The two ninjas exhaled and ran.
Normal people would not be able to follow the way they flitted from dark corner to dark corner. On top of that, when they used their magic items, even high-leveled adventurers would have a very hard time spotting them. In other words, nobody in the village could detect them.
One of them flashed a series of hand signals to her companion as they ran. Though it was merely a series of finger-bending movements, the meaning was immediately clear.
—We're lucky they didn't have dogs.
Came the reply: "Agreed".
—Then, I'll head for my designated building.
She replied, "Got it", and then her companion peeled away and to the side.
This left her to run by herself. She glanced aside to the fields.
Those fields did not grow wheat, grains or green vegetables. The plants there were the raw ingredient for a forbidden drug whose spread was on the rise throughout the Kingdom, called "Black Dust". There were many such fields within the walls of this village, and they all grew the same crop. This proved that this village was a center of drug cultivation.
Her task was to recover all the intelligence within this building, and then to set the fields on fire.
The thick smoke emitted by the burning drugs was poisonous, but it had to be done to complete the mission.
It was quite possible that the wind might carry the smoke in a direction that would harm the villagers, but they did not have the time or the ability to evacuate the villagers.
Sacrifices must be made.
With those words to herself, she cast all thoughts of the villagers' safety out of her mind.
This was not the only site which grew the raw materials for drugs. According to their research, there were ten large-scale plantations within the Kingdom, and those might not even be all of them. Otherwise, they would not be able to sustain the massive quantities of drugs being trafficked throughout the Kingdom.
While she had still been an assassin, she had used Black Dust on occasions, and her organization had grown the plants needed to make it. As a result, she was not personally opposed to the substance. Drugs like that could be put to efficacious use if applied properly. The fact was that it was simply just a medicinal herb.
All we can do is pull up the weeds where we find them… it's tiring, but there's no other way...
Ideally, they would be able to find written orders within this village, but that was not likely. All they could do was hope that this village's supervisor or equivalent had information of similar importance.
Leader would be happy if we could find some traces of the organization's involvement in this...
She ran off into the dark field and crouched underneath the crops. She sized up the building in front of her.
… What would be the best way to approach this—
FLASH
What!?
A pair of what she thought must have been magical lights flooded the field with white.
Did they expect us to come here!?
She heard the shrill voice of an old lady.
"There was going to be a raid on our village after all! Rhamnusia-sama was right!"
She put her hand up to the light and squinted. All she could make out was the silhouette of half a dozen villagers. It was hard to see in the light, but they looked to be holding staves.
Suddenly she heard an explosion. The dirt at her feet erupted into a small burst.
What was that!?
"Get out of our village you cut throat! We won't miss next time!"
She realized that she needed to do something. She ran horizontally, trying to get out of the light.
"Don't think you can come into our village and get away with it!"
The spotlight turned to follow her.
What is this!? It's so bright! I can't hide like this!
"Did you think we would just let you burn our fields!? Children live here! We need these crops to survive!"
I need to do something! But I don't want to intentionally kill innocent villagers with my own hands!
She called out as she continued to run in the blinding light.
"No! It's not like that! We're just trying to help you!"
"Enough of your lies! Get her!"
Several more explosions went off and she heard several things whiz past her ears. The ground at her feet erupted into puffs of dirt. A single shot entered her arm. She reeled in pain.
"Aaugh!"
What are those weapons!? They're so fast! I need to-
"Gah!"
She heard her teammate's voice from across the village followed by several more small explosions.
"Tia! What's going on here!?"
She drew her dagger and squinted into the light once more.
"So you were planning on killing us then! You scoundrel!"
Bang.
She felt an intense pain in her hand. She reeled and the dagger fell from her grasp.
The silhouette of the villagers also seemed surprised.
"Nice shot! Who did that?"
A silhouette of a woman appeared in the light.
"Don't be too impressed, all of you are using smooth bore muskets. I have an unfair advantage."
"Calico-sama!"
Who is she!?
She squinted through the blinding light and was able to just make out the terrifying mask that the woman named Calico was wearing. She was pointing another one of the staves at her.
"I suggest you flee, Assassin, I only miss when I want to. You dared to attack these people's homes and now they're irate."
The assassin stood in the light not knowing what to do.
Suddenly she heard her ally from across the village, apparently she was undergoing the same treatment.
"Tia! Retreat! We're falling back!"
"Understood!"
She turned away from the light and ran back into the night while the villagers cheered.
…
Rhamnusia stood atop a platform as he watched the criminal grunts load crates into the warehouse floor beneath him.
We don't have the level of technology nor the resources to pull off the large-scale production of nitric acid via the Harber and Ostwald processes, so we'll just have to make it with naturally occurring nitrates for now.
"Hurry up."
He glared at the grunts. They quickened the speed at which they worked.
I must admit working with a criminal organization is astonishingly useful.
The eight-fingers had an extensive network of information. Thanks to them, he now knew all the dirty connections that the nobility had made. Apparently, Marquis Blumrush was quite well connected.
The man had been selling information to the nobility faction for some time. Stockwell wondered if he could use that to blackmail him later down the line.
Stockwell was careful however not to exploit the criminal organization too much.
He currently had an untouchable position having forcefully taken over the security division which everyone had no choice but to rely upon. However, it was conceivable that if he made too many demands the other branches would find the courage to shake him off.
That was why it was important to make clear that Rhamnusia was here not as a conqueror, but as a benefactor.
Firstly, he would have to supplement the loss of the six arms with his so-called "magical weapons."
Additionally he would endeavor to make some improvements wherever possible. For example, he wanted to give a gift to Hilma by improving her drug.
He sighed.
That Hilma… calls herself the leader of a drug trade when she couldn't even tell me the basic chemistry of her drug of choice. Took me a millisecond to figure out that it was some kind of opiate. We'll go ahead and do her work for her and refine it into heroin. Haha, that was funny seeing those villagers see floodlights for the first time. It also seems like arming them with muskets is good enough to scare off any private force that people throw at them.
Though having thought that, he was unsure how long the muskets would remain an effective deterrent. So far, they have been able to scare off enemies due to the element of surprise, but given the strength of the superhumans he had observed in this world, it was unlikely they would hold up against dedicated action by super humans.
The grunts working underneath him shivered as they heard the menacing laughter.
We have a decent supply of natural sulfur in Moot to make sulfuric acid. Once we combine that with the sodium nitrate here we'll have a messy but usable source of nitric acid. And once that happens, we'll finally be able to start getting guncotton and dynamite. Thankfully, we'll also be able to subsidize our rapidly declining stockpile of potassium nitrate for gunpowder once we get nitric acid up and running.
He looked out over the stacks of crates filling up the warehouse floor.
He had taken out a loan from the banking division of the eight-fingers in order to purchase the mines from which the sodium nitrate came from. Of course, he never intended to pay off the loan.
It would be a long time before that banking division head worked up the courage to go after a scary demon like Rhamnusia, and by then, he should hopefully be in the good graces of the rest of the branches.
Moreover, money laundering was easy in the New World. Rather, money didn't really need to be laundered in the first place. Unlike on Earth, all transactions were done in cash and audits were extremely easy to fool.
Rhamnusia could simply give the gold to Wesley Aamon of E-Pespel Steelworks and no one would ever know.
Rhamnusia nodded proudly to himself, everything seemed to be going to plan.
