Blue Dragon Emperor: Lord of Thunder

Chapter 217 Scientific and technological progress depends on archeology
Traveling through underground caves covered with luminous mycelium, Long and his party, led by the offspring grown by the Myconid King, headed towards the ruins of the ancient Lizard Empire they found.

Kalapazo's mycelium occupied the living space here in advance, and used spiritual power to prompt the creatures living here to leave on their own. Long and his party did not encounter any monster attacks.

"You can reach the ruins by continuing along this excavated passage. My child body will stay here. If you need, you can contact me through the child body."

The voice of the Myconid King Kalapazo rang in the minds of Long En and his party. The Myconid body walked to the side and squatted down on its own. Luminous mycelium grew out and connected with the mycelium in the cave. After a while, it was wrapped in the fungus. Among the silk.

At this time, the myconid daughter body is connected to the myconid king Kalapazo through mycelium, which is similar to the fact that Kalapazo comes in an incarnation state and can see the situation in the cave through the eyes of the daughter body.

Long En nodded in the direction of his son, and flew with his family members towards the cave pointed out by the Myconid King.

The cave was only more than one meter wide, with obvious signs of digging with claws. Long glanced at Igadios.

"Your Majesty, this is indeed the passage I dug."

Igadios looked into the depths of the dark passage, his eyes full of fear.

He had accidentally excavated here and entered the ruins of the ancient lizard-man empire, where his soul was secretly transformed by the ancient ghosts lingering there.

Now, after many bloodline transformations, his body is getting closer and closer to the appearance of a real dragon, and his strength is getting stronger, but whenever he recalls that ancient ghost, he still feels fear from the bottom of his heart.

Long, who had already changed his body shape to facilitate traveling in the Underdark, took the lead and flew into the passage dug by Igadios, and his family members quickly followed.

Entering the passage, the dull roar of mechanical gears and swing arms came along the passage. The further they flew in, the roar of the machinery became clearer and clearer. Long En and his party quickly flew out of the passage and entered a scene. Empty crypt.

Although it is located deep in the Underdark, the ruins of the Ancient Lizard Man Empire are not completely dark. There are warm yellow floor lamps for lighting among the large, complex, ancient, and still running machines. However, some of the floor lamps have been extinguished. Some floor lamps kept flickering as if they were out of contact, illuminating the entire ruins like a ghostland.

The powerful visual ability of the real dragon allows Long En and his party to be as clear as daylight in these dim lights.

Long glanced at the ruins. These ancient buildings had a clear sense of age and had carvings and decorations that were completely different from today's Oonia.

Those weird and twisted carvings have a strange sense of beauty. At least Long, as a real dragon, thinks they are quite in line with his aesthetics. Among those twisted carvings, you can also see some that are obviously depicting real dragons. Gesture pattern.

The ancient lizards, who are covered in scales and look somewhat similar to real dragons, undoubtedly have some dragon blood and are a type of dragon-veined creature. Although they do not revere real dragons as enthusiastically as kobolds, from these Judging from the carvings, true dragons still have a high status in their beliefs.

According to part of the dragon inheritance obtained from the five-color dragon relatives, the ancient lizard people did worship dragons at first. The ancient lizard people had already mastered advanced agricultural technology when other races were still consuming hair and blood, and established and developed their empires. Later, tall and magnificent pyramids covered with gold foil were built as altars to pray to dragons and dragon gods.

However, with the development of ancient lizard people's knowledge and the advancement of technology, their power has become stronger and stronger, and their awe of dragons and gods has gradually faded away. Only some things such as decorations, festivals, etc. still retain the traces of their past and the relationship with them. Proof of the close relationship between dragons.

Ron didn't bring many family members with him on this trip, only Igadios, who had been here before, and Valona San, who completed the transformation of himself and stuffed the three souls in his head into three heads to become a three-headed dragon. Brothers, and two powerful five-color dragon relatives of an extremely old age.

Long En ordered: "Work in pairs, explore the ruins, and look for the ancient ghost. If you find anything, contact me immediately. Try to avoid fighting with it and don't damage these ancient machines."

The four dependents were divided into two groups and each flew in one direction. Long En walked towards these ancient machines alone.

"It's a truly amazing technology that it can still operate after tens of thousands of years."

Ron approached a rumbling machine and studied its structure.

