With dragons, one could truly accomplish many things that bordered on the miraculous.
That evening, Big Black returned to Astapor with Buto Mott, and by midnight, even Little White from the Stepstones had made it back.
Then, the five dragons—black, white, gold, red, and yellow—set out together for Meereen.
Danielle held Little Red in her arms as she rode on Big Black's back.
Accompanying her were Jon Bolton and Bruce Wayne.
One was headed to Meereen to attend a "war council against the allied forces," while the other served as a juror in the grand trial of Cleon.
Both were commanders of the Royal Guard, and with Meereen suffering from a plague, the city's public order required the Guard's management.
They had already boarded a ship, ready to depart, when Danielle happened to run into them and simply gave them a lift.
Early the next morning, the new freedmen and former Ghiscari slaves in Meereen saw, under the golden-red sun, five enormous dragons of varying sizes.
Five dragons!
Such an awe-inspiring sight instantly lifted the morale of the people trapped in the greyscale plague outbreak.
Especially since the black dragon could talk. While the people stared in stunned disbelief, they were suddenly filled with hope for the future. The Holy Light Dragon had spoken: the plague was under control, and a miracle cure for greyscale was soon to be developed.
When the Dragon Queen spoke, most people believed her.
It was just that greyscale was almost incurable.
But now, with the dragons themselves backing the message, everyone believed it without doubt.
How could anyone doubt the words of a dragon?
Then, an even more fantastical scene unfolded.
After ensuring that every household had secured their dogs, cats, pigs, sheep, horses, and cattle, and with the cooperation of the Royal Guard, the five dragons began flying low from the eastern side of the city.
They skimmed just above the ground, their full dragon might on display, their roars echoing ceaselessly through the city.
"Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp—!"
Countless rats, weasels, hedgehogs, cockroaches, and all sorts of strange animals and insects came scurrying out of every nook and cranny.
They fled from the buildings and poured onto the broad streets, running blindly toward the western district.
At the West Docks, a circle of fishing nets had already been laid in the water to prevent corpses from drifting elsewhere.
The tide of rats surged into the enclosed area. Those in front drowned while struggling in the water, while those in the back, pressured by the dragons' presence, kept rushing forward.
Anyone with trypophobia would likely faint at the sight.
The process repeated seven or eight times, and eventually, not a single rat was left on the streets. Only then did the five dragons conclude their terrifying "parade of dominance."
By now, the once-blue sea surface was covered in a black mass of floating corpses, enough to make one's scalp tingle.
But no human effort was needed to clean up the rat corpses.
Boom! The five dragons simultaneously unleashed their dragonflame. Pillars of roaring fire nearly boiled the sea.
Well, Little Red should probably be excluded.
He was only here to tag along.
His dragonflame was no thicker than a chopstick, and his meowing roars were entirely useless.
Danielle had brought him mainly so he could spend time with his older brothers and build a friendly bond.
Consider it a family bonding activity.
After this was done, the Dragon Queen prepared to leave.
She still needed to use the same method to clear the rats from Kayen and Astapor.
Whether or not there was greyscale, rats were one of the greatest carriers of disease.
Exterminating them would reduce the health risks of the people in the three Slaver Bay cities by tenfold.
The Great Pyramid of Meereen
Under the sunlight, on the blue-brick walls, Danielle sat atop Big Black, holding Little Gold in her arms, while Little Green, Little White, and Little Gold circled above her head.
She looked down at the red-haired Lyla and said, "All the rats that could run are dead. The ones that couldn't even make it to the ground won't affect the residents."
"In the next few days, the infected will begin to show symptoms. You're responsible for sending them to the quarantine zone. Until the cure is developed, I'll return every three days."
"Can greyscale really be cured? Or… did you discover something using the Sorcerer's Lens?" Lyla asked curiously.
"To be honest, I'm not sure either."
Danielle pulled the mischievous Little Red off her shoulder and held him in her arms, smiling bitterly.
"Greyscale is indeed caused by a virus, but the virus itself is a magical beast. It's so fantastical that I can't make sense of it."
Red-haired Lyla's face twitched as she asked dryly, "Now I'm the one who's confused. What do you mean by virus? And magical beast? What's that supposed to mean?"
Danielle opened her mouth but didn't know where to begin, so she sighed. "Wait for me. I'll go back and write a Greyscale Prevention Manual and bring it next time for you and Jon."
Two nights ago, Danielle had rummaged through the "Queen's Vault" and found the Sorcerer's Lens.
It was a strange iron contraption with many protruding lens tubes, and it actually resembled the 'corona virus' in appearance.
Originally, Danielle didn't know how to use it and had considered melting it down for scrap to forge armor.
But the Citadel had studied the Sorcerer's Lens for over a thousand years and had spent an enormous fortune in recent decades attempting to replicate it.
Because of that, the Citadel's library had extensive documentation on the lens.
Not just user manuals, but even detailed explanations of its structure and principles were piled high in the archives.
To activate and continuously use the Sorcerer's Lens required magic, and as a grand sorceress, Danielle had no difficulty supplying that power.
In scientific terms, the Sorcerer's Lens functioned like an optical microscope.
But that was its limit—it couldn't, as Danielle had once hoped, allow her to see the DNA of humans.
Hmm, Dany tried it out—the witch's lens had a maximum effective magnification of about 3,000 times.
