Stockwell watched the needle of the jury-rigged pressure gauge twitch and stutter, as it slowly descended in a counter-clockwise arc around his handwritten markings. He glanced at the small steel tank under his arm the gauge was attached to. Inside was a sizable amount of chloroform,
This is crude… We should come up with a safer system for this eventually.
A tube exited from the tank and into the crack of a slightly parted trap door. A blanket had been haphazardly shoved into the crack around the tube to prevent chloroform vapor from coming back out from the other side.
He did the math in his head to try and figure out the minimum amount of chloroform needed to safely subdue the dire rats in the room beneath him.
This much repeated exposure to chloroform can't be good for their health.
When the gage reached a certain point, he tightened a valve and the soft hiss of chloroform spraying into the room stopped. He withdrew the tube and blanket and let the trap door fall into the closed position.
The trapdoor was not the entrance to the pen, rather, it was just the port that they dumped food and water into. He slid down the side of the rocky incline and walked around to the pen's entrance.
Its door was made of solid, several centimeter thick steel. At head height was a small window just large enough to press one's eyes against. The glass too was also several centimeters thick.
The pen itself was repurposed from a sealed-off mine shaft dug out from the hard volcanic rock in the years before Stockwell;s coming to Moot. All they had needed to do to turn into a rat pen was slap a front door on it and call it a day. It was not an ideal setup for breeding and managing lab rats, but it would have to suffice in the short term.
Dire rats were ferociously tenacious and hard to contain, so special considerations needed to be made when constructing enclosures for them. He had commissioned a person in the Baharuth Empire, a monster handler who worked in the colosseum, to construct a special cage for him. However, all the parts had still yet to arrive.
He peered inside the window. The rats seemed to be unconscious.
He made sure his gas mask was on securely before entering. Not only was there still chloroform lingering around, but the stench of unkempt refuse would also have been unbearable.
He grabbed a pair of long and sturdy snares beside the door as he entered.
Inside were the motionless bodies of a hundred or so rats of various ages. Their appearances closely resembled that of normal rats, only that their monstrous features were exaggerated in disproportion to their size. Their coats of fur grew in uneven clumps of coarse and scraggly hair, and their tails were whip-like and flaky with dead skin. And while the pups were the size of normal rats, the fully grown adults could grow to be the size of large dogs.
In addition, their sharp incisors could tear through living flesh and they tended to attack in hordes of tens or even hundreds. Even for those who possessed heavy armor to protect against the rats' teeth, they could still succumb to the sheer weight and muscle of a deluge of hungry rats.
So needless to say, pumping in chloroform before entering the enclosure was a necessary measure.
Stockwell quickly went to work. Since he didn't have much time before they awoke.
He withdrew a clipboard and pen from beneath his coat along with a tool for tagging the rats' ears.
Regrettably, I'm the one who has to do this because the naturalists of this world have no concept of proper cataloging.
The bestiaries of the New World had been written by naturalists who were, while smart, did not possess the mindset of a data-oriented researcher. They were written with a pragmatic mindset rather than a scientific one. Their research was useful to Stockwell, but only to a certain extent.
If Stockwell wanted precise, quantified data, he would need to gather it himself.
He knelt to one of the rats and recorded its tag number on his clipboard.
Let's see, number 59… you're about eleven weeks old, making lots of babies are you? How long are your pearly yellows?
He peeled back its gums to get an accurate length of its long, yellow bottom incisors.
Just about 96.5mm. Great.
He recorded the measurements on the clipboard and did the same for all the other rats in the enclosure. Additionally, he tagged the new rats that had been birthed over the last week and recorded their data.
Excellent.
He had not done the calculations yet, but it seemed that his theory that the rats' teeth grew at a constant rate of around 87-89 millimeters a week was spot on, accounting for the hardness of the food they ate.
There were many other metrics he was meaning to record as well, such as their weight, hair length, tail length, bite force, and tooth color. This was all so that he could conduct experiments with a fair degree of knowledge about his test subject's base parameters.
He did not have access to the tightly controlled, genetically regulated, albino laboratory mice from Earth, so he had to make do with what tools the New World provided him.
He looked at the clipboard. Let's see… who's the lucky number today?
He found a rat on the board that was twelve weeks old and in healthy condition. An ideal test subject.
Number 13. Your time has come.
It did not take long for him to find the adult male sleeping on its side at the far end of the enclosure. He snared it and bound its mouth and legs. After that, he hauled it out of the enclosure and locked the door behind him.
...
He restrained the dire rat to a table in his laboratory. Its legs and head were fastened securely to the metal top of the table by heavy steel shackles.
He heard the rat begin to stir.
"Awake are you?" Stockwell murmured to it. "I'm sorry, but given that I don't know how much phosgene is contaminating the chloroform supply, you must carry on without anesthesia. Please understand, I can't have you getting poisoned and throwing off the data."
He maneuvered a piece of machinery over the back of the rat, just above its heart. The machine resembled a drill press but with a large needle occupying the place where a drill bit normally would've been. On its side was an analog meter that measured the downward force at the tip of the needle.
He then went over to a cabinet and retrieved a bottle of concentrated hydrochloric acid. He pipetted a small amount of acid from it but left the acid inside the pipet. He set it aside to fetch some other things.
As the rat awoke, it realized that its whole body had been immobilized by restraints.
It began to thrash about. It squealed in distress in the manner a normal rat would, but due to its immense size, its squeal was much lower pitch and more closely resembled that of a pig than a rat.
Stockwell ignored the noise and continued to fetch chemicals.
He retrieved a small vial that contained a brownish, syrup-like fluid. It was labeled "G3 Slime DE extract 85%". It was the product of a different set of experiments involving monsters.
He would be checking on that experiment soon after he dealt with his business here.
