Chapter 561 – Delicacy Island

Chapter 561 – Delicacy Island

Zhizhi seemed to have had its appetite stirred by Clack. It pulled out a handful of drink cards, tapped its little finger around three times before finally picking one, materialized it, stuck in a straw, and began sipping away.

Seeing Mo Lan watching it, it even patted its belly. “Not hungry?”

“I’m not hungry. Go ahead and drink.”

Mo Lan helplessly stowed Clack’s coffin into the Spatial Card, then summoned the Book of Cards and took out her Communication Card. She told her companions about the results of exploring the ghost ship and reminded them to exchange for the Material Card — Heart of the Ghost Ship at the Card Shop.

Of the four of them, only Sylph didn’t keep undead servants.

The heart of a ghost ship was a rare treasure for all undead creatures.

【Lilith: Where are you planning to go next?】

【Mo Lan: I haven’t decided yet. It should be one of these places — the Elven Woods, the Dragon islands, the Merfolk waters, or the Beastmen grasslands. Everywhere else is a bit too far from where I am now.】

【Sylph: The civil war between the pureblooded Elves and the half-Elves just ended. Although the pureblooded Elves won, they suffered heavy casualties. The entire Elven Woods is now tightly guarded by treant sentinels — easy to leave, hard to enter. It’s not a good time to infiltrate. But you don’t necessarily need to come to the Elven Woods in person to learn nature magic anymore. I managed to collect some Elf clan books during the chaos of the war, quite a few of which are magic texts. Once I’ve sorted through them, I’ll upload them via the Management Card.】

【Mo Lan: Great! @Vasida, what’s the situation on the Dragon side?】

【Vasida: Over here on the Dragon islands, everything is business as usual. The thing is, Dragons pass down their heritage entirely through inherited memories — unlike us Witches and human mages who have dedicated schools for teaching knowledge. True Dragons would never learn dragon-tongue magic from others, so disguising yourself as a Dragon to steal dragon-tongue magic probably won’t work. I’ve been directly picking fights with Dragons and learning their close-combat techniques.】

【Vasida: Though the Dragon friends I regularly spar with do bestow abridged and weakened versions of dragon-tongue magic as rewards to their Dragon-kin and Dragon servants who serve them. But the effects are roughly on par with human mage Elemental Magic — not really worth learning, and you’d have to be placed under a blood oath by the Dragon.】

【Vasida: If you really want to learn dragon-tongue magic, I’d suggest just capturing a Dragon, beating it into submission, and making it willingly hand over its inherited memories! But different Dragon species excel at different types of dragon-tongue magic, so if you want to learn everything, you’d need to capture at least ten — counting both chromatic and metallic Dragons.】

【Vasida: If you come, I’ll go Dragon-hunting with you! I know where to find them!】

【Mo Lan: There’s no need to capture any Dragons. I’ve studied Psychic Magic fairly well as a mage. For anything at Peak level or below, reading memories, fabricating memories, and modifying memories shouldn’t be a problem. Where on the Dragon islands can I come into contact with many different Dragon species?】

【Vasida: That would definitely be Delicacy Island. But are you really sure we don’t need to capture any Dragons?】

【Mo Lan: …No, we don’t. The ten-year deadline is approaching. At a time like this, it’s better not to draw the attention of the other races.】

【Lilith: The Dawn Society’s members are now spread across all of Valen, spanning every race. Many have grown accustomed to the Dawn Society’s resource cards, and your original goal has already been achieved. Even if the other races discover that there’s a problem with the defensive magic formation of the Wilds, they probably wouldn’t dare to simply attack the Wilds and make enemies of the Witches.】

【Mo Lan: The fact that the Dawn Society has grown so large also means that the Witch clan producing a new Sorceress is basically no longer a secret. And we’re all still outside the Wilds! Better to be careful.】

Having decided on Delicacy Island, Mo Lan set the flying carpet’s auto-flight route and had it head toward the depths of the ocean, slightly to the south.

Along the way, she thoroughly reviewed the memory-related spells within the mage school of Psychic Magic, then picked up a copy oferta《The Dragon’s Palate》and began reading with great enthusiasm.

If she wanted to read the Dragons’ inherited memories on Delicacy Island without anyone noticing, using food as bait was absolutely the right choice.

《The Dragon’s Palate》was a book describing the taste preferences of Dragons. When Dragons used the art of shapeshifting to take human form, their sense of taste was about seventy to eighty percent similar to humans, so things that humans found delicious, Dragons generally found delicious too.

The remaining twenty percent came down to each individual Dragon’s personal tastes, though Dragons of the same species often shared similar preferences, with few exceptions.

This book detailed the taste preferences of different Dragon species.

The dragons of Valen were primarily divided into chromatic Dragons and metallic Dragons.

The chromatic Dragons consisted of red, black, blue, green, and white Dragons.

The metallic Dragons consisted of gold, silver, bronze, brass, and copper Dragons.

According to《The Dragon’s Palate》, red Dragons universally craved spice — no meal was complete without heat. Black Dragons had a taste for blood, preferring food with a hint of sanguine flavor. Blue Dragons had strong jaws and enjoyed chewy foods. Green Dragons possessed extraordinary resistance to toxins and relished the mouthfeel that poisons provided. White Dragons liked everything frozen — any warm food had to be turned into a solid block of ice before they’d eat it. Gold Dragons preferred soft, pillowy foods — the softer the better. Silver Dragons had a sweet tooth, sending servants to the mainland every year to buy sugar. Bronze Dragons enjoyed soupy, broth-based dishes. Brass Dragons favored salty flavors and maintained their own salt-drying fields. Copper Dragons loved crispy, deep-fried foods.

Earth’s culinary traditions could perfectly cover every Dragon preference, but by now, Earth cuisine had already become well-known throughout all of Valen thanks to the expansion of the Dawn Society.

Dragons had enormous appetites and loved to eat, so Earth-cuisine gourmet cards sold in massive quantities among the Dragon race.

If Mo Lan wanted to use food to attract Dragons, simply copying Earth cuisine wasn’t going to be impressive enough.

She planned to combine Earth’s cooking methods with Valen’s ingredients to design a new menu specifically tailored for Dragons.

Thanks to the all sorts of rare and exotic ingredients the Witches had uploaded, as well as the cookbooks contributed by Culinary Witches, Mo Lan’s research into the new menu went very smoothly.

By the time she had finished developing ten new dishes specifically for Dragons, Delicacy Island had come into view.

From a distance, Delicacy Island looked like a large, shallow basin.

It was said that long ago, the ring of mountains encircling the island had far more prominent rises and falls, capable of blocking storms and tsunamis.

Later, as more and more Dragons landed here, the mountains had been trampled flat, turning it into the shape it had today.

When Mo Lan arrived, a red Dragon happened to be descending onto the island.

Seeing a mountain-sized dragon for the first time, Mo Lan felt a twinge of megalophobia and had the flying carpet stop at a distance.

Then she watched as it clutched its belly and slammed onto the mountain with a resounding thud, sending up a cloud of dust.

Moments later, a pudgy little redheaded boy walked out of the dust cloud, brushing the dirt off his backside as he went. Where the Dragon had landed, only a small crater remained.

Mo Lan: “…”

The Dragons’ weight management was… a bit concerning.