That was much stronger than a 1,000x optical microscope on Earth, but still several orders of magnitude weaker than an electron microscope, which could go tens or even hundreds of thousands of times higher.
But the witch's lens wasn't just scientific—it had magical properties that even atomic force microscopes lacked.
It could detect magic, perceive spiritual matter, and even see "genes"—as the Valyrians called them, though not in the DNA fragment sense.
It wasn't until last night that she finally had time to study the gray patch of tissue cut from Clinton.
The results shocked her.
She couldn't see the virus.
That was to be expected. Viruses are too small—nanoscopic organisms invisible to even the most advanced optical microscopes.
But she could still "see" the virus using magic.
It appeared as a cluster of constantly moving gray-blue specks of light.
Through the optical eyepiece, she couldn't make out the virus clearly. But once she adjusted to the magical eyepiece, she could capture the luminous aura of magic emitted from the virus.
That was the wonder of the witch's lens—it allowed things invisible to the naked eye to be perceived through magic and mental power.
Indeed, when using the magical eyepiece, one didn't see with their eyes.
Instead, it resonated with the user's own magical power, using that magic as a kind of sensory organ capable of "seeing" the sample's magical properties and structure on the slide.
It was incredibly overpowered.
And it once again made Dany marvel at Valyria—it truly was this world's Atlantis, its civilization far too advanced.
Well, or perhaps it's just that other civilizations have developed far too slowly.
Take Westeros, for instance—over ten thousand years of history, and its technological progress hasn't moved an inch.
So, what did it mean that the greyscale virus contained magic?
Though small, the virus was still a single-celled organism.
And aren't magical creatures simply organisms that possess magic?
By the time she'd driven out most of the rats from Kayane and Meereen, it was already close to 8 p.m.
After dinner and a quick bath, Dany went up to the second floor of the Great Pyramid, where her makeshift lab was located—right next to Tyrion's bedroom.
She summoned Quaithe and brought in old Aemon. The three of them resumed their research on the virus.
Yes, Quaithe had come to assist as a favor.
As soon as Dany discovered the greyscale, she contacted her.
After all, Quaithe was one of the rare great figures in the world of magic. In terms of knowledge and insight, Dany couldn't compare.
But even with Dany's plea, Quaithe was powerless. Neither Asshai nor the Shadow Lands had a good solution for greyscale.
In the great city-states of Jade Sea, the best methods for dealing with greyscale patients were still isolation and incineration.
Still, Quaithe agreed to help her research a divine cure. If they managed to develop a treatment for greyscale, it would certainly be worthy of the name.
They made a deal: as long as Dany gave her one "True Dragon Roar," Quaithe would send her projection over.
"The witch's lens lives up to its name. There are fifteen different types of lenses just for observing spiritual matter. The imitation lenses made in the Shadow Lands only come with two sets—no magical lenses, and no optical ones either."
After observing the dim spiritual aura of greyscale with her own eyes, Quaithe was filled with emotion. She gently stroked the witch's lens with reverence.
"They actually let you use Shadow Land lenses? Looks like the title 'Number One of the Eastern Youth' really carries some weight," Dany said in surprise.
"I told you—don't ever mention that title in front of me," Quaithe replied darkly.
This time, she wasn't wearing her mask.
Her delicate, oval-shaped face, with brown hair coiled behind her head, lay beneath elegant willow-leaf brows and striking sky-blue eyes. She had a well-shaped nose and was very beautiful.
But Dany had to admit that ordinary people likely wouldn't consider Quaithe beautiful.
Her ghostly pale skin and thin, translucent lips drained her of vitality and charm.
It wasn't the ethereal, aloof kind of beauty like the Little Dragon Maiden. Quaithe the Shadowbinder looked more like a zombie.
After meeting her, old Aemon had even asked Dany with concern whether Jon Snow might end up looking like her in the future—like a White Walker.
Well, no need to wait for the future. Even now, Jon atop the Wall looked as pale as a corpse and had started wearing a helmet to shield himself from the light.
He didn't wear a wooden mask—that would've looked too strange.
But he found another way. Knights in Westeros were used to wearing armor and helmets all day long.
So Jon ditched his leather armor for a set of fine steel plate, and had blacksmith Donal craft a Barbuta helmet with a faceplate.
A T-shaped steel helmet.
Only his eyes, nose, and mouth were exposed. When he lowered the faceplate with breathing holes, even those were fully covered.
And Jon had one advantage Quaithe didn't—he was a man, and he grew a beard. A full, bushy beard.
Now, he no longer shaved.
Once his thick facial hair covered his entire face, even taking off the helmet wouldn't expose him to the light.
"Does Asshai have a formal study of pharmacology?" Dany asked.
Quaithe replied, "Many witches know how to mix herbs—for arousal, hallucinations, moon tea, childbirth, and so on."
"That's not pharmacology. A real science of drugs requires the ability to analyze and classify substances quantitatively and qualitatively, and to develop a systematic theory," Dany said disdainfully.
"What kind of theory are you looking for? As long as it treats the patient and achieves results, that's all that matters," Quaithe said coolly.
"Sigh. If only we had at least the basic theory of the five elements. Then we could test new treatments based on mutual reinforcement and restriction. But with greyscale, we have no idea where to begin," Dany said helplessly.
"What is the five elements theory?" Aemon asked curiously.
(End of chapter)
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