Golden Dragon: Six Thousand Years of Empire-Chapter 479 - 287: Mortals Suffer Weakness, Dragonification Ascends_2
"Aren’t you being too optimistic? It’s not just about the cost of creating war armor. Transforming warriors to wear that armor isn’t free either!"
"If we can mass-produce it, the future costs should be able to come down."
"How will it come down? It’s so high from the start, even if you halve it, it’s still unacceptable."
Though in the Mage City, the results that the warlocks dedicated to biological modification have achieved are indeed astonishing, the costs are deemed unacceptable by the majority of mages.
However, Holy Dragon Noah, who holds the final decision-making power, after seeing the performance of a Dragon People who received two Dragon Hearts, did not veto this project. Instead, Noah allowed them to continue, but required that while maintaining the same combat power as the first experimental subject, costs must be further reduced.
Also, Noah approved that if after three years this experimental subject shows no rejection or adverse reactions, then the second heart modification technology can be opened to his subjects.
On a voluntary basis, the people on his territory who meet the conditions for the surgery can have a second heart transplanted.
With the promotion of Holy Dragon Noah, the wave of biological modification is about to emerge. However, at the dawn of this wave, it is the transplantation of limbs that begins first.
Extraordinary professionals are a group very prone to injury, especially those adventurers who rely solely on talent to enter this domain without any special background. Living on the edge of danger is their daily life, getting injured is as common as a meal, and it’s not unusual to lose arms or legs.
Once disabled, a significant drop in combat power is inevitable, so it’s not uncommon for adventurers to equip themselves with prosthetics.
Regeneration of limbs is not impossible, high-ranked transcendents can achieve it through robust vitality, and similarly, even if one does not reach this realm, one can pay a high price to ask for help from high-ranked priests in the Temple.
Unfortunately, this is only available to a few transcendents. Most disabled transcendents can only struggle at the bottom, and being able to maintain daily survival is already pretty good.
Most of them attach a wooden stick to a broken leg or an iron hook to a broken hand. The slightly richer ones go to goblins or dwarves to order a mechanical prosthetic, but that’s about it.
These cannot be compared to live limbs, so when Bright City Elisium, under the rule of the Holy Dragon, introduced live limb transplants, it immediately caused a huge sensation in the adventurer community.
Although the limbs those damned warlocks provided were not normal human arms and legs, but scaly dragon claws or hind limbs, the pragmatic adventurers didn’t hesitate much under the not so exorbitant prices and chose to fork out money to purchase them.
Concerns about racial purity or appearance didn’t enter the consideration of adventurers who could only eke out a living at the bottom due to physical disability. Regaining live limbs and having far superior combat power was something they couldn’t even dream of.
Thus, in just a few months, a large number of adventurers with Dragon Claw Hands or sturdy dragon-hind legs appeared in Elisium City.
These adventurers, trapped in hardship due to physical imperfections, emptied their savings, even resorting to borrowing, to equip themselves with live limbs as soon as they got the news.
Of course, compared to adventurers who only have a Dragon Claw Hand, those who sought leg replacements often opted to change both legs, even if one leg was originally intact, but for basic balance, they had to amputate the other leg.
However, even in Elisium where dragon culture is highly revered and the aesthetics of the Dragon People have started to align with the Dragon Clan, they couldn’t quite accept these reborn mercenary adventurers.
After all, the benefits that the warlocks released to ensure the smooth promotion of their next research plan only charged the most basic labor and material fees. In such a scenario, one certainly can’t expect them to do a beautiful job.
The connection should be functional, and any issues during use or potential rejection reactions were not their concern. According to the law code, anything not forbidden is allowed.
Neither could the law punish them, nor could anyone morally criticize them, because they didn’t profit from these surgeries but purely aimed to benefit the wider adventurer community.
Consequently, even some who strictly follow human racial supremacy could only gripe about it and couldn’t conduct any excessive protests.
Stopping a group of disabled adventurers from rebirth? No matter how much anyone claims to be a force of justice or Divine, they would face condemnation.
Even Noah merely watched and didn’t attempt to stop it.
Though those warlocks were somewhat unscrupulous, transplanting adventurers in need with arms and legs from battle lizards or dragonified kobolds.
It is precisely for this reason that certain forces of justice, like Paladin groups, although they had some complaints, could only grumble and didn’t engage in any blocking actions. Had it been more fitting human arms and legs, there would have been more than just grumbling. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺
Noah knew why these warlocks were essentially losing money for publicity; they wanted to imprint the concept of biological modification into the hearts of the populace. Not necessarily making them willing to get modified proactively, but at least ensuring there’s no resistance and making it a part of daily life.
These guys want to turn the second heart study into a profit-making endeavor, while connecting arms and legs remains a basic non-profit project, allowing the vast number of adventurers to experience the benefits of biological modification, further opening their mental baseline, and making them more open to internal organ modifications.
The ultimate goal is straightforward: to create dragon warriors for the supreme Holy Dragon Emperor who, even in cross-plane battles, can unleash fierce combat power.
Noah, although turning a blind eye, wouldn’t let these fellows go wild. The Golden Dragon Code soon added supplemental clauses against their actions.
It demanded warlocks take responsibility for adventurers who voluntarily underwent surgery, at least ensuring they could regain basic human capabilities and resolve any associated rejection reactions within ten years.
The introduction of these supplemental clauses further suppressed some dissenting voices, as it indicated the Holy Dragon’s concern over this matter and similarly conveyed that the Holy Dragon supported biological modification.
"Heresy, this is a desecration of the Creation by All Gods!"
"These are devilish acts, they are corrupting this group of pitiable sheep!"
Oppositional voices exist everywhere, but only whether one dares to declare them in public varies. The visual shock from the transplantation of limbs is too significant.
Even with the welfare given to disabled adventurers, dissent and abusive rhetoric have never ceased since the first adventurer with a Dragon Claw Hand appeared.
However, knowing that the Holy Dragon Emperor supports them, the warlocks are utterly fearless and have begun mass cultivation of the second heart.
The main focus is to sell externally, so it’s impossible to harvest hearts from specially mutated Dragon Species in the Dragon Domain. Not only is it wasteful and unworthy, but it’s inefficient.
More importantly, to batch replicate similar outcomes in the future, biological breeding can’t be used; they must utilize advanced technology. Using embryos or living tissue can independently cultivate a full heart, while live harvesting is too inefficient.
"What’s wrong with these guys?"
The success of the second heart project caused jealousy among many research groups in the Mage City, leading their subsequent research directions to veer, thus Noah received many applications for biological modification projects that seemed very familiar,
"Vajra Kidney? Battle auxiliary brain? Melted Mountain Stomach? Void Multiple Lungs? Regeneration Blood..."
