Chapter 734: The Flame Territory

The discussion about Liszt’s new status was merely a formality, as the Grand Duke had already prepared a plan. Ironhoof City and Coral Island would be unified into a new territory, designated as Liszt’s marquisate to serve as a transitional arrangement during the nation-founding preparations.

Liszt accepted the Grand Duke’s offer.

Both the Grand Duke and the Crown Prince secretly breathed a sigh of relief—they feared Liszt’s demands would be too great. Thus, the Grand Duke smiled warmly and said, “Lord Liszt, please name this territory. I will immediately arrange for the court to prepare your marquisate conferment.”

Even as a temporary territory, Liszt took a moment to think carefully before replying, “Call it the Flame Territory.”

As a Fire Dragon Knight, he embodied flames through his fire dragon companion. The name Flame Territory would constantly remind others that this was the domain of the Fire Dragon Knight.

“Excellent. I hereby confer upon you the title of Marquis of Flame, with full authority over the land,” the Grand Duke declared with a wave of his hand, finalizing the decision.

Though nominally a vassal of Blue Gem, in reality, Liszt and the Grand Duke would sign a mutual defense pact as equals.

Once the title was settled, the high-ranking nobles came forward to offer their congratulations.

“The Tulip family now has two marquises—congratulations!”

“Marquis of Flame and Marquis Niuwei—twice the congratulations!”

“With the Glory of Knighthood’s blessing, the Tulip family is destined for enduring prosperity!”

Liszt smiled and thanked them one by one, showing no arrogance. He had always been a composed man. While nobles might be divided into ranks by status, in his eyes, nobles and commoners were all just ants. What difference did it make?

Beneath a Dragon Knight, all were ants—a mindset Liszt had embraced lately.

Power often clouds judgment. For instance, Levis had grown quite arrogant after becoming a Sky Knight. Had it not been for Liszt’s unexpected rise as a Dragon Knight dousing his enthusiasm, who knows how arrogant he’d be now? But no one could temper Liszt’s pride—he’d have to cool off on his own.

Fortunately, his maturity gave him enough self-control to overcome such arrogance.

Done with noble small talk, Liszt returned to the nameless castle and directly addressed Marquis Niuwei: “Father, I need you to handle the formalities of my promotion as Marquis of Flame, as well as the material aid negotiations with the Grand Duke.”

Lee William replied casually, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

“Then I leave it to you, Father.”

“You are the pride of the Tulip family. Focus on your training as a Dragon Knight and improving your strength. Leave the details to me—I’ll secure the greatest benefits for you.”

“Understood.”

It had to be said that having the support of his family made things much easier for Liszt. Even as a Dragon Knight, he still needed trustworthy individuals to help build his legacy. Now that he had two dragons to raise—especially the Lightgreen Gem Dragon, which required extensive recovery—the resources needed would likely be astronomical.

The Lightgreen Gem mine was not yet fully developed, and extraction would have to wait another two years, at least until the aftermath of the dragon-slaying war settled.

Thus, alternative solutions were necessary.

He asked his brother Levis to summon their uncle Mexiro for a brief family meeting.

“Father, Uncle, I need to raise dragons, and the resource shortage is huge. We can’t rely solely on national resources, and dragons can’t pay their way yet. For now, we must accumulate resources through business.”

Both Lee William and Mexiro understood this well—Leo was an Elemental Dragon, not a Gem or Metal Dragon.

Mexiro immediately offered, “Liszt, if needed, the Longtaro family will be your steadfast support. I can allocate some resources to assist you.”

“Thanks, Uncle, but it’s not necessary yet. I have several profitable ventures in mind. Paper and glass—both are highly lucrative industries. I plan to expand production and leverage the Tulip and Longtaro family networks to sell them on the mainland.”

“That won’t be a problem. Paper and glass will sell themselves to mainland nobles.”

"Besides paper and glass, I'm also exploring other lucrative industries. Perfume, porcelain, and sea salt are basically already figured out."

"Sea salt?" Mexiro raised his eyebrows and inquired.

"Yes, seawater contains salt, which requires special techniques to extract. I’ve mostly mastered it and can mass-produce high-quality sea salt, better than well salt or pond salt," Liszt said proudly. Despite being an island nation, the Sapphire Duchy still faces a salt shortage.

Currently, most salt comes from land-based sources like rock salt, pond salt, and well salt—people haven’t figured out how to harvest salt from the sea yet.

Coral Island has a salt mine, so salt was never an issue before. It wasn’t until his territory began developing that Liszt started researching solar salt production from seawater. With magic aiding the research, the technique was quickly perfected, producing edible sea salt.

Black Horse Island’s coastline isn’t ideal for salt production, so the method couldn’t be scaled up there.

However, Marquis Niuwei’s Niuwei Territory has many sunny, flat coastal areas suitable for salt pans, and Red Crab Island naturally has potential salt fields as well.

Once high-quality sea salt is produced, it will swiftly dominate the continental salt market, bringing Liszt immense profits. Just look at ancient China’s salt merchants—each was a wealthy magnate of their time, even hosting emperors on their southern inspection tours.

This shows just how lucrative the salt trade is.

You can’t make as much from robbery as you can from business.

By Liszt’s estimates, if large-scale sea salt production and sales were monopolized along the coastal regions of the Kingdom of Steel Ridge alone, the profits could match the Sapphire Duchy’s entire annual revenue. Of course, the Kingdom of Steel Ridge might not open its salt market to Liszt.

Dealing with the kingdom’s big-shot nobles is more realistic.

Either way, with paper, glass, porcelain, perfume, and sea salt all in play, the money will keep rolling in. Even if the techniques leak in a few years, Liszt expects to have already grown strong by then—who’d dare stand in the way of his money-making when he could ride three or five dragons straight to their doorstep?

He was confident: "With the dragon-handling tricks from the smoke mission, riding three or five dragons in a few years shouldn’t be difficult."

After all, he already rides two dragons and has three Milon Mind Fruits in reserve.

The sea salt venture had Lee William and Mexiro seeing dollar signs, stirring their enthusiasm. Even Levis couldn’t resist asking, "Liszt, if Gloria and I can secure the Golden Wheat family’s channels, can we get in on your trade plan too?"

"If the channels are firmly in your hands and not secretly controlled by the Golden Wheat family, I don’t mind you making money together, brother."

The continental market is vast beyond measure—there’s no need to worry about too many people sharing the pie.

No matter who joins the trade plan, they’d only serve as agents, essentially earning money for Liszt, while all technological ownership remains in his hands.

Even if the Duke later wants a piece of the action, Liszt would welcome it.

Of course, progress must be step-by-step. For now, Liszt prefers to keep the channels within the family, testing the market first before deciding next steps.