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The city isn’t worth the anticipation, only the castle is worth looking forward to—nobles do care about hygiene, with bathrooms and toilets available, and servants to carry feces and trash outside the castle walls.

Since no one knows to use feces as fertilizer for fields, it is randomly discarded in the wild, naturally decomposing.

Effectively using feces as fertilizer would definitely reduce the dependence on elves—only reduce, because elves also have the ability to improve crop traits.

The twin-masted ship sails on the azure sea, with Coral City gradually disappearing from view, and the towering Tulip Castle beginning to sink below the horizon.

Could this perhaps prove that this world is also spherical?

Liszt would occasionally ponder about the world he had traversed to, unable to draw any conclusions due to the lack of information.

“My Lord, what are you looking at?” Marcus walked over.

“The sea, the azure sea, conceals countless treasures.”

“I grew up by the sea since I was a child, and don’t have such wonderful imaginations about the sea. There are sea monsters in the sea, and maybe some fish, but there are also fish in rivers and lakes, and they’re not dangerous. The wealth of the continent is the real abundance, inexhaustible. The glory of knights and nobles is also contested on the continent.”

The Duchy of Sapphire is an archipelago nation, but has never given up on conquering the continent, organizing Knight Orders every few years to fight for mineral resources.

That has created batch after batch of nobles.

The Tulip Family also prospered from this, and Marcus often dreamt of going to the continent to fight in wars, hoping to be granted the title of an Honored Knight for his achievements.

Now determined to serve Liszt, he naturally tried to entice him every so often.

Liszt still looked at the profound sea, not caring for the “continental wealth theory,” thinking that battlefields were so dangerous, why go there? It’s better to be a quiet rural landlord, to do missions, to farm, to advance step by step steadily. If it were just a mere traversal, he didn’t think he could stand out among the natives, but with the help of the Smoke Mission, becoming strong was just a matter of time.

As for what the Smoke Mission was, the secret would be unraveled one day.

“Teacher Marcus, I heard that there are large undeveloped islands beyond the archipelago of the Grand Duchy?”

“Yes, I have chatted with some old sailors, there are indeed a large number of islands beyond the archipelago, but those islands are situated in the deep sea, where storms are frequent, and there are many hidden reefs, making it difficult for ships to come and go, without much value for development.”

“Perhaps.”

Liszt responded noncommittally.

Leaving other things aside, as long as the deep-sea fishing industry is developed, the wealth of the sea will gradually reveal itself, and at that time, the competition for islands will probably not be less than that for land.

He was not capable of that now, being just a small town’s landlord, he would focus on developing further.

“Set sail! Navigate to the front side!”

“Set sail! Navigate to the front side!”

Boisterous shouts from the crew came from below the mast, as a southerly wind had risen, blowing from the stern, rustling. The captain decisively ordered the sailors to set sail to catch more wind.

The advent of sailing ships allowed humans to venture into greater areas of the sea. The ships of the Duchy of Sapphire were all sailing ships, but they were all equipped with horizontal sails, without the appearance of longitudinal sailboats yet. The advantage of horizontal sails is that they’re fast with the wind, but the disadvantage is that they are almost ineffective against the wind, requiring oars to row.

With the wind at their back, the fleet raised their sails, forming a triangular formation on the sea, a spectacular sight.

Departing in the morning, they arrived at Red Crab Island by evening.

Red Crab Island is ten times larger than Coral Island, and Long Taro Castle is not by the sea but on the mountainside in the center of the island. Thus, after disembarking, Liszt and his companions had to stay overnight in the port city of Sea Crab City, then switch to a carriage the next day, and it would take another day to reach Long Taro Castle.

The practice of training pigeons to send and receive letters had not yet developed, and pigeons probably wouldn’t be able to carry the weight of thick paper.

