Chapter 1052： A little light

"This is the situation we are currently facing."

The red dragon Karador stood by a long charred table and said to Herragor, who was sitting on the other side of the table.

This is one of the few “rooms” in the temporary shelter that are still intact. It was originally a pipeline control room for a certain factory. When the shock wave arrived, this facility half-buried in the rock strata relied on its strong structure to carry After the blow, it was not without damage—the room has several deep cracks from the roof to the wall, some cracks have been able to lead to the outdoors, and the cold wind from outside the house poured into these cracks, bringing not only sharpness. The whistling, and the biting cold.

The dragon's physique can ignore this bit of cold, but the psychological gap caused by such a bleak situation cannot be avoided.

"How many dragons are there in this camp now?" Herragor raised his head and looked at the silent Duke Moore.

"Two thousand-most of them are injured or are suffering from severe synergist and hallucinogen backlash. Only half of them are healthy," Duke Moore said. "The good news is that many wounded dragons also have certain Ability to work, at least after emergency treatment to help find supplies. In addition, we are sending search teams every day to find awakened compatriots in the nearby ruins, and we have successively increased a lot of manpower."

"How big is the search range?" Herragor asked again.

"Currently it is limited to the surrounding area of ​​Agundor, as far as the Great Rift Valley on the west side-limited supplies, inconvenient communication, and wandering elemental creatures in the depths of the ruins, the search team dare not leave the camp too far. ."

"Elemental creatures?" Balroger frowned. "Why are there elemental creatures?"

"At the end of the battle, the power of the gods shattered the barrier of the main material world and tore a number of rifts leading to the elemental world in the center of Talrond - and then the rift once expanded to one-third of the continent, countless elements Creatures rushed out from inside," Duke Moore knew that Balrogl was not on the battlefield at the time, so he explained patiently, "Although the elemental power receded after that, the main rift healed, but there was still considerable A large number of wandering elemental creatures move around the fissure radiation belt, and there are still countless small fissures left and right... These things will probably be difficult to dissipate in decades."

The room was quiet for a while, and after ten seconds of silence, Andal said: "The search work will continue. At present, it seems that there are more compatriots who have recovered from the ruins waiting for rescue. Now Tarron The German communication is cut off and the wild environment has become extremely dangerous. The probability of survival of these isolated compatriots in the wilderness is decreasing every day. In addition, the search range should also be expanded as much as possible, especially in the direction of the city of God, over there..."

Just halfway through what Andal said, the metal gate that had been twisted and deformed not far away suddenly "creaked" and was pushed aside, and Melita Penia, with a tired face, walked in from outside. After seeing the scene in the room, she was taken aback for a while, and then bowed her head to greet Andar and Herragor, etc., while Bailong Noretta, who was sitting at the corner of the long table, stood up: "Are you back? Outside? How is it going?"

"The compatriots in the West District are fighting against the symptoms of synergist withdrawal, but the situation in other areas is okay," Melita exhaled, trying to say the more optimistic part, "It can be seen that Speaker Andal and they are back. After that, everyone was very encouraged, and the dragon eggs that you brought people back today... I feel that many dragons are ignited by those dragon eggs.

"Noretta found the storage of dragon eggs on the site of the incubator factory. She led a team to dig there for a long time and found hundreds of well-preserved dragon eggs," Karador turned to Hera. Three Dragons of Gore said, "We stored those dragon eggs in the crypt in the center of the camp, and sent dragons to take care of them-when the dragon eggs were transported back to the camp, everyone's morale improved significantly."

"Store them separately, don't put them in a crypt," Ballogel immediately reminded, "Now both the above-ground buildings and underground caves are very unstable. It is safer to store the eggs separately."

Calador nodded quickly: "Yes, I'll make arrangements soon."

"But I really didn't expect...you found a good dragon egg," Andal couldn't help but said, his tone even trembled, "I thought they were all destroyed after the incubation factory collapsed... Just find the dragon egg. If we find the dragon egg, we can have a healthy new generation, and it is a new generation that has not been affected by synergists and implants from birth... In the following days, there will only be this.' Primitive dragons can adapt to the dragon society that has lost the Omega system."

Andal’s words gave Melita a deep feeling in her heart-in the short period of time since waking up, she has clearly realized the fact that the previous stage of the Tarrond civilization has ended. , The gods and Omega are gone, and the previous generation of dragons who grew up in the cradle have been thrown off the wheels as time goes by. Implants, synergists, automatic systems...These things once shaped the entire dragon society, but the dragon society she was familiar with had disappeared with those things. In the new era...the dragons who started from scratch need a generation from scratch.

The dragon egg Noretta found in the ruins was not just a "hope" to boost morale—it was the real "future" of the dragons.

"There should be more dragon eggs in the collapsed area of ​​the incubation factory," Karador was also touched by Speaker Andar's emotion, with a nearly solemn expression on his face, "Next, apart from searching and rescuing the wounded and collecting supplies Besides, the focus of our work is to dig out those dragon eggs and transfer them to a relatively safe and stable place."

"Very well, you should do this," Speaker Andal nodded slowly, but then he shook his head again, his eyes slowly sweeping across the room, "But there is another question, have you thought about it?"

Calador had curiosity on his face: "One more question?"

"...Do you know how to incubate dragon eggs?" With a serious expression, Andal looked at the young dragons such as Merita and Noreta, and even the relatively old dragons of Kalador, his tone of voice. There is no joking in it, "The young dragons in the camp, who knows how to hatch dragon eggs without the use of factory facilities?"

As soon as the words came out, the room suddenly became quiet again, Cala d'Or's expression was a bit stiff for an instant, and Noretta fell into a state of thoughtfulness. Merita thought carefully for a long time before hesitatingly said: " Throw it directly into a pool of magma or magic power... Uh, it probably won't be hatched, right?"