It's only a matter of time until the 'Grey Wolf' takes over all industry in Re-Estize thanks to Princess Renner's and the Royal faction's help. Renner obviously knows I'm planning on making some drastic changes in the kingdom, of which she seems fine with as long as I promise its stability and that she gets to live in peace with that dog of hers. But the royal faction is only cooperating with me to weaken the noble faction, so they're probably beginning to grow weary of my growing power. They might be beginning to suspect that I won't stop at just the kingdom's industry.
He smiled evilly under his mask.
It seems like I'll have to take Raeven and the others out of the picture once my position is powerful enough to stand on its own against the inevitable royal decrees that are coming my way once I start threatening the kingdom with economic collapse. Hopefully Renner has my back when that happens as well, but I doubt she'll find anyone else better to ally herself with.
His actual plans for the kingdom were still a bit vague in his mind.
He abhorred the way things were done on Earth and wanted to make a society as unilaterally opposed to it as possible. It would probably involve a lot of guillotines and firing squads.
He also wanted to publicly release his scientific knowledge in its entirety, as he saw science as the rightful inheritance of all mankind. However, he needed to be careful with how he went about it since it would undoubtedly cause a tremendous amount of instability and other unforeseen problems.
Rhamnusia nodded grandly to himself.
Alright, it's about time for my meeting with the head of the assassination department. Everyone seems to be doing fine here.
He turned on his heel and left the grunts to finish loading the crates.
Chlorine gas seems to be an effective weapon for now, but we're eventually going to need something that's a bit more potent. Hopefully I can gain some good insight into exactly how deadly chemical warfare can get in this world.
He held no illusions about what he was doing.
But this was all just a means to an end.
...
Oh god, what does he want with just me personally!?
Oscas was panicking inside as he was being led into a tiny dark room by the demon. So far, Rhamnusia had only asked things of the departments as a whole, and had yet to ask anything of anybody personally.
They stepped into the room and the door closed behind them, leaving the two of them alone.
"Sit, relax, this won't take long."
The head of the assassination department hesitantly sat down at the only table in the cramped room. Rhamnusia took the seat opposite him.
"So Oscas, I hear that you're quite the poisoner."
Oscas nodded shakily.
"Yes, Rhamnusia-sama. Assassination is my trade. I'm no good with stealth or the like, so I've always relied on alchemy to poison my targets."
The demon nodded in understanding.
"Hmm, I see, then let's talk about alchemy, shall we?"
Oscas shakily looked down at the table, trying to avoid looking at the grotesque mask.
"Of course, Rhamnusia-sama, what would you like to talk about?"
"From what I've heard, alchemy is magical art, meaning that all poisons and potions produced with alchemy work via the rules of magic, correct?"
Oscas nodded his head cautiously.
"Yes. It is as you say, all alchemy is just a way for magic casters to preserve magic in a liquid form so that they can use it for later. This can be achieved by either bringing out the magical properties of naturally occurring ingredients or, if you're skilled enough, simply by casting magic into a liquid medium."
Rhamnusia sat deep in thought.
"So tell me about these latent magical properties of ingredients. What determines what these properties are?"
Oscas thought for a moment.
"Well, I don't know who decides what the latent properties of herbs and ingredients are. Gods maybe? All I know is that some herbs and ingredients have a small amount of magic inside of them that can be brought forth by an alchemist's magic."
"So what you're saying is that these properties are preordained?"
"Correct."
"So do these properties change when manipulating ingredients chemically?"
"Chemically?"
"Pardon me, I mean that if I were to say, take an herb and grind it down, and then combine it with other non-magical substances, would its magical properties change?"
"No, as far as I know, the latent magic in materials always stays the same. Meaning that no matter how much you mess with a healing herb, the final product will always have a healing effect."
Rhamnusia sat it thought once more.
"Okay, I get the picture. So then tell me, what actually happens when a poison enters someone's body."
"Yes."
Oscas paused for a second as he accessed the vast library of alchemical knowledge in his mind.
"As you said earlier, alchemy is indeed a magical art, so its effects are counted as a magical attack rather than a physical one. When the poison enters the body, it simply transfers the magic contained within the liquid into it, thus poisoning the target. As such, they act quickly and it's possible to bring someone to their knees or kill them in a matter of seconds. There is also a wide range of effects the alchemist can choose, such as paralysis, confusion, and blindness, just to name a few."
Oscas had forgotten about his fear of the demon as he talked about his trade. He smirked a little.
"I'm probably the best poisoner in this country, only something as powerful as third tier cleansing spells can hope to counter my poisons."
Rhamnusia didn't seem impressed, and simply sat in thought.
That confirms it then. I never would've been able to create new elixirs in the first place since I can't cast magic. Ingredients have preordained magical effects that can't be exploited chemically. My experiments weren't wrong, it was impossible to try in the first place.
"So speaking of counters, how are poisons generally stopped?
Oscas twitched. It was a rather unpleasant thing for him to talk about considering his line of work.
"AS I said, poisons are really nothing more than liquids that have been, one way or another, imbued with powerful magic. As such, they can be nullified by equally powerful cleansing magic."
"Cleansing magic?"
"Yes. It's a magic that destroys the powerful magic that alchemists imbue into their poisons. I once heard that there was a priest among the thirteen hero's who had access to 6th level cleansing spells."
Stockwell nodded in understanding. He had heard of the thirteen heroes before ant attributed them as being motley just an exaggeration,
"So how does this cleansing magic work against poisons that are inherently non-magical?"
Oscas cocked his head.
"What do you mean by poisons that are inherently non-magical?"
"I mean things that can poison you without magic, things like snake venom and arsenic."
Suddenly Oscas nodded in understanding.
"Ahhh, I see, yes. Those kinds of poisons can't be dealt with normal cleansing magic since they're not magical and need to be dealt with on a case by case basis. Thankfully, (or not depending on how you look at it), people have already developed dozens of specific counter spells for each and every known non-magical poison. So if you were to say, get poisoned by arsenic, then you could go to a temple and it's very likely that one of the healers there would know the spell to eliminate it. Besides, non-magical poisons are rubbish compared to alchemical ones, they usually take too long to activate or simply aren't deadly enough. No one really uses them."
"Also, trying to use a poison like that in a battle isn't effective. They're always slow, and normal healing magic can usually counteract some of the direct damage done by non-magical potions." Oscars concluded.
Rhamnusia sat deep in thought.
"So what if the same thing happened and there was no one around who knew the specific spell for countering arsenic?"
Oscas paused for a moment.
"...Well, I guess then your only option is to be constantly receiving healing spells while suffering through the pain. But I doubt anyone would ever actually find themselves in that kind of situation."
Rhamnusia nodded in understanding.
"So how long does it take to develop these counter spells?"
"Healers are usually able to develop such things fairly quickly, depending on how common the poison is. Within a few years maybe? Also, many counter spells work for multiple types of poisons. So It may not even be necessary to develop a new one." Oscas said.
"For example, the counterspell for one type of snake venom usually works on most types of snakes and so on."
I see. Stockwell thought. The counter spells must be designed to protect a certain biological mechanism. There's probably a neurotoxin counter spell, a heavy metal counterspell, a blood agent counterspell and so forth.
"Though," Oscas continued, "I do remember there was some big news a little while back when someone discovered a new type of poisonous mushroom and poisoners started using it left and right. The temples and third party healers banded together and they managed to develop a counter spell to it within a year. There haven't been any notable discoveries about non-magical poisons since then though. I imagine we've discovered and countered all of them by now."
