The Mighty Dragons Are Dead

This chapter is a bonus update sponsored by "Flowers Are Not Flowers, Words Fly Away."

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Goltai, who was in charge of the glass sales negotiation in Coral City, took the opportunity to purchase three second-hand cargo ships for the territory. The cargo ships had not been refurbished yet and were temporarily dispatched to the New Harbor on Black Horse Island to participate in the salvage of the Sky Ship.

With the combined pulling force of six ships, the Sky Ship was finally dragged up from the seabed and bit by bit hauled to the shoreline.

Liszt was there at the site, watching the salvage.

At that time, heavy snow was flying, and a layer of ice and snow had already accumulated on the beach. However, the falling snowflakes couldn't bring a trace of severe cold to Liszt, draped in a Flack·Abaie cloak with red-facing, black-backed, and gold-edged fabric. Since he had advanced to the rank of Sky Knight and acquired the Advanced Fire Attribute Dou Qi, he had no fear of the cold.

And the Advanced Fire Attribute Dou Qi was even gradually transitioning to Dragon Dou Qi.

As Fire Dragons obviously knew no fear of the cold, so too did Liszt, imbued with the abundant Dragon Dou Qi, naturally not feel the biting chill. The feather-covered landwalker bird Loki, perched beneath him, also feared not the cold; its tall long legs stepped in the snow, warmed by a thick layer of keratin, just as unfazed by the frost.

"My lord, the sunken ship has been dragged up!" Blair said excitedly.

Liszt naturally could see it.

The overall shape of the Sky Ship was now fully discernible. It was a ship that resembled ancient Chinese tower ships, lacking both masts and sails. The body of the ship was rather narrow and elongated but significantly massive. In comparison, it was even larger than the most advanced three-masted sailboats of this era.

Having once traveled on The Court's exclusive three-masted fast sailboat, he knew it was clearly not as large as the Sky Ship.

Blair continued to analyze excitedly by his side, "Without sails and masts, it must be a galley. Looking at the coral and shellfish cluttering its hull, the shipwreck must be at least a few hundred years old. Hundreds of years ago, the Duchy of Sapphire was still a desolate island, right? It's unknown which country developed such a large galley."

A galley?

Liszt didn't correct Blair's analysis; he simply said, "You direct the salvage team to carefully clean up the items on the ship after it's dragged ashore. And remove all the attached corals, shells, and the like—I want to see the original appearance of this sunken ship."

"Yes, my lord."

Blair quickly began directing the serfs to continuously clean the vessel.

Liszt, riding the landwalker bird, circled the Sky Ship, observing it meticulously. Knowing the ship sailed the skies, he looked at it from that perspective, finding something strange about the ship—its means of flight was hard to pin down—there were no airplane-like wings, nor were there hot-air balloon-like envelopes.

So, instead of believing the Sky Ship flew by physical means, Liszt was more inclined to believe it flew on magic power, perhaps using some sort of magic array.

The entire Sky Ship might even be a piece of Magic Equipment.

But now, the Sky Ship had deteriorated to the point of being a residence for shrimps and crabs. After the thirteen chests containing Magic Medicine Seeds, books, and scepters were taken by Ach, and other somewhat intact items were also removed, there was hardly anything of value left on the ship.

The serfs kept on cleaning and kept hauling out more and more rubbish.

There were rusty weapons, fragmented utensils, and a great pile of stuff unrecognizable in their original form. However, just when Liszt was no longer hopeful, in the rear half of the shipwreck, buried beneath silt and scooped out from the cabin by serfs, they finally discovered something valuable.

Three cabins were intact and undamaged.

In one of the ship's cabins, there was a pile of wood—not just any wood, but branches, none thicker than an arm. It seemed that as long as they had been buried, the branches had once sprouted midway, but ultimately, they had died and become mere wood.

Liszt took a branch and used the Eye of Magic to inspect it but found no magic.

When he tried to break it, he found that the branch was harder than Thorn Ironwood, comparable to the kind of rockwood that could be hundreds of years old.

"Excellent wood, transport it to the port town and store it there; do not allow its use for now." Liszt wouldn't let the branches be used recklessly without fully understanding their purpose.

In the second cabin, there was a pile of metal ore—metal with a pale blue luster that showed no signs of rust. The color immediately reminded Liszt of the pale blue metal in the fourth circle of the Sun Scepter. These two metals were obviously the same and worth collecting for research.

The third cabin held no treasures.

But there were skeletons.

"My lord, there are a total of twenty-one skeletons, only bones left, their clothes long since decayed."

"Bring me one of the skeletons."

Soon, a skeleton was placed before Liszt. The white bones shared little difference with humans, suggesting the race of the Children of the Sun were indeed human—Sun Descendants like Philip and Old Phil were normal humans, and it's unlikely their ancestors looked like aliens.

However, there were subtle differences.

From the skeleton, it was evident that the Children of the Sun had a higher leg length ratio, boasting significantly long legs. Beyond that, Liszt discovered nothing new.

Moreover, he suddenly thought, "Perhaps the long legs are an exception; I haven't noticed Old Phil having particularly long legs. On the contrary, it's I who have long legs."

I wonder if it's because of consuming too much of the Long Taro Family's elongated taros that made their legs quite long.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

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"This is a female skeleton." Marcus, who had been involved in salvaging the shipwreck and had just cleaned the mud off himself, came over, "My lord, this woman was probably around 1.8 meters tall, with a somewhat delicate bone structure. Judging from the closure of her growth plates, she might have been underage."

"Female? Underage? Teacher Marcus, do you also know how to examine bones?"

"Unlike nobles who practice Dou Qi, as commoners in the Knight Academy, we are taught by our teachers how to discern the flow of energy channels through the skeleton. I've learned a bit more and have seen many different human skeletons, even considering how to use bones to enhance the lethality of my archery."

"I see, then continue to analyze this skeleton for me."

"Yes, my lord." Marcus squatted down and observed the skeleton closely, "Long leg ratio exceeding that of ordinary people, pelvis not yet open, apparently has not given birth... Beyond that, I'm unable to ascertain more."

Afterward, Marcus analyzed each skeleton brought out, one by one.

All the skeletons belonged to underage individuals, ranging from 1.9 to 1.3 meters tall, of various heights. There were both males and females, all with a notably prominent leg length ratio. But no other differences from humans were discovered. The race of the Children of the Sun were essentially humans with longer legs.

By this time, the exterior of the ship also had been cleaned.

A large amount of coral and seashells had been stripped off, revealing the true appearance of the Sky Ship—a lou ship whose exterior had been peeled away, leaving only its main structure.

Standing on a plank, Kostor suddenly shouted, "My lord, you should come up and take a look, it's incredible, the keel of this ship... The keel of this ship is actually one whole branch, my goodness, it's unbelievable, just like a keel grown from a tree!"