346 Magic: Dragons and Mithril (Part 2)

Unlike other races, dragons gained control of fire early on, thus skipping the barter system and directly entering the era of precious metal currency, completely ahead of other species.

The reason why dragons are so obsessed with gold and silver is largely because the temperature of Dragon Flame was initially very low, far below the melting point of iron (1538 degrees Celsius), but sufficient for the melting points of gold (1063 degrees Celsius) and silver (961.93 degrees Celsius) in nature.

With the circulation of wealth, merchants and artisans gradually emerged among the clans, forming a division of labor. For a long time to come, the dragon race did not develop any farmer units; they actually went directly into the stage of nomadic life, embarking on the path of a classical commercial kingdom.

The rest of the story is fairly straightforward. The dragons' inherent advantages and environmental factors led them, after solving their basic needs, to become enthusiastic about conquering and accumulating wealth, and promoting commerce. However, with this surplus of wealth, disparities between rich and poor began to emerge. Although initially most dragons enjoyed an equal division of labor, with each war came the emergence of disabled, foolish, or mentally challenged dragons.

In order to survive, some dragons were willing to sell their dragon body rights and become slaves. The continuous wars also reduced other races to even lower levels of slavery, making them vassals of the dragons. Among them were some species that were good at farming and management.

The advent of slavery caused the collapse of the original order.

The war also led to the fall of a number of male dragons, forcing the surviving wealthy male dragons to eagerly pass on their wealth and status to their offspring. As a result, they began to seek out fixed mates on their own, rather than maintaining the system of inheritance between uncles and nephews.

The matriarchal society collapsed, the Dragon Mother abdicated, and the male Dragon King took the stage. In order to maintain his rule and ensure the safe transmission of his bloodline, the Dragon King needed to control wealth and power. The dragons cooperated with him and began to be ennobled as nobles, who could obtain certain privileges, such as serving as soldiers, obtaining fiefs, and inheriting titles.

So, what is the most expensive thing in the Dragon Clan's value system?

Gold and silver.

This is why, within the dragon hierarchy, gold dragons and Silver Dragon are absolute nobility. Their ancestors have maintained their status as armed nobles since their investiture, and this remains true to this day.

The more their wealth increased, the more the dragons became dependent on precious metals. Their powerful bodies and excellent metallurgical skills allowed them to conquer vast tracts of land, providing a continuous supply of resources. Slaves worked diligently, directly liberating their human population.

At this point, their society is no longer based solely on the pursuit of survival, money, and value; they have begun to pursue more advanced things—such as music, fire art, dance, and hallucinogenic herbs.

Anyone with even a basic understanding of history should know what they accomplished upon seeing these things.

That's right, it's religious belief.

Logically speaking, once a historical perspective reaches this point, there's no need to read the rest of the story; all civilizations are pretty much the same.

It was nothing more than the formation of primitive worship, which promoted the development of astronomical divination techniques. Then, astronomy was used in turn for navigation (for dragons, it was aeronautics). Next, the church system arose, polytheism transitioned to Monotheistic Religion, and land was concentrated in the hands of the church under the rule of theocracy. The monarch was dissatisfied and began to reform the system.

Feudalism, divine right of kings, religious reformation, evolution, technological explosion, industrial revolution, capitalism, tycoon states, universalization of capital, global corporations—Narrative No. 11, "United Company"! This is a history of the rise of the dragon race that anyone can find out. Under a normal historical perspective, people would believe that this was determined by the environment, and that only the dragon civilization could give birth to this possibility, which no other civilization could replicate.

For this reason, the narrative of the 11th narrative, "United Company," belongs only to the Dragon Civilization and its vassals. Environmental determinism powerfully shatters the existence of racial superiority theory, allowing the mainstream narrative to stand from a perspective that transcends race and tell the story of narrative superiority.

However, Magic, Dragons and Mithril goes a step further on environmental determinism, taking a different perspective on Grand Narrative.

"While the narrative of the dragons naturally took shape in this way, another problem arose as they developed."

That's fire-breathing.

The ability to breathe fire liberated the dragons' minds, but it also limited their physical development, forcing them to evolve only towards becoming extraordinary species. This forced them to gradually increase their size to accommodate more energy. As their bodies grew larger, dragons were unable to manufacture sophisticated instruments themselves, and were forced to employ and enslave other races to serve them.

This is why the dragon race embarked on a strange path—instead of developing technology, they continuously modified their language, using the amplification of language to draw upon the energy of the universe, thus embarking on the path of magic.

But what if some planets don't have magical torrents? Then the massive energy consumption of fire-breathing will gradually decrease, and the size of dragons will shrink step by step. One group of subspecies of dragons will become rodents the size of mice, and then gradually evolve into arboreal animals with extended limbs... Finally, they will descend from the trees and become human on the ground.

Instead, it would block the development of dragon civilization, making the narrative an unattainable illusion.

Throughout history, such problems have repeatedly arisen in the development of the Dragon Clan civilization.

What if the dragons had discovered tungsten, which is far from being molten, instead of gold and silver? Then their warfare tactics would not have undergone a fundamental change, metallurgy would not have come into being, and they would never have entered the era of precious metal currencies.

What if the planet where dragons live only has Dragon Kind as an intelligent species? Then Dragon Kind would forever remain flying nomads, because they would be unable to farm, maintain a stable territory, or cope with severe natural disasters.

What if dragons didn't choose to unite and cooperate, but instead chose to live in solitude? Then Dragon Kind would just be strong and intelligent beasts, like monsters in fairy tales.

Even more tragically, if an asteroid impact or similar accident were to occur, dragons, being high-level animals in the food chain, would be completely wiped out, and future generations might question whether dragons even existed.

This is what distinguishes "Magic, Dragons, and Mithril" from regular history books.

"This book argues that the universe is chaotic and there has never been any determinism. The essence of Grand Narrative is a series of statistical miracles built up by chance."

Li Aoz muttered to himself:

"If any one of these factors were removed, the entire dragon civilization would collapse instantly. Their existence is actually very fragile and cannot withstand the turmoil of any wrong point. In the millions of years of evolution, there are far more losers than winners. Just because the dragons survived does not mean that their experience can be replicated. Rather, we should be wary of the places where they have not experienced setbacks."

All talk about sophisticated systems is nonsense.

In the true Star Abyss, the top overlords didn't actually win everything; they simply didn't lose for the time being.

If they have existed for trillions of years, it means they just haven't encountered that crisis yet.

Ultimately, it boils down to one sentence: the essence of all civilizations is that they are just makeshift operations.