Chapter 957 - 956: Factory

Chapter 957: Chapter 956: Factory

The blue and white dragons skimmed the sky above the city, with the protective great barrier emitting a faint glow under the night sky, becoming one of the countless streams of light in the neon-lit metropolis of Talronde. Gawain stood between Melita Ponia’s shoulder blades, looking at the massive steel structure supporting some kind of aerial garden not far away, he couldn’t help but ask, "Where are we heading?"

Melita Ponia’s deep voice came from the front, "We’re starting from the beginning of a dragon’s life—a Central Hatching Center."

"Hatching..." Gawain was momentarily stunned, feeling like he heard a term he had never imagined, "Hatching Center?"

"You can also call it a hatching factory, or Dragon Egg Hatching Ground, those are the more common ways of calling it." Melita Ponia casually said, as she began to descend, "Do you see the facility ahead that looks like a large pillar? That’s the hatching factory of Agondale. Hold steady, we’re about to land."

Gawain instinctively adjusted his stance while his gaze unconsciously fell forward. He had already seen the massive ’factory’—it indeed looked like an immensely large pillar, surrounded by countless auxiliary facilities resembling gas tanks and numerous pipes and support beams clustered around a cylindrical main body. Lights slanted out from its midsection, sketching a dozen guiding light strips for landing.

Gawain also saw a circle of landing platforms on the midsection of that massive facility, with many platforms busy with dragons taking off and landing. The platforms in use were surrounded by red lights, while the vacant ones were clearly marked by a conspicuous white light halo—Melita Ponia and Nuoletta, who accompanied closely, were moving towards one of these vacant platforms.

But just as Melita Ponia was about to decrease altitude, a gust suddenly came from another direction, and immediately, a black dragon flew in like a storm from the night sky, racing towards the platform Melita Ponia had just chosen. A booming and anxious roar echoed in the night sky, "My apologies! The dragon egg I claimed hatched ahead of schedule!"

"Damn you...wish your young one safety!" Just about to curse at having the spot snatched, Melita Ponia changed her tune upon hearing the roar, then suddenly flapped her wings. While adjusting direction to find a new spot, she said to Gawain somewhat embarrassedly, "Sorry, you’ve seen a less civilized side of things... Please understand, obtaining hatching permits is hard these days; he’s just an anxious father."

Gawain: "..."

He seemed to have become numb to everything unexpected in Talronde by now, even too lazy to comment.

And following this minor hitch, Melita Ponia and Nuoletta finally found a vacant landing platform, where the two dragons landed smoothly on two adjacent platforms. Before their landing, the lighting around the platforms had turned red, and after they landed, the entire platform was enveloped in a semi-transparent barrier—until Gawain, Amber, and Veronica Moen jumped off Melita Ponia’s and Nuoletta’s backs respectively, and the two Lady Dragons also transformed into human forms to leave the platform area. Only then did the platform’s ’temporary control’ system switch back to idle status—all appeared to function automatically.

This should count as Talronde’s unique "transportation control system," a glimpse into innovations.

Before a wide door leading into the hatching factory’s interior, Nuoletta, clad in a white dress, brought Amber and Veronica Moen to Gawain and Melita Ponia. Amber instinctively lifted her head and with a look of awe, glanced at the door, much grander than a city gate: "Wow..."

Veronica Moen looked towards the deep and long corridor behind the door, observing the cold steel, blinking lights, and lifeless polymer windows and conduits. For a long while, she spoke softly as if talking to herself, "I never imagined... dragons are born in such places... I thought even if not in nests in hot springs, it should at least be near their parents..."

"It was like that a long, long time ago," Nuoletta said softly, having transformed into her human form, "it was really long ago..."

"I’ve obtained passage permissions, Omega will open the gates along the route, just follow me inside." Melita Ponia looked at Gawain and the others, "Once inside, just avoid touching unfamiliar items, otherwise there are no requirements—dragon eggs are securely protected; normal visitation won’t affect the hatching."