"You will only cook them," Calador gave Merita a weird look, then looked at Andal, "I...probably know this process. It should be maintained at a suitable temperature and a stable magical environment... …"

"Even a red dragon like you only knows this. You can imagine the level of the younger and more ignorant dragons in the camp than you in this respect. I have no hope at all," Andal sighed. , Shook his head slowly, "However, this is not to blame you, nor any dragon... After all, before today, no one had considered this situation at this moment."

"...The dragons have been taken care of by the'cradle' for too long, and this kind of thing can happen." Duke Moore sighed similarly, the old human form with a bitter and self-deprecating smile on his face, "and it's just hatching the dragon egg. In the first step, how to care for the whelps without an automatic rearing system and a constant temperature nest is even more problematic."

"What should I do then?" Merita looked at the people around her, feeling a little at a loss, "We can't even hatch eggs... Then..."

"Then learn, learn from scratch, and learn these'techniques' that should be biological instincts," Herragor said in a low tone, breaking the silence. "We old folks in the ancient times at least know what to do-we I will teach young dragons little by little how to hatch dragon eggs and take care of young dragons, but before that, one thing is very important."

He stopped halfway through, and Andal on the side knew what he was going to say, so he took the following words: "We can only incubate part of it, or even a small part... Before our food supply stabilizes, the camp raises Do not live so many wyrmlings."

"Prepare now. Pick some dragons that are willing and able to take care of the dragon eggs and wyrmlings, and then we will teach them what to do," Herragor said slowly, "Let's do it bit by bit, from zero. At the beginning, starting from the incubation of offspring, we will rebuild the dragon clan on this wasteland."

"In addition, I suggest that at least two dragons claim a dragon egg, or form a group to raise them together," Andal added, "We need to avoid losing labor due to caring for young dragons, especially now that the day has passed halfway. Before the colder polar night arrives, we must establish a relatively stable living environment as soon as possible, which requires a lot of labor."

From scratch, from a piece of wasteland-to rebuild a home.

Melita raised her head. She saw Andar and Herragor discussing the future of the ethnic group. Then Calador and Balogre began to discuss how to expand the camp and find a stable source of food from nearby seas and islands. She saw Noretta sitting aside, although tired, her eyes kept bright, and suddenly, another picture appeared in her mind——

For some reason, she thought of the small camp at the foot of the dark mountain range a few years ago, thought of the weak human beings who built houses and reclaimed wasteland in the wilderness, thought of the tents and slab houses on the banks of the white water, and There is the "pioneer" who seems to have infinite energy and countless ideas, who once stood by a wasteland and outlined the future of the ethnic group.

Only a few years ago, she was a spectator of all that.

The images in the memory overlap with the images in front of her, but the mood in the memory back then is completely different from the mood now.

That human created a lot of interesting words. Which words can be used here? Are things right? Or is time passing by? It doesn't seem right...

Melita thought wildly, just because now Andal and the others were discussing more and more areas that she couldn't understand. On those issues involving overall planning, she could not think of any useful opinions, but she was in a trance for a while. After that, her attention returned to this room, and Andal was discussing the idea of ​​rebuilding society with Duke Moore——

"The area we have explored is still too limited," Duke Moore said with regret. "Even if the search team has flown to the end of Agundor and the surrounding factory area, the entire Agundor area is in Tal. Lund is just one of many cities...More than 90% of this continent is still in an unclear state. Maybe other places have established camps like this one. Maybe they need our help urgently. Maybe they have the resources we urgently need, but we have no contact with each other."

“There are wandering elemental creatures on the surface, and there are unstable spatial cracks or elemental passages in the sky at any time. All long-distance activities are dangerous. Sending expedition exploration teams when the safe route is uncertain is tantamount to suicide,” Andal said, shaking his head. Now the communication is cut off, and the harsh natural conditions have divided the various regions of Tarrond."

"We found some ancient communication devices, but almost all of them couldn't be turned on, and a few of them could not receive signals," Calador added, "Either there is no other camp in the search range, or The interference on the wasteland is too strong..."

They were discussing, and Melita was listening. Suddenly, she couldn't help saying: "Or... let's light a beacon, just like those humans."

Andal and Duke Moore stopped discussing immediately, and several pairs of eyes fell on Merita, which made the latter shrink her neck subconsciously: "I just came up with an idea... I remembered that. Seeing what the humans did when they built and opened up camps, they made fires in the wilderness or shot beams of light to let nearby refugees know the location of the refuge...Of course, I thought it might not be thoughtful..."

"No, we are not questioning, we are just...a bit surprised," Andal said, suddenly couldn't help but tapped his forehead with a smile, "Such a simple and primitive way, we should have thought of it from the beginning. "

"We just want to repair the communication system or restart the communication line," Herragor spread out his hand. "After all, we haven't used firelight to communicate with distant places for more than a million years."

"But in this situation, lighting a beacon may not be of any use, right?" Noretta, who had never spoken a word on the side, looked at Merita, then at Herragore, and couldn't help saying, "Don't In terms of how far the light and smoke of the beacon can travel, even if you see it from a distance, there are still many obstacles that cannot be crossed in the wilderness. As far as we have explored so far, the surrounding area of ​​Argondo is almost blocked..."

"No, it's still useful. Even if a survivor trapped in the ruins finds the camp after seeing the beacon, it will be useful," Herragor shook his head and said solemnly. Worst of all, like you said, the obstacles in the wilderness block everyone, and the beacon has its meaning. It can tell other camps and survivors who are still insisting, let them know-we are here."

"I'm going to prepare for this," Barroger said, "I will prepare the grandest fire, so that it can be clearly seen across the Rift Valley-the beacon fire to be ignited by the dragons is not large. No way."