However, because there had already been arrangements for knights to send messages, stating that youths from the Tulip Family would visit shortly, servants at Long Taro Castle’s branch estate in Sea Crab City were specially assigned to wait for them. After receiving Liszt and his party, they immediately arranged for them to stay in the guesthouse, sparing them the dirty accommodations of the city.

After dining in the evening, Liszt took a bath and lay down in bed.

He was a bit seasick.

Back home, he was used to airplanes and trains, and sincerely found seafaring quite uncomfortable. Fortunately, his predecessor was an islander with decent swimming skills, which helped him somewhat overcome the problem, so he wasn’t completely incapacitated by seasickness.

“As an islander, yet subject to seasickness, Liszt, I must say you’re losing face for the Tulip Family. I thought you had matured, but it turns out you’re still so incompetent; it really reminds me of the cowardly acts you used to commit, my foolish little brother.” Li Vera appeared in Liszt’s room at some point without his notice.

No knocking.

This gave Liszt a start, as he was examining his Smoke Serpent Script—often taking it out to see if there were any new insights.

But he quickly calmed down, realizing that Li Vera seemed unable to see the Smoke Serpent Script. It was something only he could see, so there was no worry of leaking secrets.

“You forgot to knock.”

“I didn’t knock? That’s not important,” Li Vera said, crossing her arms and glaring at Liszt as she expressed her disdain.

“To me it’s important. You didn’t respect my privacy, and besides, it’s very unladylike to do so. Nobles prefer ladies, dear sister.”

“I don’t need to change myself to please any noble! Besides, Liszt, when did I ever need your advice? If we weren’t on Red Crab Island right now, I would truly teach you a lesson and make you understand that becoming an Earth Knight means nothing!”

Liszt had been bullied by Li Vera since childhood.

He believed the fundamental reason was Li Vera’s jealousy of his appearance—which could make most women feel ashamed of their looks.

“Did you come here just to tell me that I’m still quite weak?”

“I just wanted to see the pathetic sight of you being seasick.”

“Well, you’ve seen it, so could you please leave now?”

Li Vera shot him an angry look before turning and walking away. Liszt got up and locked the door. At nineteen, she was still a young woman, and her behavior was indeed puzzling.

Not that it mattered much, as the Li Vera in his memories was always blunt, or rather recklessly frivolous.

The Earl often lamented that he and Li Vera should exchange temperaments.

One more delicate than girls, and the other wilder than boys.

As he lay back down, Liszt found himself unable to sleep and started thinking about trivial matters, “Five months ago, I made a visit to Long Taro Castle for the holiday season. At that time, Marquis Merlin wasn’t on the island as he was serving as a captain in the Court Fleet; it’s been about four or five years since we last formally met.”

Given the nobility’s monogamous system, families often weren’t very prosperous.

Marquis Merlin had one son and two daughters. His youngest daughter, Melissa, had passed away, and his second daughter, Melinda, married Viscount Roland Pinecone, a follower of the Marquis. There was only one heir, the eldest son, Mesiro Taro, who also had only one son, Meioubao Taro.

“Cousin Meioubao seems to be nearly twenty-five and still unmarried? Is it because he’s pursuing the Sapphire Duke’s daughter? This princess of the small state is said to be quite the social butterfly.”

The Grand Duchy, a vassal state of an empire or kingdom, is ruled by a Grand Duke at its highest rank. Strictly speaking, they are not kings, so their daughters cannot be called princesses. Moreover, the new Sapphire Duke, being unable to become a Dragon Knight, had his rank downgraded to Duke.

In the system of nobility, the ranks of Prince, Grand Duke, and Duke are on the same level, but one can only be addressed as Prince or Grand Duke upon becoming a Knight; otherwise, one holds the title of Duke.

However, rules are rigid, people are flexible; within the Duchy of Sapphire, all nobles refer to the ruler as the Grand Duke, and naturally his daughter is regarded and pursued as a princess.

With malice, Liszt thought to himself, “If Meioubao does marry the princess, he might well find out the children aren’t his heh heh.”