Gawain and others nodded, then proceeded under the guidance of Melita Ponia and Nuoletta through the wide gate into the interior of the hatching factory.

What Gawain saw next completely matched the description of this facility—a factory, a factory for hatching dragon eggs.

They entered the factory’s interior from a high-suspended connection bridge, one end of the bridge fixed against the factory’s exterior wall—an indeterminable thickness of metal shell, covered with flowing lights and busy machinery—while the other end led to a central ’vertical pipe’ within the factory. After entering the vertical pipe, Melita Ponia began introducing various facilities along the way to Gawain, and it didn’t take long before Gawain had seen those dragon eggs in hatching state—

They were individually placed in large transparent ’greenhouses,’ the greenhouses resembling slightly distorted ellipsoidal pressure cabins. The dragon eggs lay on a soft tray within the cabin, approximately one meter in diameter, with light yellow shells and black or brown spots. Bright lights shone on them from various directions, while mechanical probes occasionally descended for inspection and observation on the eggs’ surface; the entire ’greenhouse’ was set on round metal platforms, base lights flickering, connected by pipelines...

Hundreds or thousands of hatching devices neatly lined the sides of circular corridors, with numerous pipelines dangling from above, connecting to the ’integration ports’ behind the hatching devices, seeming to supply energy or perhaps merely collecting data. Gawain looked up, trying to find the source or convergence points of these pipelines, yet he saw only vague darkness—the hatching factory’s ceiling was immensely high and dim, the pipelines ultimately converged into the depth of darkness, as if a dark abyss existed high above, swallowing all gazes.

He withdrew his gaze and looked again at the orderly aligned, conveyor belt-like hatching devices. A dragon egg lay quietly in the nearest hatching cabin from him, meticulously tended by machines, growing in strict adherence to the schedule.

Amber too approached the hatching device, watching the scene before her intently. Uncharacteristically, she fell silent, dropping her usual playful demeanor or startled reactions.

"Newborn dragons are thus born," Veronica Moen softly said, "How much development must happen to arrive at such a way..."

"There are countless reasons that led Talronde to its current state, while the emergence of the hatching factory is just a minor link in that chain... Moreover, the hatching factory is ancient technology for us." Melita Ponia slowly shook her head and said steadily.

Nuoletta continued, "You surely heard of a saying—the more powerful a creature, the harder it reproduces, this is the ’balance’ that nature imposes on all living things. As the strongest beings among mortal species, dragons face extremely daunting difficulties in reproduction..."

"Indeed, there is such a saying," Gawain nodded, "and not only bards and playwrights say this, but scholars also believe so—although they cannot study dragon samples, most creatures in nature follow this rule."

"That’s right, this pattern is correct, at least for us Dragonkin. The reproductive capability of Dragonkin is poor, with long gestation periods and difficult hatching— but this is only in natural circumstances," Melita Ponia’s lips curled into a smile. "Thus, a long, long time ago, we developed hatchery technology and an extensive supporting industry. We use biotechnology to collect and catalyze ’green eggs,’ mass-produce blank dragon eggs with biomass parent factories, employ genetic engineering to edit parental genetic factors, or singular paternal or maternal genetic factors, using factories for batch incubation... these technologies are highly effective.

"Technology can change many things.

"Dragonkin have breeding difficulties and are few in number? That’s just another misconception. In fact, many, many millennia ago, we began actively controlling our population size. Otherwise... how could a single Talronde possibly accommodate such a large population?"

Melita Ponia spoke unhurriedly, while Gawain gradually became utterly astonished.

This finally surpassed his imagination.

The image of the mysterious, ancient "Dragon Race" at the pinnacle of the magical and fantastical world in his mind had already shattered multiple times today, and now it finally collapsed into a cold heap of ruins.

Yet he suspected these ruins weren’t yet at the limit of their disintegration; they would continue to collapse and crumble until he fully sees this true "Talronde," sees this "Eternal Cradle" under the gods’ protection.

