Chapter 729: Crystal Cyathea

What’s the point of studying stars and astronomy?

He knew that time, direction, and calendars relied on astronomical research—meaning it helped with historical records, and summarizing solar terms through calendars benefited agricultural work.

But what else was it good for?

Liszt stroked his chin, narrowing his eyes in rapid thought: "Should I just copy the whole zodiac system, using constellations to study personality, fortune, and love compatibility?" That kind of "knowledge" was only good for picking up girls.

However, he soon thought of a major application.

He turned serious and told Acheronides: "Brother’s got a point. Don’t think studying astronomy is useless. In fact, it may have immense value. Remember those Moon Empire legends? Supposedly, they had a teleportation array to the moon. Do you think such an array could be built without studying astronomy?"

"Ah?"

Acheronides was indeed astonished: "Brother’s got a point. Without astronomical guidance, humans couldn’t reach the moon. Even if we don’t know whether the Moon Empire’s teleportation array was real, if we live on a planet, the moon, being a celestial body, might have life too."

"Exactly." Liszt nodded faintly, even convincing himself of his own reasoning.

Plenty of legends turned out to be true, so the Moon Empire’s teleportation array might not be fake. If such an array truly existed, he’d definitely step onto it someday to check out the moon and see its scenery for himself.

In reality, his territory’s mage tower, led by Cris, had been working on communication magic arrays, using the Magic Web as a foundation for exchanging information.

If they got the communication array working, perhaps they could develop one capable of teleporting objects.

Of course, the easiest way would be to dig up some ruins and directly obtain the Moon Empire’s teleportation technology. By then, distance would no longer be a limitation.

In any case, the stargazing lesson finally started.

Taking out a telescope, Liszt showed Acheronides how to observe celestial bodies. Since inventing the telescope, he’d spent plenty of time stargazing with it, so he had some experience. However, due to the telescope’s limited precision, astronomical observation was quite challenging—especially when determining celestial trajectories, which involved complex calculations.

He had no clue about this stuff.

After all, his math was quite poor. He could handle addition and subtraction, but anything more was a lost cause.

"Brother, since telescopes work on the principle of convex and concave lenses, couldn’t Acheronides just shape water into one?"

"Well, it’s not impossible, but simply stacking lenses isn’t enough—you’d need a tube to keep the light from scattering."

"Then how about this?" Acheronides waved her hand, and countless streams of water gathered before her, swiftly forming a cylindrical shape. Through some special arrangement, it became an opaque, dark frosted surface, with two water-formed convex and concave lenses embedded inside.

Just like that, she’d made a telescope.

"Brother, Acheronides’ telescope can see the stars in the sky!"

"Hmm." Liszt couldn’t help feeling jealous of her skill—this water manipulation was truly impressive. "Good, good. You’ve grasped the basic principle. Now just tweak the lens thickness and adjust the distance between the eyepiece and the objective lens to find the optimal magnification."

At that point, he quickly lost interest in teaching Acheronides how to observe stars, letting her diligently adjust her water-made telescope while he lay on the Lightgreen Gem Dragon’s body, lost in his own thoughts.

The Dragon Aura Manual, Lightgreen Gem ore, mutated cyathe trees, surnames and country names, material aid, changes in nobility, the Kingdom of the Eagle’s reaction—a million thoughts raced through his head.

The night wore on, and before he knew it, he was out.

...

The next day, before dawn, Liszt awoke.

He found Acheronides curled up in his arms at some point, sleeping closely against him. Her small frame felt a little chilly, and early winter frost had settled on his armor and her magic cloak. They had forgotten to pitch a tent last night or take out the Thermostatic Pearl.

Luckily, both he and Acheronides were far hardier than ordinary people, so the cold didn't bother them.

Acheronides slept lightly, and the slight movement of Liszt's body as he woke had already roused her. Stretching lazily, she moved away from Liszt, said good morning, and then went to fetch her toiletries to wash up. Liszt also rolled over and jumped down from the Lightgreen Gem Dragon.

After washing his face and brushing his teeth, he did his quick morning routine.

Then, he activated Magic Eye to observe the Cyathea forest and immediately noticed something unusual. The entire Cyathea forest was filled with a lightgreen glow, just like the magic aura of the Lightgreen Gem Dragon. However, upon closer inspection, he could spot slight differences.

The Lightgreen Gem Dragon's magic aura was more concentrated, while the Cyathea forest's was thinner.

He snapped off a leaf and checked it with his magic, quickly realizing that the Cyathea's magic aura was low in power, completely different in nature from the high magic radiating from the Lightgreen Gem Dragon.

"So, have these Cyatheas become magic herbs?"

If so, it could be considered a bountiful harvest—a dragon's magic could actually transform magic herbs. However, he noticed a few Cyatheas with a more intense glow, all of which were close to the Lightgreen Gem Dragon's body. The trunks, branches, and leaves of these Cyatheas were becoming transparent.

Prying off some bark and examining it carefully, he soon noticed the change: "This... it seems the Cyatheas aren't evolving into magic herbs, but rather into stone... or perhaps crystal?" Especially one particular Cyathea, whose large leaves had already fully crystallized into solid crystal.

Through Magic Eye's detection, half of its leaves had turned into genuine crystal, while the remaining leaves were only partially crystallized, still slowly absorbing magic power.

"Acheronides, come take a look."

"Coming."

After observing, Acheronides was equally astonished: "Brother, these Cyatheas have actually grown into real crystal! Look at this leaf—it's indistinguishable from actual crystal."

Liszt said directly, "Take a close look at both the crystal and the leaves. See where the differences lie."

"Alright."

While instructing Acheronides to make the comparison, Liszt continued observing the entire Cyathea forest. Gradually, he noticed a pattern: the closer the Cyatheas were to the Lightgreen Gem Dragon, the higher their degree of crystallization. Mature, thicker-trunked adult Cyatheas also showed a higher degree of crystallization, with the most mature parts of the leaves crystallizing first.

"It seems that once they mature, they begin crystallizing, while the immature parts continue growing..." After an hour, he concluded that this patch of Cyatheas had mutated into "Crystal Cyatheas"—Cyatheas capable of growing into crystal. Once the trees matured, they would directly crystallize.

On the crystallized undersides of the leaves, there were ring-like red bands, resembling the Cyathea's "seeds." These seeds had not crystallized.

Instead, a light touch sent countless tiny seeds scattering into the air.

Each tiny seed carried a faint, almost imperceptible trace of magic aura, dispersing in all directions.

He couldn't help but bring up the smoke mission.

"Task complete. Reward: a whole grove of Crystal Cyatheas."