A Hospital in Another World? Chapter 1007: What Are the Limits of the Plague Spell?

"Boring."

"Meow."

"So boring."

"Meow."

"Mr. Troka, you're bored too, aren't you? Lynn doesn't pay attention to you either, does she?"

"Meow..."

Cirilla squatted idly at the entrance of the laboratory, holding the god-level cat teaser—the Golden Feather of the Eagle God—waving it in front of the black cat's nose, speaking a word and shaking it once.

Mr. Troka curled up listlessly, his eyes half-open and half-closed. Every time Cirilla waved the feather, he would extend his paw to swat at it. His paw would never extend more than once; if he missed the feather, he wouldn’t swat again, let alone stand up or jump.

Clearly, the bit of golden feather he had consumed earlier hadn't fully digested yet, so he had no interest in biting another piece, merely humoring the Silver Dragon Lady.

Cirilla simply lifted it onto her lap, one hand stroking its back and the other supporting its belly, channeling a power from her palm into the black cat’s body to help it digest the Eagle God’s power. While gently rocking it, she complained:

"Garrett is so unfair, isn't he? He brought me to such a distant place and doesn't even play with me! He’s holed up in the lab by himself! Researching is fine, but he won’t even let me stay nearby! Back when he was working on bacteria, he let me stay..."

If Garrett heard Cirilla's complaints, he would certainly feel wronged. Can you compare researching bacteria to researching viruses? The mutation and iteration speed of bacteria versus that of viruses are entirely different.

He didn’t even know—whether in his past life or this one—whether the yellow fever virus was a DNA virus or an RNA virus, single-stranded or double-stranded!

If it was, unfortunately, a single-stranded RNA virus, it would iterate rapidly, losing bits during each replication, randomly picking up bits during the next...

Just like COVID-19, before Garrett's transmigration, that thing had already iterated countless times, and naming each variant was impossible.

In fact, unless a variant was particularly impactful or dominant, it wouldn't even merit a name, nor would its code be widely known.

Researching this kind of thing, especially when trying to isolate the less virulent variants, involved constant iteration to find the weakest form that could trigger an immune response without harming health. Having Cirilla stand by his side during this was out of the question.

Garrett had no choice but to courteously escort Cirilla out of the lab and roll up his sleeves to conduct experiments himself. With a row of test tubes in his belt, he took one out and aimed it at the small white mouse cage before him.

Calming his mind, he activated the "Plague Spell" from his meditation world, adjusting its power to the minimum:

"Serum 001! Go!"

The serum in this batch of test tubes came from the patients with the mildest symptoms—fever and headache. What? Mild proteinuria was also a symptom?

Sorry, Garrett couldn’t distinguish normal urine from mild proteinuria by sight, and he had no way to conduct lab tests in the field...

Of course, whether these patients were less sick due to strong immunity or weaker strains of the virus, only the heavens knew. Garrett didn’t know either. All he could do was continually experiment and select.

Under the influence of the Plague Spell, the serum turned into a mist and enveloped the mice. The cage was filled with squeaking and chaos, and soon the mice lay down one by one.

"Hmm... Next..." Garrett took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and reopened them. In his meditation vision, he switched observation modes:

"Life Observation Spell! Hmm, mice number one, four, and eight show the mildest symptoms... Let's switch views! Infrared Vision! Hmm..."

Infrared Vision, an improvement over Dark Vision, had a smaller observation range and closer observation distance, but higher precision and better temperature sensitivity. Garrett squinted, observing carefully:

In the infrared vision, varying shades of red appeared. The nose was relatively red, the body darker; the belly was redder, the tail darker...

However, comparing the noses and heads as benchmarks, mice one, four, and eight indeed had slightly lower body temperatures. Garrett nodded and instructed the skeleton behind him:

"Skeleton Number Nine, measure the temperature of each mouse, observe their condition. Every hour... no, every half hour, record their food and water intake, bowel movements, mental state, any vomiting, and most importantly, the time of death."

Skeleton Number Nine clicked its teeth in agreement. Garrett nodded and moved to the next compartment, taking out another test tube:

"Serum 002! Go!"

