"Are you sure?"
Thane was immediately hooked.
Spellcasters were what people called extraordinary beings who used various energies or materials to cast spells—mysterious because they were rare as hen's teeth.
There were naturally gifted witches, wizards who gained spellcasting abilities through study, and some warlocks who got their power through dark evil means—all thrown together in one bucket.
Spellcasters were mysterious. Thane couldn't tell them apart not because he didn't care, but because info about spellcasters was scarcer than water in a desert.
"Baron, there's no way to be totally sure..."
Pamin smiled bitterly and helplessly: "If we were certain, those church inquisition folks would smell it out and come running."
All churches saw spellcasters as heretics and would capture and kill them on sight.
The Loanium Empire's situation was better—churches couldn't reach too far, and there were still records about spellcasters.
But on the other side of the ocean in the Holy Council controlled by churches, even looking up spellcaster info was a crime.
Word was that thousands of years ago, powerful spellcasters looked down on the gods and even wanted to kill them, leading to a devastating war between them and the gods.
But others said the gods were scared of spellcasters' power and started the purge first, forcing spellcasters to fight back.
No matter how it went down, the result was that spellcasters disappeared from then on, the gods stopped doing miracles, and human authority rose up to establish various kingdoms on the eastern continent.
Then came official history—the Loanium Emperor rose up, using powerful military force and strategic smarts to quickly crush nineteen small nations and establish the Loanium Empire.
The remaining thirty-two nations saw the writing on the wall and quickly formed a pact, creating a military alliance that finally put the brakes on the Loanium Emperor's expansion.
The Loanium Empire had been going strong for over 500 years now, with the current emperor being the 24th.
Pamin kept explaining: "She's a magician doing tricks, mixed in with a circus troupe, able to instantly light up playing cards in her hands.
She also did some flame-controlling tricks, but I never smelled sulfur.
And when she was performing, I had this weird sense of danger, wanting to draw my sword and rush up to take her out."
Pamin hesitated a moment, then added: "I had the same feeling when meeting Ryan."
Thane said nothing. Pamin's words made it impossible for him to draw any conclusions.
On one hand he hadn't seen it, on the other hand he'd seen tons of amazing fire magic tricks in his previous life, even people who could rub flames all over their private parts without getting hurt.
That kind of stuff was hard to prove as spellcasting.
What made Thane sit up and take notice was actually Pamin's gut feeling.
"This is fine. Whatever she is, as long as she doesn't come into Shadowpine Ridge, we'll leave it alone for now."
"Mm."
"Come on, let's go check out the dragon eggs first."
...
...
The wyvern eggs were Thane's most precious possessions now, kept by themselves in a wooden house in the manor, guarded inside and out by the sharpest guards.
The three books Pamin brought back were all natural science types—
If the contents were legit, they'd be constantly useful for life in the Northern Borderlands wilderness.
To double-check that the content was solid, Thane flipped all three texts to sections about wyverns and compared their descriptions one by one to make sure the info was accurate.
The recorded wyvern characteristics were indeed similar to what Ryan had described.
Then Thane called Ryan's wife Luna to verify the herb sections, and most content checked out too.
Kralfard's butt was temporarily safe.
Through similar testing, the odds that the books' wyvern egg hatching info was accurate were also pretty good.
"Wyverns often lay dragon eggs in caves with metal veins, then begin incubating in warm June, hatching after three months..."
Thane didn't want to wait until June.
Though mid-April was still kind of chilly, after lighting furnaces in the house and sealing windows, they could keep it warm.
As long as someone kept the fire going, warmth could be maintained continuously, creating a greenhouse.
To completely copy the mother dragon's egg-incubating environment, Thane had iron ore packed around the boxes containing the dragon eggs.
"Will this actually work?"
Pamin looked at the two boxes containing dragon eggs and asked nervously.
"If it doesn't work, there's no other way. Who told us to kill the wyvern that knew how to incubate eggs?"
Thane shrugged helplessly and said casually: "It's fine, worst case they become scrambled eggs."
If they gave it their best shot and still couldn't hatch them, nobody could help that.
Thane couldn't waste brain power on stuff like this.
After getting the dragon egg situation sorted, Kralfard jumped at the chance to run up and report:
"My lord, Ryan just came to report that he's finished processing the wyvern carcass."
"Perfect timing to check things out."
Thane brought Pamin and Kralfard to Ryan's courtyard.
Thane had indeed taken all property from Ryan and the others, but gave him and his hunters a courtyard with three big wooden houses.
Plus, all grain was fully provided, daily meals were up to them—definitely not slave treatment.
Of course, Ryan's work was also getting done well.
"Good day, my lord."
After Ryan's salute, he showed off the materials arranged on shelves: "The dragon scales can probably make two to three leather armors. If you're up for it, shields could also be made."
"Dragon claws and tusks can make daggers, short knives, or spears. Fangs can make poisoned arrows."
"Some wing bones can be made into bows, tendons can be used for bowstrings—the power would blow ordinary bows and arrows out of the water."
"As for the rest..."
Ryan turned his gaze to his wife.
Luna got the hint and stepped forward to explain: "Pure meat is about 1,320 pounds. The rest are heart, liver, lungs, and other organs—those things are all mixed together and not processed."
Thane thought for a while and suddenly asked: "Can the organs be eaten?"
"Except for the heart, the others are poisonous."
"Oh, right."
Thane remembered that all three books seemed to mention wyvern organs being poisonous, but he hadn't read carefully when doing his research.
Damn.
He'd originally wanted to cook up a pot of spicy dragon innards.
Now it looked impossible.
Thane couldn't help but sigh.
"Since they're poisonous, I'll leave them all to you, Luna. Maybe mixed with herbs they could become medicines or poisons?"
Thane handed
"This book cost thirty silver coins from Kralfard's brother Koris Goldsand. Maybe it'll help you out."
"Yes, my lord."
Luna took the book with both hands and bowed in thanks.
She hadn't had much contact with money and had no clue what thirty silver coins meant, paying no attention to Thane's words.
But Kralfard next to her caught the deeper meaning in the lord's words and quickly spoke up:
"Koris is just a money-grubbing profiteer! When he got this book, he definitely only paid ten silver coins!"
Kralfard moved closer to Thane and suggested quietly: "How about I find him and you rob all his gold coins?"
Thane gave Kralfard a sideways look:
"That's a good idea, but no time now."
Thane didn't waste time with Kralfard's nonsense. Looking at Ryan, he instructed: "Make me a set of leather armor first. Handle the rest properly and set it aside.
For weapons like bows, arrows, spears, daggers, and short knives—make everything you can. We're really short on them.
As for wyvern meat, the book seems to say eating it can temporarily boost constitution, so dry it all into jerky."
"Yes, my lord."
Ryan nodded and had a nearby hunter grab something from the house.
"Please wait a sec."
"What else?"
Just as Thane was wondering, hunter Dolan brought out the wyvern's head from the house.
"I've already hollowed this out. You can keep it as decoration to show off your achievement."
"This thing looks badass—I like it."
Thane took the dragon head and checked it out, then handed it to Pamin.
Without hanging around long, Thane headed back to the manor.
After hanging the dragon head on the wall, he stood with hands on hips admiring it for a while.
The fierce dragon head was bathed golden by sunset streaming through the window, less scary and more majestic.
Actually, this primitive look had its own unique appeal.
But this aesthetic moment was soon interrupted by Otto coming to report.
One thousand acres had been plowed.
Thane thought for a moment, looking toward the huge expanse of farmland on distant hillsides:
"Time to get seeds ready for planting."