He used the tip of a toothpick to scoop a minuscule drop of the syrupy liquid. After confirming it was the right amount, he transferred the drop to a miniature steel cup resembling a thimble.
"Alright then…"
He lightly placed a bit of sponge in both of his ears so he wouldn't have to listen to the cries of agony.
He quickly mixed the hydrochloric acid with the drop of syrup.
Immediately, the mixture began to sizzle. He swiftly balanced the thimble of liquid squarely on the top of the rat's restrained head and took a step back.
After the reaction in the thimble began, it only took a second for the liquid inside to eat through the steel bottom and continue onto the rat's exposed head.
The rat screamed in agony as the drop of corrosive liquid bored deep into its flesh. The rat kicked and thrashed, but was not strong enough to free itself from the shackles.
The drop of liquid bore down to its skull before gradually stopping its advance.
As Stockwell waited for the reaction to stop completely, he jotted down a line on a nearby piece of paper. On it was a table labeled "Extra-Anatomical Durability Degradation test" with dozens of penciled in lines of data beneath it.
He wrote down "Slime Solution Exposure: Cranium Exterior" and then left a blank beneath it for a number.
He looked back at the rat. The reaction had since stopped and had left a small hole in its skull surrounded by discolored flesh. The rat was still very much alive. The corrosive fluid had not reached its brain.
"Alright then buddy, brace yourself. I know this hurts but know that you'll be dying for science. It's a lot nobler than most deaths, so take it in stride, alright?"
He brought his hand to the drill press and slowly turned the crank. The large needle at the end slowly entered the rat's arched back and made its way down.
The rat thrashed and wailed, but could not interfere with the path of the needle.
The needle slowly and deliberately continued its way down towards the rat's heart. Blood squeezed its way to the surface and matted the rat's fur.
Stockwell knew with a fair degree of accuracy at what depth it would reach its heart and had made a marking on the needle ahead of time where he should stop.
He paid close attention to the dial that indicated the amount of force being exerted at the end of the needle. It was, after all, the crucial variable that was currently being tested.
The needle pierced halfway into the rat's apple-sized heart and stopped. Death came shortly after.
After the rat stopped its movements, Stockwell withdrew the needle and took out his earplugs.
Interesting… piercing its heart took less force this time.
He recorded the data on the sheet.
Acid exposure to Head: Only 15.62 newtons now. Fascinating result. That's the most extreme discrepancy so far.
The data he had collected thus far painted a very strange picture. It suggested that living things in the New World possessed some kind of property that allowed them to perform feats far outside the realm of anatomical possibility.
If I didn't know any better, I would say it's almost like one of those video games. As though I slightly depleted its "Health" with the acid to the head and somehow made it easier for me to perforate it at a completely different section of the body.
He undid the shackles on the rat's corpse.
So far, all he had were loose hypotheses and a few connected dots. He would need far more data and more time to study to come to any formal conclusion.
Such is the work of a scientist.
He would make it a point to examine and dissect any new specimens he could get his hands on. He was particularly interested in large creatures such as giants and trolls, and even more so in the fabled dragons he heard so much about.
"...Alright then." He muttered.
He turned the rat onto his back and unrolled a large piece of canvas from the ceiling in front of him. On it was a detailed diagram of a dire rat's innards that he had been mapping out beforehand.
He got a pair of scalpels and saws and got to work dissecting the rat to confirm that there weren't any anatomical oddities or problems that might have influenced the data. He would also need to collect tissue samples from the area of the acid exposure as well as where the needle penetrated its heat.
As he worked, and as the minutes passed, he eventually heard a knock on the door.
"Come in." He said.
"Hello?" Vera entered. "You said earlier that you needed my help with something?"
"Yes, I did," Stockwell replied. "Just let me finish this up first and we can go together."
"Okay."
She waited patiently for Stockwell to finish dissecting the rat.
She didn't quite understand why Stockwell was so adamant about acquiring and dissecting specimens. His intensity suggested that something was remarkable about them, but she rarely understood what he was talking about.
She was still fascinated however to hear what Stockwell had to say about anatomy. The viscera and blood inside all creatures she had come to recognize had purposes and functions far different from what she had been told growing up.
While she was waiting, Stockwell suddenly spoke to her from where he worked.
"Say, Vera."
"Hmmm?" He had startled her out of her thoughts. "-I mean. What is it?"
"How old do you think this planet is?"
"How old?"
"Yes, how old do you think this planet is? When was it formed and how?"
"Uh…" Vera leafed through her memories. "No one really knows… I think."
"You think?"
"Yes, there are multiple theories...uh-. " What's that word he uses?
"-hypotheses about it." She said, "Some people say the world is eternal, that it has always existed. Some people say it was created from the workings of gods. And some people say it was grown from a seed and bloomed into being, etcetera, you know." She shrugged. "Well, no one knows I guess."
"I see," Stockwell said. "Well, for the sake of conversation let's assume that this planet is not eternal and did in fact have a beginning. How long ago do you think that was? Just an honest estimate, how old do you think this planet is?"
"Just an honest estimate?" Vera pondered.
"Yes, what you feel like is right. A thousand years old? Ten thousand? A million? Just an estimate will do."
"I don't know. Maybe like 10,000 years? 20,000 at the most."
Stockwell nodded in understanding. "Do you think most people would agree with that assessment?"
"I don't know." Vera shrugged once more. "Why are you asking me all this?"
"Hold on now," Stockwell said. "Just humor me, there's a point to all this. Do you think people would agree that this planet is at most 20,000 years old?"
She scratched her head. "Yeah, probably, I guess."
"Okay, so does that mean it would be outrageous to suggest to people that this planet is more than a billion years old?"
"A billion?" Vera could scarcely conceive of such a length of time. She nodded ardently. "Yes. That is outrageous.
