Sword of Daybreaker

Blue and white dragons glide over the city, and the protective barrier exudes a faint glow under the night, becoming one of the countless streamers of the neon flashing metropolis of Tallond, Gao Wen stands in Meili Between the shoulder blades of the tower, looking at the huge steel structure used to support some kind of sky garden not far away, I couldn't help but ask: "Where are we going?"

Melita's low voice came from the front: "We start from the beginning of a dragon's life-a concentrated incubation center."

"Incubation..." Gao Wen suddenly froze, feeling that he had heard a noun that he had never thought of, "Incubation Center?"

"You can also call it a hatchery factory, or a dragon egg hatchery, these are more popular names," Melita said casually, and at the same time began to lower the height, "seeing the facility like a big pillar in front. What? That is the hatchery factory in Agondo. When we stand firm, we are about to land."

Gao Wen subconsciously adjusted his standing posture, and his eyes fell involuntarily in front of him. He had seen the huge "factory"-it was indeed like a huge pillar, with countless auxiliary facilities like gas tanks. A cylindrical body is surrounded by a large number of pipes and supporting beams, and lights extend obliquely from its half waist, sketching a dozen or so light strips in the air to guide landing.

Gao Wen also saw a landing platform on the half waist of the huge facility. Many platforms had dragons coming and going. The occupied platforms were surrounded by red lights, while the vacant platforms were striking white. The halo is marked out and is very conspicuous-Melita and Noreta flying nearby are approaching one of the empty platforms.

But just when Merita was about to lower her altitude, a wind suddenly came from the other direction, and then a black dragon flew from the night sky, and rushed to the platform that Merita just selected. In the direction, a roaring and anxious roar came from the night sky: "I'm so sorry! The dragon egg I claimed broke in advance!"

"Snatch you x... I wish your cubs safety!" Melita, who was robbed, was about to yell, but suddenly changed her mouth after hearing the roar from the other party, then she suddenly flapped her wings. , While adjusting the direction and looking for the position again, said to Gao Wen a little awkwardly, "Sorry, let you see the less civilized side... Please understand that it is not easy to obtain an incubation permit in these years, it is just anxious Father."

Gao Wen: "..."

He now seemed to be numb to all the unexpected places in Tallond, and he was too lazy to talk.

After this small setback, Melita and Noreita finally found an idle landing platform. The two dragons landed smoothly on two adjacent platforms. Before they landed, the lights around the platform were already Turned red, and after they landed, the entire platform was covered by a translucent barrier-until Gao Wen and Amber, Veronica jumped from Melita and Noreta, respectively, two Miss Dragon also became humanoid and left the platform area before the platform's "temporary control" system switched back to the idle state-all of which seemed to run automatically.

This should be regarded as the unique "traffic control system" of Tallond, which is slightly eye-opening.

In front of a gate leading to the interior of the incubation plant, Noreta in a white dress brought Amber and Veronica to Gavin and Melita, and then Amber looked up subconsciously, with amazed Eyes looked up at the gate that was much more magnificent than the city gate: "Wow..."

Veronica looked at the long, long corridor behind the gate, looking at the cold steel, flashing lights, and lifeless polymer windows and ducts. For a long time, she whispered to herself : "I never thought that... the dragon was born in such a place... I thought that even if it is not a nest in the hot spring, at least it should be beside the parents..."

"Long and long ago, it was like that," Noretta, who was humanized, said softly, "It's really long and long ago..."

"I've got the access permission, Omega will open the gate on the route, you can just follow me in," Melita looked at Gao Wen and others, "Don't touch anything you don't know after entering, just other There is no requirement-dragon eggs are strictly protected, and normal visiting behavior will not affect hatching."

Gao Wen and others nodded, and then led by Melita and Noreta across the wide gate and entered the interior of the hatchery.

What Gao Wen saw later was completely consistent with the description of this facility-a factory, a factory for hatching dragon eggs.

