Chapter 16: I Have Seen This Thing Before

When Kraft went in, his hands were empty; when he came out, he was holding a brand-new medical school uniform, had three books tucked under his arm, wore a badge pinned to his collar, and was accompanied by Professor Kallman and Lu Xiusi who had come out to see him off.

Ryan, using the light from the lantern held by the professor, made out the badge: an open book, with a double-winged circular emblem representing the Church's involvement on the left page, and a clocktower flanked by spruce branches on the right page—this was the insignia of the Wendeng Port Academy.

In his impression, he had only ever seen such badges on teachers who taught at the academy; Teacher Anderson had one. This was deeply confusing; he knew Kraft's level well, which was roughly the ability to read various books without difficulty, so how had he managed to acquire an academy badge in just this one afternoon?

"So this must be Lecturer Kraft's cousin, then. The depth of the Wood family's medical achievements truly makes me ashamed of my own status as a professor." Kallman stepped forward, flashing him the kind of enthusiastic smile a street vendor would show when trying to coax money from his hand. "Therefore, I took the liberty of requesting that Mr. Kraft serve as a lecturer in our medical school. If you have any free time in the future, please do visit the academy; whether you actually teach or not is of no consequence."

"?"

Ryan understood none of the logic in that statement; his face held nothing but confusion. The word "medical," if he were to speak plainly, was hard to pair with the Wood family. As for putting the three words "lecturer," "medical achievements," and "Wood family" together, the sentence would hardly make sense without a negative particle.

"Apologies, Cousin Ryan, I am late." Kraft promptly admitted his fault, then swiftly mounted his horse, gesturing for Ryan to mount as well. "Thank you for your hospitality, Professor Kallman." After a brief farewell to the professor, Kraft quickly carried the bewildered Ryan away, disappearing into the night before Ryan could ask questions that would leave everyone unable to explain.

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"So exactly when did we acquire this family medical expertise?"

The two found an inn that was still open for business. Finding an inn in the middle of the night was not difficult; after all, the buildings lit up in Wendeng Port at night were limited to just a few types. Aside from bars and certain establishments, or those combining the functions of bars and certain establishments, the remaining eighty percent were inns.

Before each returned to his room to sleep, Ryan finally asked this question. It was not that his curiosity was too strong; one could only say the matter was too strange, roughly equivalent to the student who ranked last in the class exploding during the college entrance exam and getting into a top-tier national university's gold-medal major.

A parent's first reaction would absolutely not be delight, but rather, "Where did this kid find a shill to trick me?"

Ryan was, theoretically, of the same generation as Kraft, but since he was a few years older, his mind had matured earlier. Simultaneously, raised as the "insurance" for Kraft's early death when Kraft was young, he had spent a long time with Old Wood, amounting to nearly half a son, and was sometimes responsible for caring for Kraft; he could not be more familiar with the family and with Kraft.

Now, he was like a parent who woke up early in the morning and found an admission notice from Qingbei at the milk spot right outside his own door.

As half a parent to Kraft, Ryan was naturally very happy about this; but at the same time, as a de facto core member of the Wood family, how could he not be clear about what the family was made of? Usually, praising the Wood family's deep scholarly traditions was about as sensible as praising a blind man's good eyesight or asking a deaf man to discuss music; it belonged to the category of provocative behavior.

If you said Kraft had received praise from some great noble due to his superb martial arts, that would still be within his realm of understanding. To say the Wood family possessed academic standards was a minor insult to his personal intelligence, but a major insult to the entire Wood family. Yet this professor seemed to be serious, truly giving Kraft a badge.

"Hmm... speaking of which, you might not believe it, but I saw an old book in Grandfather's collection, and because I was interested, I read a bit more." Kraft knew it was hard to explain, so he used those old books Grandfather had gathered as a shield; after all, given Ryan's reading ability, it was impossible for him to ask to borrow books to look at.