Stockwell nodded in understanding once more. "Hmm, alright that makes sense. So then tell me Vera, where does coal come from?"
"Coal?"
"Yes, you know. The black, flammable rocks. Where do they come from?"
"Um, from mines?" Vera said.
Stockwell made a short chuckle. "Ha, no, that's not what I meant. I meant where does it come from. How was it made? Originally, before it's dug up."
Understanding flashed behind her eyes. "Ah! Sorry. I don't know where it came from. Probably the gods put it there. Just like the rest of the rocks and the dirt… and the water and… everything I guess."
Stockwell sighed. "Yes… I see. Well, Vera dear." He said. "You're wrong."
Of course I am. Vera thought.
"Coal is made from the remains of ancient foliage and plant matter that got bogged down in ancient swamps. Over time, it forms peat bogs that eventually get buried due to geological forces. They get packed and heated in the planet's crust and eventually turn into what we know as coal. It's a process that takes millions of years. And the same is true with oil and methane, all of these things take millions of years to form beneath the ground."
It was hard for Vera to believe, but then again, Stockwell had yet to be wrong on these kinds of matters. If he said so then it was likely true. "A million years…" She muttered.
"Or at least," Stockwell said. "That was on my planet. This world has made me question many things."
"What do you mean?" Vera asked.
"I find it strange that no one anywhere has been able to locate a fossil."
"A fossil?"
"Yes, a fossil," Stockwell said. "Just a bone, or imprint, or anything that alludes to some ancient organism millions of years ago that no longer exists. Coal mines should be filled with the fossils of ancient plants yet there are none to be seen."
An aura of discomfort emanated from Stockwell's turned back.
"It's like the coal was just… put there. No biology, no formation, just… hydrocarbons. And it isn't just coal. Limestone too should be riddled with the skeletal fragments of ancient corals and sea creatures. All the calcite and minerals from supposed shell matter are in the rock… but just not any fossils… like it was able to form without such creatures ever needing to exist."
"Is that a bad thing?" Vera asked tentatively.
"Yes. Er,...no. I don't know." Stockwell said tiredly. "Here, come take a look at this for a second, Vera."
He beckoned her over to the dissection table.
She looked over the gutted and exposed chest cavity of the dire rat. The gruesome image did not perturb in the slightest and she didn't so much as blink at the sight.
Stockwell respected this about Vera. She was not squeamish in the least. Perhaps one became used to the sight of corpses when growing up in a cult of necromancers.
Stockwell moved his bloody scalpel to a place in the rat's neck.
"Here. Look.."
He raised a thin, rubbery cord out of the rat's neck on the flat of his scalpel.
"This is the left recurrent laryngeal nerve. It connects the brain to the larynx. You see it?"
She nodded. "Yeah?"
"Okay, now look at this."
His scalpel continued to pull at and follow the path of the nerve. Starting from the head, the nerve went all the way down to the heart before looping back around and up to the larynx.
"You see? Don't you find that odd? That the nerve goes so far out of the way, looping around the aorta, and then returning to the larynx? Why not just connect directly from the brain in a straight path? It's not like anything is blocking it."
Vera looked at it closer. "...That is odd." She murmured.
"Yes, yes it is." Stockwell said, "But this nerve's path is actually a pretty well-known characteristic. It's the result of evolution. Or at least it should."
"Evolution?"
"Indeed. It isn't just these dire rats that have this nerve, but all tetrapods. You, me, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds. We all have this awkward laryngeal nerve that detours around the heart."
"How come?"
"Well, it's because we're all related of course."
There was a mystified expression on Vera's face.
"Related very distantly of course, but related nonetheless. Back when all animals lived in the sea, back before we had necks, the primitive larynx was located behind the gills and central circulatory system, and the nerve had had a simple path there. But as we crawled onto land and developed necks, the large artery that eventually became the aorta as we know it, got further and further away from the head and pulled the nerve with it. Hell, in a giraffe, the damn nerve can get over 30 meters long despite its starting and endpoint being only a few centimeters apart."
Vera scratched her head in confusion. "...When we all lived in the sea?"
Stockwell dismissed her question. "Ah… It's a long story. I don't feel like getting into the whole thing right now. My ultimate point was that this—" He gestured to the nerve still at the end of the scalpel. "—this is evidence of hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Hell, and just like you and me, this rat has goddamn archaea in its gut, something that split off from the tree of life 3 billion years ago … That should be evidence that this planet has existed for at least that long, right?"
He put down the scalpel and wiped his face. "...But even so, there is still so much conflicting evidence."
Vera felt like she couldn't add anything to the conversation, also, it seemed like Stockwell was beginning to talk to himself at this point. So she decided to stay quiet and let him speak.
He took a bone saw and sawed the rat into two pieces at the abdomen. He then began to wrap up the rat's bisected body into a burlap sack.
"The nerve and the coal. But also the lack of fossils. And, it isn't even clear how something like a dragon would evolve. And how did beastmen come about? A human can't exactly fuck a goat and create a viable hybrid. Was this world intelligently designed to be a mimicry of Earth? Or was it truly formed from a stellar nebula and what I'm witnessing is an incredible amount of convergent evolution? And where the hell does tier magic and wild magic and martial arts fit into this?"
After packing up the rat's body, he slung the sack over his shoulder and made his way to the door. "Oh, and follow me. I have to make one more stop, and you can help me after that."
Vera followed. "—Ah, yes of course."
He made his way out of the lab and down a trail that led to the far side of the village. It was late in the afternoon and the sun beamed down at them at a shallow angle.
"I don't have the tools to radiometrically date rocks. But I can only assume that I'll find that they're billions of years old like those on Earth. After all, if this planet had truly formed from a stellar nebula less than a million years ago, then the amount of radioactive isotopes in it would make it uninhabitable. Not even a single damn half life of U-235 would have passed. We should be swimming head deep in lava, heated by the decay of Al-26 and Zr-93."
