Chapter 129: Seems Like a Potion, Not Sure, Let Me Smell It Again

By the time Vichem had crafted the fourth set of glass instruments, William had found the biggest fool willing to pay the most; the sailors had spent all their money at the service establishment. On this side, the experiment with its overly intense light and sound effects finally showed progress.

"Slower, even slower." Kraft pressed down on the priest's hand, keeping the flame farther from the translucent bottle body. This set of instruments had already been equipped with the latest batch of white glass, allowing them to observe the internal operations more clearly.

The heating tool had also been replaced with an alcohol lamp; although the flame was still not ideal due to the cotton wick material, it was much better than a candle.

Thanks to the reappearance of green vitriol oil and a relatively high rate of experimental loss, the instruments were upgraded through three generations in two weeks, evolving from oddly shaped turbid glass retorts to white glass three-necked flasks with tubing.

The glass craftsmen, who had once served the church, handcrafted the tubing. Under the colored light projection of the church's rose window, a senior priest who had served the Lord for over a decade bestowed a blessing and consecrated them, maximizing the metaphysical elements.

Coupled with someone's half-baked high school chemistry knowledge as guidance and operational experience gained from barely ever touching the equipment, it proved that metaphysics was worth less than half a copper coin in the face of objective practice.

Relying on grinding out time, finding a feel, and a tiny bit of luck combined with probability built up through repeated attempts, this early amateur laboratory temporarily bid farewell to explosions, finding a clever balance.

A very small amount of light, clear liquid accumulated in the semi-transparent dark glass bottle.

"Move it away a bit; the outer flame is still on the bottom of the bottle, that ring is the hottest." While controlling cold water poured onto the tubing, Kraft simultaneously instructed the priest to adjust the flame.

Adrian steadied his aching arm and lowered the lamp by a finger's height.

Over the past few days, they had found some patterns amidst the failures. What Kraft requested did not seem like alcohol; if the distillation temperature was too high, the worst that would happen was less product, requiring more distillations.

He vaguely realized that when the temperature was too high, the bottle would form another kind of formless, intangible product, likely related to the previous two explosions.

And if the temperature was too low, as long as it wasn't too low, that liquid could still be produced, albeit at a speed so slow it was hard to observe.

In other words, the temperature should be on the low side rather than the high side. The best approach was to heat as slowly as possible, extending the heating process, and consciously reducing the heat when obvious production occurred, causing the temperature to hover within that mysterious range and at a slightly lower degree.

The logic was correct, but the actual operation had serious problems. Adrian would simply pull back the distance, using part of the flame to heat, while in his perception, the temperature was inversely proportional to the distance between the wick and the bottom of the bottle.

So the truth was he had been heating with the inner flame, switching to the outer flame when he wanted to lower the temperature.

"Pull back, pull it farther away!"

After the second explosion, Kraft discovered this point during their discussion and corrected this typical counter-intuitive error.

The priest decided to accept this advice, yet in his flustered state, he would still get it backwards; this was the source of the third explosion.

Under Kraft's careful watch, the efforts of these few days finally bore fruit. Although this fruit still appeared unripe, and it was not entirely certain if it was the one they wanted.

A small section of liquid rippled at the bottom of the bottle, feeling as if it might float away at any moment. He quickly pressed on the stopper, blocking the alcohol lamp the priest had brought close for illumination.

"Is this it?"

"Is this it... maybe?" Back when he was attending school in another world, the only occasions to encounter ether were basically in movies and TV dramas, a magical little handkerchief that knocked anyone out upon being covered.

In operating rooms, various new and safer anesthesia methods had long replaced this substance. Anesthesiologists would no longer be interrupted by accidents such as patient hypotension, respiratory depression, airway obstruction, or even electrocautery explosions while playing on their phones.

So in reality, Kraft only remembered the textual description of its properties, and his understanding of safe dosage and usage methods was extremely limited.

For the sake of rigor, he first needed to conduct several animal experiments to find the dosage range, and only after maturity could he slowly extend it to humans. This would be a long and tortuous process, but the authority over sleep had indeed been stolen by humanity, right here in this small bottle, held in his hand.

The first batch of ether.

"I really don't know when you will be endowed with practicality." Kraft lightly tapped the bottle body, and the glass emitted a crisp, pleasant tinkling sound. Reluctantly, he placed the bottle into a separate compartment in the cabinet; the on-site conditions and his dark circles under his eyes did not allow him to continue.

The night was deep, and the church not far away had also quieted down; the midnight bell had rung long ago.

The nightmares that had recently refused to dissipate showed no sign of fading, reminding Kraft of diseases characterized by recurrent fevers. Latent lesions, like a nest of insects, produced batch after batch of harmful substances and pathogens; the symptoms were signs of their activity.

Yet, apart from mental lethargy caused by lack of sleep, no physical abnormalities could be found.

The symptoms spawned a growing sense of urgency; working hours did not decrease but increased. Considering he had no clue how to resolve this state, he planned to complete the most important content before any possible deterioration.

Kraft capped and extinguished the alcohol lamp. Together with the priest, he left the laboratory by moonlight to rest on the first floor—Adrian slept in the bedroom, while he borrowed a recliner in the reception hall.

This was not self-torture; a position suitable for rising quickly could provide greater security to a soul that wielded a sword.

"Sweet dreams, priest. Let us witness miracles again tomorrow morning." Kraft laid his sword horizontally across the armrest and bid his experimental partner goodnight.