These machines are completely different from the steam engines used in Long En's previous life and the current Kingdom of Dulan. Even though the steam engines in the Kingdom of Dulan are now improved to use magic circles to provide heat, and there are also magic power plants, they still cannot get rid of "burning". hot water".

But these machines in front of me are taking a completely different path.

Ron observed for a while and saw that there was a piston-like structure inside these machines, but instead of doing work through the piston, some kind of equipment was activated during the operation of the piston, and magic power poured into the piston out of thin air. It is compressed by the rotation of the piston and flows into the complex pipeline.

These compressed magic powers provide energy to other machines in a form that Long cannot understand, and maintain the operation of other machines.

But I don’t know whether it is due to disrepair or because it is buried deep in the Dark Territory. The operating efficiency of this machine is not ideal. It can only barely operate some of the machines, while more machines connected to it are in the The moment the piston compresses the magic power, it briefly activates for a few seconds and then quickly goes out due to lack of energy.

This kind of machine seems to be using the ubiquitous "dark sea" of magic that permeates every corner of the world to obtain energy. If the utilization efficiency of this energy is high enough, then this technology will undoubtedly be better than the Longen Belt. The "boiling water" technology to this part of the world.

The most ideal way to use "boil water" at present is to convert the energy generated by "boiling water" into electrical energy, and then use the electrical energy to transform into power, heat energy, light, sound, etc. There will undoubtedly be waste in the process of these conversions. Lose some or even most of the energy.

Using magic power directly is completely different.

The source of magic power is the endless "dark sea", just like the solar power generated by Long En in his previous life, which used the sun's infinite energy in his previous life.

However, the efficiency of converting solar energy into electrical energy in previous lives was usually only about 20.00%, and the highest could only reach 30.00% to 50.00. As for the ripples of the "dark sea" full of magic that Long En just felt around him, this machine The machine's utilization efficiency of magic power has definitely reached more than [-]%, and the energy generated exceeds the effect of solar energy. This is the result after maintaining operation for tens of thousands of years.

And the utilization of electrical energy needs to be converted into other forms through various electrical components, but the magic of this compression and denaturation can directly act on various machines, and the magic is exerted in the form of releasing magic through various small inscriptions in the machines. of all energy.

Long could fully imagine why the ancient lizard empire developed so rapidly and became unbearable to the gods in such a short period of time.This form of magic use can reduce the requirements for materials, output components, and supporting technologies of the scientific and technological system based on it to an extremely low level. To make these magic exert different effects, you only need to change the description. The inscription can be achieved.

The simplicity of the magic technology system can lead to sudden and explosive progress. At the same time, the high productivity brought by high technology will feed back the social system and catalyze the rapid transformation of the social system.

As a result, the ancient lizard people's belief in dragons and gods immediately collapsed like a tall building. The power they possessed gave them the wrong idea to be comparable to the gods, just like the Nether Empire that created super-level spells and Nether scrolls.

But their mistakes were far more serious than those of the Nether Empire.

No matter how powerful the Nether Empire is, it does not deviate from the rules of the game set by the gods. It is just trying to become one of the people who set the rules of the game. Although the Ancient Lizard Empire has not yet developed to the point where it can truly threaten the gods, they want to To overturn the table!
Therefore, the gods took decisive action, secretly leading to the fall of the ancient lizard empire.

Long En stretched out his paw, wanting to touch this thousand-year-old machine, but a voice suddenly came from behind him.

"I wouldn't touch it if I were you."

Long En instantly released a strong magnetic field to lock the target behind him, then slowly turned around and looked down at the figure that suddenly appeared not far away.

It was a lizard man shrouded in a layer of black robes with only a face as dry as a skeleton, exuding a strong aura of death. The blood-red soul fire burning in its deep-set eye sockets showed that it had long been transformed. For undead creatures, they must have survived in an undead state for at least thousands of years in order to possess this kind of soul fire, which symbolizes powerful power.

This should be the ancient ghost that Igadios saw. Long En didn't expect that the other party would show up so easily. It had been less than 10 minutes since they arrived at the ruins.

The undead lizard man stretched out his withered arm to touch his forehead and bowed to Long: "Supreme dragon, please forgive my presumption. The sinner Tubanel expresses the most humble fear and respect to you."

