138 – Dark Horse Island Fief Strategy

After realizing the meaning behind the treasure, Liszt suppressed his excitement and asked flatly: “Captain Kosto, can you read this nautical chart?”

“Sir Lord, this nautical chart is a common nautical chart, it's not complicated at all. The rat shouldn't have been proficient in sailing. Thus, I can clearly understand the route depicted on the nautical chart.” Said Kosto confidently. The distorted-looking nautical chart with strange symbols didn't pose a problem to him.

“Then, how far away from the Coral Island is this horse island located?”

“According to the nautical chart, the island is about 130 kilometers to the north of the Coral Island. With a speed of 5 knots, it would take the Flower about 14 hours to reach the island under the condition that it doesn't meet any sea currents or storms.” Kosto used his fingers to count before replying.

Liszt wasn't bad at math. According to Kosto's introduction, a rough a.s.sessment showed that 1 knot was equivalent to less than 2 kilometers per hour. Therefore, the Flower's speed was roughly 9 kilometers per hour.

Riding a bicycle would be faster than that.

He hazily recalled that it its narrowest, the Taiwan Strait seemed to only have a width of 135 kilometers. In other words, the distance between the Coral Island and the horse island was about the same as the width of the Taiwan Strait.

“Captain Kosto, when can the Flower go out to the sea and sail to the horse island?”

“Sir Lord, if it's simply going out to the sea, then the apprentice sailors are already up to the task. After all, the distance isn't to great and it still belongs to the scope of offsh.o.r.e sailing. However, the apprentice sailors have too little experience. Once they meet a storm, they won't be able to cope with the situation, greatly increasing the odds of an accident occurring.”

“How long will it take you to train them in order to be able to go out to the sea?”

“Sir Lord, if you give me full reign over 30 apprentice sailors, then after a month of persistent training, I can take the Flower out to the sea and go to the horse island!”

Liszt made a decision in an instant: “I will have Adviser Gort fully cooperate with you. A month later, set out to the horse island… The island should be given a name, let's call it Dark Horse Island.”

Kosto said excitedly: “I'm willing to serve Sir Lord!”

“Make a copy of the nautical chart and then wipe off the image from of the wall.”

After this order was carried out, the Flower sailed back.

……

Nighttime.

At the castle's banquet, it was a common practice to summarize the day's work. Liszt wasn't a petty lord, he didn't mind his subordinates eating in the castle. This was also a way to rope people in.

“Sir, if the clues left behind by the rat are true, then we must take control of the Dark Horse Island as soon as possible in order to prevent other forces from occupying it. Next, we have to obtain enough accomplishments as soon as possible in order for Sir to be conferred the Dark Horse Island. As a resource, warhorses are more important than any other resource!” Said Marcus gravely.

In view of the fairly large number of uninhabited islands in the Sapphire Grand Duchy, a lord with accomplishments could appoint an uninhabited island as their fief.

Before being conferred to others, all the uninhabited islands of the Azure Waves Sea theoretically belonged to the Grand Duke Sapphire. Of course, these islands could be run in secret, which was an unspoken rule. However, once the grand duke chooses to confer an uninhabited island to some lord, any operation ran by others on said island would have to be terminated right away.

However, secretly run uninhabited island were still quite rare.

Firstly, aristocrats didn't lack arable land, what their lacked was sprites and metals. Secondly, it's very difficult to guaranty that the news of uninhabited islands being secretly run wouldn't leak. Once an uninhabited island was ran to a certain extent, the grand duke would inevitably get a wind of it and forcibly confer the island to a third party. In theory, everything on the island would be transferred to another lord.

Therefore, secretly running an uninhabited island wasn't worth the ha.s.sle.

Take the Tulip Family for example, it had been in charge of the Coral Island for 20 years, yet it still hadn't even reclaimed one third of the land.

Prior to Liszt's arrival, the Flower Town also had a large part of it's land not being cultivated. And even as of now, a great deal of land was still not being cultivated, let alone the to be developed Thorns Ridge.

“There can't be any leaks. Anyone privy to this information must be seriously warned. Otherwise, the Dark Horse Island will inevitably be seized by another lord.” Said Gort gravely as well.

He and Marcus were quite clear about the importance of warhorses to the aristocracy. Warhorses with exceptional bloodlines like Blackdragon, in particular, played a vital supporting role on the battlefield.

It could be said that during a charge on the battlefield, an elite Earth Knight riding an ordinary horse might not necessarily be able to beat an ordinary Earth Knight riding Blackdragon.

“Only those sitting here as well as Kosto, Röhm, and my gentleman's valet Thomas are privy to this information.” Liszt continued readily, “When they complete their training, the sailors and their families will migrate to the Dark Horse Island… Of course, before anything else, we have to make sure of the Dark Horse Island's environment.”

Gort said optimistically: “As an island capable of bringing up such majestic horses like Blackdragon, the Dark Horse Island is bound to be a green, flat island. I think that its surface is should to be very large, perhaps it could even hold a count.”

Liszt cut a piece of magic beast meat, swallowed it, and then said: “No matter how big it is, it's destined to be mine… Adviser Gort, regarding the training of sailors, you have to actively cooperate with Kosto.Accommodate him as much as possible.”

“Understood!”

……

The Dark Horse Island's strategy started to be secretly planned.

The logging team's work was still in full swing, with hundreds of people chopping down trees in groups. As they were limited by tools, the efficiency of a single person wasn't high, yet the overall progress was still fast.

One third of the trees in the northern part of the Thorns Ridge were chopped down in just 5 days.

A large tract of thorns woods in the surroundings of the future dock were cleared, with only a few wild fruit trees being left behind.

It would take over half a month to complete the new smoke mission, there was no use rus.h.i.+ng it. Since Gort became an adviser, his enthusiasm for work and his initiative had been off the charts, leaving Liszt oftentimes idle. Thus, the taming of Blessedcurls became his current research topic.

Blessedcurls' feathers gradually turned tough and it's magic power gradually became abundant. If it wasn't for the chain tied to its leg, it might have already learnt how to fly by now.

“Old Grandet, the Coral Island is so big, yet you can't even find a single eagle tamer?”

“Sir Lord, I've already instructed the Flower Caravan's people to ask around in each city and even in towns. There are indeed no eagle-taming craftsmen.” Replied Old Grandet, the captain of the Flower Caravan, who came to the castle to give a report.

“Continue to ask around.”

“Yes, Sir Lord.”

After sending Old Grandet away, Liszt ma.s.saged his forehead. Although Blessedcurls' ‘tweet', ‘tweet' calls were beyond annoying, but it was a magic beast he had raised from little, after all. It would be a pity to have to kill it for its meat.

However, he wasn't distressed over Blessedcurls for too long.

The servingman tasked with looking after the black nightshade came back to report good news: “Master, the black nightshade sprite worm was born!”

Liszt hurried towards the black nightshade field, where he saw the black and s.h.i.+ny nightshade sprite worm, which looked like a black gem.

After simply tempting it with jade powder, the black nightshade sprite worm bit his finger, successfully forming the contract.

His ninth sprite worm had finally settled in the castle.

However, the good news didn't stop at this. Just when he returned to the castle, a knight arrived from the Coral City to deliver an important piece of information – the Coral Island's caravan returned. Levis' household teacher Frank asked him to go to the Coral City to receive the 500 slaves.