A Hospital in Another World? Chapter 1006: Take Out the Pink Book!
Previously on A Hospital in Another World?...
Monkey doesn't give birth to little monkeys?
The necromancers looked at each other. Heaven and earth know, they only manage death, not life; they only ensure that the dead remain preserved, not that living animals stay alive.
If they needed animals, they either bought them from the market;
Or assigned some servants—only servants—to care for them for a while, keeping them alive until they were to be slaughtered;
Or, if it was difficult to raise magical beasts, they would still buy them from the market. After all, the Conjuration School often opened spatial gates, occasionally bringing in strange and exotic magical beasts;
The Transformation School, which practiced self-transformation, needed to observe various magical beasts, while the Alchemy School required various materials. Their demand for real magical beasts was great, and they had accumulated considerable experience in raising them...
But now, neither the Conjuration School nor the Transformation School had anyone adept at raising animals present. The priests of the God of Nature?
The priests wouldn’t come!
Without believers, without people to care for, priests were like water without a source, a tree without roots.
Whether priests of the God of Nature or other gods, they usually followed pioneering teams, living among groups of immigrants, tending to their spiritual and physical needs.To ask them to come to the Eagle God’s Kingdom, a place unfamiliar and sparsely populated except for adventurers, just to raise monkeys? Sorry, the Black Crow Swamp and nature priests always had mutual dislike, and they didn’t have enough influence...
Unless Master Nordmark asked. But when Garrett calculated his research progress, he realized it would take months to persuade someone to come.
By the time they arrived, the monkeys wouldn't have even produced a single generation, and Garrett’s yellow fever vaccine research would be completed, and he’d leave...
Wouldn’t that be harming people?
“Figure it out yourselves!” Grand Mage Jennings roared:
“Ask the local natives! When do monkeys give birth to little monkeys? What do they eat? Why aren’t they breeding?”
At the command, someone immediately went out to ask. Fortunately, the local rituals also involved capturing magical beasts and strong wild animals. The warriors of the Eagle God’s Kingdom and the jungle natives among the war prisoners were quite knowledgeable:
“When do monkeys give birth to little monkeys? They give birth in any season! They can give birth twice a year! As long as they have enough food, they’ll breed!”
“What do they eat? What do you feed them? Corn? Pumpkins? Fruits? Meat? That’s enough, more than enough! They don’t usually get such good food... If you’re really worried they aren’t eating enough, just throw in a couple of live rabbits and let them tear them apart and eat them themselves?”
“Why aren’t they breeding? ...I think, if I were locked in a cage, couldn’t jump in the trees, and couldn’t see daylight all year, I wouldn’t want to breed either...”
That made sense. The necromancers looked at each other:
“If I were locked up like that, I wouldn’t want to breed either...”
“Not only would I not want to breed, I wouldn’t want to get married... I wouldn’t even want to find a girl... With the smell of corpses all over me every day, who would I find?”
“Is this why we don’t have girls? The rare female necromancers are even more determined than us, not wanting to find men at all...”
The necromancers wept bitterly. After crying, they still had work to do:
“How about we put some flowers and plants in their cages to make them feel better?”
“And make the cages bigger so they can swing around, and put one male monkey and several female monkeys in each cage?”
“Give them some toys, like throwing a couple of balls in?”
“Or... don’t let the skeleton soldiers deliver food anymore, and we do it ourselves?”
The necromancers divided the monkeys into groups and tried different methods. After changing to larger cages and adding some plants, the monkeys seemed indeed more relaxed...
But the problem was, as soon as a person entered, whether to deliver food, clean, or take the monkeys' temperature, the monkeys immediately started screaming and running around. If they couldn’t escape, they attacked, and if they couldn’t attack, they self-harmed...
“Calming Spell! Calming Spell! Calming Spell!”
“Charm Animal! Dominate Animal!”
“I told you it wouldn’t work! The monkeys are scared of skeleton soldiers. Do you think they wouldn’t be scared of us wearing thick rubber suits, wobbling around clumsily without even showing our eyes?”
“But they’re even scared of invisible servants! If invisible servants can’t work, who’s going to deliver food and clean?”
The necromancers argued, quarreled, and attacked each other, screaming like a bunch of monkeys. Grand Mage Jennings watched coldly, finally losing patience and shouted angrily:
“What nonsense are you talking about? You are mages! Solve magical problems with magic!—Go, take out the Pink Book!”
