Chapter 521: Increasing Income and Reducing Expenditure to Raise Dragons

This chapter is a bonus chapter for the generous reward from "Bookfriend 20180724174943994".

The lifespan of a dragon is one thousand years, which is a commonly accepted fact. As for its credibility, Liszt has no way to verify its authenticity and can only take it at face value. Dragons are considered juvenile dragons before the age of one hundred, adult from one hundred to eight hundred years old, and elder dragons after eight hundred. Elder dragons leave their living areas and fly to the Valley of Dragons.

What Liszt can discern now is that dragons do not necessarily die in the Valley of Dragons; evil dragons might be slain by dragon hunters. The Fire Dragon of Black Horse Island is an evil dragon, and its death is highly suspicious—it may not have died of old age but could have been killed.

Moreover, even after death, dragons seem to be able to resurrect, their lives appearing to be a cycle.

"Keeping a dragon is really expensive, but what puzzles me now is, what those untamed evil dragons feed on when they are young?" Liszt is very puzzled. He asked the Fire Drake, but obviously got no answer. Although the Fire Drake is quite intelligent, it only knows to ask for food and refuses to be ridden.

In the Red Maple Mountain of Maple Duchy, there resides a Light Dragon. No one in Maple Duchy knows when the Light Dragon arrived at Red Maple Mountain or what it ate to grow into an adult dragon that remains unvanquished.

There are also other places where evil dragons seem to dwell, occasionally invading human towns.

In the tales of chivalry, evil dragons pillage human treasures, eat people, and livestock. However, no author describes where these evil dragons come from; they are usually encountered by the protagonist, a righteous knight, who hears of people being threatened by a dragon or a noble being coerced by a dragon.

Then the protagonist steps in to help, eradicating the evil dragon.

Finally, he claims the fair maiden.

The tome on dragon husbandry that Marquis Bull often flips through does not record the situation of juvenile dragons either. It seems that juvenile dragons are a mystery; the dragons humans come into contact with are all adult dragons, and the dragons raised by various countries are also adult dragons. It seems that the dragon knights ride adult dragons.

"Surely there are dragon knights who find juvenile dragons and establish a companion relationship, successfully riding them... but for some reason, they choose to keep it under wraps," Liszt frowned as he looked at the clear flame pattern on his chest in the mirror. "Perhaps... they have the same idea as me?"

He hesitates to disclose that he has a juvenile dragon.

Other dragon knights, perhaps at the juvenile dragon stage, also hesitate to disclose it. But why, even after the dragon matures, do they still choose not to disclose the dragon's juvenile period?

"Perhaps it's not that no one has revealed it, but that the information about dragons has been hidden by the families that raise them?"

This idea is more reasonable, as families that own dragons certainly do not want families without dragons to obtain them; they must wish to monopolize the dragons of this world.

The Fire Drake in the mirror yawned and began to call out "oh ho," "oh ho," indicating it was hungry.

Liszt ignored it.

This Fire Drake has an extremely strong digestive ability. In the few days since returning, he has secretly fed it more than a dozen cows. But one cow only satisfies it for four hours. After four hours, it punctually calls out "oh ho" for food, sometimes waking Liszt up in the middle of the night, demanding to eat a cow.

Gradually, Liszt found that it could call out all it wanted, and not feeding it for half a day would not cause any issues.

So he consciously controlled the Fire Drake's meal times. Unfortunately, while eating cows could be controlled, consuming elixirs could not be stopped.

Every day, it consumes five times the amount of elixirs Liszt uses for his cultivation. If not given, it can call out all day. Such consumption is something Liszt simply cannot afford. After advancing to the sky knight, even though the dissipation speed of the Dragon Aura is slow, combined with the reduction from "Aura Decay," he still needs a massive amount of elixirs.

He and the Fire Drake together consume as much as six sky knights consuming elixirs.

Even a typical Marquis family could not easily supply six sky knights with elixirs. Moreover, Liszt is only a viscount, and his territory has just begun to be developed.

He cannot figure out how to meet such a large consumption of elixirs.

Nor does he know what wild Fire Drakes eat to grow.

Since increasing income is not feasible, he can only reduce expenditure. After much thought, he still needs to control the Fire Drake's food intake—providing it with more cheap meat to reduce its dependence on elixirs.

"Perhaps the Fire Drake will suffer from malnutrition..." he laughed at himself, "but what else can be done? Its knight is already preparing to change his name to Liszt Jones..."

Jones is poor!

He feels a twinge of guilt.

Fortunately, he knows how to comfort himself: "It won't let me ride it anyway, so why bother feeding it well, heh."

After calming himself, he quiets the Fire Drake, dresses, and walks to the window. Gazing at the apple tree sprouting new buds outside, he falls into thought once more.

Knock, knock, knock.

The sound of knocking.

Carter, the housekeeper, calls from outside the door: "Master."

Liszt doesn't turn, simply responding, "Come in."

As Carter enters, Liszt asks again, "Is Mrs. Mossen feeling better?"

"After taking the snake blood fruit potion, her fever broke, and she just fell asleep," Carter replies.

Recently, Mrs. Mossen caught a cold and fever, and the local healer couldn't treat her. Finally, Liszt decided to prepare the snake blood fruit potion as per the recipe in "Aristotle's Classification of Herbal Truths."

After Mrs. Mossen took it, her condition quickly improved.

As noted in "Aristotle's Classification of Herbal Truths," snake blood fruit not only cures snake venom but also treats many common ailments.

The four snake blood fruit worms, obtained by slaying six king sea snakes and irrigating them with snake blood, now prove very useful. Brewed into potions, they can save many sick serfs. The mortality rate among serfs is high, mostly due to illness.

Once the production cost drops, the snake blood fruit potion will surely become a profitable venture.

However, commoners can't afford the high cost, and Liszt's conscience won't let him sell the potion at a premium. A modest profit above cost, without wasting the snake blood fruit worms' potential, is sufficient.

"Mr. Carter, assure Mrs. Mossen she needn't worry about the castle. Her priority is to recover."

Carter smiles, "Master, I fear Mrs. Mossen misses making your milk tea most."

"Indeed, Macy's milk tea lacks finesse, not as smooth as Mrs. Mossen's, where black tea fruit and milk blend perfectly," Liszt says with a bit of exaggeration, though he is simply accustomed to Mrs. Mossen's brew.

Though milk tea is simple—just milk and black tea tree capsules—brewing time, temperature, and ratio all shape the taste.

After discussing Mrs. Mossen, Carter begins to report the reason for his knock: "Master, March 9th is your birthday. As a sky knight ruling Black Horse Island and Flower Town, your celebration must surpass last year's. I seek your guidance on the scale."

"Mr. Carter, you decide," Liszt smiles, his mind on the Fire Drake, indifferent to his birthday.

Moreover, how much money would it waste to hold a birthday celebration? He wonders if the gifts received could cover half the cost. Now, Liszt Jones is poor!