They entered the factory from a connecting bridge suspended in midair, and one end of the connecting bridge was fixed to the outer wall of the factory-that is somehow thick metal shell, which was filled with flowing lights and busy machinery running around-the other end A "standpipe" leading to the core of the factory. After entering the standpipe, Melita began to introduce Gao Wen to various facilities along the way, and after going deeper, Gao Wen saw the dragon eggs that were in the hatching state-

They are placed one by one in a large transparent "greenhouse". The appearance of the greenhouse is like a slightly twisted ellipsoidal pressure tank. The dragon eggs are located on a soft tray in the cabin. The diameter is about one meter. The shell and black or brown spots, bright lights illuminate them from multiple directions, and mechanical probes of unknown purpose occasionally fall down to perform some irradiation and inspection on the surface of the dragon egg; and the entire "greenhouse" is placed in On a round metal platform, the lights of the platform base flicker and are connected to each other with pipes...

Hundreds and thousands of incubation devices are arranged neatly on both sides of some circular corridors. Many pipelines hang from the sky and connect to the "integrated port" behind the incubation device. It seems to be used to supply energy. It may just be collecting data. Gao Wen raised his head and tried to find the place where the pipes converged or originated, but he only saw a vague darkness-the dome of the hatchery was extremely high, and the ceiling was dim. The pipes eventually converged into the depths of darkness, as if There is a dark abyss in the sky, all swallowing all the gaze.

He withdrew his eyes and looked back at the neatly arranged incubation devices like a production line. A dragon egg was lying quietly in the incubation cabin closest to him, receiving the careful care of the machine and growing strictly according to the schedule. With.

Amber also came to the incubator, and she looked at the scene in front of her, and it was very rare to quiet down. There was no more hesitation, no surprise.

"The new dragons were born like this," Veronica said softly. "What kind of development will it take to take this path..."

"There are many reasons to make Tallond look like this today, and the emergence of incubation plants is only a trivial part of it, and...incubation plants are just an ancient technology for us." Melita shook He shook his head and said slowly.

Noreta on the side took the topic: "You should have heard a saying-the more powerful creatures, the more difficult to reproduce. This is the'balance' imposed by the laws of nature on all living beings, and the dragon family as a vulgar species The most powerful individual in the world, the difficulty of reproduction is even more difficult to the limit..."

"There is indeed such a saying," Gao Wen nodded. "And not only bards and playwrights say so, but experts and scholars think so too-although they have no way to study dragon samples, most creatures in nature follow This pattern."

"Yes, this rule is correct, at least for our dragons. The reproduction ability of the dragons is poor, the gestation period is long and the hatching is difficult-but this is limited to natural circumstances," Melita's mouth curled. Rising up, “So, we had the incubation plant technology and the supporting huge industry long and long ago. We use biochemical technology to collect and catalyze the'green eggs', use the biomass parent plant to mass produce blank dragon eggs, and use genetic engineering to Edit the genetic factors of parents, or the genetic factors of single parents and single mothers, and use the factory to batch incubate... These technologies are very effective.

"Technology can change many things.

"Dragons are difficult to breed and the number is scarce? This is just another misunderstanding. In fact, as many as many thousands of years ago, we began to actively control the number of our own ethnic groups, otherwise, how could a Tallond accommodate the number? A huge tribe?"

Melita said slowly, and Gao Wen was stunned.

These finally exceeded his imagination.

The image of the mysterious, ancient, "dragon race" at the top of the magical and fantasy world in his mind has broken many times in one day today, and now it is finally falling apart and collapsing into a cold wreckage.

He suspected that these wreckages were far from reaching the limit of disintegration, and they would continue to collapse and collapse until they could fully see the real "Talund" and the "eternal cradle" under the protection of the gods. .

Beside him, Melita continued to explain:

"Deeper at our feet is the sorting center and pretreatment center of the incubation plant-the dragon eggs transported from the "mother plant" are sorted and eliminated there, and the defective eggs will be destroyed, only healthy The potential dragon eggs will be sent to the life stagnation workshop, where they will temporarily stop developing until a dragon that has obtained hatching permission comes here and claims one of them...

