Chapter 693: Territory Boundaries

Although Liszt covered the cut on the spirit bug-infested rubber tree plant, the rubber would gush out again as soon as he let go. Bandaging the wound couldn't stop the rubber from seeping through and continuing to flow. He had to order the serfs to fetch buckets to collect the rubber.

He washed his hands with water.

Uncured rubber doesn’t stick to the skin and can be easily rinsed off with water.

By the time the rubber stopped gushing from the incision, the serfs had collected three large buckets of high-quality rubber produced by the spirit bug-infested plant. Surprisingly, the rubber tree didn’t appear weakened as expected—its leaves remained lush green, though no longer plump and full, and the incision slowly healed.

From the agitated rubber bug, there was no indication that the spirit bug-infested plant had been damaged.

"Could this be the harvesting method for sap-variant rubber trees—just poke a hole to drain all the rubber? Perhaps it really is the case... What should we call this new rubber tree? Sap, fountain... let's call it *Fountain Rubber*." Liszt quickly settled on the name.

Thus, under the rubber tree branch, there were now three varieties: *Fruit Rubber*, *Fan Rubber*, and *Fountain Rubber*.

Each was incredibly unique. Fountain Rubber clearly promised abundant yields, Fan Rubber was a ready-to-use product, and Fruit Rubber was easy to store and transport. The only regret was that the rubber bug triplets were merely spirit bugs, limiting the range of rubber trees they could influence.

Otherwise, expanding cultivation would make the rubber tree industry immensely profitable. For now, they had to rely on fertilization to cultivate rubber trees manually and expand the plantation.

After washing and drying his hands, Liszt left the rubber plantation and headed to the mage tower to find Acher. He reported the mutation of the spirit bug-infested rubber tree plant to her: "This seems like a very significant discovery, Acher. If you have time, you could research this further and try to uncover the secrets of the spirit bugs."

"Mmm, Acher will study it carefully."

Since her promotion to Archmage over a month ago, Acher had few research breakthroughs beyond developing magic-powered and mana-powered armaments.

She spent most of her time mastering the intricacies of being an Archmage and exploring the Magic Web.

With no surviving Archmages nearby and no relevant magic books circulating, Acher had to forge her own path. Liszt couldn't help much—even his own dragon knight training methods had been solved with her assistance.

Leaving the rubber bug triplets for Acher to study, he hurried off to complete the next *Serpentine Smoke Task*.

*Task: As winter approaches, most plants will cease growing, but that doesn't mean the season is devoid of hope. Hidden in corners may lie flickers of life. Personally inspect all plantations in the territory. Reward: An unknown number of spirit bugs.*

After a long wait, a new spirit bug spawning task had finally appeared.

"Perhaps because I've renewed my focus on spirit bugs recently, the fate power represented by the *Serpentine Smoke Task* has begun reweaving fate’s threads for me again... It's a shame that despite nightly self-hypnosis before bed, the *Serpentine Smoke Task* hasn't responded with any tasks related to the fairy dragon... Maybe my subconscious isn't deep enough yet?"

Riding his *Landbird* Loki, Liszt inspected each plantation according to the Black Horse Island map.

He cast *Magic Eye* over every plantation, carefully observing the magical feedback glow within his field of vision. With the territory now vast and prosperous, this was no simple task. Fortunately, Loki was swift, and *Magic Eye*'s observational power was strong, allowing him to inspect large areas daily.

The first day yielded nothing.

But on the second day, good news arrived. Within the influence range of Mickey, the corn spirit bug, in the corn plantation, a third-generation stick corn showed magical feedback. Upon confirmation, this stick corn was hosting a spirit bug. This invigorated him, and he continued his inspections with enthusiasm.

The third day brought two more pieces of good news. One was in the green tea plantation—a grafted green tea sapling was already hosting a spirit bug in its early growth stage. The other was during an inspection of Red Tree Island, where a small *Mangrove Tree*, the *Sea Hibiscus*, was found hosting a spirit bug. Though common in mangrove forests, *Sea Hibiscus* was economically insignificant.

On the fourth day, after inspecting all plantations on Black Horse Island and those in Flower Town, no more spirit bugs were found.

The excitement of the first two days faded, and Liszt began muttering, "Could there only be two spirit bugs?"

He called up the *Serpentine Smoke Task*, but it remained unchanged, the serpentine script still the same. It indicated he hadn't completed inspecting all plantations in the territory.

"How? I've clearly inspected every plantation, even scoured the subsidiary islands... Oh, right! There's one place I haven't checked!" Liszt suddenly remembered—he had only inspected land-based plantations; the aquatic plantations went unchecked.

So, he mounted the *Rainbow Whale* Rosi and began patrolling the surrounding waters of the territory.

Sure enough, in the Giant Kelp forest, he discovered a new *Giant Kelp Spirit Bug*. This one had hatched independently and was immediately bound by contract upon discovery.

Moreover, there were no more spirit bugs or spirit bugs in gestation.

Yet the Smoke Mission still remained incomplete.

"What could be the reason? Could it be that during the inspection of magic potions, excessive magic aura feedback caused me to overlook something?" Liszt pondered seriously, though this possibility could largely be ruled out. His Magic Eye, boosted by repeated dragon riding resonances with Leo, had evolved.

His sensitivity to magic aura feedback had risen to a higher level—magic potions and budding spirit bugs emitted fundamentally different auras, none of which could escape his notice.

Still, he spent three full days thoroughly rechecking everything.

But the Smoke Mission was still not complete.

"This can't be right. The mission must have a condition for completion—unless I misunderstood it." Liszt carefully reviewed the content of the Smoke Mission again. The task required him to personally inspect all plantations across his territory. "Ah! The key is the act of inspection itself, not necessarily finding any spirit bugs!"

According to the mission’s consistent principle, as long as Liszt completed the inspection of his domain, the Smoke Mission would directly reveal all types of spirit bugs—no need for him to search them out laboriously.

"So, did I miss part of the inspection?" He thought hard but couldn’t figure out what he might have missed. The territory wasn’t that large—even a quick scan should’ve covered everything by now.

"Whoa!"

At that moment, Leo, who had been sleeping on his chest, woke up and used their telepathic connection to inform Liszt that it was time to go to the volcanic crater on Dodo Island to absorb the supercharged fire-attribute dragon energy condensed by the volcano.

It suddenly hit Liszt: "I haven’t inspected Dodo Island yet! The Smoke Mission must be counting it as part of my territory!" In essence, the Smoke Mission projected based on his subconscious, and whether consciously or subconsciously, he considered Dodo Island part of his domain.

Once he realized this,

he laughed out loud: "Let's go, let's head to Dodo Island!"

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