Leon Carlos slowly bent down, his hands clasped in front of his ankles, enclosing the parchment between his chest and thighs. The parchment bore the city hall’s seal, the signatures of the buyer and witness, the workshop’s address, and...
The signature and handprint left by his father when he sold the workshop five years ago.
It was a business passed down from his great-grandfather to his grandfather, and then to his father—a business they once thought could sustain their family. When he first embarked on the path of a mage, he had secretly hoped that if he became a formal mage in the future, he could buy it back...
But he had never imagined that now, at this moment, it would be presented to him.
Leon curled up in the carriage seat for a while before straightening up to examine the precious parchment again. Below his father’s signature were two more rows of transaction records, written in identical, fresh handwriting. One row was the distillery’s subsequent owner transferring it to the guild president who had hosted him today, and the other...
The seller and introducer had already signed and stamped. The buyer’s column was still empty, just waiting for his name to be filled in, to reclaim the distillery his family had cherished for decades, where he had played as a child.
Leon gazed at it all the way. After returning to the Mage Tower, he, holding the deed, knocked on Garrett’s study door.
"Did the boss give this to you?" Garrett picked up the deed to examine it closely. "Your family’s old property? ...You want it?"
"I... I think I shouldn’t take it." Leon swallowed, shifting his weight from one foot to the other:
"It’s valuable, but okay." Garrett twirled the corner of the deed, noticing Leon’s anxious gaze, and let go:
"From that boss’s perspective, giving you this doesn’t put him at a loss. After all, you’re in charge of the project. If you work a bit faster, more diligently, even if you achieve results a month earlier or increase the success rate by about 10%, he’ll earn back the cost of one distillery. —I remember a barrel of wine costs dozens of gold coins, right?"
"Yes, sir." Leon breathed a sigh of relief, shifting his weight back to his left foot:
"Depending on the vintage and origin, the cheapest costs over a dozen gold coins, and the most expensive, much more. If someone pre-orders and a batch spoils, losing hundreds or even thousands of gold coins is possible..."
"Hmm, do you want to take it?"
Garrett tapped the parchment on the desk, holding down the corner and pushing it forward a bit. Leon reflexively stepped back:
"No, sir, I think I shouldn’t take it. This project—this project is for the Department of Public Health, guided by you, and conducted with conditions provided by your Mage Tower. If anyone should own it, it’s not me, but you."
Garrett smiled slightly. Good, this apprentice named Leon has a very clear mind. If he had chosen to keep the distillery, or had he just now chosen to take it, Garrett wouldn’t have minded much, but then, his research work here would have ended.
"Well, since you don’t want it, hand the deed over to that accountant and have him return it for you. By the way, for your wine project, it’s best to include a priest from the Church of Nature; they know how to cultivate bacteria—finish quickly, there are other projects for you."
"Yes, Master Nordmark!"
"Go find someone tomorrow! Tonight, there’s a dissection class!"
"Of course, Master Nordmark! I’ll be there on time!"
Garrett’s training program had advanced to the second phase. After passing the bacterial culture operation assessment, Garrett’s collection of various pathogens had been cultured, stained, and examined under the microscope by the students. The next task was to improve proficiency—and to memorize the diagrams by heart, recognizing these bacteria on sight!
The second phase involved infecting various animals with pathogenic bacteria, then dissecting to observe the diseased organs and tissues, and performing another round of sampling, culturing, and testing.
The experimental animals provided by the Church of Nature soon ran out. Ahem, mainly because different diseases required different animals for research. For instance, mice and guinea pigs are sensitive to tuberculosis bacillus, diphtheria bacillus, plague bacillus, and cholera vibrio; cats are sensitive to anthrax and amoebic dysentery; rabbits to Salmonella and E. coli; ferrets to measles.
Thus, the Church of Nature, and the second and third batches of trainees, were tasked with catching mice, guinea pigs, cats. Ferrets? Live ferrets are quite expensive and had to be purchased!
And now, they were to dissect a group of rabbits infected with E. coli, showing symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea. Four students per group, each group one rabbit. Eight necromancer students quickly divided into two groups, capturing the rabbits, tying them to boards, shaving their abdominal fur, and preparing everything. Among the eight, six or seven eyed the rabbits eagerly:
The two from the School of Transformation and two from the medical branch of mages were also quick on their feet. However, after securing the rabbits, they hesitated, each holding a scalpel:
"Do we... need to kill the rabbit first?"
"How about you do it?"
Garrett silently glanced at the right side of the laboratory. Three dissection tables were lined up, with the priests of the War God standing firm, scalpel in hand, steady as rocks. The priests from the Spring Goddess’s Temple, without a hair, dung, or even a leaf on their clothes, seemed determined to just observe the experiment...
Worse was the Church of Nature. Four apprentice priests had taken a table, and now there was neither rabbit on the table nor people; nothing. Were they planning to skip class?
Garrett pondered whether to reason with these students or to speak to them in more physical terms...
"Master Nordmark!" The door to the dissection room burst open. Four young men and women, two of each gender, rushed in one after the other. Garrett looked up at them:
"Or maybe, you shouldn’t perform the dissection and just observe others?"
"Master Nordmark!" The tall girl leading them immediately stopped, the others nearly crashing into her. Stepping forward in a lunge, she managed to steady herself and bowed her head in apology:
"I’m terribly sorry, but we didn’t mean to be late!"
"I’m not blaming you." Garrett organized his words:
"You are servants of the God of Nature, wouldn’t killing animals too often affect your development, reduce your affinity with nature? Maybe you should just observe?
—But the rabbits are your responsibility, watching others take action while you do nothing... wouldn’t that affect you as well?"
"No, sir! We did it! —That is, we’ve prepared the blank agar plates you requested!"
Garrett, overjoyed, hurried out.