Chapter 766 Glossy Leaf Smilax

The next day.

Flame set sail on time, heading towards the new island.

The coordinates of the new island had already been marked, approximately 800 kilometers southeast of Black Horse Island, with another 400 kilometers to the southernmost island previously charted by the Duke of Sapphire—once claimed by the Duke of Sapphire as the sovereign of all islands at sea, though such a claim no longer held.

Apart from the waters surrounding the Sapphire Archipelago, which belonged to the Duke of Sapphire, the other islands were ownerless.

Since Liszt had discovered this island, he was now its rightful owner—ownership was determined by strength, after all.

Just minutes after departure, the magic station received new information.

The exploration ship Discovery had found two more new islands, one large and one small. The size of the larger island was unknown, but judging from its distant outline, it might not even be as big as Black Horse Island. The smaller island was roughly half the size of the larger one, and the two were situated close enough that one could be seen from the other.

In fact, including the previously discovered island, the three islands were all relatively close to each other.

When Acheronides translated the message, Liszt couldn’t help but smile: "Excellent!"

What he had assumed would take a long time to complete—the smoke task—had been accomplished far sooner than expected. The three islands had been found in just twelve days.

The expedition fleet had set out on January 20th, and now it was February 22nd—exactly twelve days later.

With a soft call, ethereal smoke coalesced before his eyes, as tangible as real smoke yet as fleeting as an illusion, gradually forming a passage in Serpentongue.

"Task completed. Reward: The restlessness of the rubber spirit bug triplets."

"How many times has this been for the rubber spirit bug triplets?" Each time they grew restless, it seemed to correlate with the emergence of a new bug-grass symbiosis.

One had produced fruit-bearing rubber, another fan-shaped rubber, and the last had transformed ordinary rubber into fountain rubber.

"So, what will this restlessness bring? A new variety of rubber tree? Or perhaps one—or even all—of the rubber bugs evolving?" He was eager for their evolution. Rubber was the most heavily consumed resource in the territory’s development, indispensable across all industries.

Construction required rubber as a binding agent, carpentry needed it as an adhesive, and military supplies relied on it as a hardening material...

As the territory’s trades thrived, rubber’s importance and value only grew.

The few hundred acres of rubber plantations cultivated by the rubber spirit bug triplets yielded far too little. Even with Liszt frequently using Triforce to replenish the rubber supply, he couldn't keep up with demand.

"I’ll find out what these triplets are up to once we return!"

Shaking off his musings, he checked the smoke’s new message: "Task: Three new islands have been discovered—your first inhabitable discoveries since Black Horse Island. The lush forests teeming with life suggest abundant wildlife. Conduct a basic survey of the islands. Reward: A bountiful harvest of multiple spirit bugs."

"Surveying new islands—hardly a challenging task. But since it’s rewarding with spirit bugs, I might as well ride the dragon afterward and scan the island’s flora with dragon's eye tracking to ferret out any hidden spirit bugs... Those in the forest might still be hunted by magical beasts, but small islands should be safer."

Some magical beasts hunted spirit bugs—like Liszt’s mount, the ostrich-dragon Loki, which he had captured after it tried to devour a barley bug.

Spirit bugs in forests stood a high chance of being found and eaten by magical beasts.

But ordinary small islands typically lacked such threats. Black Horse Island, for instance, had no magical beasts, allowing several spirit bugs to emerge naturally. He naturally hoped these three newly discovered islands would also host multiple spirit bugs awaiting contracts.

The 800-kilometer journey took Acheronides just an hour and a half to traverse with her water manipulation, though the exact locations of the three islands remained elusive.

Liszt summoned Fire Drake Rio and took to the skies, scouting from above until he spotted the three islands about twenty kilometers away. From the air, they formed a sharp-angled triangle resembling an awl. The two closer islands were dotted with numerous islets and a vast stretch of coral reefs, loosely forming a minor archipelago.

Beyond this cluster, however, no other islands were visible. For convenience, Liszt named them Island One, Island Two, and Island Three in descending order of size. Flame moored alongside Explorer at Island One—the first discovered.

Compared to the narrow, sleek royal caravel Explorer, Flame was an absolute unit, three times as wide.

Yevich was not on the ship; he had taken the knights on board to explore the islands. However, Fox had now led three squads of knights and a large group of squires ashore. The subsequent exploration of the islands would be left to them—the knights would survey the terrain and resources, while the squires would establish settlements on the islands.

This would make return trips easier.

As the knights began their work, Liszt and Acheronides busied themselves with their own tasks.

Acheronides needed to meticulously record the geographical coordinates of this sea area, draft standard nautical charts, and survey underwater reefs and currents to determine suitable locations for future ports. Meanwhile, Liszt mounted the Fire Drake Rio and, under the knights’ awestruck stares, circled the first island to inspect its forests.

The first island was a lush green island.

Though the temperature was low, there was no snow or wind, indicating they had already left the freezing region behind.

The mission briefing’s description of these three islands as habitable was not entirely accurate. The islands were essentially a submerged mountain chain, with hardly any flat ground, making it difficult to settle and build towns here. They were better suited as freshwater replenishment points for fleets to rest and resupply.

If fruit trees and vegetables were planted here, along with small livestock raised, it could become a reliable supply station.

At this moment, Liszt activated his dragon-eye vision.

The island’s forests immediately appeared in his vision with a unique array of colors—flowing winds, growing trees, and solid earth composing a scene bursting with life. He had long grown accustomed to this sight and now skimmed closely above the treetops, scanning carefully.

No magical beast signatures were detected, suggesting the island was free of such creatures.

After half a day of thorough inspection from one end of the island to the other, he identified seven sources of magic power feedback. Four were from spirits—two spirit bugs and two still developing. The remaining three were from mutated magical plants, though without any spirit bugs, just isolated mutants that could regress to ordinary flora.

Among them was a small shrub Liszt recognized all too well—a bloodline fruit!

"One sagebrush spirit bug—sagebrush can be dried and used as incense; one dodder spirit bug (a parasitic vine). The ones in gestation are a pine spirit bug and a purple butterfly spirit bug, both severely malnourished and at risk of miscarriage. They need immediate fertilization to replenish nutrients."

After noting their locations, Liszt first contracted and collected the sagebrush and dodder spirit bugs, then directed the squires to fertilize the pine and purple butterfly spirit bugs.

Next, he examined the two magical plants. Both were solitary mutations without spirit bugs or clusters, meaning they could degenerate into ordinary plants at any time.

"One cluster amaryllis magical plant, and one… smilax (ba-qia)?" Liszt scrutinized carefully and found that the amaryllis was a chaotic magical plant, while the smilax was a rare light-attribute variant—one of the exceedingly scarce types in nature.

Due to the extreme rarity of light-attribute magical plants, documented varieties were few, and among them, the mutated smilax was known as "glossy-leaved smilax," a highly valuable species.

But the catch was that Liszt had no smilax spirit bugs.