Undeniably, the Plague Spell greatly accelerated the research process—even though yellow fever typically had a one-day incubation period, seeing immediate results versus waiting a day made a big difference.

The combination of the Life Observation Spell and Infrared Vision provided an immediate overview. As for subsequent detailed work, such as picking up each mouse, inserting tiny thermometers, and holding their mouths shut for three minutes...

Thanks to the diligent, tireless, fearless skeletons, who didn’t fear being bitten by mice or contracting plague and hemorrhagic fever.

Garrett diligently infected batches of mice with the Plague Spell, selected the ones with the mildest symptoms, drew serum, and infected the next batch. This repeated process soon made him feel he had reached the limit of his control over the Plague Spell.

No matter how much he reduced the spell’s power, there was always a minimum threshold. Below this threshold, the result was not a weakened vaccine but spell failure.

In other words, using the Plague Spell to create a proper attenuated vaccine was impossible—at least with Garrett’s current understanding of the spell:

"Of course!" Archmage Haines spread his hands. Facing the earnest Garrett, this necromancer who had advanced to level 18 and was striving for legendary status, looked completely reasonable:

"Although I'm not from the plague branch, I've studied these basic spells. A Plague Spell that doesn't make people sick immediately isn't a Plague Spell. Look—"

He casually sketched out the spell structure of the Plague Spell, breaking it down to explain to Garrett:

"This part is for locking onto the type of disease. You want it to cause blindness, insanity, fever, brain fever, swelling, trembling, or nausea—each has a different structure."

The Archmage showed a grim smile:

"Of course, after you proposed the germ theory, they started using germs to reverse-engineer, achieving great results. Then, this part is for making the Plague Spell take effect quickly. It makes the germs multiply rapidly to the necessary quantity for causing disease."

Garrett forced a smile:

"So... if the germs don't multiply enough, the spell fails?"

"Of course!" Archmage Haines nodded without hesitation:

"The Plague Spell is designed to do this. If it can't immediately knock down the enemy, what’s the point of the spell?"

"I mean..." Garrett, bracing himself, proposed a suggestion:

"I was just thinking, using it to build immunity? For instance, if you use a modified Plague Spell... a plague mist... to trigger cowpox, wouldn't that be great for vaccinating the natives?"

"That requires cowpox. Using regular germs, we've tried, it's useless." Archmage Haines was evidently more familiar with the progress of the plague branch than Garrett:

"The part that determines the Plague Spell’s power, currently, seems to merely control the germ's reproduction. Too little reproduction, the spell doesn't work, the patient doesn't get sick; a bit more reproduction, the patient doesn’t fall sick immediately but might in three to five days."

However, to achieve the effect of "immunity to this disease for a period"?

More than one plague branch mage courageously attempted it, only to retreat in defeat...

"So, this spell can't control the weakening of the germs themselves?"

"No." Archmage Haines shook his head firmly. Then, he gave Garrett a very strange look:

"Why use this spell for control? I recall, priests of the God of Nature can control bacterial growth, right? Isn't that how you produce penicillin or something—wait, have you isolated the yellow fever pathogen?"

"I, I’ve arranged for someone to filter the serum... waiting for their progress..."

Garrett fled in disarray.

I’d love to isolate the yellow fever pathogen, but the problem is, it's not a bacterium, it's a virus! A virus!

Currently, I can lock onto certain bacteria and destroy them; or roughly control penicillin and streptomyces, making them grow as needed. But to control viruses?

And tell them, "Let's make a deal, I'll provide energy, you get weaker and weaker"?

Viruses don’t have that kind of intelligence!

It's like training dogs and cats to perform specific actions, even training highly skilled working dogs. But training a fish, an octopus, or a jellyfish?

Sorry, lower animals just don't have the brains. Not even fish; even training a snake, the risk of being bitten is still high.

Being able to communicate with penicillin, Garrett already felt incredibly strong. Communicating with viruses? Garrett felt he couldn’t communicate with those things that were less than 100 nanometers, or even 50 nanometers in size.

So, what to do... which direction to take to control these viruses, steadily advancing on the path of attenuation?

Is there any description in the Plague Maiden’s memory regarding this?

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