The Mighty Dragons Are Dead

Great plumes of smoke rose from the grayish-brown bricks as a serf, wearing gloves, removed a few and handed them to Liszt, Goltai, and Marcus.

“Test the hardness.”

Clang, clang!

Two hammer strikes shattered the brick.

“The hardness is mediocre, the level of firing is not enough, let’s try another kiln.” Liszt said calmly, as this batch of bricks obviously did not meet the quality of his experiments.

The next batch took an extra ten minutes to fire, a full half hour before leaving the kiln.

After cooling with water, the hardness of the grayish-brown bricks met the standards, hardly inferior to the hardness of granite.

Jomaya Bangtu felt the hardness and weight of the bricks on a stretcher, and couldn’t help but exclaim again, “Lord, with bricks of this uniform shape, constructing any building would be very convenient. Compared to those fragile ceramics, the hardness of the bricks is just like stone.”

“As long as they’re useful, that’s good. As for the remaining brick kilns, I’ll leave their design and command to you. Once the brick factory construction is complete, start working on the lighthouse immediately.”

Without Jomaya’s early arrival, he wouldn’t have been able to produce quality bricks at this point and complete the task, encountering Jomaya only after successful brick manufacturing. However, the Smoke Mission had changed, with Jomaya arriving ahead of time, and he had begun preparations for the lighthouse construction, significantly shortening the task’s time frame.

Liszt turned and asked Marcus, “Teacher Marcus, have you chosen a location for the lighthouse yet?”

“Captain Kostor and I have inspected the site in person, and we’ve decided to build it one mile west of Black Horse Port. The land there is high, with a good viewing angle, the lighthouse will be very clear from the ships. Additionally, the surrounding Rocky Beach will not obstruct walking, making transportation of building materials very convenient.”

“Then we’ll construct the lighthouse at that location, Consultant Goltai, continue to oversee the brick factory construction.”

“As you wish, Lord Landlord.”

With the construction supervision tasks assigned to Goltai, Liszt, along with Marcus, Lasse, and Griffin, mounted his steed Lightning and commenced another task of their journey on Black Horse Island—searching for wild tea trees.

Trees were already scarce on the island.

Most of them were rubber trees.

Therefore, trees of indiscernible varieties were very rare. It took only a day for Liszt to find the reward from the previous Smoke Mission, three wild tea trees. These three wild tea trees, growing closely together on the northern slope of Ice Grass Hill, were clearly visible at a glance.

These shrub-type tea trees weren’t very tall, at just about two meters.

With numerous branches in a wild, disorderly fashion, these trees lacked the neatness of those cultivated by humans. It was March, and the buds of the wild tea trees had just started sprouting, slightly different from the tender buds of tea trees in Liszt’s memory, with less distinct serrated edges and less pronounced bud heads.

They were not as refined as the domesticated tea trees.

In tea picking, particularly spring tea, one could pick single buds, as well as one bud with one leaf or one bud with two leaves.

A single bud is just the newly emerged bud, not yet formed into a young leaf; one bud with one leaf is when a bud has grown into a young leaf; one bud with two leaves is when two buds have grown into young leaves.

Some people enjoy drinking the single buds, where typically forty thousand buds are needed to produce one pound of single buds. The undeveloped single buds have a freshness that isn’t fully expressed, a slight bitterness, and are not resistant to multiple infusions. Yet, those who like them savor the buds’ delicate fragrance and sweetness, as well as the noble ambiance they evoke.

The first and second leaves are rather common, well-developed with plenty of amino acids and vitamins, and the aroma of the tea is also sufficient. However, when brewed, they do not have the visually pleasing aspect of the “stand-up-like-a-needle” form seen in single buds, and the rich flavor of the tea lacks a few threads of elegance.

Premium Longjing tea, for instance, is made from the roasting of single buds.

Liszt had no familiarity with this knowledge; before his transmigration, he was just an ordinary wage earner, consuming more beverages than tea. His understanding of tea came from pervasive advertisements on video websites, learning about large-leaf teas, small-leaf teas, the numerous processing steps, and how aged experts personally supervised production.

“If I’m not mistaken, these three trees should be called tea trees,” Liszt said, standing in front of the wild tea trees, speaking indifferently.

Full of curiosity, Marcus asked, “Black tea trees? My Lord, black tea trees don’t quite look like this. Their leaves have a slightly reddish, plump shape, and they bear fruit.”

“This is… a green tea tree,” Liszt said. “I read in a magic book that green tea trees are completely different from black tea trees. Their young buds can be picked and roasted to be brewed directly into tea, which is very beneficial for health.”

“Green tea tree?”

Marcus chewed over the name of the tree without saying much more; he understood that he did not possess the extensive knowledge of Liszt—the young landlord, who was well-read and knew many things. The rubber tree was the best example: without the Lord Landlord’s wisdom, they would have missed something of tremendous importance like rubber.

Without any delay, Liszt gave a direct order to gather a group of female serfs to pick the young buds of the three green tea trees.

Regardless if they were single buds or one bud with one or two leaves, or even with three or four leaves.

Pick first and talk later.

Of course, with his middle school biology knowledge, he knew that tea picking should focus on the tips of the tea tree. This is because of the apical dominance in plants—top buds grow first and suppress the growth of lateral buds. After the top buds are picked, the lateral buds will grow, and the growth of the tea tree will not be affected.

Nearly fifteen hundred serfs were now working on Black Horse Island.

There were also many female serfs. Griffin called for twenty of them and brought several ladders to pick the top buds of the green tea trees. Watching the serfs at work, Liszt suddenly thought of a legend about tea picking—the Lip Tea.

The story goes that there is a kind of tea leaf picked by virgins using their mouths, imbued with the unique fragrance of virgin saliva. After being roasted, the tea is further processed by being placed near the bosom of virgins for flavor infusion, resulting in newly produced tea that is fragrant and fresh, carrying the unique scent of virginity—a tea called Lip Tea.

The legend is not credible; at least Liszt did not believe it.

If the virgins picking the tea happened to resemble the unattractive character Feng Jie, he doubted anyone would be willing to drink such Lip Tea.

In two hours, the serfs had picked most of the top buds, which wasn’t a lot, roughly two pounds. With the two pounds of tender leaves and buds, Liszt was ready to catch a boat back to Fresh Flower Town—the work on Black Horse Island was under the watchful eyes of Goltai and Marcus, so there would be no problems.

Just before departure, Goltai looked at him wistfully, “My Lord, Freya is nine months pregnant and could give birth at any time, yet I can’t be by her side.”

“Don’t worry, once the lighthouse construction is finished, you can come back… Consultant Goltai, Fresh Flower Town is important, but so is the development of the port town on Black Horse Island. It needs you to maintain things for a while longer; Teacher Marcus simply lacks experience.”

With things as they were, Goltai could only rally his spirit: “Rest assured, my Lord, I will diligently plan the development of the port town!”

After comforting Goltai,

The Fresh Flower Vessel set sail, cutting through the waves under the blue sky and over the azure sea.

Looking at the basket containing two pounds of fresh tea leaves, he couldn’t help but wonder, “I don’t know how many pounds of dry tea these will make, or what the flavor will be like when brewed?”