Lord of Rot

Luca really did begin to change after eating the bloodline herb.

First, he developed a ravenous appetite.

By the time Leech heard the news and came to see Luca, he had already eaten over twenty large loaves of bread and devoured three silkworm pupae.

”Lord, this...”

”Let him eat!”

Leech said, ”No one will starve to death in my territory. Let him eat as much as he can!”

Watching Luca wolf down food without his stomach bulging at all, Leech said, ”Stop with the bread. Bring the silkworm pupae. Bring them all out for him, and the crabs too!”

’The energy from the bread clearly isn’t enough to keep up with his consumption. He needs higher-energy food.’

The castle’s young cooks had never seen such a spectacle. Normally, while their Lord ate a fair amount, it was only the portion of two or three people.

But since the Lord had given the order, the young cooks immediately sprang into action.

Luckily, Leech was a foodie. The castle employed a large number of chefs dedicated to fine cuisine, and there were plenty of pots. Otherwise, Luca might have actually starved to death.

Luca ate for over four hours.

Servants from all over the castle came to deliver food, afraid they wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand.

At first, Luca had some table manners, but later he was just grabbing whole, scalding-hot, fresh-from-the-pot silkworm pupae and devouring them savagely.

Finally, the speed at which Luca was eating grew slower and slower.

But his body began to change dramatically.

”RETCH!”

Luca suddenly bent over, head down, and dry-heaved.

A nearby male servant subconsciously moved to support him but was barked at by Leech.

”Back!”

”Everyone, get back!”

”RETCH!”

Luca clawed at his throat, as if a burning coal was lodged inside.

Leech saw it clearly. There was indeed an intense heat hidden in Luca’s throat. As he opened his mouth, the high temperature distorted the air.

And flames were about to shoot out.

”Farther back! Everyone, get inside the castle!”

It wasn’t that Leech was overreacting; he could genuinely feel something was wrong. Moreover, Luca’s aura was continuously surging, reaching the Extraordinary realm at an incredible speed!

”SPLAT!” Luca spat out a great glob of magma.

A small patch of ground was scorched black.

After landing, the magma even began to burn, with flames rising from it.

Only the first mouthful was magma; after that, it was all dry-heaving.

”Luca, how are you?” Leech asked.

Luca raised his head. The eyes in his sockets were no longer human.

It was as if they were filled with molten rock.

”Lord, I feel so powerful!”

’The dragon bloodline of Furnace must have successfully awakened!’

Leech nodded. ”Power is good. Stay in the castle for a few days. Once we’re sure there are no problems, I’ll arrange for someone to train you properly.”

”Yes, Lord!”

「The night passed without incident.」

The next morning, just as Leech opened his eyes, he suddenly heard a scream.

”What’s wrong?” He threw on some clothes and went outside.

In the large, open courtyard of Porcupine Castle, a figure was crouching on the ground. In front of him was a maid who had fainted from fright.

He was trying to wake the maid.

The other servants watched the figure in terror, but no one dared to approach or intervene.

”Luca?”

When the figure heard Leech’s voice, it stood up and looked at him.

The towering figure was completely different from the Luca in Leech’s memory.

He was covered in red scales, and though his hands still had five fingers, they now sported sharp claws.

His head no longer looked human at all; it was a dragon’s head.

A wingless, bipedal dragon!

A true, bona fide dragon-kin!

He emanated a faint, oppressive aura, like an infinitely weaker version of Intimidation Magic. But unlike Intimidation Magic, this was the power of Luca’s bloodline, constantly radiating outwards.

”Lord!” Luca’s voice was deep and muffled.

”It seems you have reclaimed the glory of your ancestors,” Leech said.

”Yes, Lord!”

Luca didn’t seem to care whether he still had a human appearance. To him, reclaiming the glory of his bloodline was far more important than a human form, especially since he’d never been purely human to begin with.

He said, ”I am ready to receive my training and tutelage!”

Leech glanced down and said, ”However, before we start your training, we need to get a suitable set of clothes custom-made for you.”

’Dragons, it seems, are quite well-endowed.’

After asking a few questions, Leech learned that the young maid had fainted right away from the shock of seeing Luca’s draconic form, mistaking him for some kind of man-eating monster. However, after learning that the red-scaled figure was Luca, the maid overcame her fear and even curiously reached out to touch the scales on his body.

One person’s courage inspired the group. Everyone else curiously gathered around, surrounding Luca to touch his scales.

This actually made Luca embarrassed. ”Um, could I put on a pair of pants first?”

With a new dragon-kin under his command, Leech was in high spirits. He tossed Luca over to Lacy Sith, as he was the only Transcendent capable of training him.

And he got busy himself.

Just a moment ago, he had seen off Deni and Claude.

The two merchants were like bloodhounds; as soon as they knew Leech had something good, they had come sniffing.

The first batch of furs was sold at a low price, and the two of them practically snatched them all up in a frenzy.

From furs that cost 3,000 to acquire, Leech made a quick 500 Jinri profit. And seeing how the two spent their money, he knew they still stood to make a profit themselves.

’Might as well let everyone make money together.’ Leech wasn’t a stingy person, and he wouldn’t refuse to let others get rich alongside him.

It was just that the cache of treasure from Burning City was a bit difficult to deal with. Leech had wasted a lot of breath and only managed to sell two small items, for 100 Jinri each.

Total revenue for the day: 700 Jinri.

’Selling this treasure isn’t going to be so simple.’