And beside him, Melita continued explaining:

"Beneath us lies the sorting and preprocessing center of the hatchery factory— the dragon eggs transported from the ’parent factory’ are sorted and eliminated there. Defective eggs are destroyed, and only healthy eggs with potential are sent to the life suspension workshop, where their development is halted until a dragon with hatching permission comes to claim one of them...

"The dragon egg could be claimed by a pair of parents or a single father or mother. He or she, or they, must apply and prepare in advance. Aside from a lot of paperwork and a lengthy review process, the claimer must also submit their genetic factor, which will be injected into the blank dragon egg for embryo synthesis to become his or her, or their true ’child.’ The synthesized embryo will then be sent here... to this incubation workshop.

"The machines take care of these little ones in their shells. The hatching sacks are as safe and warm as the nests carefully built by ancient dragon parents. Most of the tasks here are handled by machines, with the Omega being the overall controller, which is why we only saw a few ’staff’ as we came in—those ’staff’ members mainly monitor the machines’ status and welcome the ’new parents’ claiming the dragon eggs.

"It’s a monotonous job with little technical content, yet it’s also one of the few real job positions in Talronde. Securing a position in the hatchery factory is equivalent to entering ’Upper Talronde.’"

Gawain listened quietly to Melita’s explanations when a nearby incubation device suddenly emitted a humming noise and its lights flashed.

Several probes patrolling nearby immediately gathered over, and some mechanical arms moved along tracks to the corresponding incubation device. Just as Gawain was about to ask what was happening, Melita already walked over and explained actively, "Come on! It’s hatching! We’ve just happened upon a little one hatching!"

Upon hearing this, Gawain quickened his pace immediately. He, along with Amber and Veronica Moen, swiftly arrived at the incubation device emitting sounds and flashing lights. Almost at the same time they reached it, the dragon egg resting quietly in the polymer ’greenhouse’ began to shake slightly.

Under the unwavering gaze of Gawain and the others, they saw a crack suddenly appear on the surface of the dragon egg, which quickly expanded, and fragments of the shell fell off— the young dragon was stronger than Gawain imagined. The entire process of breaking the shell didn’t take much time; in just a few seconds, the seemingly sturdy eggshell completely shattered, and a gray, unremarkable ’little’ fellow stumbled out.

It was a dragon hatchling, without scales yet, and its specific species and gender couldn’t be discerned. In Gawain’s opinion, the hatchling looked rather... ugly, like a large, featherless turkey. However, in the eyes of the Dragonkin, this hatchling was probably quite adorable— as Melita and Nuoletta beside him clearly had glowing eyes and were watching the newly-hatched dragon with joyful smiles.

Amber was once again surprised, making an "Ah" sound, then just as she wanted to ask something, there was more commotion from the ’hatching sack’: numerous small mechanical arms reached into the cabin from above and below, deftly and swiftly grabbing the hatchling. The dragon struggled slightly only to quickly lose motion, as if it had been sedated by something.

Then Gawain saw those mechanical arms move rapidly. They appeared to open a small opening at the base of the hatchling’s skull, into which they implanted a small, faintly glowing object about the size of a human fingertip. After that, a few other mechanical arms moved in to inject the hatchling with something— perhaps the "Enhancer" frequently mentioned by Melita Ponia. After the injection was complete, other devices entered the cabin to collect skin fragments and blood samples from the hatchling and performed a quick scan...

All this happened so quickly it was dizzying.

Before Gawain could react, everything was over. He blinked and then heard a mechanically synthesized voice broadcast— he couldn’t understand the broadcast’s content, but soon Melita began translating quietly beside him.

She softly translated the factory’s broadcast:

"Hatchling 1335, healthy. Average intellectual potential, expected suitable implant: X, S, EN, and universal implants. No position available, recommendation— Lower City District ordinary citizen."

The mechanical arms and probes retreated.

The hatchling in the hatching sack woke up.

He/she opened his/her eyes curiously, seeming to observe this world with wonder. Using its wings and tender limbs, he/she shakily crawled up and finally noticed the few figures standing outside.

The little one chirped happily.