Dragon-Blood Horse.
Liszt was quite familiar with them.
His birth father, William Tulip, the Earl of Coral Island, currently served at court as the royal stablemaster, caring for the Sapphire Grand Duke's beloved steed—a magnificent horse with a mixed dragon bloodline.
There were dragons in this world.
They were neither the divine dragons of the East nor the evil dragons of the West, but the wondrous essence of heaven and earth. Dragons had no gender and did not mate to produce offspring. Yet just as they could produce gemstones and metals, they could also infect other species, giving them dragon blood.
Some enthusiasts had classified dragons, elves, Devil Beasts, and other beings according to their rarity.
The rarest, of course, were dragons, the symbol of a nation.
Next came Dragon Elves, the privilege of great nobles.
Then came Great Elves, the privilege of mid-ranking nobles.
After them came Dragon-Blood Magic Beasts, Devil Beasts with mixed dragon blood.
Next came Little Elves, the privilege of minor nobles.
Then came Dragon-Blood Beasts, ordinary animals with mixed dragon blood.
Last came Elf Bugs, the foundation of productivity.
There was, in fact, another kind of elf as rare as dragons: the Elf King, said to be the final stage in a Dragon Elf's evolution. Its true form, the Bug Grass, was so immense that a single tree could nurture an entire forest. Countless Devil Beasts, elves, and even dragons lived upon it.
However, most people regarded the Elf King as nothing more than a legend.
An Elf Bug might evolve into a Little Elf; perhaps one out of several dozen would succeed. A Little Elf might evolve into a Great Elf; perhaps one out of a hundred would succeed. A Great Elf might evolve into a Dragon Elf; perhaps one out of several hundred would succeed. But no one had ever heard of a Dragon Elf evolving into an Elf King.
When bored, Liszt had once worked out the odds.
He assumed the chance of an Elf Bug evolving to the next stage was 1/50, a Little Elf's chance was 1/100, a Great Elf's was 1/500, and a Dragon Elf's was 1/1,000. That meant the chance of an Elf Bug evolving into an Elf King was 1/2,500,000,000—one in two and a half billion.
One in two and a half billion was practically zero. No wonder no one had ever seen an Elf King.
Looking at the Smoke Serpent Script before him,
Liszt felt his excitement flare once again. In theory, a Dragon-Blood Horse was even more precious than an Elf Bug. It might not be able to defeat a single Devil Beast, since it couldn't use magic, but as a rare creature with dragon blood, it would surely fetch a high price.
In this world, anything connected to dragons was highly prized.
Besides, dragon blood improved a species' potential. An ordinary nag with dragon blood could immediately become a swift steed capable of covering a thousand miles in a day.
Dragon-Blood Horses were undoubtedly excellent warhorses.
Why did the Sapphire Grand Duke treasure his Dragon-Blood Horse so much that even the Earl of Coral Island competed to care for it? Because that horse was a Blue Blood Steed, the standard mount of the Sapphire Grand Duchy's most elite order of knights, the Blue Blood Knights, with their two-hundred-and-forty-year history.
The Blue Blood Knights had fought across the lands for the Sapphire Family and won countless victories. Their Blue Blood Steeds had contributed greatly.
Naturally, the Sapphire Grand Duke rode a Blue Blood Steed himself, winning the knights' loyalty and showing that he stood with them.
"Dragon-Blood Horses! If I had one and bred more, could I build a knight order as elite as the Blue Blood Knights?"
The thought alone was thrilling.
However, only Liszt, Marcus, and Gortai in Flower Town possessed fighting aura. Even if he were given a large number of Dragon-Blood Horses, a knight order was still a distant dream.
There was a long road ahead.
A moment later, he came back to himself, and the Smoke Serpent Script vanished. Looking at Dousen, who had returned to his nest and begun to sleep, Liszt suddenly felt that a knight order was far beyond reach. But riding a Dragon-Blood Horse, leading a Devil Beast dog, and wandering around hunting—that kind of life still seemed within easy reach.
"Marcus is returning to Coral City tomorrow, and he'll also have to visit Falcon Town. He'll probably be back in about three days. By then, I'll be able to cultivate the fighting aura manual and complete the task." Liszt got up and left the recreation room.
Marcus left Flower Town once again.
Liszt wasn't going to sit around waiting in the castle. Once he'd recovered, he couldn't stay idle. Early in the morning, he went to Flower Farm. The Tulip Bugs on the Black Tulips had almost finished assimilating them.
"Probably another two hours." After checking on the Tulip Bugs, Liszt mounted his horse and rode straight to Peanut Hamlet, where his Peanut Bug was still developing.
Karl Hammer was standing guard there. "My lord!"
"How's my Peanut Bug?"
"It's still asleep. Old George has people water it with plenty of manure every day, and the Peanut Bug Grass is growing vigorously."
"Keep the Peanut Bug under strict protection. I don't want anything to happen to it."
"Rest assured, my lord!"
After leaving Peanut Hamlet and returning to Flower Farm, Liszt waited half an hour. The Tulip Bug then finished assimilating without a hitch. When he retrieved it, he could sense its delight, along with a new trace of something in its aura. It was the aura of the Black Tulip, a sign that the Tulip Bug could now influence the Black Tulip.
Ever since birth, every Elf Bug at Tulip Castle had been assigned to assimilate as many compatible varieties as possible, strengthening them.
Liszt's Tulip Bug had already assimilated every variety of tulip grown by the Tulip Family.
"After assimilating the Black Tulip, why does my Tulip Bug seem a little... 'excited'? Could it be about to evolve?" A bold thought crossed his mind.
He quickly dismissed it.
His Tulip Bug was one of the weaker ones among the Tulip Family's few Tulip Bugs, and its chances of evolving were very low.
One new variety of magical plant wasn't enough to make it evolve.
He took the Tulip Bug back and handed it to the butler, Carter, to feed. The Bug Grass had already been planted, and an Elf Bug could no longer die of hunger or thirst, so it was easy to care for.
Liszt soon met up with Gortai and went to Dairy Farm.
"There are plenty of Alfalfa seeds. I plan to start here and gradually clear away the Two-Leaf Clover we have now, replacing it with Alfalfa. Once we've got a large enough field, we can plant the Alfalfa Bug Grass, and the cows will be able to adapt to the new pasture. We can bring the horses here to feed as well."
Bug Grass needed to have plants of the same species growing nearby. Otherwise, it couldn't absorb nutrients and would wither.
Planting the Alfalfa Bug Grass would be easy to arrange, and Liszt had nothing to add. "Let's follow Teacher Gortai's plan. But what have you decided to do about the Millet Bug and the Thorn Bug?"
"For the Millet Bug, I think we should first clear a patch of wasteland and plant millet to see if it'll grow. As for the Thorn Bug, we can only try to find a solution in the Thorn Forest on Thorn Ridge. Liszt, I don't think the Thorn Bug is of any use."
Bramble was a small, thorny shrub.
It was usually used for hedges. Many nobles liked to plant it around their estates as a living fence. Liszt also thought the Thorn Bug was rather useless. At most, it could help the castle cultivate a batch of thorny hedges to protect the estate from small animals. As for Devil Beasts, one Wind Blade from a Wind Blade Wolf could cut down an entire patch of brambles.
The Fire Dragon Horse nibbled leisurely on Two-Leaf Clover.
Liszt looked at several scrawny cows in the distance and said, "Regardless, Elf Bugs are an important source of productivity. We have to find suitable places to plant them."