Chapter 53: Blades Cut Both Ways

''Starting from the 1040s AD, the economic effects of dragons upon human society can only be described as transformative, to the point where the time period between 1040 and 1400 is described as the Dragon Era, in line with the Stone, Agricultural, Bronze, Iron, Steam, Industrial, Fission, Information, Space, Genetic, Nanotech, and Fusion Eras. While most popular depictions of history focus more on the visually impressive aspects of aerial combat and the uses of dragons in warfare, such fixation overlooks the majority of the actual effects of dragons on human society. Dragons revolutionized transport and communications within a decade, and the adoption of a dragon-scale currency neatly toppled the feudal systems of Europa that had dominated the region for centuries within sixty years. Even in modern times, each class and breed of dragon is economically useful in some manner: Boulder-classes carve out both the terraurban spaces of modern cities and the subterranean arteries that tie the cities together, and smelt the steel that form the bones of the arcologies and skyscrapers. Stoker-classes produce hydrocarbons in a variety of useful forms. Many dragon venoms, especially those of Sharp-class breeds, can be processed into pharmaceuticals…''

—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd.

Foreshadowing
Put spoilers here

Epigraph Tie-In

 * The epigraph mentions that dragon venoms can be processed into pharmaceuticals. The chapter shows Ruffnut and one of her healers using Deadly Nadder venom to save a woman from a pregnancy that went wrong.

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