Hmmm So this world has already developed counter measures against most naturally occurring toxins. However, from what he's saying, it seems like if I were to use chemistry to create a poisonous compound that they've never encountered before, then they would have very little defense against it, at least, not for a while.
Rhamnusia began to chuckle evilly, making Oscas shudder.
"In that case, I want all the arsenic and cyanide you have access to."
Oscas seemed confused.
"Are you sure? Arsenic isn't really effective as poison since it's relatively slow to take effect. And besides, there are a load of priests who know the counterspell."
"I expect so, but I want us to do a little experimenting. Also are the alchemical poisons you make water based?"
"Yes?"
"We'll need some of those too, I take it you don't know how to chemically concentrate them."
Rhamnusiama smiled and patted Oscas on the shoulder. "I think we'll be getting very well acquainted."
...
Stockwell sat in Renner's room, eyeing the woman named Lakyus Alvein Dale Aindra. She was wearing a beautiful pink dress which gave her the image of a dainty maiden. Yet despite her appearance, she was supposedly one of the most powerful adventurers in the kingdom.
As I recall, she should be stronger than that lancer I shot down the other day, what was his name? Malmvist? I wonder how many bullets it would take to kill her… It would be really good to capture someone like that alive to further my research... Damn, maybe I shouldn't have killed that armored guy. Ah, but…
"human experimentation is a step too far." Was a thought that crossed his mind.
Lakyus shivered when she felt his eyes. It was like those of a snake trying to determine if its prey would fit inside his mouth.
She ignored the creepy man and continued her conversation with Renner.
"And how much money will be lost in planting other crops during these six years?"
"That would depend on the crops in question. However, assuming a normal yield is 1, I think the yield would go down to 0.8… in other words, it's a 20% loss of revenue. However, after the sixth year, the yield will go up by 0.3 forever. I'm sure the figure will be higher if we add pastures for livestock into the mix."
"...That does sound quite tempting, but can farmers really take a loss of 20% of their income for six whole years?"
"...I think we could have the country extend interest-free loans to compensate for the 20% loss and then ask for repayment after the yields return to normal… If the yields don't go up, then it won't have to be repaid, or there could be some other way. The important thing is that once the yields go up, the loans can be paid off in four years."
"That might be hard."
"Why is that?"
"I told you, didn't I? People prefer to focus on immediate gains, and many people want stability. A lot of people will hesitate even if you tell them they'll be able to get 130% of their original crops in six years."
"I… don't get it. It worked really well on the test field…"
Stockwell turned his head to Renner.
I must admit though, this monster is a brilliant actor. It's only me, the prince, and Raeven who know that she's acting.
Stockwell turned his head back to Lakyus and the two women continued to converse.
Still though, chlorine is simply a membrane destroying asphyxiation hazard. It could be easily negated if someone protects their head… how would Mrs. Superhuman react to a blister agent? The rats aren't tough enough to produce reliable measurements… Maybe we should look for some more monstrous creatures that we can still breed and control… but we go through them so quickly that they'd have to reproduce at a similar rate to rats…
"Then how about asking the merchants…"
I can use the arsenic to make organoarsenic compounds including lewisite, so that should be good. But we'll have to change our equipment so that we don't get any on our skin, and we'll have to get different filters for the gas masks as well. It may simply be better to just get rid of filtration altogether and use air tanks...
He realized that the two women were looking at him.
"Hm?"
Renner giggled and continued.
"We were wondering if you could compensate for the 20% loss that farmers would have to deal with if we went ahead and implemented the crop rotation. I'll make sure you're repaid when crop yields return to normal of course."
That's a hefty price, but It shouldn't really hurt me now that I'm receiving assistance from the nobility faction and also leeching off the Eight Finger's funds. Besides, it'll be beneficial in the long run once the time comes for economic war with the surrounding nations.
"Of course, it's no problem at all."
Renner smiled and nodded. Suddenly, she turned her head to the door.
"See Climb, Wesley-san isn't a bad person."
Cimmb, who had been watching from the crack in the doorway, stiffened up.
He slowly opened the door, "P-Pardon."
He bowed stiffly. "Good morning, Renner-sama, Aindra-sama, W-Wesley-sama."
Stockwell caught Climb's cautious glance as he made his way behind the princess.
Renner keeps a good watch dog. Well, more like a watch puppy. Poor kid.
A voice stopped him as Climb walked.
"Climb, not there. Here."
Renner indicated the chair to her right.
"But…"
Ahhh~ This is stupid.
Stockwell rolled his eyes as he watched the pitiful scene of the two women forcing the boy to sit next to the princess.
"Aindra-sama, please don't tease me."
"Fine fine fine. You really are a stick in the mud, aren't you, Climb? You should learn not to get hung up on details like her."
"Eh? Teasing?"
Faced with Renner's look of surprise, Lakyus froze in an incredibly fake way before exhaling with exaggerated intensity.
"Of course. Well, Climb is special, but that's because he's yours."
Renner's face flushed pink, and she clapped her hands to her cheeks.
Stockwell studied the boy.
From what Renner's told me so far, her love for this child is genuine— genuinely psychotic. She's probably trustworthy. It seems like she hasn't figured out the connection between me and Rhamnusia at the very least since she still lets me sit in on all of these meetings. Or maybe she has and she doesn't mind? Yes, she's smart, so the latter is more likely. But then why the insistence of going after the Eight-Fingers? Is she actually letting me sit in to try and extract information about the Eight-Fingers in some roundabout way? I wouldn't put it past her…
Suddenly Climb flinched. A form had appeared from the shadows of the room. Stockwell, Renner, and Lakyus had already known she was there since they were just talking to her.
Tia's tone was annoyed.
"Don't you think we've drifted quite a ways off-topic? Let's get back to the previous discussion."
"Yes, the Eight-Fingers. We were talking about how we attacked one of their drug-producing villages the other day."
Stockwell hid his smirk.
Tia and Lakyus nodded grimly.
"The drug-producing villages are now being protected by a demon named 'Rhamnusia'. They're rallying behind him like he's some kind of savior."
Lakyus nodded in understanding.
"It makes sense though. Those kinds of villages are desperate since they're resorting to relying on the Eight-Fingers. From their perspective, we're the bad guys, cutting off their last chance of survival."
"But the black dust is still hurting more people than it's saving, so we have no choice but to pull the weeds."
Everyone in the room agreed. They didn't like it, but sacrifices had to be made for the greater good.
"If they were rallying behind someone normal, then it would be fine, we would still be able to deal with it, but…"
Renner cocked her head innocently. "But…?"
"This demon, Rhamnusia. He's anything but normal."
"How so?"
"He possesses powerful magic items, and he's giving them to the villages."
Stockwell hid his smirk once more. Magic items, don't make me laugh.
"What kind of magic items?"
"Well there was this one that produced an incredibly bright light. Much stronger than anything I've seen before, it was able to expose me through my stealth skills. It must have been made by a powerful light element enchanter."
So that's your interpretation of a magnesium filament burning inside of a parabolic mirror, what a joke.
Lakyus seemed surprised.
"That sounds like quite an achievement. I've seen you hide from torches held just feet away from your face. Whoever must have enchanted it is probably famous, we'll follow up on this."