"So clearly that's not the case right?" He kicked apart the loose dirt atop the trail as he walked. "The crust here has clearly had billions of years to cool off after its accretion, right? That's the only scientifically plausible explanation, right?"
He looked upwards towards the sky with an almost pleading tone. "So then why does it still seem so unlikely? Why do I still doubt it? How is it so damn similar to Earth? If it formed naturally, then what are the chances that its mass is the same? The force of gravity here isn't 1.1 Gs or 0.9 Gs, it's 1G. Also the atmosphere-"
He motioned around him with a twirl and pointed up to the sky. The burlap sack containing the rat swung around and nearly hit Vera as he did so. "—The atmosphere. The oxygen content is 21% at sea level, on the dot, just like pre-industrial Earth. And the climate and weather— it's positively Mediterranean here. It suggests that the planet is covered in roughly 70% water."
He shielded his eyes from the glare of the low flying sun as they rounded the corner. "—And that damn sun. I've been watching that damn sun too. This godforsaken planet rotates once, every 24 hours. It's an oblate spheroid whose circumference is 40,000km. It has a moon 1.2% of its own mass that orbits roughly once a month, allowing for the existence of noticeable tides. Its seasons are like those of Earth's too; its axial tilt is 23.5 degrees and completes an orbit every 365 days at a mean distance of one astronomical unit."
He pointed upwards with his finger. "And to top it off— oh ho ho," he laughed darkly, "To top it off, this planet has a disproportionately strong magnetic field compared to other terrestrial planets, just like Earth does. It's something that is necessary for human life to exist as is. I can only assume this planet has a large, metallic like Earth, but then where did that come from? Did this planet also have a collision with a dwarf planet like Theia in the past? Is that what explains its moon too? Am I really supposed to believe that all the unique, astro-geological events that made Earth what it was also occurred precisely the same way here!?"
He shook his head ruefully. "What are the damn chances that all happened by coincidence… You change just one of those variables even a little, and this whole planet's biosphere changes into something unrecognizable."
"The closest thing I can imagine is that I've been summoned to a parallel universe version of Earth, where magic has befuddled everything. It would be the same planet, but just with a different history. "
"But even then there are so many holes." He said. "For example, why are the continents so radically different if this is indeed an alternate reality Earth? I don't recognize the shape of this continent on the map, not from the modern era, or other era prior in Earth's history. "
He sighed, thinking about the night sky. "And even the night sky. Beautiful though it may be, it is not mine. I do not recognize any of the constellations. And the planets? Venus? Mars? Jupiter? Where are they? Granted, if Earth was different in this reality, I would expect the other planets to be different as well. But they aren't even here at all."
"Why is this planet seemingly alone in its own solar system? That star is the same size as the sun I know so should be the result of a similarly sized nebula. So where is all the missing debris? There should be more planets than just this one and its moon."
He hung his head sadly, "As I see it, there are currently only three possible explanations for all of this. Either 1: I'm having an extremely prolonged and detailed fever dream back home. 2: Earth is not actually real and I'm hallucinating about my past experiences. Meaning I've always been here and through some magical shenanigans my imagination has somehow concocted a false reality of me being from another planet. Or 3: This world, and by extension this reality has physical laws that are both completely arbitrary, (making them not laws but guidelines at best), and the arbiter of said laws for some reason has a proclivity for making things Earth-like."
He looked down sadly at the ground. "Though I suppose if that last one is true, it's more likely that Earth too has the same arbiter, given the similar creations… ah, I don't want to think about that one."
He wiped his head. "I haven't a fucking clue which explanation is more desirable. I just want a reality I can understand..."
They eventually reached their destination. It was a deep limestone quarry. However, the pit of the quarry itself had gotten a roof over it made of long wooden beams and supports. In a sense, a vast subterranean room had been made as a result.
Vera studied Stockwell's back as they made their way towards a trap door at the edge of the covered quarry.
It was beginning to make sense to her why Stockwell was so adamant about his seemingly mundane research projects. It wasn't just about developing useful technologies, it was also about developing his view of reality.
Science wasn't just a tool to him, it was the fundamental method by which he saw himself..
She watched as he began undoing the latches on the trap door that lead to the subterranean room.
Vera suddenly realized what Stockwell was doing here with the dead rat. "Oh, do you need help with that?"
"No, no I've got this." He said. "She and I have seemed to have come to somewhat of an understanding."
He threw open the trap door.
Without hesitation, a pair of long black legs erupted from the opening. A ferocious, arachnoid hissing rang through their ears. The legs lashed back and forth in an attempt to skewer Stockwell.
"Hey! HEY! Back girl!" He shouted.
The opening was just small enough for a giant spider to fit its legs through, but not the rest of its body.
"Back I said! Back!" Stockwell shouted once more.
Eventually, the violently thrashing legs settled down and receded from the opening.
"Good girl."
He opened the burlap sack, dumping the lower half of the rat corpse inside and quickly closed the trap door behind it.
"That didn't look very understanding..." Vera mused.
"I said we came to 'somewhat' of an understanding. I'm the only one bringing her meals, so I think she knows not to mess with me."
He turned back down the trail. "She's quite a smart creature. I think she realizes that if she kills me, she'll be trapped down there to starve. It's probably why she allows me to harvest her web in relative peace."
He motioned for Vera to follow him. "Anyways, follow me. The reason I called for you is that Niven and I could use a little help dealing with the slimes."
…
Stockwell led them to an area near where the geothermal generator had been built. Large tarps were suspended atop myriad wooden posts to form an expansive, water-tight canopy of canvas, wax, and lacquer.
