The Mighty Dragons Are Dead

Chapter 201: The Fallen Fire Dragon (Fourth Update, Alliance Hierarch additional update 3/22)

Before Liszt transmigrated, he was quite obsessed with the American drama “Game of Thrones,” which featured an impressively majestic architecture—the Wall.

With the help of Giants, humans built this wall spanning 300 miles long and 700 feet high made of ice and snow.

Initially very interested in the Wall, he looked up a lot of information and knew that the Wall’s prototype was a cliff formed by basalt columns in the western part of Iceland. Thus, he learned about the grand spectacle of basalt columns that only nature could form.

Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway, America’s Devil Tower, Scotland’s Fingal’s Cave, and the columnar jointing forest at Gaozi Mountain in Nanjing’s Luhe are all typical basalt columns.

It’s hard to believe that these neatly arranged columns originated from volcanic eruptions.

When volcanoes erupted magma, which then cooled and formed basalt with air pockets, it progressively contracted, and cracks created very regular geometric shapes. In most cases, they would form hexagons, as if they were machined by someone.

“These are basalt columns, without a doubt!”

As the excavation of the large pit continued, the appearance of the basalt columns was unveiled bit by bit. One after another, the orderly hexagonal columns revealed their true faces.

Kostor, who followed behind Liszt, suddenly exclaimed, “I remember now, my lord, I remember! I’ve seen this type of rock on an island!”

“What island?”

“An uninhabited desert island I came across on my way to Deep Throat Island. The entire island was dense with columns, the same shape as the ones here.”

Kostor’s words corroborated Liszt’s judgment.

The rocks under their feet were indeed basalt columns, a geological structure formed by volcanic eruptions. Looking back at the huge skeleton, he suddenly thought of a possibility.

He pondered silently, “Perhaps my previous judgment was wrong, these are not the remains of just any dragon, maybe these are the remains of a Fire Dragon!”

A Wind Dragon could form Windhowl Valley, with its perennial gales.

Naturally, a Fire Dragon could form a volcano.

“If it was a Fire Dragon that fell here in its last moments, with its magic power, it would certainly have caused a volcanic eruption, and the body of the Fire Dragon would have been engulfed by the volcano. As time passed, perhaps after tens of thousands of years, the magic power of the Fire Dragon gradually dissipated, and the volcano died out. The upper layer gradually weathered away or was buried by wind-blown soil, forming what is now Black Horse Island.”

Black Horse Island does not look like it was formed by a volcano.

But Liszt felt it made a lot of sense that this place might have been deep sea originally, but due to the Fire Dragon’s fall and the constant volcanic eruptions, layers upon layers built up, finally breaking through the seawater to emerge above the surface.

“If I were to dive right now, to look at the base of Black Horse Island beneath the seawater, I might find a huge volcanic shape. What’s exposed of Black Horse Island is just a part of the volcano crater.”

“Quite a resemblance indeed, the ‘mouth’-shaped distribution of Ice Grass Hill, Needle Grass Hill, Alfalfa Hill, and Sheep Grass Hill form a low-lying valley, fitting the structure of a volcano crater. The position of the bones, between Needle Grass Hill and Ice Grass Hill, not far from the volcano crater, suggests that perhaps the remains of the Fire Dragon were brought out by a volcanic eruption.”

With this thought,

even if the Eye of Magic didn’t observe any Fire Attribute Mana,

Liszt started to feel the Fire Attribute Dou Qi within him become restless, as if the Fire Attribute magic power here was very active.

Of course, it was an illusion. After calming down, he did not find such a sign, and the restlessness of the Dou Qi returned to calm.

“I might be overthinking it. After tens of thousands of years of erosion, probably nothing is left of the Fire Dragon except for these few bones.”

Dragon!

Fire Dragon!

Liszt stood up, stepping on the basalt columns, and approached the bones.

He reached out and touched the rough surface of the bone, his heart filled with too many complex and inexpressible emotions that he wanted to vent, “I am fated with dragons, Formless Dragons, Smoke Dragons, Fire Dragons; common folk rarely witness one, yet I have encountered them one after another. It seems my life is destined for dragon riding in the skies.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a Metal Dragon or a Gemstone Dragon that had fallen here, leaving no metal or gemstone deposits behind.

But on second thought, it’s reasonable, for if it were a Metal Dragon or Gemstone Dragon, without continuous volcanic eruptions, Black Horse Island would probably be nothing but a patch of silt at the bottom of the sea. No matter how rich the deposits, Liszt wouldn’t be able to touch them.

Everything one sees has a reason behind it.

He then thought, “If the Fire Dragon has fallen here and it wasn’t killed, then the existence of the Valley of Dragons could probably be ruled out… ‘Dragonlance History: Dragons of Autumn Twilight’ records that old dragons will all fly to the Valley of Dragons.” There was nothing but oceans here, no Valley of Dragons.

At that moment,

Marcus, who was in charge of supervising the work, came up with an idea, “Baron, I’m wondering, since there are five bones embedded in these rocks, does it mean that there might be more bones that are also embedded in the rocks? Maybe the parts exposed above ground have decayed into fragments?”

“That makes sense. It seems we need to thoroughly clean up this area… the Burial Ground.” Liszt suddenly felt that the name he’d impulsively come up with had style, “This place will be called the Burial Ground. If the workforce has some free time, they should level the ground directly to see how many bones they can collect.”

The bones of the Fire Dragon, even though decayed, were still very hard and made excellent materials.

The upcoming Bone Craftsman Shop wouldn’t lack appropriate raw materials.

…

Having figured out the origin of the bones in the Burial Ground, Liszt felt there was no need to investigate further. So, the next morning, he set out from Black Horse Island under the glow of the rising red sun.

Of course, he took a bunch of bone fragments with him on the way back.

He needed to continue pondering what else these bones could be used for besides making bone utensils—using Dragon Bones to make farming tools for serfs seemed like a tremendous waste.

After returning to Fresh Flower Town, he met Elkeson True again.

The Magician had come to Fresh Flower Town to prepare the next batch of Magic Potions for Flame Valley.

Inspired, Liszt handed him a bone fragment, “Mr. Elkeson, I’ve recently discovered some ruins and found a few bone pieces. Could you help me study them to see what creature they belong to and what uses they might have?” The bones, decayed for tens of thousands of years, even if they exposed the secret of the Dragon Bones, were not a matter of concern.

What was important was to understand their function.

Elkeson took the bone fragment and nodded, “Rest assured, when I have time, I will study it. Also, Baron, I’ve brought the batch of writings by Magicians that you asked me to procure. There are fifty-six books in total. As for the Knight’s novels, you can have the merchant convoy purchase them.”

Liszt greatly thirsted for knowledge.

He wanted to write ‘Dragons Fight in the Wild,’ a chronicle, and needed a wealth of information to plagiarize… cough cough, I mean, a wealth of information to reference. Magicians, in their pursuit of truth and rejection of lies, tend to write books with more genuine content, which also spans a broad range and holds great reference value.

“Thank you very much. I will have Mr. Carter pay for the books as soon as possible.”

“I’m not in a hurry. I trust your reputation,” Elkeson said with a smile.