"Really?" Ryan felt his intelligence insulted a second time. "You even have the taste to look at those books?" It was not that he didn't believe Kraft; it was just that in the past, getting Kraft to study always required Old Wood to employ a bit of physical means.

"Really. As people grow older, their hobbies tend to change somewhat."

Ryan did not believe a single letter of that statement, but this was not a bad thing. Kraft was no longer a child; he was willing to respect Kraft's own secrets and should not, nor need not, pry into the root of the matter.

"Alright." Ryan sighed, glanced at Kraft, turned, and returned to his own room, like an old father watching his child grow up and become independent, carrying a touch of loss within his gratification.

Now it was Kraft's turn to be puzzled. He had originally thought it would take a while to make Ryan believe him, but Ryan's sudden old-father attitude had instead left him completely baffled.

"Very well, sweet dreams, Ryan."

Watching Ryan go to sleep, Kraft returned to his own room, pulled a candle from his bundle, lit it, and prepared to look at the three books he had obtained today to understand the current level of medicine.

To be honest, as someone with a rather average academic level, he had never imagined he would one day be able to undertake teaching work. For the original Kraft, this would have been a great event that brought honor to the family's face; for the part that came from another world, being able to continue a career that had ended before it truly began allowed him to find his value here.

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Carrying the excitement of a newly appointed official eager to achieve something, along with a bit of curiosity about the nascent stage of medicine, Kraft took out the first book.

Much like other hardcover books, this handwritten volume used a wooden cover coated with lacquer; the title was written in a rigid, solemn font resembling early Gothic script, with broad, straight strokes generally written with a flat-nib pen, used by the Church for copying stories of the scriptures and also employed in formal documents, treatises, and other writing occasions requiring a certain degree of solemnity.

To someone who had not studied it specifically, it looked like a pile of similar long and short vertical strips, the ends decorated with squares and rhombuses, but for those who recognized it, the distinctiveness was quite high. To reduce the effects of wear, the font was carved into the wooden cover, with the recessed areas filled with metal foil, which was no longer smooth and bright due to long-term oxidation.

This was a book titled "The Theory of Humors."

As a large-volume work, it was not very user-friendly, because the maker had not marked page numbers or a table of contents for it; naturally, there was no preface either. To know exactly what this book discussed, the reader needed to read the entire text themselves. For someone with a poor memory, some note-taking might be required.

So Kraft took out the paper and pen he had bought in the afternoon, opened the ink bottle, and prepared to read while taking notes.

Flipping to the first page, at the very beginning of the entire book, the author stated his understanding of the human body right from the outset: the functioning of the various mechanisms of the human body relies on different fluids within the body. In his view, these several fluids existed in various connections with one another and could transform into each other, thereby constituting a balance. The causes of various diseases ultimately lay in various internal and external factors breaking this critical balance, thereby manifesting as various symptoms.

In other words, based on the different symptoms, one could deduce which fluid had lost its balance and thus carry out treatment targeting the specific condition.

As for exactly which fluids they were? They were divided into four types...

Alright, this familiar feeling washed over him, very historical. Kraft had figured out what this thing was—the Four Humors Theory.

It seemed the development of history was indeed similar. Although there was no Hippocrates here, and thus no very practical reduction technique, the theoretical main direction still pointed out a skill tree that was quite similar.

Of course, it was not impossible that another transmigrator had come before and committed plagiarism.

Looking further down, these four fluids were named by color respectively as Red Fluid, White Fluid, Yellow Fluid, and Black Fluid. Their distinction lay not merely in differences of color, but in the different functions they performed within the body.

For example, Red Fluid was easy to understand; it was blood. As the most widely present fluid within the human body, flowing ceaselessly in large and small vessels, the author believed its existence possessed active, moving properties, with the function of communicating various fluids and promoting change.

Kraft nodded. Yes, that was the flavor; I have heard of it. It felt like returning to the classroom, specifically the first lesson of every semester, the medical history briefly mentioned in the Prologue.