Underneath the canopy were a pair of 15 by 15 meter wide pits dug 4 meters deep into the ground that served as enclosures for several dozen slimes.
Off to the side of the enclosures, a field laboratory had been set up where Niven
was currently working.
"Oh hi miss Vera!" He shouted joyfully to her.
Vera looked around in surprise. "You two have been busy…"
She had heard that they had been experimenting with slimes for some time, but she had assumed it was just one or two small ones.
She walked to the edge of the enclosure and peered down. She caught the form of at least thirty large, brown-green, semi-translucent blobs of goo. They were about a meter in diameter on average and milled aimlessly about the enclosure.
"There are so many of them…"
The slimes wriggled in response to her voice and began congregating around the foot of the wall where she stood. They slowly started to extend their bodies and pile over one another in an attempt to make their way up to her.
Vera saw this and worry seeped into her voice. "Are you sure they can't make it up?"
"Well, I imagine they could if they really wanted to," Stockwell said from beside her. "But they'd have to be pretty damned determined."
Their gelatinous bodies began to creep up the dirt face of the enclosure wall.
"These kinds of slimes are little more than unintelligent monsters. Animals in other words. A little shock and they give up immediately."
Vera noticed the metal wires bristling the rim of the enclosure.
She watched as a singular slime eventually made it to the top of the gelatinous pile of slime bodies and stretched up to her. When its semi-liquid body made contact with the exposed metal of the wires, a small spark formed and its body immediately recoiled. Seemingly discouraged, the slime sunk back down into the pit.
"Slimes don't seem to like electricity very much. This setup is more than enough to keep them from escaping their little pen here."
Vera looked over all the slimes milling about in the shade of the tarp canopy. "How did you manage to transport so many in there?"
"We didn't transport any of them. There was only one in here to begin with, since then we've been selectively breeding them."
"What?" Vera gave him a look like he was insane.
"You heard me. They replicate like bacteria. When they reach a certain size they undergo a form of mitosis and split into two smaller slimes. Also, when food is scarce they can form colonies similar to the slime molds on Earth; they can get together and swap genetic information and the like."
He paused and scratched his chin. "Hmmm… I guess that would actually make them more akin to protists than bacteria."
He tossed the upper half of the dire rat corpse into the pit. "There you go you ravenous little shits."
The two of them watched as the slimes converged on the rat corpse.
"They can't see, but they can detect changes in light level. These particular slimes are known as "forest slimes" and tend to prefer shade." He motioned upward towards the canopy of tarps, "Hence the tarps."
"They are able to sense sound and vibrations and possess a very keen sense of smell." He said.
The rat corpse disappeared from their view in a matter of seconds, replaced by a large mass of wiggling slime bodies and the sound of sizzling flesh.
"Did you know?" Stockwell asked. "Contrary to what all the bestiaries say, slimes are not actually acidic."
"They aren't?"
"Not at all. At least not in the scientific sense. Their bodies' pH is completely neutral. That apparent corrosion you're witnessing isn't acidic, but enzymatic in nature."
"Enzymatic?"
"As in involving enzymes. Digestive enzymes. Specialized proteins that exist in gastrointestinal tracts such as amylase, pepsin, and lipase. The primary purpose of these enzymes is to break down organic matter."
Vera showed no signs of recognition.
"However, through chemical tests, it's become obvious to me that the enzymes the slimes use aren't actually a physical protein, but rather some kind of… nebulous alchemical factor. I imagine it's somehow related to the liquid that is created during the casting of acid magic, or perhaps the fluid that's used in alchemical acids. That is to say, the precise mechanisms slimes use to corrode things is magical in nature rather than chemical."
"...Interesting." Vera said in a feigned voice.
"Right?" Stockwell responded enthusiastically.
"But just because it is magical doesn't mean it's beyond being understood. Come look at this."
He led her over to the area off to the side where Niven was working diligently. Several long tables littered the area and scattered among them were several instruments that only a few Vera recognized.
"There's a lot of things you can learn from just looking through a microscope."
"Microscope?"
Stockwell gestured to one of the devices on the table. It looked little more than a glorified cylinder, lit from the bottom from a mirror of reflecting sunlight. "It's still probably a bit better than what Galileo was using."
He then showed her a large diagram of a slime spread out on a table. "Slimes are indeed single-celled, so given their size, you'd be right to expect their organelles to be both larger and more numerous. A full-sized slime has around a half-million different nuclei, each containing identical DNA."
He pointed to various structures around the diagram. "The things we're currently interested in at the moment though are these, the lysosomes. They are what contain the slime's digestive enzymes. They look like little spheres, smaller than the width of a hair. And there are trillions of them in even a small slime."
"Just like a predatory cell hunting a cell smaller than it," Stockwell balled one of his hands into a fist and engulfed it with his other, "after it engulfs its prey, lysosomes congregate to the area and release digestive enzymes to break it down the prey into useable nutrients."
"It's all pretty simple stuff, but it's still cool to see such a familiar interaction taking place on a larger scale…" Stockwell led her to a small machine on one of the tables.
The device reassembled a large toy top. Only, the tip was fastened to the table and it was spun by pumping downward on the central shaft shaped like a screw. Twelve receptacles for vials were spaced equidistantly around its rim.
"This is a hand centrifuge," Stockwell said. "It's for isolating the lysosomes from the rest of all that slimy cell matter."
"First you take some of the slime's protoplasm and evaporate out most of the water until you're left with dark sludge. Then you repeatedly centrifuge and filter that sludge. All the organelles have their own unique density and shape to them, so it's possible to separate just the lysosomes from the rest of the organic material."
He grabbed a glass jar from the table and held it up for Vera to see. Inside was something resembling light brown dirt. "The final product from that is this kind of fine, silt-like material. A full-sized slime has about a kilogram worth of lysosomes in it. As for the next step..."
