Work Prophet
Chapter 198 - 46: The Anatomy of a Dragon

Chapter 198: Chapter 46: The Anatomy of a Dragon

Ireya was incredibly busy, and Li Yu was no less so.

After the battle concluded, he began by tallying the losses, starting with personnel. In this battle, a total of twelve lizard people and eight Arias family warriors had died, with an additional thirty-five injured.

Because the power of the Black Dragon was so overwhelming, those hit by its wings or tail almost certainly perished.

As a result, all the surviving injured were without exception suffering from burns. Fortunately, the majority of the injuries were not too severe, with only two individuals suffering from major burns, while the rest had first or second-degree burns.

Li Yu called over Adelle to assist him with cleaning and dressing the wounds, then administered antibiotics to the injured to prevent infection. As for the two with serious burns, he couldn’t conduct skin graft surgery, so he resorted to intravenous glucose to keep them hydrated, along with painkillers to alleviate their suffering.

With that, his work was more or less complete. The rest was up to their fate.

Beyond the loss of personnel, Li Yu also bled assets in terms of equipment. Right off the bat, he’d lost two Sea King Spears. He remembered how engagement of the first Sea King Spear to be forged by Fitzwilliam had cost him a whole thousand Gold Coins, not to mention labor.

Although subsequent production costs were reduced as manufacturing processes improved and proficiency increased, it still amounted to around seven or eight hundred Gold Coins each.

And with two breaths of fire, the Black Dragon had evaporated at least fifteen hundred Gold Coins of his assets.

However, purely financial losses were relatively easy to remedy.

In fact, Ireya had already promised to split the spoils evenly with the Double Rest Sect. The reward from the Figrola family alone amounted to five thousand gold lions, sufficient for the Double Rest Sect to construct six more Sea King Spears.

What truly pained Li Yu was the loss of an outdoor mobile power source and that Qianjiang motorcycle scavenged by the Eco-friendly Frog.

The latter, in particular, was not ridden often by Li Yu, as it required gasoline. He’d only ridden it a few times during initial tests before storing it in the yard, preferring to commute mainly by horse.

Just a few days before, Li Yu had performed maintenance on his beloved bike. Indeed, it had not let him down, making a stunning entrance in the Dragon Slayer battle.

The scene of Li Yu charging at the Black Dragon on the motorcycle was unforgettable for all who were present, ensuring the name of Saturday’s deity was echoed throughout Green Field. It would also become a classic tale recounted by minstrels in the years to come.

The only downside was that it was quite a waste of a motorcycle.

The motorcycle became literal ashes upon its entrance, taking a heavy tail-swing from the Black Dragon head-on. It exploded on the spot, shattering into pieces, with the fuel tank igniting into a fireball that was flung a great distance.

Li Yu later tried to search for its remains to see if anything could be salvaged, but all he found was a rearview mirror, covered in cracks.

And so Prophet Merlin had to accept the painful reality of losing his cherished ride, unsure of when the Eco-friendly Frog might find him another one.

Preferably electric this time, to save the hassle of bringing gasoline.

After tallying up the losses, it was natural to account for the gains and extend the victories.

The former task was first undertaken by Ireya’s side, while for the latter, Li Yu dispatched the first team of missionaries to move around Green Field as soon as the ban was lifted.

As for himself, he began to study the Black Dragon.

Li Yu was very interested in this legendary creature that had always existed only in fictional literature, especially in how this dragon managed to fly and breathe fire.

After dissecting the body, Li Yu glimpsed some answers.

Regarding flight, the Black Dragon, as he had previously speculated, leaped into the air by powerfully pushing off the ground with its hind legs, while its broad wings could flap continuously like a bird’s, pushing the air to provide lift.

But this was still not enough to support its massive body taking off.

The real secret lay within an organ inside the dragon’s body, similar to a stomach, which Li Yu named the second stomach. The second stomach was enormous, nearly occupying one-fifth of the dragon’s body.

It was filled with a large amount of marsh gas and some hydrogen gas.

Li Yu was startled when he first found it because the contents had the potential to be as powerful as a bomb. If mishandled and accidentally ignited, anyone nearby, including himself, would likely be obliterated.

If you don’t believe it, you can search for exploding whales. The methane and hydrogen sulfide in a dead whale’s body are produced by bacterial decomposition and are far less voluminous than this Black Dragon’s.

Li Yu didn’t know how its second stomach had evolved to withstand tremendous pressure, allowing the dragon to store large amounts of marsh gas and hydrogen gas inside its body.

This also explained why it was initially found in a marsh, because marshes contain abundant marsh gas. As is well known, both marsh gas and hydrogen gas are less dense than air, thus providing extra buoyancy for takeoff.

This allowed it to soar through the skies with its massive body.

Additionally, the marsh gas and hydrogen gas served as fuel for the Black Dragon, combining with oxygen and a catalyst (Li Yu suspected static electricity within the dragon’s body or perhaps friction from somewhere, a shame it could no longer be verified) to enable it to expel flames.

Realizing this, Li Yu removed the second stomach from the Black Dragon.

He had not yet figured out how to use it, but there was no doubt it was valuable material; its toughness was unparalleled by any synthetic material in his universe.

Li Yu was also curious about the tissues in the dragon’s throat and mouth because they were fire-resistant, clearly a very good material for fireproofing.

Perhaps he could find a way to process them into a piece of fire-resistant clothing, with the added property [Flame Resistance +100%].

As for the scales, they were much lighter than Li Yu had imagined, clearly the premier material for making shields and armor. And with shields and armor, there obviously needed to be warriors who could wear them.

No, Li Yu had no intention of following the Silver Moon Church’s path and renouncing weapons.

Doing so could certainly win the favor of the nobles, easing their suspicions, but history had proven time and again that no matter what kind of world you plan to build, without sufficient military force to protect it, it’s nothing but a pipe dream.

Like a castle of sand, a single gust of wind could destroy it.

The crisis that swept over the West this time proved this point once more—if not for the Lizardman Warriors of the Double Rest Sect, the Arias family alone would clearly not have been enough to deal with the Black Dragon.