Tia nodded and continued.
"But that isn't the one I'm worrying about."
"There's more?"
"Indeed, the villagers also had magical weapons that were able to spit metal."
"Spit metal?"
"Yes, the projectiles were moving too fast for even me to track them. And they hurt too. I was hit twice and both times they completely pierced my body, more powerful than heavy bows and arrows. I would've been in a bad place if I had been hit in the head or the heart."
Lakyus stood up.
"That's insane. And you said that common villagers were wielding them?"
Tia nodded grimly.
"Magical weapons require at least some skill to wield as well. If common villagers were able to do that much damage to you, then imagine what they could do in the hands of someone skilled."
Tia rubbed her hand that had been healed.
"I think there was someone who was skilled there. A woman, I think I caught her name was Calico. She's likely a close subordinate of Rhamnusia. I might've been able to do something if I could've seen her clearly through the light, but it is what it is. I think it's a very bad idea to go up against those weapons without a plan."
Stockwell smirked again. That's Vera for you, talents are crazy effective.
Lakyus sat down and thought.
"That sounds terrifying, I'm sorry, we should've sent you two more support. I'm glad that you made it out alright. We'll look into tracking down Rhamnusia and his magical weapons."
The five of them sat in troubled silence for a while until Lakyus spoke up.
"It seems like the Eight-Fingers are really starting to become a problem then. First, two of the six-great nobles die in some scandal with the Eight-Fingers, and now, the drug trade is growing more powerful. Hopefully we'll be able to come up with counter measures before they really start to get out of hand."
…
Vera yawned at the reins, she had been driving for quite some time and they were finally beginning to see the familiar surroundings outside of Moot. Niven had been working tirelessly in the back of the wagon for nearly the entire trip.
After making connections within the Eight Fingers, Stockwell said that he could handle things on his own for a while, so he had sent the two of them back to Moot to complete a few assignments.
"Hey, Niven, aren't you tired?"
The boy was happily scribbling on a piece of parchment. He looked up
"Sorry, come again, Vera?"
"*Yawn* Aren't you tired Niven? Wesley gave you a bunch of homework pretty much the moment we sprug you from that prison cell. When was the last time you've taken a break?"
"Take a break!? How could I ever think of science as work? It's just too much fun!"
"I see…"
Vera didn't need to turn her head to know that the boy was giving her a big, child-like grin.
Of course, Vera could tell that this was mostly just a facade. Whatever had happened to Niven in the short time he was in the custody of the eight-fingers, Niven had not wanted to talk about it. Stockwell elected that they not pry into it further and let the boy cope at his own pace.
"So what is it that you're actually doing then? I saw that you were dealing with those drugs, what was it again? Black dust?"
"Mhmm! Master said that he was 99% sure that it was actually something called opium. My assignment is to analyze and isolate the active narcotic molecule, and then if possible, to concentrate and enhance its- Wait, what!? Oh! I got it! Eureka!"
"Eureka? What's that-"
"Look at this Miss Vera!"
Niven assaulted her from behind and made her jerk the horse's reins. Niven practically pushed the piece of parchment into her face.
"Hey! I can't see!"
"Oh, sorry!"
Niven sheepishly smiled and held it out further from her face so she could actually read it.
In the middle of the parchment was a large figure made completely of hexagons, lines, and letters. She recognized the English letters for "C", "H", "O", and "N".
"What is it?"
"It's the skeletal structure for the narcotic! It affects the things in our brains called opioid receptors and it's what actually makes the drug work!"
"I see…"
She hadn't the faintest idea of how the odd diagram on the piece of parchment made the black dust work, but she did understand that the boy was happy, which made her smile.
"That's great Niven, I'm sure Wesley will praise you when we go back to the capital."
"Mhmm! And now that I've identified the molecule, the next step after this is to try to figure out how to isolate and enhance its effects. Master did give me hints on how to do that once we get back to Moot."
Vera smiled and steadied the horse as they began to pass over the final hill of their journey.
"And speaking of Moot, we're here."
They passed over the grassy crest and they both gazed in amazement at the village below them. Niven realized just how much it's changed since the scientist's arrival.
So many things had been added to its otherwise blissfully bucolic facade. The were able to spy the large foundry spitting crimson sparks into the air, the geothermal generator and saline pond that contrasted with the blighted yellow land across the lake, the giant steam engine that sat outside the blacksmith's workshop, the half a dozen massive steel containers used for making multitudes of different acids and chemicals, and the new building that held Stockwell's laboratory, which, while looking normal on the outside, fostered and entirely alien world within.
They shook the awe out of their heads and Vera turned to the boy.
"Do you still have that list of the things that we need to do?"
Niven nodded and pulled out a tattered notebook.
"Yeah, it says we need to…
1. Dig out an additional space for more rat pens.
2. Upgrade the geothermal generator. Master already gave me a design to follow so I can probably manage that on my own. It's only a couple small tweaks, but I might need two or three of your skeletons for some extra muscle.
3. Lay the foundations for an electric fence around Moot.
4. Refine the opiate. I totally got that under control
5. Finally erect that radio transmission tower— assuming Faber's finished rolling the steel.
5. Stockpile Sulfuric Acid. Like the geothermal generator, he already gave me a design to follow for streamlining our system, he also gave me some vanadium to use as a catalyst during the reaction, so we should have no problems there.
And 6. Start work on a proper electronics workshop. We need to build another building. Though we can delegate that to the villagers. He also said that we might need to get an arc furnace up and running so we can start making silicon and really bump up our steel production to new heights."
Niven smiled and nodded. He used one hand to swiftly close the notebook with a satisfying *thwup*.
"That sounds like a lot of work…" Vera muttered.
"We don't have to do it all at once. And we have the entire village helping us! We can afford to just let the fields go now that the taxes are low and Master is buying food from the city." Niven giggled. "Also, Master said he'd join us in a few weeks."
Vera nodded in affirmative and continued down the hill.
…
Stockwell's residence in the capital was luxuriously furnished for the primary purpose of impressing guests, any actual comfort the added opulence brought was secondary.
He spent most of his time in a makeshift workstation in a room out of the way from the main living areas. Most of his materials were kept in Moot, but he did have a few chemicals and tools on hand for when he wished to tinker around with things.
Several pieces of equipment were laid out before him on a workbench.
They were magic items taken from the corpses of the six arms. According to what he heard, they should be by and large the most powerful magic items in the Re-Estize Kingdom, with the only items revealing it being Gazef Stronoff's gear and the items used by adamantite adventurers.
Vera didn't know any appraisal magic, so they had been forced to buy scrolls of 「Appraisal」 from the magicians guild and had her use that instead.
Let's see...
Stockwell carefully read the notes Vera left behind about what she had deduced about the items.
First were the things that Zero had worn. They looked like a simple cloth belt and arm bands, and a pair of boots.
Monk's Black Belt and Armbands of the Beast King. She says here that the belt increases strength and the power of unarmed attacks. The armbands increase the effectiveness of unarmed skills. Hmm…
He put the belt on. Immediately he felt his muscles fill with strength.
Wow… This stuff is insane. Probably won't be able to utilize the unarmed attacks enhancement or the armbands, but the additional strength feels almost… magical.
He also tried on the boots and just as it was with the belt, he felt power fill his legs.