He placed the jar back down and went over to where Niven was working quietly.
"How's it going?" He asked.
Niven was hunched over a series of beakers, carefully monitoring their temperatures and taking measurements. "I'm doing fine. I've been doing this for like two hours though so I am getting a little bored…"
"Yes… um, thank you for working so hard," Stockwell said. "Feel free to take a break as soon as you want."
Niven nodded in reply.
"Extracting the pure enzyme from within the lysosomes is a touchy procedure." Stockwell continued." Once the lysosome membranes are taken apart by a surfactant, the acid inside the lysosomes along with the enzymes comes gushing out. The acid then needs to be immediately neutralized in order to denature the enzymes, otherwise, the reaction vessel will be dissolved in an instant and you lose the whole batch."
"And the table." Niven chimed in. "It'll eat through anything."
Stockwell gestured to a collapsed table a little ways away. A foot-wide hole had been burned through its center, along with two meters of rock and soil beneath it.
"However," Stockwell said. "One must ensure the pH doesn't get too high either when neutralizing the acid, otherwise the enzyme will become irreparably damaged and cease to function altogether."
Stockwell gently grabbed a small vial of syrupy liquid from beside Niven. It was only 2 centimeters tall.
"After a final round of filtering and centrifuging, you end up with this final product." He held up so Vera could see. "This much represents the entire corrosive power of about one and a half fully-grown slimes concentrated into a tiny packet less than 1/5,000 their original size. One merely needs to reintroduce it to a small amount of hydrochloric acid to reactivate the enzymes. It's a binary super corrosive!"
He carefully set it back on the table.
"So there's that."
He clapped his hands together triumphantly. "Anyways! I did call you here for a reason."
Vera peeked up in response. "O-Oh. Um. Yes."
Stockwell handed her a scroll. "You know how to use one of these, right?"
"Um, maybe? If it's something simple I should." Vera unrolled the scroll and took a careful look at the intricate letters and circles embellishing the page.
"It's something called 'floating board'." Stockwell said.
"Ah, alright!" Vera replied, glad to be feeling knowledgeable for once. "I know what that is. I can cast it, easy! What do you need it for?"
Stockwell began putting on a set of coveralls coated in a light gray wax. "Just give me a second and I'll show you."
After he was fully dressed, he led them to the edge of the slime enclosure.
"So here's what I was thinking. It's about time we've expanded our setup here to incorporate more types of slimes so that we can do a little bit of genetic intermingling, so to speak. For what I have planned, we'll need all kinds of slime-proof gates and interconnected chambers."
"However, that's for the future. And as silly as it may sound, we haven't actually accounted for something as simple as moving the slimes around as needed. For the selective breeding so far, we've just been poisoning the undesirable ones and letting the best ones reproduce. It's been a real hassle and an even bigger mess. But as I said, it's time for us to get more sophisticated, and to do that, we'll be needing to temporarily relocate a slime to that other trench over there."
He turned his head and called out to Niven. "Niven! Which one is currently our best?"
"Lemmie check!" Niven replied.
Niven put aside what he was working on and went to another work table. On it was a large glass block with a series of acid holes burned into it. The depth of each hole had been carefully measured down to the millimeter and marked with ink. He picked up a clipboard from beside it and quickly glanced down at the datasheet.
"Number 18 has the strongest acid at the moment!" He called out.
"Got it!" Stockwell replied.
He turned back to Vera. "Alright, so here's the plan. Firstly, you cast 「floating board」 and lower it down into the enclosure. Then I'll go down and corral the slime onto it. After that, just fish it up and drop it down into the other enclosure, simple, right?"
She nodded hesitantly. "Right.." She looked down at the enclosure of several dozen wriggling slimes. "You said you're going down there, are you going to be okay?"
Stockwell nodded. "Mhm, my clothes here are coated with an alkaline wax. It'll stop them from eating me right away. I also have this."
He held up a small squirt gun. "It's filled with a soap solution. It damages their membranes, causing them a lot of… whatever their equivalent to pain is. They hate this stuff. I'll use it to keep the tenacious ones at bay and corral the slime we want onto the board."
He dropped a ceramic ladder into the enclosure. "You ready?"
Vera nodded in affirmative. She cast 「Floating Board」 using the scroll.
The piece of paper evaporated into blue flames and a large ethereal board appeared in the space before her. She silently thanked whoever created the spell, as immediately upon using the spell, the exact way to control the board was magically made clear in her mind. She gave the board a mental command and it lowered into the enclosure.
"Good, let's go then."
Stockwell scanned the slimes and found the one with a large "18" etched onto its membrane by a chemical vesicant.
He shimmied down the ladder and the plan proceeded as expected.
His waxy clothes prevented him from getting melted and he was successfully able to bully the right slime onto Vera's board.
After that, she carefully lifted it back up and dumped the slime into the neighboring trench.
Stockwell smiled. "It's a bit crude, but it'll work for now."
…
According to the book on alchemy he purchased, the process of making a healing potion involved extracting a "healing essence" from herbs, and then binding that essence to a volume of water. There were certain mixtures of ingredients that would make this task easier or enhance its effects, but at the end of the day, the process ultimately required magical spells to extract the essence.
This fact was true for all potions, be they healing, buffs, or poisons. So needless to say, as someone who was unable to use spells, Stockwell could not become an alchemist. But that didn't necessarily mean he could do nothing with alchemy.
A pristine blue colored potion sat before him on the table. He uncorked the bottle and gently poured it into a small basin filled with water and electrolytes. The blue color became more transparent as it spread through the basin, but did not disappear completely.
He had been doing quite a lot of research into the curious concoction the New Worlders called health potions. Understanding how they worked would likely lead to a breakthrough in his research into dire rat biology.
