Free Web NovelChapter 91: Chapter 78: Research Progress
"What? Two Magical Beasts?" Shire was stopped by a goblin before he even made it out of the tunnel.
He hurried to the platform, which was now covered in blood. The Cyan-Eyed Dragon Snake had been disemboweled, and the corpse of a giant frog lay slumped over on a pile of slime.
"Well, look at that. A buy-one-get-one-free deal," Shire remarked as he approached the giant frog.
The giant frog was as large as a full-grown bull. Its body was limp on the ground, its bones clearly crushed. There were numerous tears on its outer skin, apparently the result of corrosion from stomach acid.
"Now *that’s* a real bullfrog," Shire mused, then headed straight for the Giant Snake.
He stepped through the bloody water, enduring the foul, fishy stench as he drew near and asked, "Are you almost done?"
Red Eyes, who was in the middle of skinning the snake, heard him and turned back. "This snake... too big. Not enough time."
"Take your time." Shire patted Red Eyes’s shoulder, watching him skin the snake, cut by cut, with his sword.
The Shamrah Black Sword’s Dimension Stripping effect was incredibly powerful, leaving the cut surfaces perfectly smooth, but a single slip could damage the snakeskin. Shire had specifically instructed Red Eyes to be careful, as this snakeskin would later be used to make Leather Armor for him and the tribe’s combatants.
’I wonder if the Heart Stealer would be pleased or furious to know his prized Longsword is being used to skin a Cyan-Eyed Dragon Snake,’ Shire mused, looking at the blade.
"ACHOO!" Red Eyes sneezed. He stopped just in time, nearly nicking the snakeskin.
Winter was fast approaching, and the temperature had dropped noticeably. Down here on the Underground River Platform inside the cave, it was even colder; Shire guessed it might not even be 10 degrees.
"Go tell Bai Mao to bring some people over and boil a big pot of sugar water. Tell them it’s my order," Shire instructed One-Eyed, who was standing nearby, telling him to run off at once.
Manager Du immediately scurried away.
"This snakeskin is really tough," Shire said, crouching down to examine it.
The freshly peeled skin, still stained with blood, was folded and stacked to the side.
In his memory, he had seen many kinds of hides, and had even been fortunate enough to see so-called Dragon Hide. However, he knew it wasn’t from a true Giant Dragon; at best, it was just the hide of a Two-legged Flying Dragon.
But the snakeskin before him, in terms of both thickness and toughness, was far superior to cowhide. Shire even felt it was in no way inferior to the hide of a Two-legged Flying Dragon.
"It’s just so long. How are we going to transport it to the cabin waystation?" He fiddled with the snakeskin, a bit exasperated. "We’ll just have to cut it into sections and transport it in batches."
"And we need to be fast. Fresh hides will harden, become brittle, and curl as they lose moisture. Snakeskin is even more troublesome; if it starts to curl, the scales will stick out, and it’ll be nearly impossible to flatten it again."
Shire directed his subordinates to lay the snakeskin out flat to prevent it from curling as much as possible. At the same time, he considered whether he should have Agatha make an extra trip to Yangjiao Town tonight to tell Mary to find people to prepare for processing the skin immediately.
While the goblins on the platform were working in an orderly fashion, a voice suddenly echoed in Shire’s mind: "Bandit, Agatha wants you to come over, quickly."
"Hmm?" Shire stood up and looked at the floating Fulu. "Did she say what it was about?"
"No." The Fulu’s eyestalks swayed from side to side, as if shaking its head.
After giving a few instructions to his subordinates, Shire headed for the tunnel. Just before entering, he suddenly remembered the bloodstains on his hands and feet, so he went over to the edge of the underground river to wash them off carefully.
"The water’s freezing," he said, sucking in a sharp breath. It seemed winter really was just around the corner.
’I need to buy another batch of sheepskins,’ Shire thought. ’The goblins don’t have much fur, and the weather is already getting cold. I have to get clothes for my subordinates.’
The sheepskins he had distributed before were whole pelts, meant for them to sleep on. But the goblins didn’t even have warm clothes, which would definitely affect their hunting and gathering activities in the winter.
......
"What did you call me for?" Shire asked as he entered the Door Room.
"Just wait here," Agatha said to Shire with a mysterious smile. She then picked up her copy of *Nobles behind the Bed Curtain of Plantagenet City*, placed it in the middle of a stone ring, and pushed a nearby stone.
Shire watched in shock as the book vanished with a WHOOSH, as if sucked into a black hole, only to reappear in another stone ring, just like it had teleported.
"It worked?" he asked, pleasantly surprised.
"Only the preliminary experiment was a success," Agatha replied with a smile, but she quickly added, "We’ve only run two tests. The first was with a rock, the second was this book."
"You haven’t tested it on a living subject?" Shire asked immediately.
Agatha shook her head. "We haven’t had the chance yet."
Shire immediately ran out and ordered One-Eyed to find someone and bring the rats. He had caught and kept a few rats just for the purpose of testing the Teleportation Gate.
A moment later, he personally placed the cage of rats in the middle of the Stone Ring. He then ordered everyone to leave the stone chamber and stand in the tunnel.
Only Manager Du strongly insisted on staying behind. Shire patted his shoulder, his eyes full of appreciation.
Once everyone had left, Shire shouted, "Activate!"
One-Eyed immediately pushed the nearby stone. WHOOSH! The cage and the rats vanished, reappearing in the center of the other Stone Ring.
Shire called One-Eyed to his side. The group waited quietly for a minute, and only after confirming that nothing strange had happened to the rat did they file back into the stone chamber.
"Looks like living things work too," Shire said, rubbing his chin.
"Just a rat isn’t enough. We need something bigger, preferably a test subject the size of a goblin," Agatha said, staring at the rat in the cage.
"It could be dangerous," Shire said. He couldn’t be sure if the rat had mutated—after all, the little thing couldn’t talk. ’Then again, it’d be terrifying if it suddenly did start talking.’
"Chief, let me do it," One-Eyed volunteered, stepping forward and beating his chest.
Shire shook his head. Although this subordinate was a habitual sycophant, he clearly didn’t understand the risks involved.
"I’ll do it." Shire stepped into the Stone Ring himself.
"Shire, this is very dangerous! You could disappear into a space no one knows," Agatha said grimly.
"The rat experiment just now proved the teleportation should be fine. Besides, I’m the one who pushed for this research, and above all, I am the leader of this tribe," Shire said with a smile. At the same time, he added silently to himself: ’At least I have the Heart of the Brave to protect me.’
Agatha’s lips twitched. She wanted to persuade Shire to give up the idea, to tell him he could just grab any goblin, but she knew he would never agree.
"Sigh... You’re still the same," she said with a long sigh, then nodded, no longer trying to persuade her old classmate.
Then, she walked over and pushed the stone herself.
WHOOSH! Shire was swallowed by the black hole.