Stockwell was not out of shape, but neither would he be considered an athlete. Yet, just putting on the belt and boots filled him with a sense that he could go toe to toe with a world class-athlete from Earth. If he put on any more magical items it was conceivable that he would even exceed the normal limits of his human body
But considering that people of the New World performed superhuman feats on a regular basis, this was nothing to write home about.
Let's see what else we got here…
He went down the list of all the other artifacts.
Hate Amber Earrings, Brilliant Diamond Necklace, and Slyphide from Edstrom.
Whetstone of Keane and Move Plus Boots from Malmvsit.
Cat's Elegance, Spear-Blocking Hood, and Ring of Energy Boost from Succulent.
Deflection Ring, Cloak of Fire Protection, and Orb of Magical Boost from Davernoc.
Scabbard of Haste and Gauntlet of the Giant from Peshurian.
And mixed among them were many miscellaneous rings and trinkets that instilled weak passive buffs.
A lot of the items he would have no issue wearing beneath his normal equipment, but if he wanted to use some of the larger items, they would need some modification.
He examined the full suit of black plate armor Peshurian had worn. So it's called "Total War", eh? Pretty hard.
The armor offered slightly better protection than his own, but it was far heavier and bulkier, so he obviously wouldn't be able to use it as is.
It has a very high adamantite and orichalcum content, it's probably better to just melt it down for the metal.
As for this "Gauntlet of the Giant"...
He put the black metal gauntlet on his left hand. Supposedly it should increase the weight I can carry and increase my vitality. I'll see how much of the gauntlet I can slim down before it loses its magical properties. It would be beneficial to sneak a few mechanisms into something like this.
But how does this "carry weight increase" even work?
He picked up the heavy metal chest piece with his hand.
It feels lighter than normal… but?
He experimented by moving the chest piece closer and further from his chest and feeling how his balance changed.
It's like my center of balance is behaving as normal despite the object feeling lighter. This is confusing. I can hear Newton rolling in his grave. I should get a scale and do some more experiments to see how it works.
He figured he might as well try the rest of the items all at once just to see how it felt. Purely for the sake of science, and not just because his body felt wonderful doing it, or so he told himself.
After taking a minute to equip all of the items, he looked at himself in a mirror. To put it simply, he looked horrendous. Between the differing boots, earrings, necklaces and sashes, nothing was even close matching. However, the sensation he felt was beyond empowering.
He hadn't the faintest doubt in his mind that he could shatter every athletic record set by humans from Earth. And it wasn't just matters of strength and agility either. His senses felt honed to a fine point, so much so that he resisted the urge to take out his rifle and start target shooting.
Though as quickly as the sensations of power came, they began to fade. It appeared that acclimation to magic items came about quite rapidly. He reasoned that maybe it was best to not accidentally get hooked on this kind of thing.
He took off the items with a draining sensation that made him frown and he neatly packed them back up to their original places. He would definitely be incorporating them into his gear as best as he could.
…
Stockwell sat at the desk in his residence scribbling numbers on a business ledger when he noticed orange light filtering through the window.
Almost sundown, I should see if things are up and running yet.
He went into his small workshop and placed a large box with several knobs and gauges attached to it on the bench. He extended an antenna upwards from the box.
It was a radio transceiver.
It hadn't been too hard to make all things considered. The most difficult components to make were individual vacuum tube triodes within the device that turned the radio signals into a useful voltage that the speaker could convert into a distinguishable sound.
The speaker took quite a lot of trial and error to make. It wasn't as simple as hooking up a small electromagnet to a diaphragm and calling it a day as Stockwell had previously hoped. Regardless, they had got there in the end if not a bit clumsily.
Stockwell attached the microphone and speaker to the transceiver. Both devices looked like large, excessively flared trombone bells.
Now then…
He hooked up the transceiver to a battery and switched it on.
The sound of static softly exited the speaker.
He then began slowly turning the dial on the transceiver to search across many ranges of frequencies.
If he had been doing this on Earth, he would've easily come across a thousand distinct signals by now. But in this world, there was nothing.
Stockwell marveled at how utterly silent this world was.
It filled him with a strange emotion he couldn't quite place.
Eventually he settled on a frequency he had prearranged with Niven.
Gotcha.
A low buzz came through the speaker, louder than the static it emerged from.
This signal was from a transmitter set up in one of their foundries in E-Pespel to serve as a relay.
He let the speaker buzz away while he went to grab a history book to pass the time.
After only about a few minutes, he heard the buzz suddenly stop, followed by a voice.
"...Bzzzrrr...Hello? Faber are you there?...Brrrzzz..."
It sounded like Niven's voice.
Then a second voice appeared. It was Faber.
"...Brzzz…I read you loud and clear, kid. The E-Pespel relay is working…"
Stockwell picked up the microphone on the transceiver and flicked a switch.
"And this is Stockwell, can you read me?"
A moment passed before he heard both voices replied with enthusiasm.
"Stockwell! Master!"
"I guess that means you read me. Well done you two. I can hear you all the way in Re-Estize. You're a little scratchy, but intelligible."
The three of them ran some tests with the signal as Stockwell directed. Eventually, it was time to go offline.
"Alright, thanks for the help you two, I'll see you in Moot in a couple weeks."
…
Stockwell threw open the door to his laboratory in Moot with exaggerated bravado.
"Knock Knock! Guess who's back!"
"Master!"
Niven and Vera were sitting together at one of the workbenches going over a sheet of paper with several drawings on it. Niven was teaching Vera supplementary lessons on the nature of electricity.
"Hi, Wesley."
"I take it you're doing homework, Vera?"
She nodded.
"Any progress?"
"Some." Vera smirked.
She raised a finger towards a metal globe attached to a pole sitting at the rear of the workbench. Immediately, a thin electrical arc jumped out from her finger and collided with the globe.
This was not a magical form of lightning created by known tier magic. It was her own spell. A spell that controlled actual, physical electric charge.
"I still need the help of the globe to get a sense for it."
The globe in question was known as a van de graaff generator, which was a device that could accumulate electric charge on its surface.
So far in their experiments with lightning magic, they had figured out that whenever Vera was aiming a lightning spell in the so called "mana shaping process" that all magic casters did to cast spells, Vera was creating an ion channel through the air beforehand that the magically created bolt would then be forced to follow.
It was the same way that lightning formed in clouds, the only difference was that the lightning produced by the spell was not in any way "real". It only looked that way for some reason. It was similar to the way acid spells did not produce actual chemical acid. And by that same vein, the ion channel itself was not truly made of charged particles and thus not truly a channel of ions, but they were "true" enough to at least allow for conductance of an actual electric current.
They had taken to calling this phenomenon "phantom charge", because it behaved like eclectic charge without actually being it. Phantom charges did not carry inherent potential in and of themselves but could influence actual protons and electrons in their stead.
The concept itself was slightly paradoxical to Stockwell, since in his world, to behave like an ion was to definitionally be one.
Regardless, because of this discovery, it should be possible for Vera to develop new spells capable of exploiting this interaction.
"I see." Stockwell nodded. He was pleased with Vera's progress. If she could really hone her control over manipulating electric charge and electric fields, then it would be an almost trivial step to go to manipulating magnetic fields.
He wanted to turn her into Magneto from classic 20th century media if possible. But that would be a long way off.
The research brought with it more questions than answers, mainly, why did tier magic only interact with the physical world on only a very basic level?
