A Hospital in Another World? C.217

Followers and those followed thus reached equilibrium. Starting from the second day, Mr. Aurora Worton, a three-ring arcane scholar and a level-five mage, began his blissful life of not sleeping during the day and not being able to sleep at night... Sorry, conducting experiments during the day and writing papers at night.

Mr. Worton was so absorbed in his work that he lost track of time.

Most of the time, Garrett didn’t bother him, just doing his own thing. Only when assigning tasks would he give a few reminders:

"The gas that emits blue flames, measure its weight!" Weight, weight... It’s so light that it’s almost impossible to measure T_T, but the boss’s demands are very strict...

"Be careful with the yellow-green gas, don’t leak it!" How dare I, I’ve been poisoned once before!

"Take note of everything electrolyzed that emits yellow-green gas and summarize it!" I’ve already tried 20 materials, but apparently, the boss doesn’t think it’s enough...

However, Garrett occasionally allowed Worton to conduct his own experiments, giving him enough freedom and not feeling that he was delaying progress. For example:

"This gas can ignite and emit blue flames? Can I use it instead of sulfur as a spell material to try Fireball Spell?"

"Sure, go ahead. But not here, find a larger space, take precautions - if possible, get a skilled person to help you set up a barrier..."

Our Mr. Worton then found a senior brother. Using the senior brother’s badge and permissions, they booked a room for testing fifth-order magic spells, raised a magic barrier, and the senior brother equipped him with armor. Then, hiding behind the barrier, he mentally outlined the spell model of Fireball Spell and triggered the gas in the test tube...

"Boom!!!"

The layers of the spell barrier shattered one after another on the wall, at the center of the room. The senior brother slowly widened his eyes: "You... you did Fireball Spell... right?!"

"Yeah..." Aurora Worton was dumbfounded. He looked at the crystal on the wall of the test room, then at the test tube in his hand, and then at the spell barrier.

"Senior brother, fortunately I brought you here..."

If he hadn’t come to the high-level testing room, if the spell barrier hadn’t shattered layer by layer, if the Fireball Spell had burst, the shockwave might have hit his face! The senior brother glanced at the test tube in his hand, feeling embarrassed to ask. Aurora Worton gave him a wry smile and rushed to the 375th floor. When he arrived in front of Garrett, he was already panting heavily, gasping for breath, and said while clutching his knees:

"That... that Fireball Spell..." fr𝔢𝔢𝚠𝔢b𝚗ov𝔢l.c𝔬𝚖

"It went boom, right?"

Without lifting his head, Garrett asked. This term had never been used before, but it was vivid, and Worton understood its meaning without thinking. He gasped for breath, nodded vigorously, and said:

"Yes, yes! It’s a good thing I listened to you... How did you know it would go boom? Can I teach it to others?"

"You go write your paper."

"Okay! I’ll mention your name as the author!"

"You’re the second author."

"Okay! Thanks a lot!"

Worton rushed off to do experiments, collect data, and write papers. Testing the intensity of spells, the range of spell explosions, whether the range had changed, whether the number of gases carried would affect the spell’s intensity, all of these tests were extremely exhausting. Alas, it seemed that today’s leisure time had disappeared again...

This idea was just a passing thought. To complete all these data supplements and write a good enough paper, and to obtain sufficient rewards from the council as a complete improvement in magic, was crucial.

However, both Mage Worton and Garrett knew, as did every mage in the Magic Council, that in this improvement, using a new material was not the key. Discovering an unknown new material, trying out a stable and reliable method of production, and testing its properties, that was the key to everything.

So Garrett could rightfully claim first authorship, and indeed, letting Worton sign as the second author was already quite generous. Just a tool for collecting data and writing papers, where couldn’t you find one?

So Mage Worton gratefully went to work. Just as he piled up a heap of data and was about to organize it, he was called out again:

"Aurora, come help... set up a force field barrier, good, suck out the air, fill it with the breath of fire, ignite it!"

BOOM!

It exploded again...

"Is this force field not strong enough... Let’s strengthen the force field barrier and try again!"

BOOM!

"Strengthen it a bit more, to your limit! Come on again, Aurora, please!"

This time it burned safely. The charcoal inside the force field barrier emitted white flames and soon burned clean. Mage Worton breathed a sigh of relief, but then heard Garrett commanding:

"Inject steam again! Inject as much as possible! Increase the temperature! Higher!"