“...”
“...”
The birth rate among mages had always been a concern for the council. Lower-level mages were too stressed to have children; higher-level mages were too old to conceive.
Not to mention, some types of mages had a natural difficulty finding partners...
So, although the council always upheld the principle that "knowledge has value" and "all knowledge comes at a cost," this particular pink booklet was always distributed at a low price. It almost screamed on the cover:
Please, get married, please have children... The chances of mage offspring becoming mages are much higher than ordinary people, don’t waste it!
Even so, those who couldn’t find partners still couldn’t, and those who couldn’t use it still didn’t. As a result, several necromancers rummaged for a long time before finding a crumpled pink booklet at the bottom of a box...
“Never thought, as a necromancer, I’d one day need to use the Pink Book...”
“And not for my own benefit, but for the monkeys... What a sad story...”
“I haven’t learned this spell! Give me some time to study...”
“Crap! Don’t stand in the spell range! Move away!!!”
After all kinds of chaos, the female monkeys in the research institute seemed to be... maybe... possibly pregnant with little monkeys:
They no longer allowed the male monkeys near and attacked them; they showed self-protection tendencies; several mages clumsily detected life signs and found a faint, slight indication.
The necromancers breathed a sigh of relief but then looked at each other again:
“If these little monkeys are to be raised in a clean environment from birth, and it takes several generations to meet the requirements, how many years do we need to raise monkeys?”
“No idea... How long does a mother monkey’s pregnancy last? How long for a little monkey to grow up and be able to have new monkeys?”
“Were we tricked into raising monkeys?”
“Or should we consider any magic that can kill the bacteria on the monkeys to meet Master Nordmark’s requirements? I don’t want to be stuck here for years on end...”
Garrett didn’t consider whether the necromancers were tricked or if he was tricking them. Monkeys had to be raised eventually; if not today, then tomorrow;
Making medicines, vaccines, and various other things always demanded monkeys;
If these necromancers didn’t want to raise them, their colleagues from the plague branch would take over;
Now, he needed to think about how to create a vaccine with the available virus.
“Ah—I don’t want to be stuck here for ten or twenty years~~~”
Garrett stared blankly, falling back, limbs spread out.
The rabies vaccine took Carlos and a dozen necromancers several years to develop, relying on the experience from smallpox research and clear technical guidance.
Now, it was just him, with two or three necromancers (most of the low-level ones were raising animals), an unfamiliar technical route—how long would it take to develop the yellow fever vaccine?
How to isolate the virus? Besides "centrifugation" and "filtration," Garrett knew nothing else;
How to preserve the virus? In what medium? Blood? Culture medium? Saline solution? What formula, what temperature? How long can it be stored?
Garrett had no idea.
How to proliferate the virus? In what organism—excluding monkeys and humans—could it continue to proliferate, maintain activity and infectivity while weakening toxicity?
Garrett had no clue...
“Forget it, let’s start with mice and rabbits... They’re simpler... Mainly because they’re abundant, kill one batch, grab another...”
Garrett sighed heavily, holding his forehead, his mind spinning several times before he began issuing orders:
“Lynn, take Skeletons 1 to 4 and inject serum into the mice... I’ve marked which mice need which serum, please keep detailed records...”
“Mr. Baronessimo, take Skeletons 5 to 8 and inject the rabbits... Same requirements...”
“Archmage Haines, please check the mice in Room 3 and the rabbits in Room 13. Mark those with lighter symptoms, and I’ll review them later...”
“What about you?”
“I’ll use the Plague Spell to infect experimental animals... More technical routes, more possibilities...”
Everyone dispersed to their tasks. Cirilla excitedly jumped over:
“What about me? What about me? Garrett, I can help too!”
Garrett sighed, covered his face, grabbed Cirilla’s shoulders, and turned her 180 degrees. Push her one step, the silver dragon girl walked one step; push two steps, she walked two steps:
“Cirilla,
you shouldn’t be here... If the virus mutates because of you, this project is finished... Be good, go play...”
“Isn’t virus mutation a good thing? Don’t you need the virus to mutate?”
“The problem is, mutations influenced by dragon breath always go from weak to strong, not from strong to weak...”
God bless, among these virus samples, please let there be one that weakens through iterations! If they all strengthen, he might as well give up!
Maybe... he should consider other methods... With so many spells, divine arts, and the powers stolen from the Plague Maiden, there must be a way to take a shortcut...
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