The Mighty Dragons Are Dead

The ship’s keel is a main load-bearing component at the bottom center of the ship, extending from bow to stern.

Once they discovered the broken keel had issues, it was easy to identify the unusual aspect of the keel—Marcus found that the keel was not one solid piece, but had traces of being pieced together.

Following the seams, they disassembled the keel and split it neatly into two halves.

Inside the separated keel, embedded like in a casting mold, was a bone about a meter long, with one end fractured and the other end being the joint part.

It was covered in dense carvings of magic runes.

“What bone is this?”

“There are magic runes on it, it must be the work of a magician!”

“This is a piece of magic equipment.”

“The bone is huge, could it be from a magical beast? Do intermediate magical beasts have bones this big, or could it be from an advanced magical beast?”

Looking at the bone, Goltai and the others chattered away in confusion.

Liszt’s pupils, deep like whirlpools, could see through his Eye of Magic that dense magic power was circulating within the bone.

The magic power seemed to want to burst out, but it was firmly sealed by the magic runes on the bone, unable to break through. Only at a few slightly dimmed rune sites was a bit of magic power leaking out.

Just then.

Marcus reached to pry the bone out of the dragon bone.

But as soon as his hand touched the bone, the magic runes suddenly lit up one by one, then with a swish, the lit runes quickly extinguished.

A dark light burst forth from the bone, heading straight for Marcus’s face.

Marcus reacted quickly, tossing aside the dragon bone and rolling on the ground. His posture might not have been graceful, but he moved swiftly; as he rolled, he drew his sword and unleashed his Dou Qi in a counterattack against the dark light.

Boom!

The dark light was successfully blocked.

In midair, it suddenly dissipated, forming a faintly glowing humanoid figure with only an upper body, its lower half fluttering like ragged cloth. Its facial features were unclear, but it could be seen as the shape of a woman—with breasts, very full.

It had two hands hanging by its sides, with long, slender palms that even had dimly glowing nails, at least ten centimeters long.

“Protect the lord!” Marcus roared loudly.

The Retainer Knights, facing such a bizarre scene for the first time, were somewhat panicked, but still quickly formed a circle around Liszt, each drawing their spears, tense as they watched the hovering humanoid form.

Goltai stepped back two paces and swallowed, his voice trembling, “What… what is this?”

“A specter!”

Liszt had been eagerly anticipating specters, and now that he saw a real one, he felt not the slightest bit nervous; indeed, there was even a hint of excitement in him.

He found this world growing more interesting by the moment.

It was not just magic and Dou Qi, and not just dragons and elves, but also various mystical existences—specters had now been verified as real, so might the vampires, werewolves, unicorns, and sirens depicted in knight’s novels also exist?

What about giants and dwarves, who had also appeared in knight’s novels? Did they exist?

And even those called elves, but are humanoid beings with intelligence like humans—do they exist?

“A specter?” Goltai shrieked. “Is it really a specter? Specters exist? Incredible, Marcus, you must be able to kill the specter, right!”

Marcus stood tensely opposite the specter.

It wasn’t exactly a standoff, since the Specter, after its failed attack on Marcus and revealing itself, just floated in mid-air like this, stupidly motionless.

If not for the slight fluctuation in its body and the faint glow it emitted, it really looked like a slide in a projector.

“I can’t guarantee I can kill it, I’ve never seen a Specter before, it has no body, just a bunch of light,” Marcus said cautiously, his hands clutching the Knight’s Sword.

Liszt, protected by the crowd, was still casting the Eye of Magic.

He discovered that the magic power in that bone seemed unrelated to the Specter; there wasn’t much magic power in the Specter’s body. Because whether it was the Eye of Magic or the naked eye, what they saw of the Specter was a dim shadowy figure composed of a half-body shape.

He quickly recalled all the information about Specters he knew.

Specters didn’t seem to be any vicious ghost or monster; in the Knight’s Novels with recorded encounters, the protagonist would deal with them easily, with no detailed battle descriptions. Even in bedtime stories, Specters were just treated as a curious phenomenon, not as a harmful entity.

Just as Marcus was growing impatient and about to attack the Specter—

a spark of inspiration came from nowhere.

Liszt suddenly thought that if a Specter could parasitize inside a Dragon Bone, it was somewhat similar to the Djinn in Aladdin’s Lamp. He then brushed against his chest inside the cloak, having already taken out an unknown metal Drift Bottle from the Space Ring. He tossed it to Marcus.

“Teacher Marcus, try to see if you can trap the Specter inside,” he said.

It was just a whimsical idea, somewhat fantastically inspired.

But astonishingly, when the bottle came into Marcus’s hands, the Specter abruptly charged at Marcus, and before Marcus could swing his sword to intercept it, the Specter had swiftly entered the Metal Bottle.

“Uh…”

Liszt was somewhat stunned.

He never imagined that he would actually capture the Specter, it was simply inconceivable.

But when Marcus walked over cautiously, holding the bottle, Liszt quickly masked his surprise with a look of serene tranquility and handed the bottle cap to Marcus.

Marcus quickly sealed the bottle cap on.

Several threads of magic power flashed, the Metal Bottle and cap becoming one, leaving no visible seam.

“Lord, your Magic Bottle,” Marcus said respectfully, handing it over. He was finding it more and more difficult to fathom the Landlord he followed, as if everything was in the latter’s control.

The Specter from the sunken ship was captured without any complications.

Liszt took back the bottle and tucked it under his cloak, avoiding others’ gazes, and directly sent the bottle into the Gemstone Space—he certainly didn’t wish to be in close contact with the Specter. It was better to send it to the static confines of the Gemstone Space and wait until he had verified the information about Specters before conducting further research.

“But speaking of which, that Specter, it’s at least 36D,” he mused.

The Metal Bottle could only be opened by the bloodline of the Sun Descendant.

The only source of blood for now was from Old Tanner at the Tanners’ Shop. Old Phil the Tanner and the servant Jessie had not yet formed a contract as father and son, but their interactions remained close, as good as if they were father and son.

Since Old Phil was getting on in years, Liszt only collected a small amount of his blood in a Jade Bottle, without asking for more. He also brought plenty of food for Old Phil as compensation.

“Jessie, take good care of Old Tanner. I’ve taken a bit of his blood—it’s just for research, and I have no intention of harming him. The other servants can take over more of his work at the Castle; I’ll have Mr. Carter make the arrangements. Most importantly, you must take good care of Old Tanner,” he instructed.

“Yes, master,” Jessie nodded.

Next to them, Old Tanner said, “I am honored to be able to contribute to Lord Landlord.”

Liszt smiled slightly, “It’s good you think so.”

In the future, he would come regularly to collect blood until he had enough to open the Metal Bottle an unlimited number of times.