that can sprout directly from the trunk.

Thus.

He hurriedly took out several sawn wood sections and buried them in the soil of the glasshouse, awaiting the outcome.