The Mighty Dragons Are Dead

They chatted until midnight.

It was then that he finally understood Ach had not spent much of the past two months studying magic arrays, but instead, had been searching for elf bugs in the vast ocean. The ocean was much broader than the land, with depths that could reach thousands of kilometers; Ach only swam in the shallow areas about a hundred meters deep, where it was hard to find plants in the deeper waters.

The laver bug, the redstone flower bug, and the inkangle bug were not discovered near Black Horse Island but found in the waters near Coral Island.

Now, their cordyceps had been transferred by Ach to the waters around Black Horse Island.

While the horsetail bug was found in the waters near Fresh Flower Town, it, too, had been moved to the vicinity of Black Horse Island by Ach.

"Ach, I really appreciate your hard work in searching for the elf bugs in the sea, but be careful. After all, there are many sea monsters in the ocean. You can hunt the low-level sea monsters, but the intermediate ones are very dangerous, not to mention the advanced and even the super sea monsters."

"Brother, Ach has become very strong and can deal with intermediate sea monsters!"

"No matter what, don't be reckless, understand?" Liszt squeezed Ach's nose, "I'd rather you seriously study magic arrays so that when the era of great sea voyages comes, you can help me navigate the seas without hindrance, or even become a water mage sooner."

Ach nodded earnestly, "Brother, Ach understands. Ach will definitely study hard, strive to become stronger, and help Brother navigate safely on the sea."

"That's my good Ach."

...

The next morning, Liszt took the Fresh Flower Vessel to Black Horse Island.

When passing by Mangrove Island, he directly steered a sampan around the mangrove forest to observe. As Ach had ordered, the mangrove minor elves warmly received Liszt and showed him the location of their cordyceps and elf bugs.

This was Nami's first appearance in the presence of outsiders.

It caused many exclamations of surprise.

However, many people in the territory already knew about the existence of the mangrove minor elf, so there was no excessive shock. Soon, under Nami's guidance, Liszt found the elf bug basking in the sun. Its cordyceps was a small tree in the mangrove forest, close to the seaside.

Hanging on it were long, bar-shaped fruits.

"Is this a autumn range tree?"

Liszt recognized it at a glance. This type of tree is a very common species in mangrove forests. In fact, most of the mangrove forests cultivated at the mouth of the Red River are planted with seeds of the autumn range tree because it is a viviparous species with seedlings developing directly on the tree. Once gathered, they could easily be transplanted elsewhere.

The fruits of the autumn range tree are inedible, bitter, poisonous, and even less useful than Nami's mangroves, their only purpose being to contribute seedlings and provide material for the expansion of the mangrove forest.

But no matter what,

The contract still needed to be made.

After sprinkling jade powder to entice the green elf bug to lick it, he extended his finger, and with a peck, the contract was successful. This became the twenty-seventh elf bug Liszt had contracted—he had contracted a total of twenty-nine, among which the thorn bug and the corn grass bug had already evolved into minor elves.

The five elf bugs contracted by Ach were not included in this count.

"Captain Kostor, do not head to Black Horse Port, continue north. My mangrove minor elf told me there's another small island north of Black Horse Island that has new elf bugs."

"The archmage's minor elves are truly remarkable, able to discover new elf bugs!" Captain Kostor exclaimed in admiration and continued sailing north.

As dusk approached, following the reminders of Ach aboard the Fresh Flower Vessel, we finally found that small island.

The island was very small, even a little smaller than Mangrove Island, and its mangrove forest wasn't as large as the one on Mangrove Island. However, it was home to many birds, most of which were seagulls.

"We should drive the seagulls away and continue to breed Green Caterpillars and Green-headed Ducks here," said Liszt, standing at the bow of the ship. With a casual wave of his hand, he decided the future of the island, "Let's call it Seagull Island, after all, since we've taken over their habitat, we ought to leave a bit of a commemoration."

"My lord, you are always so generous and kind."

"Heh heh."

Liszt chuckled lightly. Captain Kostor was seriously brown-nosing, but to his ears, it sounded somewhat ironic—taking over the seagulls' habitat and only preserving a name, what does that have to do with generosity or kindness.

No matter.

Soon, Nami led him to the location of the Elf Bug, saving him the time it would have taken to use the Eye of Magic to observe. Cordyceps was also a small tree, a common species in the mangrove forest, marked as "Sheep-horn Fruit Tree." Although it was a fruit tree, the seeds of its fruit were poisonous.

Its main use was the leaves, which could be used as fodder to feed livestock and poultry such as cows, sheep, horses, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, and so on.

The plants of the mangrove forest were basically not of much value.

Thus.

He quickly spread Jade Powder on himself and contracted the Sheep-horn Fruit Bug, making it the twenty-eighth Elf Bug in Liszt's hands: "No matter if they are useful or not, at least they can expand the range of the mangrove forest, providing habitat for the breeding of Green Caterpillars and Green-headed Ducks, which is already a benefit."

...

Finally, at night, the Fresh Flower Vessel entered Black Horse Port.

The port town officials, under the leadership of Goltai, quickly organized a grand bonfire party to welcome the arrival of Liszt.

Liszt also took the opportunity to encourage the officials of the territory.

And he inquired about the living arrangements of the Knights who had been incorporated in Black Horse Island, urging them to integrate as soon as possible and to contribute their light and warmth to the construction of the territory. After the bonfire party, without resting, Liszt immediately convened a territory meeting. All the Knights holding governmental positions participated in the meeting.

The main agenda of the meeting was divided into two parts: one was the officials reporting on the construction situation, and the other was the new town planning.

There was nothing new in the reporting content—Goltai had already made a report once.

His primary purpose was to determine the new town's plan.

Blair had been in charge of this matter, so he explained the planning scheme prepared by the officials: "My lord, the population of Black Horse Island is counted as twenty thousand. According to the capacity of a small town for five thousand people, we need to build three new towns. But in order to ensure we can accommodate more residents in the future, we have planned six new towns."

Hearing this.

Liszt couldn't help but nod his head, he had always advocated that officials should have foresight, not just focusing on the present.

They needed to look to the distant future, from an overall perspective, to think about how the territory should be developed and built. Now, the new town scheme presided over by Blair was quite good. Six new towns, along with the continuously developing port town, were enough to accommodate forty to fifty thousand people, satisfying the development needs of Black Horse Island for several years.

Seeing Liszt nodding his head.

Blair was quite excited, which meant his scheme was preliminarily approved: "We plan to build the second town at the northwest corner of the island, which is the location of New Harbor... The third town is planned to be located between Sheep Grass Hill and Needle Grass Hill, serving as a hub entering Black Horse Ranch."n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om