His initial thought was to simply to distill the substance to concentrate the potion. Afterall, if the active component of the potion was simply dissolved in the water, he could just boil away the water to isolate it. But that experiment proved to be a failure. The odd blue color had remained bound to the steam.
He then tried freezing the water to see if crystallization would knock out the healing factor, but that too had failed. He then tried adding acid to the water thinking that maybe introducing a stronger solvent would encourage the healing factor to jump ship, but that didn't work either. No matter what he tried, this magical, blue healing factor remained bound to the water.
So then an idea had come to him. What if there was no more water?
Stockwell flipped the switch on the basin, causing it to buzz to life. Small bubbles of gas began to coalesce on a pair of submerged electrodes.
By electrolyzing the potion, he split the water into hydrogen and oxygen. According to his hypothesis current hypothesis, the healing factor within the potions were individual, quantifiable entities, so by turning what was once one molecule of water into three entirely new particles, this alchemical healing factor was forced to choose one of the particles to latch onto or be precipitated out of the solution. The process would've been much easier if the healing factor just decided to precipitate then and there, but of course, things were never that easy.
The healing factor tended to latch onto the oxygen atom, Stockwell observed, which he assumed was because it was the most massive of the three. The oxygen atoms would then combine into 02 gas as per normal, now carrying twice the amount of healing factor as normal, effectively concentrating the healing factor by a factor of two.
It was at this point where he observed the color of the gas slowly becoming redder.
The bubbles of oxygen forming on the cathode were a deep purple-blue color. They rose out of the water into a collection tube.
The next step of course would then be to repeat this step by using the oxygen to create a heavier molecule and then split it apart from then on. The simplest way to do this was to create ozone, and then immediately split it apart back into O2 to further concentrate the healing factor into fewer and fewer atoms of oxygen.
Stockwell removed the collection tube from the basin and inserted it into an opening of a very unsafe looking contraption. The machine resampled a glass box containing a central conductor that was continuously discharging an arc of electricity. The electrical arc passed through the air and ended at a fine mesh of heated silver metal. The whole box glowed with a soft blue light.
The contraption truly wasn't that dangerous. The voltage was high enough to produce the arc but the overall current was very low. It was merely an efficient way of creating ozone from the oxygen. And the heated silver metal served as an efficient catalyst for immediately breaking the ozone back into oxygen.
However, whatever the magical healing factor was, it did not have a weight or charge so it took him quite some time to figure out how to separate the particles of oxygen carrying the healing factor from the ones that didn't.
Vera and the books he read were very useful in figuring out the next step.
According to them, healing potions contained something similar to "Positive Energy." This was the opposite of "Negative Energy".
And similar to matter and antimatter, the two energies were attracted to each other and would eliminate each other when combining.
Personally, Stockwell didn't think for a moment that these "energies" existed in the manner that his sources described them, as was the case with all magic, but at the very least, knowing how they behaved was useful information.
Once the purple-blue oxygen had been electrified for a while, he opened a vent that led into a final relay of contraptions.
The gas would be piped around in a coil around a zombified mouse reanimated by Vera's 「Create Zombie」 ability. The mouse's mouth and appendages were bound and it was secured behind glass so it would not come in contact with the gas, but the negative energy within the mouse would still draw the healing factor contaminated gas towards it like a magnet.
This attraction was extremely subtle however. So subtle in fact, that it was impossible to observe with one's eyes alone, so the gas on the inside half of the coil would then be passed on to an identical set up for further concentration while the gas on the outside half would be passed back through the cycle. The entire set up reminded Stockwell of how Uranium-235 was separated from Uranium-238 by spinning gas through several cascades of centrifuges connected in series.
The volume of gas decreased by roughly 5% after each step, but its color gradually became redder and redder. After the 40th or 50th pass through the coils, the quantity generally became too small to be worthwhile.
He watched as the final collection vessel slowly filled with a deep red gas. The gas itself could be inhaled for a healing effect similar to the potion, but he much preferred converting it back into liquid for ease of use in his other experiments.
The final step for converting it back to liquid was very simple. He inserted the tube of oxygen and twice the volume of hydrogen into a little torch and simply burned it all back into a flask.
The result was a deep red liquid resembling the color of blood. It was about one twentieth the volume of the potion he had started with, but concentrating it anymore than that yielded progressively inefficient results.
Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, even with this magical "healing essence" presumably more concentrated, it was no more easy to study than the blue potion he had started with.
It didn't have any different physical or chemical properties than the original potion, which was strange considering its color had changed. Since color, as he understood it, was a chemical property contingent on the unique electron arrangement of molecules. But perhaps it was a phenomenon similar to the magic circles that sometimes appeared when spell caster used spells. The circles didn't actually exist, they had no charge or weight, but still they could be seen.
Regardless, the red liquid still did have useful applications for studying magical regeneration in his lab rats. It healed much faster and far more when used compared to an equal volume of blue potion, which was to be expected. However, producing any sizable volume of it would be costly since normal healing potions were prohibitively expensive already.
He pondered how he might go about concentrating potions of agility and strength as well.
…
Stockwell laid down on the table. He took off his shirt to reveal his scarred chest.
Vera and Niven stood over him.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Niven asked.
Stockwell nodded solemnly. He went about strapping his legs to the table.
For the past few weeks, he had intermittent problems with his urine. Every so often, he would get a pain in his right side and his urine would run various shades of brown to red.
"I'll reiterate," Stockwell said, "That man put a sword through the right side of my abdomen, straight through my kidney. I've been having problems ever since."
"So explain to me again why the potion didn't heal it? It healed everything else." Vera asked.
"It was an artificial kidney." Stockwell explained. "Unlike my lungs, it was purely mechanical."
"Artificial organs? You can do that?" Vera asked, perplexed.