It was possible to accept that this was a whole different world and universe with "magic" and its own set of rules. But it was impossible to accept a universe that has inconsistencies within those rules.
From what he had seen so far, the natural laws of physics had no inconsistencies and no alterations from his own world. The four fundamental forces and their corresponding coefficients were identical to those in his own universe.
So from his perspective, it seemed like tier magic, talents, martial arts, and other supernatural abilities (and likely wild magic too if he could consult with someone who could use it) were some kind of aberrant system, hamfisted into an already functioning universe with its own complete set of rules.
And there were some absurdly glaring examples of this. One was the seemingly arbitrary nature of the "paralysis" side effect that has a chance to be caused by lightning spells.
They had already established that tiered lightning magic is incapable of carrying charge, so it didn't have the capability to affect the nervous system in a tangible way. Yet, it could still cause "paralysis." The condition itself only loosely resembled something that a taser might do, since the target was rendered immoble even after the initial shock had passed.
But that was not even the most dubious part about it.
When conducting tests on rats, they observed that the chance for "paralysis" to occur was completely random. Normally one would expect to see a kind of bell curve across a population if there were truly underlying factors other than luck at play. But the data points across their graphs were all uniform.
It was the kind of result you'd get if a random number generator were determining whether or not the paralysis occurred, and not a complex system with underlying, physical causes.
According to his books, tier magic was introduced by the entities known as the "six great gods". He wanted to find them and ask them what the hell they were thinking, designing their magic to be like some kind of phony lightning, with arbitrary visuals and paralysis effects when they had a perfectly detailed world where actual electricity already exists.
Stockwell realized he was getting lost in thought when he saw Vera and Niven staring at him in the doorway.
"Ahem. Anyways," He said. "Keep up the good work Vera."
"Master!" Niven said.
"What is it?"
"I think I managed to isolate the active ingredient." He hurriedly sat up from the workbench and ran to a back room.
"You mean within the black dust?"
"Uh huh!"
He returned holding a beaker of whitish powder.
"There's a lot of contaminants, but I think it's mostly pure. Here, I think this is what the structure is."
He gave Stockwell a rolled up piece of parchment. Stockwell unrolled it and studied Niven's diagram of the skeletal structure of the organic molecule.
Well I'll be, he actually did it, not that I'm surprised of course, Niven is a genius. I'm way more familiar with amphetamines than I am with opiates, but I definitely recognize the ether linkage between C4 and C5, the two hydroxyl groups, and the five centers of chirality. All things considered, I'm fairly certain he managed to isolate morphine, or at least something that is functionally identical. That's great, we can probably start making heroin tomorrow night then if we put our minds together. It would be great to have something to show Hilma when I return to the capital.
He smiled and patted the boy on the head.
"Nice job my boy. This will definitely work."
Niven smiled as he met Stockwell's hand halfway.
"I'll have some more work for you later Niven, so don't get too carried away with helping Vera."
"Is it unique work?"
"Yes." Stockwell said. "I want an extra pair of eyes to help me analyze some tissue samples. Since you're so interested in biology."
The tissue samples in question were from the six arms; from the parts of their body where bullets had entered or sprayed with acid and so on. They needed more data on supernatural extra-anatomical abilities, and analyzing injuries under a microscope was a crucial step.
…
Stockwell studied the tissue samples beneath the microscope. Various slices of lung tissue, brain tissue, and heart tissue laid bare beneath the lens. They had been preserved immediately after discretion with a solution of formaldehyde and coloring in a process known as fixation, which could preserve many of the fine microscopic structures in a life-like state.
"Extra-anatomical strength and durability", it was the label he gave to the phenomenon that the people in the New World found so common as to not even be questioned at all. It was the ability of people and monsters to exert forces beyond what their biology should be able to exert and to receive damage beyond what their biology should be able to sustain.
It was abundantly clear that the phenomenon was most clearly expressed in those who were considered "powerful" in the world. The fencer Malmvist, who received several catastrophic bullet wounds and remained standing for several seconds, and the monk Zero, who swung him around with one arm beyond the strength provided by just his magical equipment were prime examples.
The effect was even apparent in his dire rats. It was not nearly as pronounced as the cases above, but the phenomenon still reared its ugly head on data sheets that graphed various bite forces and metrics for quantifying hide toughness. This applied too to the slimes, the giant spider, and was noticeable even in Vera's body.
So universal was this phenomena's presence, that he had no choice but to conclude it affected every creature in the New World to some extent. It even affected the undead, as the bones of Vera's undead skeletons exerted slightly different properties than normal bones.
The best model that currently described the observations was the existence of little, invisible particles that worked to maintain the body. Like innumerable little nodes of vitality. He called them "Health Points."
"Points," because they lacked the spatial dimensions of length, width, and height, and "Health", because they acted to maintain the homeostasis of the material they existed.
He couldn't see them, obviously. The tissue samples were soaked in formaldehyde; as dead as they could possibly be. But he could see the lingering effects of these hypothesized "health points" from injuries carved into the cells and the way the tissues had reacted to those injuries.
From what he could see in regards to slices of Zero's brain, the way the tissue reacted was not too dissimilar to the way tissue packed with medical nanomachines reacted to traumatic injury. Nanomachines had a distinct pattern of congregation bands caused by individual machines swarming through differing bodily tissues at differing rates to get to the location of an injury. He saw something similar here with Zero's brain, albeit the bands were much blurrier, suggesting much smaller nanomachines with much higher propagation speed.
Though he was having difficulty imaging it properly.
For one, the microscope he was using was rudimentary at best, the staining solution used to fix the tissues could certainly be better, and he could stand to use some more back lighting. Frankly, he could be looking at smudges. For all he knew
Normally he wouldn't have gone so deep down a line of thinking like "health points", but upon mentioning his thoughts to Vera, she had told him about her grandfather's studies.
Apparently, the concept of health points wasn't a new one. It dated all the way back to the six great gods.
But due to the translation problems with century old texts and the way the auto-translate often obscured conceptual changes in words, "Health Points" the way Stockwell hypothesized them, seemed to be unique.
Regardless, science always had to start somewhere.
As was the case in all uncharted unknowns, breakthroughs only ever came after braving a vast desert of disappointment and failed hypotheses. But it was all still worth it, because the feeling that came from a true breakthrough was a euphoria so high that the memory would last a lifetime, and allowed the researcher to brave the dessert once more, venturing from oasis of eureka to the next in pursuit of that high.
That is to say, for the vast majority of researchers, science was a grueling exercise of delayed gratification. To be a researcher for any significant length of time, one either had to be a little masochistic, have a saintly amount of patience, or a naive amount of hope. Preferably a little of all three.
…
Stockwell walked down the corridor of the mineshaft. Flanking him on both sides were myriad cages of giant rats. They collectively hissed at him as he traveled down deeper into the mine.
Niven and Vera followed behind him.
This abandoned mineshaft was the same one they had been keeping the rats in earlier, but ever since the special cages from Baharuth arrived, it had become possible to safely contain and selectively breed the rats without having to sedate them.
They followed Stockwell through the winding tunnels, the way lit by an oil lantern held ahead of him. He wished to get electrical lighting online, but getting a regulated power grid that incandescent light bulbs could safely utilize would require a large investment in time and materials. So long as the oil lanterns worked well enough, they'd make do.
They stopped before one of the cages.
"Niven, is this the right one?"
