Chapter 575 – Green Dragon Magic

Chapter 575 – Green Dragon Magic

The Deadly Mushroom Mille-Feuille required a lethal dose of ghost mushrooms, glands from nine different species of venomous snakes, and man-eating flower nectar as ingredients.

The general process involved treating the ghost mushrooms and snake glands through certain preparations, then layering them together and slow-smoking them until half-melted, before finally drizzling man-eating flower nectar over the top. It was much simpler than the Desert Salt-Baked Giant Scorpion or the Hellfire Lava-Roasted Whole Ox.

The difficulty of this dish was entirely concentrated on the “poison” involved in the cooking process.

Whether it was the ghost mushrooms or the venomous snake glands, both were highly toxic. During cooking, toxins would inevitably escape with the rising steam. Even for a Witch who could use Culinary Magic to control kitchen utensils for cooking, these poisons posed a considerable challenge.

Fortunately, Mo Lan was also skilled at making magical potions, and had specifically prepared an antidote potion for the combined toxins of ghost mushrooms and venomous snake glands.

Although this dish was custom-made for green Dragons, others could taste it normally after drinking the antidote potion.

Mo Lan only needed to keep the doors and windows shut while cooking inside to prevent the poisonous fumes from drifting out and harming others. After the cooking was done, she would give the entire room a thorough cleaning.

The one thing Benedict had over Igniwa was that he could sit still!

Mo Lan gave him a bottle of wine, and he sat quietly at the dining table, drinking by himself.

Even though he was somewhat curious about Mo Lan’s cooking process, he merely chose a seat facing the kitchen where he could catch a glimpse of what was happening inside. He didn’t fidget restlessly or ask her how much longer the food would take.

Without needing to attend to the dragon, Mo Lan took out the ingredients she needed, then sat down at the bar counter and began reading the two books she had just acquired, maintaining only her Culinary Magic to keep the utensils busy at work in the kitchen.

Benedict drank the wine with an expression of pure bliss. Despite the wine carrying a curse of thirst, the more he drank, the more flavorful he found it.

In his mouth, the curse was no different from a seasoning spice—and a special flavor that no other spice could offer, at that.

By the time the Deadly Mushroom Mille-Feuille was finished and brought to the table, Benedict had already polished off the entire bottle of wine.

Seeing the flush on his cheeks and that mysterious smile on his face, Mo Lan even began to suspect he was drunk.

“Drunk? How could that be! As if mere alcohol could get a dragon drunk!” Benedict denied. “It’s the curse on this wine—it’s just so delightfully mood-lifting!”

Only then did Mo Lan ask him curiously, “What does the curse actually taste like?”

“It’s like the feeling of tasting poisonous delicacies for the first time—exhilarating, satisfying, blissful…” Benedict described at length.

But the more he described it, the more baffled Mo Lan felt. Only a green Dragon could probably taste happiness in a curse.

What had originally been just a deflecting excuse now made her genuinely curious about what the Deadly Mushroom Mille-Feuille tasted like in his mouth.

When Mo Lan had taste-tested the dish herself, she found it exceptionally savory. Setting aside the lethal toxins it carried, judging by flavor alone, it could certainly be considered a fine delicacy.

After catching a whiff of the Deadly Mushroom Mille-Feuille’s aroma, Benedict sniffed. “What a wondrous smell!”

His dining manners were far more refined than Igniwa’s. He could skillfully use all the common human utensils Mo Lan had prepared, not much different from some of the noble mages she had met.

His verdict on the Deadly Mushroom Mille-Feuille was: “It tastes like a sweet, beautiful dream!”

Mo Lan nodded thoughtfully. The green Dragon’s sense of taste was truly one of the great wonders of the Dragon race.

The extra-large serving of Deadly Mushroom Mille-Feuille, combined with Benedict’s especially careful savoring—chewing slowly and cherishing every bite—made the meal last a little longer than usual. But this suited Mo Lan perfectly. The more time she had, the more naturally she could set up her psychic illusion.

While Benedict was enjoying the first meal of poisonous cuisine ever prepared specifically for him, Mo Lan enveloped the entire dining room in a psychic illusion.

She then rose from her seat and moved behind Benedict.

In Benedict’s eyes, she was still sitting across the table, earnestly flipping through the manuscript he had given her.

Next, Mo Lan used psychic control to reach into the deepest recesses of his memory and locate his inherited memories. She swiftly copied them into her own mind using psychic power.

Once the inherited memories were secured, she deleted, altered, and rewove his memories of the past few minutes, then returned to her seat without anyone being the wiser and resumed reading the manuscript.

Her movements gradually merged with the psychic illusion, and the illusion quietly dissipated.

Benedict noticed nothing at all.

After seeing Benedict off, Mo Lan began organizing the dragon-tongue magic portion of his inherited memories.

The green Dragon’s dragon-tongue magic was all related to toxin and nature manipulation.

The magical effects at the hatchling dragon, juvenile dragon, and adolescent dragon stages were too weak, so Mo Lan skipped them entirely and started reading from the young dragon stage.

The three spells at the young dragon stage—Frenzied Forest, Miasma Domain, and Humus Armor—one twisted nature, one created a large-scale poison field, and one could absorb massive amounts of damage. Compared to the red Dragon’s dragon-tongue magic, which was all offense-oriented, these were more diverse in function, yet equally devastating in destructive power.

The three spells at the adult dragon stage—Sovereign Tree Descent, Photosynthetic Tyranny, and Hivemind—the one that surprised Mo Lan the most was Hivemind.

It was a poison-type spell targeting the mind, capable of warping a person’s psyche and consciousness into a honeycomb structure and flooding it with negative emotions such as pain and fear.

Upon seeing this spell, Mo Lan felt very fortunate that the targets she had chosen were all young dragons. Otherwise, once Benedict learned this spell, his resistance to Psychic Magic would certainly increase dramatically, and trying to control his mind and browse his memories would no longer be so easy.

As for the ancient dragon stage green Dragon dragon-tongue magic—Language Malignancy, Knowledge Mildew, and Civilization Rot—Mo Lan could only say: absolutely terrifying.

Language Malignancy could cause certain specific words to mutate into toxic commands as they spread. Anyone who spoke those words would be poisoned to death.

Knowledge Mildew could cause books and written text to become overgrown with fungal hyphae, inducing cognitive disarray in anyone who tried to learn from them.

Civilization Rot could cause all products of civilization—including but not limited to buildings, tools, and the like—to soften and decay like rotting flesh.

These three spells targeted civilization itself. Any single one of them could easily destroy a civilization like Earth’s that had no magical means of resistance.

Fortunately, these were ancient dragon stage dragon-tongue spells. In Valen, it was nearly impossible to even gather enough dragon force to cast them. Otherwise, Mo Lan would have worried about green Dragons using these against the Witches.

The Dragon race truly deserved its reputation as one of Valen’s most powerful species. No wonder during the Divine Descent Era, not a single race dared to provoke the Dragons.

That very evening, Mo Lan distributed the organized {Knowledge Card – Dragon-Tongue Magic Study Notes (2)} to Vasida, Sylph, and Lilith’s card albums.