It was obvious that this "Magic System" was extremely complex, nothing like the simplicity described in novels—just sitting cross-legged with eyes closed, absorbing spiritual energy from the heavens and earth, and then releasing it whenever needed.
This "Magic System," even with Richard following the Monroe Chapter's descriptions and adding his extensive speculations, left him with a multitude of questions about many aspects.
For instance, what exactly was the "Super Body State" that the first Life Remolding aimed to achieve? What kind of state was the "Highly Activated State" required for the second Life Remolding? And what state was the "High Energy State" for the third Life Remolding?
To these questions, Richard could only speculate, explore, and experiment.
According to some explanations in the book, the "Super Body State" of the first Life Remolding was a mystical state where the spirit temporarily detached from the body and experienced the wonders of the external world. It felt somewhat like a dream but with maintained self-awareness.
Richard interpreted this "Super Body State" to be similar to meditation, or what is known as "Mantla" in Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, "Mantla" could be divided into two parts, "Man" and "Tla." "Man" meant "mind." "Tla" meant "to lead away." Therefore, "Mantla" meant leading the mind away from all worldly thoughts, worries, desires, and mental burdens.
Yet, the "Super Body State" was not entirely equivalent to "Mantla" meditation. Comparatively, it was deeper, maintaining a relaxed self-awareness and even more detached from the body, delving deeper into the spirit, akin to the ultimate state of meditation—Zen.
Or, it could be considered a form of "Nightmare" state, known as "Sleep Paralysis": when someone suddenly wakes from sleep, the brain regains consciousness, but the motor centers remain asleep, resulting in a phenomenon where the spirit cannot control the body. One could think and recall, but unable to move any limbs, causing extreme panic for those who experience it.
Alternatively, it could be like the "Lucid Dream" many people sought: half-awake, half-asleep consciousness, being fully aware of dreaming and able to control and create any dream scenario, becoming like God in creation and destruction, achieving fantasies impossible in reality.
Simply put, the "Super Body State" was a deep level of "Mantla" meditation, and achieving this was no easy feat. Even real Yoga Masters could not guarantee complete immersion into meditation at will. As for the so-called "Nightmares" and "Lucid Dreams," they were even rarer, with success rates less than one in ten, even after deliberate sleep adjustments.
Such unreliability was entirely unacceptable to Richard. From a scientific perspective, only a 100% success rate could prove a method's feasibility.
To make the elusive "Super Body State" consistently achievable, Richard considered relying on drugs.
Admittedly, using drugs would have some impact on the body, but drugs might be the most convenient and quickest method. Normally, one could not remain consciously awake while the body slept, but with certain special drugs, such as alkaloids with anesthetic effects, it was entirely feasible.
Many plants contained these alkaloids, such as those from the Solanaceae, Fabaceae, Ranunculaceae, Papaveraceae families among dicotyledons. By adding plant materials into equipment and undergoing a series of chemical reactions to remove impurities, high-purity anesthetic alkaloids could be obtained.
Thinking this way, Richard set to work.
Complex instruments continued their functions, distilling, condensing, filtering, precipitating, dissolving, crystallizing...
"Pssssss," a large amount of white steam emerged, "plop-plop," the jar lids constantly bounced, "drip-drip," yellow drops emerged from the horn tube, "gurgle-gurgle," a considerable number of bubbles formed in the beaker...
After a busy half day, the entire experimental process reached its final stage, with the liquid in a beaker cooling, crystals formed, appearing murky yellow, as if filled with dust inside.
With just a glance, Richard couldn't help but shake his head, realizing this first attempt was a failure for one simple reason—impurities.
His experimental process was correct, having considered various impurity removals, but the entire experiment spanned over twenty segments, and the current world's instrument manufacturing created inevitable small errors at each step.
One error, two errors were acceptable, but ten or twenty errors were problematic, with quantitative changes accumulating into qualitative changes, thoroughly polluting the final crystal product that should have been pure, making it unusable.
Richard shook his head again, yet without showing any anger. Having been in this world for fifteen years, he already understood its nature, knowing that no matter how strictly he demanded of craftsmen, the instruments were always flawed.
The solution lay in impurity removal and purity enhancement.
To enhance purity and remove impurities, an appropriate solvent, or rather an extraction agent, preferably organic, was required.
However, producing organic extraction agents was no easy task.
Many organic solvents required high temperature and pressure conditions, was he supposed to figure out how to make a reaction kettle, a fractionating tower?
The one easy organic extraction agent could be Ether.
Richard's eyes suddenly squinted, as he recalled something.
Ether could be used as a drug extraction agent, but then again, if Ether were available, what more extraction would be needed? Ether itself was a more efficient anesthetic than alkaloids!
Yes, Ether was an anesthetic!
Ether belonged to a type of liquid anesthetics, one of the most commonly known anesthetics, even if never seen in real life, it was often featured in films—where a villain would cover a victim's mouth and nose with a sudden cloth soaked in a volatile liquid, causing the victim to inhale and shortly after collapse unconscious.
In those scenes, the liquid on the cloth was Ether, a colorless, transparent liquid that highly volatilizes and acts quickly as an anesthetic.
Yet preparing Ether industrially was somewhat difficult due to the requirement for Aluminum Oxide as a catalyst, and Aluminum Oxide, or Metallic Aluminum, was much rarer in this medieval-like world, ten to a hundred times more scarce than gold or gemstones.
But laboratory preparation was much simpler.
Laboratory preparation of Ether only required two materials: Sulfuric Acid and Ethanol. Sulfuric Acid was available, and as for Ethanol—what was Ethanol—Ethanol was the scientific name for alcohol, something he had plenty of. Using alcohol to prepare Ether seemed like basic high school chemistry, perhaps he had overcomplicated things.
Richard spoke to himself, slowly standing up, his gaze landing on the instruments on the table beside him. He stepped closer, quickly dismantling the instruments, then used a large test tube, conduit, cork stopper, flask, iron stand, iron ring, and separatory funnel to assemble another set of apparatus.
After completing the assembly and checking for airtightness, Richard began to load the chemicals. He poured anhydrous ethanol into the flask, then slowly added concentrated sulfuric acid, plugged in the cork stopper... heated... cooled...