Deni and Claude were mid-tier merchants. They could pull together a few thousand Jinri of liquid capital for business turnover, but asking them to spend several hundred Jinri on collectibles to display at home was truly beyond them.

Leech didn’t try to force them. ’I’ll just have to sell them off slowly in the future.’

...

”Lord, the ships are ready!”

The captains and sailors of the three ships were all waiting at the docks.

FLAP!

A gust of wind blew as Rocket spread his wings and slowly descended. He only folded his wings when he was a few feet from the ground, then took two quick steps to Leech’s side.

Leech raised a hand to pat Rocket gently, then vaulted onto the Horse-headed Eagle.

”Set out!”

”SCREEE—!”

Rocket spread his wings and soared into the sky.

The three ships followed Leech out of Pigtail Bay, heading for the deep sea.

Leech was going to harvest the sea!

He had thought it over and over. Getting 5 million pounds of grain was definitely impossible, but 5 million pounds of fish was absolutely not a major problem.

Human sailing technology was extremely poor, making long voyages impossible. In Leech’s eyes, the sea had always been an undeveloped treasure trove.

Trying to gather 5 million pounds of fish through ordinary methods would never work. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Leech had discovered the Water Nymph’s extreme enchanting ability over living creatures the last time she had, all by herself, successfully lured the Monkey soldiers into willingly jumping into a river to their deaths.

It was just that he never had time to test it. Now, he could finally put it into practice.

After reaching the designated location, the three ships cast their fishing nets.

They didn’t know what Leech had planned. They just found it baffling that their Lord suddenly had all three ships halt their regular duties to go fishing.

Fishing could indeed alleviate the food shortage, but it wasn’t something that could be accomplished overnight. Forget three ships; even ten ships couldn’t possibly catch enough fish that quickly.

On the contrary, with all three of the territory’s ships out here, the transportation links were cut, which would have a significant impact.

Iron Valley still needed Porcupine Territory to supply its grain.

However, no one dared to question him. The Lord’s orders always had a reason; it was best to just obey.

Leech sent a signal through the local network to the Water Nymph hidden beneath the seawater.

To get her help, Leech had specially moved the Water Nymph from freshwater to the sea. Fortunately, Corpse Ghosts were naturally partial to him, so the Water Nymph was very supportive of his actions.

Otherwise, for being yanked over and tossed around like that, any ordinary being above the Extraordinary realm would have attacked and torn Leech to shreds.

「Deep beneath the sea.」

The golden-clad Water Nymph received Leech’s signal and looked up. In the deep water, very little sunlight could penetrate. She looked up and could faintly see the three ships floating on the surface.

The nets they had cast were spread open, but it was hard to catch any fish.

A few fish would occasionally bump into them, but most would choose to swim around.

The Water Nymph swayed her body gently and began to sing.

Her Magic Power traveled a great distance through the water and her voice.

Leech, riding Rocket high in the sky, had a different perspective from the oblivious sailors on the three ships. He could clearly see that beneath the previously calm surface of the sea, a dense mass of something had suddenly appeared.

Then, the sailors on the three ships also noticed something.

”RUMBLE!!”

It would be hard not to notice. The sound was like the beating of drums.

A huge number of fish leaped out of the water, crashing toward the three ships like a downpour.

”Take cover!” someone shouted, being the first to realize the danger.

The sailors crouched on the deck with their hands over their heads, waiting for this great fish-storm to pass quickly.

A few men were hit and cried out in pain. It was impossible to get up and hide in the cabins, as their bodies were completely pinned down by the impacts. The slightest movement could lead to getting hit in a vulnerable spot, which could be fatal!

”Ouch!”

”Ow!”

After a few minutes, the great fish-storm finally passed. The sailors who got to their feet were stunned as they looked at the deck, which was completely covered in fish.

”FLOP!” One fish was still wriggling its body and managed to escape its doom, flopping back into the sea.

’What just happened?!’

”Could it be the Lord?!” A sailor subconsciously looked up at Leech in the sky.

’The Lord seemed to know this would happen all along!’

”Haul in the nets!”

”Right, haul in the nets!”

Their first fishing trip lasted less than half a day, and they returned fully loaded.

Gelan, who had been given instructions by Leech beforehand, was already waiting quietly at the docks with a group of men.

They loaded the fish and did a simple weigh-in.

The *Porcupine* brought back 390,000 pounds of fish.

The *Monkey* brought back 370,000 pounds of fish.

The *Iron Valley* brought back 330,000 pounds of fish.

In just one morning, they had caught over a million pounds of fish.

The fish would surely lose some weight after being smoked and processed, but for Leech, this was practically a ”zero-cost” operation. At this rate, Leech could catch the full 5 million pounds of fish in five days at most.

The only minor issues were the Water Nymph helping with the catch and the manpower needed to smoke the fish.

The Water Nymph was the easier part of the problem, but Leech needed her to stay in the stream, as the value that river generated was even higher.

The second issue was smoking the fish. Normally, smoked fish can be stored for about a year. Leech decided to add this extra step to prevent the fish from rotting by the time they were delivered to the giants’ feet.

For this, he had 3,000 slaves stop their other work to chop wood and smoke fish.

’This labor cost is also very high.’

One person could smoke about 200 pounds a day. Even with simplified steps—no cleaning, no salt curing, just enough to keep the meat from spoiling—it was still a massive amount of work.

A million pounds of fish would take a day and a half to smoke.