Adrian leaned against the doorframe, his gaze lingering for a long while on the scabbard and the face with one additional scar.

"I want to say..."

He wanted to say something about Kraft's recent situation. This included his exhausted yet excited mental state, his refusal to let others approach him while asleep, the seemingly endless experiments, and the topics discussed privately when he went on board to visit an old friend, entrusting him to keep a watchful eye on Kraft.

"I want to say, you are a doctor; you should be more aware of your own physical condition." Adrian felt that something unspeakable was operating beneath the surface. When this matter was brought up, William's rare emotional outburst was like the afterimage of a zigzag line after staring directly at lightning, sticking in his eyes for a long time without fading.

"May the Heavenly Father protect you in your dreams." The priest formally drew a circle in front of him, closed the door, and ceased disturbing Kraft's rest.

"Thank you." The person on the recliner nodded in acknowledgment and quietly closed his eyes. Adrian knew this was merely a facade; he could almost always hear strange noises coming from the living room after falling asleep, with few exceptions.

Kraft opened his eyes and habitually drew the long sword from his waist.

A humanoid figure with growing carapace lay toppled in the dust. Bony plates from spinal hyperplasia had replaced the skin covering its back, canceling the natural physiological curve and merging into a long, curved arc, resembling a curled insect.

Wrapped and spread out on the ground, scalpels, tweezers, and retractors were neatly arranged; he seemed to be just about to dissect this thing.

From the perspective of the scene, it was very reasonable. The surroundings were empty; there were no classmates forming a circle to compete for position with him, nor was there an anatomy teacher suddenly attacking from behind. The environment was comfortable, even overly so.

He looked at the long sword in his hand, puzzled as to why he had drawn such a clumsy and heavy, blunt instrument; perhaps it was meant to crack the shell?

No, of course not; the local anatomy teacher would kill him. Kraft sheathed the long sword and bent down to pick up the scalpel.

The moment his gaze left the dissection specimen, he heard the sound of hard carapace sliding across the sandy surface.

The hunched corpse stiffly propped itself up with arms that could not fully extend due to contraction, its sunken, hollow face turning toward the living.

The ragged-edged hole led to an interior that swallowed light; rotting liquid and a sense of being noticed, like a gaze, flowed out from within the skull. It stood up and walked toward Kraft, moving at a zombie's speed, seemingly deliberately leaving time for thought and escape.

The robe fluttered, obscuring the line of sight.

This coat had only one drawstring at the collar. Seemingly not reacting immediately, Kraft turned his back to the target, untied the knot, and threw it out to block the view.

He then drew his sword and thrust through; the garment covering the enemy's face would conceal his movements, impaling the fellow who thought he had succeeded along with the fabric.

A straight thrust with seven-tenths of his strength collided with hard, cold rock.

Kraft drew back his sword to defend. The environment was pitch black; amidst the intense reaction, those parts outside the narrow scope of attention were like stage scenery being removed and replaced. The step before had been within the earthen-walled courtyard of a settlement under a crescent moon, but the next step, following the sword's advance, stepped into a lightless mine tunnel.

Vibration conducted through the rock layers, like thunder rolling within a cumulonimbus cloud. Terrifying power and the sound of horns proceeded together, opening its chelate jaw-valve mouthparts toward him.

It appeared closer than ever before, forcing Kraft to flee, using an abnormal method that transcended the concept of space, taking the most direct path to escape.

He gripped the polyhedron in his sleeve tightly, realizing the urgency of the distance, so close that the time left for him to think was compressed to the limit. His consciousness operated, pulling out flaws amidst hurried thoughts, and found the source of the comparison "closer."

【DREAM】

"Damn it, stop!" His spiritual senses flared reflexively; just as he was about to fully activate the transit, Kraft halted the process in time.

The grating screech of wooden feet dragging across the floor, the groaning protest of ancient mortise-and-tenon joints under strain—his body jolted upright from the armchair, his sword falling and striking his foot. Rapid, ragged breaths and coughs drifted through the parlor, like ghostly footsteps pacing at midnight, starting and stopping abruptly.

In the sealed room, utterly dark and without a sliver of light, Kraft precisely reached out and found the sword sheath, slid several steps across the floor.

【SPIRITUAL SENSES】

Just as a person waking from a falling dream instinctively flails limbs to continue the motion into reality, he unconsciously activated his spiritual senses.

Kraft seemed to have found a faint, ambiguous "meaning" within these illogical nested dreams.

His spread spiritual senses swept through their domain—from beneath his feet to part of the second floor—pouring into his consciousness every material structure's data, useful or not; this was why spiritual energy could not sustain it for long.

He shook his head, gave one final "look," and prepared to shut down the side effects.

At the edge of his sensory field, the location of the second-floor laboratory—a living presence startled Kraft into pausing the shutdown. Two regular, elongated, jointed limbs moved there; the rest of the form blurred beyond his range.

【LEGS?】

The owner of those two legs wandered quietly around the room, then finally stepped fully into the range of his spiritual senses.

The humanoid halted before a cabinet—this slender, agile build could not possibly be the priest who rose at night to steal wine.

Faced with the cabinet full of bottles and jars, he clearly looked puzzled. Neither Father Adrian nor Kraft cared to label them: one was too lazy to bother, the other remembered every single bottle.

With no other option, the unexpected guest decided to identify them one by one. Starting with the smallest, solitary bottle, he pulled the stopper, used a method steeped in antiquity—dipped a finger in, then licked it.

Slightly sweet—perhaps this was the employer's target. He sniffed again to confirm.