"The adoption of dragon eggs may be a pair of parents, or may be a separate father or mother. He or she or they need to apply and prepare in advance. In addition to a lot of forms and a long review cycle, the claimant must also submit A copy of her own genetic factors, which will be injected into the blank dragon egg, used to synthesize embryos, and become his or her or their true'children'. The embryos that have completed the synthesis will be sent here... This incubation workshop.

"The machine will take care of these little guys who are still in the shell. The hatching sacs are as safe and warm as the elaborate nests of the parents of the dragons of ancient times. Most of the affairs here are controlled by the machine, the total controller is Omega, Therefore, we only saw a few "workers" along the way-the main tasks of those "workers" were only to monitor the state of the machine and to receive the "new parents" who claimed the dragon eggs.

"This is a boring job without too much technical content, but it is also one of the few real jobs in Tarlonde. If you can win a position in the incubation plant, it is equivalent to entering the ' The upper tallond' is gone."

Gao Wen quietly listened to these explanations by Melita, and at this moment, an incubator near them suddenly buzzed and lights flashed.

Many detectors cruising nearby immediately approached, and some manipulators moving along the slide came to the corresponding incubator. Gao Wen just wanted to ask what was going on. Melita had already walked towards the side while taking the initiative Explained: "Come here! Hatching! We just caught a little guy hatching!"

As soon as Gao Wen heard this, he stepped up quickly. He and Amber and Veronica quickly came to the incubator that made a sound and flash, and almost at the same time they arrived, the quietly lying together The dragon eggs in the "greenhouse" began to shake slightly.

In the unblinking gaze of Gao Wen and others, they saw that the dragon egg suddenly cracked a crack on the surface, and then the crack quickly expanded and a broken egg shell fell off-the young dragon was more than Gao Wen imagined. Strong, the whole process of breaking out of the shell didn’t take long at all. In just a few seconds, the sturdy eggshells seemed to be completely broken, and a gray, unremarkable "small "The guy jumped out of it staggeringly.

It was a young dragon with no scales on its body, no specific species could be seen, and no distinction could be made between sexes. With Gao Wen's gaze, he even thought that the cub was a little...ugly, like a huge and hairless turkey, but in the eyes of the dragon, the cub is probably quite cute-because of the Mei next to it Rita and Noreta are clearly shining in their eyes, looking at the newly hatched dragon with a happy smile.

Amber finally surprised again, she wowed, and then just wanted to ask something, but suddenly there was another movement in the "hatching sac": many small robotic arms protruded into the cabin from above and below, so that The sensitive and quick technique grabbed the hatched young dragon, who had lost his movement just after trying to struggle, as if he was quickly anesthetized by something.

Then Gao Wen saw that the manipulators began to move quickly. They seemed to open a small mouth at the position of the spine connection of the back of the young dragon's brain, and then implanted something that was shimmering and only the size of the human finger belly, and then Several other manipulators moved forward and injected something for the young dragon-that may be the "synergist" that Merita often mentioned-after the injection, other devices entered the cabin and collected the young dragon The skin fragments and blood samples were scanned quickly...

All of this is dazzlingly fast.

All of it was over before Gavin responded. He blinked, and then heard a mechanically synthesized sound broadcast—he could not understand the content of the broadcast, but soon, he heard Meili The tower murmured beside him.

She whispered the broadcast in the factory:

"The young dragon No. 1335 is healthy. It has an average intellectual potential. It is expected to adapt to implants: x, s, en and general implants. There are no assignable positions at this time. It is recommended-ordinary citizens in Xiacheng District.

Those manipulators and probes receded.

The dragon in the hatching sac woke up.

He/she opened her eyes curiously and seemed to be observing the world in amazement. He/she used her wings and young limbs to work together and climbed up swayingly, and then he/she finally found a few standing outside Figure.

The little guy shouted cheerfully.