The words of Tubanel, the undead lizard man, were extremely humble, but his tone was cold and calm, without any respect.

Long En could feel a hint of threat from Tubaniel, but since the undead lizard man showed up on his own initiative, he probably wouldn't attack again.

Long En looked at Tubanel with interest: "Sinners? So the purpose of your lingering life for tens of thousands of years is to atone for your sins? Tell me in detail, I am very interested in that period of history."

Tubanel can live as an undead until now. There is no doubt that he must have some unswerving belief. It is most likely related to the destroyed ancient lizard people empire. Long En asked Tubanel to tell about the ancient lizard people. The history of the empire's demise is tantamount to uncovering the scars in its heart.

But Tubaniel's mood did not fluctuate. Perhaps tens of thousands of years of wandering and loneliness had made him lose the ability to have emotions. With a calm face, he told a heroic and sad history that seemed to have nothing to do with him.

"...After that, the empire suffered a curse from the gods. It became increasingly difficult for the lizard bloodline to be inherited stably. Many of the children born became mentally retarded and even ferocious and violent like wild beasts. Although the empire explored a path destined to be extraordinary. , but the empire at that time did not have the ability to fight against the gods at all, and was powerless against the atavistic curses of the gods. As a result, the empire, which was originally getting stronger, quickly declined."

"The elders of the empire once again prayed for protection from the dragon gods, but they could not get a response from the dragon gods. When the lizard people no longer respected the dragon, the dragon also abandoned the lizard people."

"Then, the declining empire was besieged by the elves, snakemen, orcs, dwarves and other races that began to rise, and was betrayed by the naked men who had originally surrendered and loyal to the empire. When the empire was at war with other races, they turned back. Ultimately leading to the complete demise of the empire.”

"At the last moment, the prophets and elders of the empire sacrificed themselves to a certain being in exchange for his power, causing the earth to crack and the mountains to collapse, burying the last unconquered city of the empire, Fedrosa, deep underground. , preserved the last part of the tribe."

"But this part of the tribe still has not been able to get rid of the influence of the atavistic curse. It has even worsened due to the erosion of negative energy in the ground. All the descendants born have degenerated into bloodthirsty monsters. In order to continue the will of the tribe and the empire, we finally used a certain In a method that is close to blood sacrifice, a few people were chosen to transform into immortal undead souls to guard the final proof of the empire’s former glory.”

"But even the undead cannot truly escape the baptism of time and the fate of death. As all timers are damaged and time passes, we can no longer know how long has passed. Then comes another long time, and one companion after another completely dies. , until I was left alone.”

Tubaniel's story ended here. Long looked at its somewhat lonely and sad figure and asked, "So what is your purpose?"

"For the continuation of the race and the empire, my lord."

Tubaniel's answer seemed to have been practiced thousands of times, and he blurted it out after Long's question, as if this was the meaning of its existence.

"I don't know what the outside world is like, and I don't know if there are still lizard people alive, but I have deliberately retained some degenerate descendants. I can cultivate normal lizard people from their flesh and blood. As long as you can help the lizard people regenerate Prosperity, I can dedicate all the empire’s technology to you.”

"Are you threatening me?"

Ron looked at Tubaniel with a sneer, dazzling lightning flashed between his scales, and the atmosphere suddenly became solemn.

Tubaniel bowed humbly to Long: "This is just an exchange of equal value."

Long En suddenly put away the Thunder Snake all over his body, as if nothing had happened: "I agreed to your request, and let me tell you good news. The blood of the Lizard Man has survived to this day, and has evolved into several subspecies. , but their lives are not very good, they have not inherited any of these ancient skills."

Hearing that there were still descendants, Tubanel struggled to squeeze out a smile on his stiff and numb face. This situation was much better than the various results it had imagined underground.

Ron looked back at the machine that was still extracting compressed magic power.

With the cooperation of these physical machines and Tubanel, it is not difficult for Duolan to imitate these machines. Once these machines are thoroughly studied, the magic technology of the ancient lizards and the existing science and technology of the Kingdom of Duolan will be integrated with each other. , there will inevitably be leap-forward development and a new round of productivity explosion.

Long En couldn't help but sigh: "Sure enough, scientific and technological progress still depends on archeology. Maybe if we just dig up anything, we can build a Star Destroyer."

(End of this chapter)