BOOOOOOOM!

"This... boss, let’s eat first. I’ve ordered ham with melon, saucy ribs, baked mushrooms, and pan-fried cod..."

"What did you say?"

"Let’s eat first!"

"The next sentence!"

"I ordered ham with melon..."

"Melon! Yes, melon!" Garrett suddenly stood up, excitedly spinning around. "Help me buy two melons, right, is it allowed to bring melons into the lab?"

"...Occasionally bringing in a few slices is okay, but it’s best to eat them quickly... The teacher will scold you if they see it... What do you need melons for?"

"Ah..."

Garrett spun around. Worton saw his eyes sparkling, opening his mouth several times and simultaneously raising his hand to try to gesture, obviously trying to explain to himself. After struggling for a while, he slumped his shoulders:

"You’ll know when I make it!"

"I’ll... I’ll take lunch..."

The boss’s projects were incomprehensible, and the boss felt that even if he explained it to you, you wouldn’t understand...

Feeling despondent.

Mage Worton dejectedly left. After a while, he carried the lunchbox upstairs. Garrett took a bite, looked, took another bite, and looked again...

"Boss, don’t be stingy with the melon! It’s wrapped in ham! I’ve ordered the melon you wanted, it’ll be delivered during afternoon tea!"

"Ah... oh, I forgot, actually, we only need the rind..."

Aurora Worton: "????"

Wasn’t that still ordering a few melons? Otherwise, would he have to go rummage through the trash?

As a result, he didn’t get to eat any melon in the afternoon. Garrett personally took charge, shaving the melons into half-centimeter-thick slices, setting them up one by one in a corner of the laboratory in a melon skin array. Underneath the melon skin array, on the shelves, there were rows and rows of glass dishes...

"Boss, what are you doing?"

"Uh... I’ll show you the paper when it’s done!"

Garrett set up two stoves nearby, bubbling away, one pot of meat soup, one pot of cooked sea anemones, the scent wafting down the corridor...

Garrett’s technical route was clear.

Cook meat soup base, cook agar medium, cook various media. Cultivate Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and other bacteria in the medium, then go everywhere to get soil, dust, grass leaves, and various other things, put them into the medium to breed, and see if you can strike it rich and produce penicillin.

Naturally, as the destiny medium for breeding penicillin - melon, that was definitely not to be missed!

Of course, if there’s no penicillin, streptomycin, aureomycin, tetracycline would do, as long as you can produce one. As for how to refine penicillin after producing penicillin, and then turn it into medicine, cough, cross the bridge when you come to it!

Garrett showed infinite patience for this project. In the world before the crossover, Alexander Fleming took at least half a year from starting bacterial culture experiments to discovering penicillin - and that was not even counting the subsequent verification. Garrett looked at his luck index, and no matter how he looked at it, he didn’t think it could be higher than Fleming’s...

So, spending a year or two to find penicillin was also normal, right? In any case, he had made progress with the dwarf’s sputum culture experiment. In the sputum, there was indeed a large amount of tuberculosis bacteria. This thing, his treatment technique couldn’t handle it, he definitely needed penicillin.

Garrett calmly and slowly conducted experiments, calling on Aurora Worton for help several times a day - probably consuming about half of his spells. Unfortunately, there were no results, either the force field barrier exploded with a bang, or it just extinguished inside, without any movement. He wasn’t in a hurry, but Aurora Worton was a bit impatient:

"Boss, what are you planning to do? Should I find a senior brother to help?"

"Uh, no need, I’ll think about it... Probably the parameters are set wrong..."

The two coexisted in the same room, each doing their own thing. Mage Worton felt like life had returned to square one, reading, studying magic, doing experiments, copying scrolls. Apart from having a nominal boss who needed to be reminded to put on a protective shield frequently, nothing else had changed. Oh, right, he also had to remember to order meals every day...

Aurora Worton deeply doubted whether if he didn’t take responsibility for bringing the food up, Garrett would starve himself to death in the laboratory.

After working on experiments for half a month, Garrett’s assigned tasks finally came to an end. Submitting the paper for review, Mage Worton suddenly felt light-hearted. Taking stock of what he had on hand, he came to Garrett with an invitation:

"Boss, there’s a meeting tomorrow, do you want to go listen?"

"What meeting?"