"Hold on, let me check." The boy behind him fumbled for a moment with a clipboard. "Yeah, rat 12C is currently the strongest. She weaned her litter earlier this week."
"Alright." Stockwell said.
It had taken quite some time and no small amount of argument to get Niven to agree to these kinds of experiments. By nature, the boy was gentle, and it broke his heart to see other creatures in pain, no matter how monstrous they were. However, upon contemplating the scientific merits and the potential number of lives this kind of research could save, he eventually convinced himself to participate in the experiments.
Niven also took time to make sure the rats weren't suffering needlessly. But given the tight parameters of their containment and the danger the rats posed to human handlers, there wasn't much he could do to greatly improve their quality of life. The best he could do for them was make sure that the assigned villagers were properly cleaning the excrement that fell beneath the cages and were feeding them clean food and water.
"Vera, help me out with this, same as usual." Stockwell reddied a large snare and handed another one to Vera.
Together, they stuck the snares through the bars of the cage and began to wrangle the giant rat on the other side. It took a few minutes and a great deal of effort as the deceptively strong monster lashed at the snares, but eventually they managed to corner the rat and get a snare around its neck.
Once it was snared, they dragged it to a crevice in the specially designed cage where they could safely clamp down its mouth while Niven bound it with wire.
After it was bound, Stockwell handed off the lanturn to Niven and threw the struggling rat into a burlap sack. They retreated back out of the mine.
Immediately upon exiting the sealed mine and smelling the fresh air, their noses became aware of how dismal the scent within was.
They headed over to the area where the slimes were kept across the lake.
The reason for moving the research area so far was because the villagers detested the sounds the rats made when being experimented on. There had been so many complaints that Stockwell had been forced to move this experiment across the lake.
Once they disembarked, Niven began praying quietly for the rat. "...may the gods see your elements returned to…
Stockwell did not see the merit of praying. Even in this world he was an atheist— or at the very least an agnostic, maybe even a deist if enough evidence were to present itself. Regardless, he didn't see the merit in praying. But if it made Niven more comfortable he had no reason to antagonize him for it.
They arrived at the slime enclosure area where a workstation had been set up.
"Alright." Stockwell said. "Let's get started. Niven."
"On it." Niven readied a pencil and paper and stood at attention. He gave Stockwell a nod.
Stockwell began to dictate his words while Niven wrote them down on paper. Normally, he'd use a personal audio recorder for taking these kinds of research notes, but he needed to make do.
"Dire Rat many-metrics measurements, health point hypothesis experiment #9. First, weight."
The three of them carefully fished the rat out of the bag and placed it on a scale.
"18.35 kilograms."
They then secured its limbs and head face up on a workbench via heavy steel shackles.
"Here." Vera held up a glass jar. Inside was a 6 inch long wriggling black leech. It was a monster known as a "jumping leech." As the name implied, they had the ability to jump great distances. Typically, the leeches would lie within streams and jump unto unsuspecting travelers who stopped for a drink.
Most importantly, in addition to sucking blood, they had the ability to slowly suck the "health points" out of creatures they latched onto to heal themselves. At least, that was part of their working hypothesis.
The leech repeatedly jumped inside the jar, banging its head against the inside of the glass with a clicking sound in an attempt to get at Stockwell. Vera opened the lid just wide enough for Stockwell to slip a pair of tongs inside. He grabbed ahold of the leech's head.
"Next, leech reduction test. Niven. Time."
"Ready."
Niven held a stopwatch at the ready.
"Aaaand, now." Stockwell brought the leech's mouth to the belly of the rat. Upon contact it immediately latched on and began to suck blood.
The leech's ability to drain health points worked at a constant rate independent of the amount of physical blood it was consuming, so by measuring how long it took for the rat to fall unconscious after adjusting for its weight and blood loss, they could gain a rough estimate of the amount of health points it initially had.
Vera watched the eyes of the rat closely. When she saw them begin to close, she shouted. "Time."
Niven stopped the watch and Stockwell pried the leech off the rat's belly.
"43 seconds." Niven said.
"Damn, you were right Niven." Stockwell said. "This one was the toughest."
He and Vera went about safely putting the leech back in the jar. "...43 seconds." Stockwell pondered. "What does that correlate to on the table, Niven."
Niven went a little ways away to a data table splayed across the workbench. Written on it were various values they had measured from other rats. He took out a slide rule and did a few calculations based on the rat's measured weight of 18.83 kilograms. "1.37 RHC. Should take about 5 milliliters of potion to heal."
"RHC" was a unit they had invented, standing for Rat Health Coefficient. It corresponded to the average predicted number of these hypothesized health points that existed within their dire rats. Naturally, he would've liked to find the lowest common denominator to base his units off of, but given that he had no way to actually isolate an individual health point, he would simply make do with basing his measurements off of something he understood.
On that note, his observations of Zero's body after the acid exposure and multiple bullet wounds, Stockwell estimated him to have anywhere from 70 to 190 RHC depending on how his defensive abilities worked. But since Zero was no longer alive to further test these abilities, it would be impossible to ever come to a conclusion.
He measured out 5 milliliters of concentrated red healing potion in a syringe. The amount was accurately measured to the amount of health points the rat should have lost. He added one extra milliliter just in case it wasn't enough.
"Test wound, please."
Vera nodded and used a scalpel to make a small cut in the rat's forehead.
"Administering 6 milliliters of 30x healing potion now."
Stockwell then injected the syringe into the circular belly wound left by the leech. Immediately, both wounds began to close, followed by the rat waking up and beginning to screech and struggle once more.
The point of the test wound was to make sure the rat was back up to full health. As far as they could measure, creatures had a certain maximum number of health points they could have at any time, and making them healthy beyond that point was impossible. Moreover, when using a potion on a wound, the areas around the wound would close up first, and any healing capacity leftover would then carry over to other wounds across the body.
By seeing the cut on the forehead close up, they could be reasonably sure that the rat was back to its maximum health point capacity.
But they still needed to get some more parameters while the rat was at full health before the true research could begin.
"Next, bite force."
Stockwell and Vera pried the rat's mouth open and placed a device between its teeth. The device was a simple construction of a stiff steel spring embedded with a sliding frame of ratcheted metal pieces. It was a straightforward way to measure the rat's bite force.
The rat bit down hard and compressed the device. "4210 Newtons." Niven recorded down the data. Normally, if an Earth rat were scaled to the size of a giant rat from this world, they calculated that its musculature would only be able to generate a bite force of 3000 newtons at most.
They ran many other similar tests on the rat. They measured its strength, dexterity, and the relative toughness of its skin when exposed to piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning traumas. They also measured how well its tissues fared against acid, electricity, poison, fire, and even minimized spells from vera such as 「Minimize Magic: Ray of Negative Energy」 and 「Minimize Magic: Magic arrow」, healing up the rat between each test.
The result was a comprehensive data sheet of the rat's physical characteristics.
With the parameters set, it was time to move on.
"Now preparing subject for post mortem tests. Cutters."
At first, Stockwell thought that sub-microscopic, magical, unseeable, physically-enhancing particles could explain the feats of super humans he had witnessed thus far. But he had to acknowledge that his own biases were at play when concocting his theory. Most of his scientific background was in nuclear chemistry and physics where he was accustomed to working with quantifiable particles.
