Thankfully, after more than five hundred words of reminiscing, Griff finally returned to the main story about hunting dragons.
"I must make it clear that I genuinely swore off smoking back then. I only took it up again later because I was so shocked by the Invisible Dragon's actions. Good heavens, it actually snatched the Smoke-Cured Grass right out of my hand and ate it! I thought it must have gone many years without a bath and had developed a warped sense of smell."
"Sorry for speaking ill of the Invisible Dragon. In fact, we became friends later. It ate my Smoke-Cured Grass but didn't kill me, and I successfully traded a bundle of Smoke-Cured Grass and two cows for its friendship. To be honest, the Invisible Dragon wasn't very big, only a little larger than a house."
"I've seen the Bronze Dragon belonging to the Grand Duke of Maple Leaf. It was a beautiful Metal Dragon nearly thirty meters long. The Invisible Dragon was like its child—oh, dragons don't have children."
"We had a pleasant afternoon together. At dusk, it came up to me and shook itself, and a gemstone fell right into my hand. It flew away, but left its gemstone behind. It was a gemstone about the size of a fingernail, and I wore it on my finger ever since."
"Haha, now you know where my spatial ring came from. Countless noble knights have offered everything they own for this ring, but I would never trade it. It's a testament to the heartfelt friendship between the Invisible Dragon and me!"
With that, the Invisible Dragon chapter came to an end.
Griff soon moved on to his next tale—outsmarting the Headless Knight.
Liszt quickly skimmed through the novel, which was only about fifty thousand words long. No further information about the Invisible Dragon appeared, and even the spatial ring only showed up that one time.
It was as if Griff had simply remembered the Invisible Dragon and written about it, then forgotten all about it once he was done.
"So this time's reward is the little bit of knowledge about the Invisible Dragon recorded in Travels of Earth Ranger Griff... Only brave and upright people can see the Invisible Dragon? Then I'm guessing I don't stand a chance. I'm neither brave nor upright." He knew himself well.
But he seriously doubted whether that information was true. How could whether you could see an Invisible Dragon depend on qualities like courage and uprightness, which were impossible to touch, see, or even define?
"This story feels like a retelling of 'only pure maidens can see unicorns.'"
The heroines in quite a few knightly romances were noblewomen who rode unicorns. Liszt had read several of them, and they all insisted that only a maiden who was pure, beautiful, innocent, and kind could win a unicorn's acceptance. Liszt doubted whether unicorns, those legendary creatures, even existed.
He was just as skeptical about Invisible Dragons.
Especially the bizarre idea that only knights with courage and integrity could see them.
Still, he quickly picked out the information that might prove useful. "Griff held off the Invisible Dragon's attack with Smoke-Cured Grass. Later, he said he traded a bundle of grass and two cows for the dragon's gemstone... My Smoke Mission rewards Smoke-Cured Grass, so this must still be one link in a chain of missions."
First, a reward of information about the Invisible Dragon.
Then, a reward of new information about the Invisible Dragon.
Now, a reward of the Smoke-Cured Grass the Invisible Dragon likes to eat.
All the rewards were connected, as if he were unlocking one big chain mission. In that case, the mission's goal was easy to guess: an Invisible Dragon might really be coming to invade Flower Town.
"Cows?" Liszt thought of another detail. "The Dairy Farm seems to have two old cows that can no longer produce milk. The castle has plenty of food, so we haven't served them to any guests yet. Could those two old cows be the dinner I need to prepare for the Invisible Dragon?"
There still wasn't enough information, and he wasn't prepared enough.
Liszt felt his most urgent task was to keep completing missions and learn more about the chain mission involving the Invisible Dragon, so he could plan how to deal with it.
Knock, knock.
A knock came at the door.
"Come in."
Old Carter, the butler, walked in with an oil lamp. "My lord, it's late. You should get some rest."
"I was just about to go to bed." Liszt closed the book and returned it to the shelf. He frowned slightly at the unpleasant smell on his hands. "Mr. Carter, please light another box of Fragrance Agent in the study while you're at it. I can't stand the strange smell of this Parchment."
The cartload of books the count had given him this time brought with it a great deal of a fishy stench. Liszt had already lit some Fragrance Agent, but it still couldn't cover the smell.
There was no clean, snowy-white paper here.
All they had was Parchment that had yellowed and hardened, with a stench that lingered.
This paper was made by removing the inner layer of animal hide and specially tanning it. It was expensive to produce, yet didn't keep well and wasn't easy to write on. Liszt truly wanted to make paper as soon as possible and replace this Parchment, but he also understood that now wasn't the right time.
First, paper wasn't an urgent necessity.
Second, without copyright laws, the great nobles could seize the papermaking technique at any time.
Just as he hadn't set about researching horseshoes, saddles, or cement, he also had a rough design for a fore-and-aft-rigged ship in his head. If he invented one, it would certainly advance the Age of Exploration.
The most important reason was that there simply weren't enough people.
The whole town had 1,990 people—no, 1,991. Two elderly people had died recently, and four babies had been born, one of whom hadn't survived.
Of those 1,991 people, it would be lucky if 1,500 were able to work after excluding the elderly and young children. They had to farm and build roads. Now they also had to build Oyster Hamlet, and soon another group would have to be assigned to sew gloves and forge hammers and shovels, making fishing gear for the fishermen.
Liszt himself was busy too. He had to keep training.
He had already mastered Fire Dragon Drill and Flame Wave, but he needed time to become proficient in them. After getting the Red Blood Sword, he had trained even harder, hoping to break free of the earth's restraints and soar into the sky himself.
Carter lit the Fragrance Agent.
He blew out a candle and asked, "My lord, should the castle hire a few more servants?"
"Are we short-staffed?" Liszt asked, a little surprised. Ten servants to attend to him alone ought to be enough, shouldn't they?
But Carter said gravely, "The Wheat Bug, Peanut Bug, Tulip Bug, and Alfalfa Bug are all good little bugs, but their Bug Grass needs a male servant to inspect and tend to it every day. Those duties were assigned to Jesse. Now that the corn has also been planted, and the Thorn Bug will need to be settled in soon, Jesse can't keep up."
After a pause, he continued, "Dousen, the Li Dragon Horse, the Fire Dragon Horse, and the other horses all need looking after. Until Oyster Hamlet is built, the servants also have to gather seafood for the castle. And with more dishes being prepared in the kitchen, Mrs. Abby has already complained that she can't be in two places at once."
Castles and cities or towns overlapped in many of their functions.
But castles leaned more toward farming for their own needs, while towns governed the entire fief and collected taxes. Liszt was dissatisfied with this system. He felt it held back the development of productive forces. The greatest obstacle was the castle, a grotesque institution that controlled all the sprites and kept the greatest productive force firmly in its grasp.
After all, the castle's greatest purpose was to provide a luxurious life for the nobility, not to liberate productive forces.
He understood this, but had little intention of changing it—he was a noble himself, after all!
"If we're short-staffed, Mr. Carter, I'll leave you in charge of hiring new servants."
"Yes, my lord."