Chapter 859: The Big Shovel on the Chin

The Bone Lake was filled with water. If a magic portal were to be established, the lake water would need to be drained. Draining Bone Lake would be simple—just dig an opening to connect it with the nearby Red River. Since the Bone Lake's elevation was higher than the Red River, the water would naturally drain away.

Afterward, some additional excavation would turn the Bone Lake into a plaza, where they could open the magic portal.

"I wonder if Acheronides's magic portal will cause too much turbulence and repulsion," he mused. "If it's like the vortex cave entrance, where people are flung out every time, travel would remain problematic... Hopefully, the repulsion can be gradually reduced, allowing normal-speed entry and exit."

Though he pondered this, he didn’t take immediate action. Everything would have to wait until Acheronides personally inspected the site before making a decision.

Specialization matters.

Coordinating overall strategy and battling formidable foes were his strengths, while magic was Acheronides's domain.

He turned his attention to the new smoke task. Upon reading its contents, he felt vaguely annoyed.

"Task: Build roads to build wealth. The development of Flame Island faces many challenges, and poor road conditions are a major constraint—especially for knights, who struggle to unleash their full combat potential without sufficient open space for charging. Construct 500 kilometers of charge-roads on Flame Island. Reward: Emily’s Aura renewal."

The reward was excellent.

Aura renewal meant advancing from intermediate to high-level aura, signifying Emily’s imminent promotion to Sky Knight—a cause for celebration. As the only genius in the territory qualified to be a potential Dragon Knight candidate, Liszt held high hopes for this fourteen-year-old girl.

He had been grooming her as the Pale Emerald Dragon Knight.

However, without Liszt's unnatural advantages, Emily couldn’t match his ridiculous progression speed—advancing from Earth Knight to Sky Knight in half a year, then becoming a Dragon Knight mere months later. She had spent a full year honing her skills as an Earth Knight, and the leap from Sky Knight to Dragon Knight would likely take even longer.

She wouldn’t become a battle-ready asset anytime soon—unless the Lightgreen Gem Dragon acknowledged her and helped her begin Dragon Aura cultivation early.

If that happened, achieving high-level aura mastery would be within reach.

"Emily is fourteen this year, fifteen next year, sixteen the year after," he mused. "Even with a few more years of training, she could still ride a dragon before turning twenty. That kind of talent would truly shock the world... The only concern is that once her body matures, being female might impose certain limitations."

Throughout history, female Sky Knights were not unheard of, but female Dragon Knights were nonexistent—powerful women were mostly concentrated in the field of magic.

Among the six ancestral statues of the Moon Killers, though heavily eroded, one could still be identified as female—the one holding the ancient book of knowledge.

"I hope Emily can break the mold and become the first female Dragon Knight."

Regardless, Liszt would go all out in nurturing Emily. Even if she couldn’t become a Dragon Knight in the future, she could still study the *Aura Domain Manual* and become a Domain Knight. Her demonstrated talent warranted such investment—though Liszt couldn’t deny whether some other motivations lurked in his heart.

A youth-grooming fantasy, perhaps...

"This smoke task must be completed as soon as possible to help Emily advance her aura. But the difficulty is immense—500 kilometers of charge-roads, and on Flame Island of all places."

Charge-roads weren’t ordinary paths but wide, smooth roads built for knightly charges. They didn’t necessarily have to be paved with stone; dirt roads were acceptable. However, the standards demanded broad, even surfaces with minimal curvature—usually built only around major cities.

Ironhoof City's surroundings had a thirty-kilometer charge-road leading to Bull’s Fort.

Constructing 500 kilometers of such roads would be a massive undertaking. With Ember City’s current capabilities, it would likely take over half a year. Rivers would require bridges, mountains would need tunnels—if the terrain proved too complex, even half a year might not suffice.

"One step at a time, then."

……

The discovery of the natural node on Black Horse Island allowed Liszt to travel freely between Black Horse Island and Flame Island.

After flying through the otherdimensional space for half an hour, he easily located the spatial fluctuations of the Great Vortex Magic Teleportation Circle’s wormhole. Riding Invisible Dragon Bard, he traversed the wormhole space and emerged from the vortex cave entrance.

Watching the thundering waterfall behind him, a thought struck him:

"I have four space rings, and Acheronides has two—adding up to about 400 cubic meters of storage space, equivalent to a large warehouse. Until the magic portal is established, I can serve as a courier, transporting supplies with these space rings."

Large items couldn’t be shipped, but valuables could be personally delivered by him.

Acheronides wasn’t in the mage tower laboratory.

After asking the twins, Lucy and Ruth, they told him Acheronides had gone out and wouldn’t return until evening. Liszt wondered if he should use this time to return to Black Horse Island and transport a batch of rubber water when he suddenly received a report—the knights sent to conquer the Xia Tribe had encountered a huge herd of giant elephants.

The Xia Tribe couldn’t fight back and had already relocated entirely within the territory of Flame City.

"Giant elephants?"

Liszt inquired further and learned that these were powerful earth-element magical beasts that moved in herds. They didn’t attack people but ransacked the Xia Tribe’s food storage, destroyed buildings, and scavenged for food. Everywhere they went, they flattened the ground.

"The ground was trampled flat?"

"Yes, my lord. Those elephants are too powerful. Our knights can’t even charge—when they stomp, the ground shakes, and our mounts lose balance. Even the mages’ magic can’t harm them. They all use magic—Stone Armor."

Stone Armor was an advanced earth-attribute spell, one that Hiddleston also knew. It formed sturdy rock armor around the body, with defensive power no weaker than mithril armor.

An idea came to Liszt.

He immediately rode the Invisible Dragon Bard and flew toward the Xia Tribe. After a few quick jumps, he arrived at the valley where the tribe was located. After a brief search, he spotted the herd of giant elephants the knights had mentioned—around a hundred in total, including both adults and calves, forming a large family group.

The elephants looked strange, completely different from common elephants.

The most peculiar feature was their enormous lower jaws beneath their trunks—stretched unnaturally long and wide, with a pair of parallel tusks at the front.

Like someone had bolted a shovel to their jaws.

Meanwhile, their actual tusks—which should have been long—were unremarkable, only about a meter in length. Compared to their at least six-meter height and over twenty-ton bodies, the tusks were very short, and their trunks weren’t particularly long either. Their limbs were thick and stubby, making their overall build appear bulkier than ordinary elephants, with disproportionately small heads.

Scanning from above with his crystal sight, Liszt soon noticed something unusual: "Earth-attribute giant elephants… with faint traces of Dragon Fear. So this is the intermediate dragon beast herd rewarded by the smoke task!"

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