"Yes." Stockwell said. "I had sold my natural kidney earlier in life. I replaced it with an artificial one when I was older. The potion likely didn't recognize it as part of my body. It must have tried to form a new one into the space of the broken one."
Niven scratched his head. "I'm sorry you… sold your kidney?"
"Yes." Stockwell said flatly.
"So when we open you up we should see… what?" Vera asked.
"You're probably going to see a bunch of broken metal and synthetic membranes; bio-plastics and titanium, intermingled with my blood vessels. Just rip it all out. Once you've cleaned it up, just splash the potion on thick."
Niven and Vera exchanged a glance with each other.
"Alright. Any other weird things we should know?"
Stockwell shook his head. "The only other modifications I have are a shielded spinal column and skull, and biomesh lungs. You shouldn't run into anything else in my abdomen."
"Got it. Niven."
Vera reached out her hand to Niven for a knife.
They had agreed beforehand that Vera would be the one to conduct the surgery while Niven assisted. This was because as a necromancer, Vera had experience working with these kinds of things.
"H-Here."
Niven handed her the knife. It was nothing more than a thin blade of steel, thoroughly disinfected via alcohol.
Stockwell would not be using any form of anesthesia. Although they had the tools on hand to make chloroform and diethyl ether, both of them could potentially lead to life threatening complications if administered incorrectly or if they were contaminated during their synthesis.
Moreover, this procedure was only expected to last a minute due to the health potion's ability to quickly mend blood vessels and close wounds.
But most importantly, Stockwell was a scientist. He wanted to observe the effects of the magical healing around his lost kidney.
Vera looked at Stockwell. "Are you ready?"
He nodded. "Yes. Go for it."
Vera went to work, carving deep into his abdomen.
Stockwell stifled a scream as he felt the movement of the knife.
The procedure would hurt regardless, so Vera made a point to just do it as quickly as possible.
Stockwell's legs kicked about instinct, but luckily their movement was contained by the straps.
"Niven, rags please."
"O-On it." Niven stuttered. His face was pale as he saw the blood pouring from the cavity that Vera was making. He closed one eye and turned away as he began to sop up blood with a towel.
Sweat rolled from Stockwells face as he grunted curses under his breath.
"Are you there yet?" He said breathlessly.
"Almost, I'm pulling aside your liver now." Vera said. "I think I can see the metal you were talking about."
Ten seconds passed.
"There. I can see the kidney. Seems you were right about it not healing correctly."
"Let me see." Stockwell grunted. "N-Niven. Hold up the mirror.
Niven shakily held up a mirror over Stockwell while Vera held the incision open so that stockwell could see into the cavity.
Stockwell peered deep into his abdomen, past his wriggling muscles and pulsing blood vessels.
Where his kidney would normally be was instead a mass of fragmented titanium pieces, bound loosely together by a series of synthetic meshes that used to filter his flood of pollutants. Grounding into this mass of metal was a large lump of scar tissue.
It seemed like that healing potion had not actually tried to replace his missing kidney, but had merely tried to heal the openings of his blood vessels that were left when he removed his original kidney.
This seems to imply that a health potion could not replace a body part if it was lost a long time ago. This called for more testing to see how long that time period was.
"T-Thank you. I got it." Stockwell wheezed in pain. "You can finish up now."
"Understood."
Vera quickly began to use her gloved hands to scoop out every bit of metal she could find.
Unfortunately, as titanium was not ferromagnetic, she could not use a magnet to find all the little pieces at once.
"Niven, keep it open." Vera said sharply. "Steady, you're causing Wesley pain."
Niven's hands shook as he held the incision open for Vera.
She thoroughly felt through the flesh with her fingers for hard bits of metal, making sure to extract even the tiniest fragments.
About a minute later, Vera was confident she had gotten everything.
A bloody lump of metal and plastic sat on the table beside Stockwell. As Stockwell observed the discarded kidney, he marveled at how he could practically see the cut the worker had put through it with his sword.
"Potion." Vera said.
Niven handed her a small vial of red liquid. She gently poured it over the wound.
The flesh knit together before their eyes, and before he knew it, Stockwell's pain had disappeared. One would know he had just undergone surgery were it not for the large amount of blood on his chest and the bloody towels on the table.
He sighed with relief.
"Thanks, you two. Hopefully we won't have to do the same thing with my skull at some point."
Vera smiled tieredly.
"I'm going to go throw up now." Niven said as he ran out the door.
Note: Maruyama has a habit of revealing catastrophically huge world building details in one off throw away lines. My favorite one is where Ainz mentions that the oceans are fresh water.
There was also a line in the Holy Kingdom Arc where Ainz mentions that air resistance did not get stronger when falling faster, making it so there was no terminal velocity. I am Ignoring this line. Why? Because it's simply so world breaking that there is no way to rationalize it.
I assume the point of the line was to allude to how video games often don't have terminal velocities, but it still doesn't work in regards to the New World.
If drag did not grow exponentially with velocity, birds and insects would not be able to fly, sailing ships could accelerate up to the same speed as the wind with enough time, and the fletching on arrows would be far less effective.
It's just something I found way too hard to incorporate, same story with the oceans not being salty. The geological and ecological impacts of a fresh water ocean are too vast to even try to understand, but luckily, that was just a rumor that Ainz heard so I can just say it's not true until canon demands otherwise.
Also, regarding how the New World's parameters are so similar to Earth's parameters… I can only assume that is the case because Ainz certainly would've pointed out to the reader by now if there were drastic geological and ecological differences. At the bare minimum, because the horizon is evidently the same distance and gravity is the same strength, the New World is definitely the same size and shape as Earth. And the fact that the sky is blue, the plants green, and the humans/animals having evidently normal lungs, the atmosphere, sun, and magnetic fields are practically the same.