However, as he experimented more and more on the rats, it became clear that the hypothesized particles known as "Health points" weren't the only factors at play. That the unexplainable durability and strength exhibited by the rats was only correlated with a higher amount of health points, not caused by them.
That was why he needed to devise a way to measure such metrics when he was certain that the rats had absolutely no health points left.
Vera handed Stockwell a large pair of what could only be described as bolt cutters. He positioned them over the rat's teeth and pressed down hard.
The rat squealed in agony as its front teeth were sheared off with the sound of cracking bone and splintering enamel.
He repeated the step again with the lower teeth.
"Niven. Tube."
"On it."
Niven gently maneuvered a long tube into the rat's mouth (or as gently as one could possibly be), trying to find its trachea. Luckily, a rat's respiratory system is a fairly straight shot from the mouth to the trachea, so Niven was able to find the right path without too much effort. He had also already done this procedure several times by now.
The tube extended into a bladder held in Niven's hands. The bladder shrunk and grew with the force of the rat's inhales and exhales.
The point of cutting the rat's teeth was so that it couldn't chew through the tube.
"Heart next."
Vera retrieved a scalpel and bone saw and began to slowly cut away the tissues around the rat's heart.
Stockwell was impressed by how efficient she had become at the task. "Do you need assistance?"
"Just the blood would be nice." She replied.
"No problem."
Stockwell began soaking up the excess blood around Vera's incisions. Eventually, they opened up the ribcage to reveal the rat's beating heart.
"Okay, looks like we're ready to go."
Stockwell maneuvered a drill press sporting a thin needle above the jowls of the rat. He took his time carefully positioning it.
During their research, he had confirmed that health points were not distributed evenly throughout the bodies of living creatures. He had identified two such areas in mammalians where health points clumped together tightly, which he assumed was to better protect those spots from organ failure. He dubbed these areas as "areas of criticality."
There was a gradient of health points around these two sections. One was the brain, specifically the medulla with the brain stem. The other was the heart, centered on where the aorta met the left ventricle. On Earth, destruction of either of those two parts would be synonymous with death, and it was no different in the New world.
When causing tissue damage to areas of criticality, more health points would be consumed in the effort to maintain the integrity of the organ. And if the force was too great for the health points to handle, the creature would simply be killed.
Stockwell slowly pressed the head of the needle down into the base of the rat's head where he knew the medulla to be. As he drove it further down and made contact with the brainstem, he noticed a sudden resistance.
It was subtle, but he could almost imagine all of the health points in the rat's body congregating to protect the medulla. But stockwell had leverage and a well placed needle of steel on his side. He leaned gently into the press and with a sudden pop, there was no more resistance and the rat fell silent.
Instant death. All health points gone.
It was easy enough with a creature with 1.37 RHC to their name, but as he had experienced first hand with Zero, it took a bit more effort to kill beings with significantly more health points.
But now comes the true research.
"Death" was a strange concept even on Earth, and made even less sense in this magical world. Afterall, a creature could be considered dead despite the vast majority of its cells being alive.
Just like the rat lying on the table before them, people considered creatures like it as one whole thing; that these collections of cells have names and were distinct beings. Stockwell however understood consciousness as merely an emergent property of the cells within the brain, and thus considered "alive" to be an arbitrary label.
So in a world where necromancy and resurrection existed, it begged the question exactly where the parameters for "life" and "death were in regards to magic, and how and why they were there. Among other things.
But they wouldn't be testing that now.
Niven began to squeeze the bladder slowly, filling the rat's lungs with air while Vera began to manually pump the rat's heart. This way even though the rat was dead, they could keep its body and muscles alive. They could manage to sustain its body in this fashion for potentially an hour or until Niven and Vera got exhausted.
Stockwell placed the bite strength measuring device between the stubs of the rat's teeth similar to how he had done it before and then precisely hammered an electrode into the masticatory musculature of the rat's face. He then connected the electrode to an electrical line and turned on the current.
The rat's muscles contracted in response to the electrical current and the rat's jaws clamped down on the device. The meter came out to 4200 newtons.
"Well I guess that pretty much proves it.." It was approximately the same value from when the rat was at full health. Stockwell wrote down the result.
He had first assumed that health points were the cause of all physiologically impossible enhancements; following the rule of occam's razor, he thought that maybe the rapid healing was allowing muscles to tear themselves apart beyond their normal strength while instantaneously healing them, or the rat's hide seemingly being harder than it should simply because health points were healing it as fast as a blade could pass through it.
But this experiment proved that health points were entirely uninvolved in the supernatural strength and durability of the rat. That is to say, the rat was simply strong, tough, and fast beyond its means for some other reason independent of its quantity of health points.
Perhaps this should have been obvious from the get go. Afterall, if monsters lost all of their magical/super-anatomical abilities the moment they became an inanimate pile of meat, then their materials would not be so sought after for use by enchanters or alchemists.
But it was still useful to have scientific evidence of this.
The conclusion in itself opened up far more questions. Such as: What is the cause of the rat's super-rodent powers? What are the fundamental metrics they should be measuring?
He was almost tempted to lay it out like a video game: Laying out different attributes like Health Points, Strength, Physical Defence, Magical Defense, Agility, and so on. But until he could somehow observe why the muscles acted the way they did, he was simply stuck gathering data and examining muscle tissue.
They gathered the rest of the metrics on the dead rat. As with bite force, they turned out roughly the same from when the rat was still alive.
"Alright Vera, Last step." Stockwell said.
"Understood."
Vera placed her hand on the dead rat. She used one of her abilities as a necromancer.
「Create Zombie」
The rat's corpse began to twitch as a visage of unlife passed through it. Its eyes glassed over and its iris began to glow with a dim blue light.
With a rasping sigh, the undead rat spit out the tube in its throat.
The rat was reanimated by Vera's magic, so she could will it to be non-hostile towards Stockwell and Niven. They could continue their experimentation without worry.
They went about recording its metrics for a third time. Albeit it was easier this time because the rat could move and cooperate of its own volition.
The metrics of the zombified rat were less than that of the original rat it came from, however the undead's metrics were still proportional to original. That way they could still gain useful data from it.
And most importantly, because it was undead it was now harmed by healing potions. And according to Vera, there was supposedly no way for the rat to resist this kind of harm.
After they were finished gathering the rest of the data, Stockwell slowly injected a healing potion into its body with a syringe.
By measuring how much potion it took before the rat crumbled away into nothing, they could use simple mathematics to estimate how many health points the original living rat had.
The zombified rat let out a final gasp of air and went motionless.
"Alright then. That concludes trial #9. Thanks for the help."
"I'm going to return to my practice then." Vera said.
"Good luck." Stockwell waved her off.
He released the motionless rat from its bindings before unceremoniously tossing it into the slime enclosure.
"Here." Niven handed Stockwell the data sheet.
"Great…"
Stockwell looked over the data.
Now how does this compare…
As if reading his mind, Niven handed him another data sheet of compiled information from the other tests.
Yep…
From what he saw, other factors were at play within the rats other than health points, but he didn't have any clue what it could be.
He did however know a place where he could gain some better insight into the nature of this reality. He had been avoiding it because of the traumatic memories, but now that he was fully armed, there should be no more reason to worry.
All of Aamon's documents were hopefully still in the crypt. The man had been researching tier magic, "data," and wild magic for his entire life; his writings would definitely have something worthwhile in them.