Garrett lifted his head from the microscope. The time spent inspecting microorganisms was too long, the orbit of his right eye was outlined by the eyepiece, making him look like a one-eyed panda. He instinctively rubbed his eyes, his binocular focus hadn’t recovered yet, for a while, everyone looked like bacteria. Above were cells, below were flagella~~~

Seeing this foolish, out-of-character appearance, Aurora Worton really wanted to take a pen and draw black circles around his eyes for him. One on each side, that would balance it out.

He held the invitation in front of Garrett:

"The annual meeting of ’Philosopher’s Stone’. ’Philosopher’s Stone’ is a monthly magazine sponsored by the Transmutation School. Every year, it invites a group of mages to hold an academic conference, where many interesting gadgets are sold — if you want to find something unique that you can’t buy outside, or freshly made items that haven’t been priced yet, this is the place to go.

The invitation was for my senior brother, but I snatched it from him, and I can bring two people in. Boss, do you want to go together?"

Garrett hesitated for a moment. Mage Worton had already taken out the invitation, waving it in front of him:

"Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! There are so many interesting things at the meeting, singing dolls, metal birds that deliver letters, portable houses! You can also meet many alchemist mages, boss, whatever you want, you can get it custom-made!"

Garrett was tempted. Networking was indeed his weak point, knowing more mages would make everything easier — organizing tweezers, vascular clamps, attractors, and even precise analytical balances... Maybe he could find someone to make them at the annual meeting?

Anyway, whether the culture dishes were left alone or not, the bacteria inside would continue to grow...

The next morning at 8:30, Garrett followed Mage Worton into the venue. The annual meeting of ’Philosopher’s Stone’ was not held at the Tower of Heaven but on the thirteenth floor of the subsidiary tower of the Transmutation School. According to the schedule on the invitation, the academic conference would start at ten o’clock. Before ten o’clock, the entire venue was chaotic, with countless mages hawking their wares:

"Household magic puppets, capable of cooking, laundry, and cleaning, with 100 recipes, the best choice for single mages traveling, only for 199 contribution points!"

"Come on, your 100 recipes, aren’t 99 of them sandwiches?"

"Selling cliff eagle eggs! Can sign a contract to become a magical pet! Another pair of eyes for mages!"

"Why does your egg look a bit smaller? Is it really a cliff eagle? Isn’t it an owl?"

"Purple scale stones! Purple scale stones! Limited quantity, high price!"

"Let me take a look!"

"I want to see!"

"Wow, I really saw it! So big!"

"Wow!!! Who put bugs on it! It scared the hell out of me!!!"

Garrett looked around as he walked. Sure enough, he saw dancing and somersaulting puppets, a pair of small drums that could resonate, and bundles of silver rods enchanted with ’Eternal Bright Flame’ placed on the side. Garrett was quite interested, standing in front of a stall, bargaining with the alchemist:

"I don’t need it that long... Half the length of a finger is enough! Just keep the light directional! If you can do it, I want 60 of them, evenly embedded on a disc for me..."

"Uh... The silver rod is this long to engrave the magic array... We can only cut it to half a foot at most! If it’s shorter, a master’s hand is needed, and the price will at least double. Do you still want it?"

Garrett fled in confusion. Even if the price doubled, he couldn’t afford it! A silver rod with an Eternal Bright Flame enchantment started at 100 gold coins, and 60 of them would cost 6,000 gold coins, which would bankrupt him... If not for this, why would he want to buy shorter ones?

Mage Worton was dragged away by him. After passing seventeen or eighteen stalls in a row, they suddenly ran into a crowd, with many mages crowded around a table:

"Let me see!"

"Let me take a look!"

"Wow, really saw it! So big!"

"Wow!!! Which jerk put bugs on it! It scared the hell out of me!!!"

Garrett’s curiosity was piqued, and he pulled Worton along, squeezing into the crowd. In the middle, he saw a twenty-seven or twenty-eight-year-old mage boasting to his friends with gusto, saliva flying:

"How about it, interesting right! I bought it when I was traveling in the south! This thing is much better than a magnifying glass, it can magnify things 100 times, opening the door to a new world! Since we’re all friends, I invited you to see it first. When the meeting starts later, this will be the content of my speech! By then, it’ll be too late to join the queue!"

Aurora Worton: "..."

He looked at Garrett, blinked, pointed to the tabletop, then blinked again:

...I remember you’ve been looking at this thing in the laboratory every day, right?

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