Chapter 284: Chapter 0284: Rubber Tree Elf Bug (Third Update)
 

A flash of magic light passed by, a pale yellow that seemed to belong to Earth Attribute magic, right at the crown of the large tree. This tree wasn’t very tall, Li Si Te could clearly see its crown, where the magic was emanating from a treetop that had grown a large round bulge. There was no doubt that inside it housed an Elf Bug.

Which meant, this tree, was Cordyceps!

Realizing this, Li Si Te immediately felt a pang of distress. Lasse had cut off a robust branch, and Griffin had slashed a wound into the trunk, they were basically making things difficult for his own Elf Bug.

“Teacher Marcus, Lasse, Griffin, this tree is Cordyceps,” he touched the somewhat rough bark, “My Elf Bug is inside, gestating. I can feel its presence. You must protect it well, and when it’s born, I will come back to make a contract with it.”

“There really is an Elf Bug?” Lasse clicked his tongue in amazement.

Marcus, however, was not surprised at all, knowing Li Si Te’s keen vision: “My lord, rest assured, I will arrange for someone to patrol this tree at all times. Once the Elf Bug is born, I will immediately inform you!”

Griffin spoke with excitement, “Lasse, you just chopped off a branch of the Cordyceps, and I made a cut on it! Our lord really is the Son of Glory, blessed with knightly radiance. Fresh Flower Town has gained another Elf Bug!” It was unclear whether he was excited about the Elf Bug or the fact that he had cut into the Cordyceps.

Regardless.

The three of them, who were initially unclear about natural glue, now paid serious attention because of the gestating Elf Bug.

For them, a plant capable of nurturing an Elf Bug was valuable. In their eyes, Elf Bugs were a symbol of nobility, an embellishment of power.

Li Si Te looked at the Cordyceps Tree in front of him, feeling very pleased: “Although the beehive has claimed the lives of sixteen serfs, leaving me heartbroken, there is gain for every loss. We have acquired a new crop and an Elf Bug thanks to that. I now bestow upon this tree the name ‘Rubber Tree’!”

This Rubber Tree was different from the rubber trees on Earth, it was just borrowing the name.

The impending Elf Bug would then become known as the Rubber Tree Elf Bug.

Night had fallen.

After collecting some rubber samples and carrying the poisonous beehive, they also collected some of the bees’ corpses, and headed back. Upon returning to the port town, they immediately found wooden planks to make a box, and put the beehive into the box.

“Teacher Marcus, the bees’ poison sacs can be collected. By concentrating the bee venom and refining it, we may obtain a potent poison,” Li Si Te suggested.

Speaking of poisons, the Rapid Growth Poison Thorn of Fresh Flower Town was truly toxic. Its prickly thorns would cut the skin and cause ulceration and scarring, but wouldn’t kill a person. However, when refined and tempered on the blade of a weapon, even ordinary beasts would convulse upon being struck, if not entirely incapacitated.

Even when used against magical beasts with magic power, it could deal a serious blow, weakening the magical beast for a short period and causing its recovery abilities to decline significantly for a long time thereafter.

It would have a similar effect on knights as well.

Using poison wasn’t a noble deed; it violated the chivalrous values of knights who favored straightforward charges.

But a toxin that merely caused weakness was tolerable; war naturally called for diverse strategies, and one couldn’t rely solely on fiery passion. The loser is the villain, and the victor the king; only the victor has the right to display noble virtues. The loser faces death, bankruptcy, or servitude as a serf, anyway, far removed from nobility.

Marcus understood this principle and nodded immediately: “I will have people collect all the bee carcasses, extract the poison sacs and refine the toxins.”

“Good.”

…

The next morning,

Li Si Te took a boat back to Fresh Flower Town, leaving Marcus and the others to continue overseeing the construction of the port town.

The first thing he did upon returning to the castle was to order the servants to clean up the beehive: “Mrs. Abbie, have your people pick out all the bee pupae from the beehive, and then scrape off the honey… first experiment on small animals to see if it’s toxic. If not, it’s to be included in my recipes.”

“Oh my god, what a huge wasp nest, sir, you can look forward to enjoying delicious bee pupae. When I was a kid, I often dug up wasp nests to find those cute, tasty pupae to cook with. And this honey, look, look, it’s just so golden and tempting!”

Mrs. Abbie circled the massive poison bee nest, inspecting it excitedly from every angle.

Since coming to the castle in Fresh Flower Town, under Liszt’s deliberate and inadvertent guidance, she had become a top-class chef renowned far and near. Everyone said, “Mrs. Abbie is so skillful and creative,” “Mrs. Abbie’s dishes are astonishing,” “Mrs. Abbie’s mind is full of delicious food,” which greatly pleased her.

She had thrown herself into the innovation of developing new dishes and there was no stopping her.

As a result, the castle not only hired a serf who was a chef to be her assistant but also employed two new kitchen maids.

The chef was Julia, a serf bought from the Eagle Kingdom, who had no surname.

The two kitchen maids, Oly and Kelsey, were also serfs bought from the Eagle Kingdom, without surnames.

Unlike the Duchy of Sapphire, many serfs in the Eagle Kingdom didn’t have surnames. They cultivated the land generation after generation, with little mobility, essentially not needing surnames. For example, Paris and Maggie, the sisters, didn’t have surnames; Bording and Huntera, who assisted Frank Dregs in winemaking, also didn’t have surnames.

Whereas in the founding history of the Duchy of Sapphire, a large number of serfs were bought, and to facilitate census and strict control of the serfs, all were forced to take surnames.

Noble vocabulary was not allowed to be used, which directly resulted in the surnames of the commoners being a mishmash of lowly words.

Before becoming a noble, Liszt’s ancestors’ surname was the lowly word “Tile.” Only after rising alongside the Tulip Great Elf did the surname change to the noble word “Tulip.”

While Mrs. Abbie was busy fussing with the poison bee nest,

Liszt began training the eight Little Blizzard Beasts, following his instructions, new nameplates had already been hung on each of the Blizzard Beasts’ necks.

“Storm, Flame, come!”

“Woof woof!”

“Whoo!”

Using jerky as an enticement was the quickest way to strengthen the bond.

The chubby Blizzard Beasts couldn’t resist the jerky and quickly pounced on Liszt, licking both his hands and the jerky. Storm had a green nameplate on its neck, and Flame had a red one.

Following the method summarized when training Douson, he practiced with the two Little Blizzard Beasts.

He continued on to the other three dog kennels.

Rock wore a yellow nameplate, Surge had a deep blue nameplate; Thunder had a purple nameplate, Light had a white nameplate; Ice Snow wore a light blue nameplate, and Shadow had a black nameplate.

The names of the eight Blizzard Beasts corresponded to the eight magic attributes of wind, fire, earth, water, thunder, light, ice, and shadow.

It didn’t mean much and didn’t fit their physical characteristics; it was merely for differentiation.

After running through a round of training, an hour and a half had passed, and Liszt took the milk tea handed over by the butler and drank it down in one go, “The workload is too much, training dogs is such a waste of energy and time!”

He had a premonition that as the Blizzard Beasts grew up, he would probably have no spare time left to write “Dragons Fight in the Wild.”

“It looks like it’ll really have to be a history book series for my lifetime.”