Chapter 260: Chapter 256: Dissecting Dragon Corpse
"Count, congratulations on becoming the second Dragon Slayer in the Empire’s history after Saint George." Samantha approached Perfikot, gazing at the massive dragon pierced by spikes before her, offering her congratulations.
Perfikot merely smiled slightly at this: "This doesn’t count as my achievement. You all depleted most of its life and broke through its defenses, allowing me to strike accurately with a single blow.
All knights who participated in this battle can add a dragon to their crest as a symbol of your involvement in this dragon slaying battle.
The guard companies can also add a dragon head to their company banner as a mark of their honor. There will be additional rewards later, but for now, let’s dissect this dragon."
Cyan Bird spoke, then controlled the rock spear to retract into the ground, while the dragon, already dead, was drained of blood by Cyan Bird, its body growing increasingly pallid as it collapsed to the ground.
Only then could Cyan Bird and Samantha carefully examine the pale dragon. A few dark red rotten chunks of flesh still clung to the pale dragon corpse.
Between these chunks and the dragon corpse, there was a wisp of grayish mist flowing.
"Interesting, its body is consciously gathering the mist, even though it is dead, the mist still envelops its body," Perfikot showed a curious expression, then used Spiritual Power to control one wisp of mist to her front, wanting to examine what it was all about.
"Count, be careful! This stuff is poisonous!" Samantha quickly warned Perfikot from the side, cautioning her to be extremely careful.
"No worries, I have not touched it," Perfikot, although gathering the wisp of mist in front of her, kept maintaining no direct contact with it.
Moreover, she covered her palm with a layer of rapidly flowing air, forming a shield around the wisp of mist.
Perfikot now discovered that this mist was actually a form of microorganism invisible to the naked eye. They decomposed the proteins contained in the decaying flesh, producing hydrogen sulfide gas, which was crucial for the dragon’s survival, indicating a symbiotic relationship between the two.
However, because this dragon was encased in so many corpses, coupled with its nature as a dragon, its exuberant vitality and the unique energies emanating from it caused these microorganisms to accumulate more and more, eventually forming a grayish mist.
But in reality, it was a cluster of tiny microorganisms coming together.
Perfikot found these microorganisms fascinating and, after stripping them from the dragon’s body, contained them in a vessel, intending to conduct detailed research later.
As for the dragon corpse, Perfikot did not allow the guardsmen to approach.
She believed, on one hand, that the soldiers were incapable of handling a dragon’s body, and on the other, she was apprehensive of any toxic or harmful bacteria still present on the dragon corpse that could harm them.
After all, this dragon was long wrapped in layers of corpses, breeding bacteria and decay, so who could say how many germs were on its body?
Even Perfikot herself dared not handle it, resorting only to Alchemy to slowly strip the decayed meat off the dragon.
Having removed all the rotten flesh, Perfikot kept only a small sample for research, and piled the rest together with the flesh knocked off during the battle, instructing to burn it.
Who knows how many viruses permeated these old, accumulated decaying corpses? Burning them would be more reassuring.
The remaining dragon carcass was then simply dissected by Perfikot, and after being cut into varying sizes of corpse pieces, was frozen using Alchemy.
After all, it was a dragon, and Perfikot didn’t intend to randomly break it down into materials but planned a thorough study of its structural anatomy to see if there were any special discoveries.
During the earlier battle, she witnessed the dragon’s fire breath with her own eyes, finding it a fascinating capability that, through research into the dragon’s body structure, might uncover the principle to possibly create a new weapon.
The white flames the dragon breathed earlier could melt the Steam Knight’s metal armor; the temperature was already quite astonishing. If this could be replicated, it would have significant applications in metal processing, smelting, and other domains.
After handling all the corpses, the guards pushed the cart Perfikot manufactured on-site, transporting all the corpse pieces.
They would directly return to Eagle’s Beak Cliff because although Perfikot’s Alchemy could freeze these corpse pieces for a long time, it was still necessary to store them in the warehouse as soon as possible for proper preservation.
Regarding why Perfikot did not use Petrification Skill to convert these corpses into stone first, then revert them after transport, it mostly stemmed from Perfikot’s lack of understanding of the dragon’s body. She worried that transforming the dragon corpse into stone might prevent reverting or cause overlooked differences upon restoration.
If her parents were here, perhaps they could achieve it?
This thought crossed Perfikot’s mind but soon she dismissed it, joining Samantha in approaching the edge of the cliff again.
Gazing at the oil lake in the valley below and the accumulated mist in the valley, Perfikot couldn’t help but sigh.
Even though the dragon was dealt with, trying to descend into the valley to extract from the oil lake still wasn’t an easy task.
Luckily, with the dragon no longer disturbing, she could devise ways to manage the valley’s mist or equip those descending with adequate protection, at least reducing Death Valley’s danger greatly without the dragon’s threat.
"Samantha, have Eagle’s Beak Cliff send over a team of construction workers to set up a camp here." Perfikot now had a comprehensive plan, issuing her command to Samantha.
Samantha wasn’t surprised by this order and promptly had someone send a telegraph to Eagle’s Beak Cliff, requesting they dispatch people to build the camp Perfikot required.
She herself continued to follow Perfikot, merely curiously asking her: "Count, are you planning to develop this valley?"
"Yes, that oil lake is a treasure of immeasurable worth. If it can be developed, the entire Northern Territory won’t need to burn coal anymore in the future." Perfikot looked at Samantha, smilingly explaining.
While Samantha looked at the oil lake with incredulity, finding it hard to imagine how it could possibly lead to the Northern Territory not burning coal.