After the knocking ceased, a voice from inside said, “Come in.”
Two female advisors pushed open the door to Paul’s office and found the young count engrossed in tinkering with a peculiar object.
He was so focused that he didn’t even notice their entrance, not lifting his head for a moment.
The strange object the count was fiddling with was cylindrical, seemingly made of metal. It was fixed onto a base on the table by two supporting rods, structured to adjust its elevation angle like a cannon. The cylinder’s front end tapered, facing a transparent glass slide.
Paul was peering intently into the rear end of the metal cylinder, as if observing something inside.
Eileen, discontented, voiced out a reminder, “It’s quite impolite to ignore two ladies .”
“Ah… Just a moment, I’ll be right with you. Hmm… The microorganisms from both worlds seem quite similar.”
Paul uttered, leaving the two female advisors puzzled.
Soon, he raised his head, excitedly saying, “You’ve arrived at just the right time. Come and see this new contraption I’ve created—a microscope.”
“What is this bizarre thing?”
“It’s a device that can magnify the objects on that glass slide by several hundred times. Through the microscope, you can see a microscopic world that you’ve never experienced before.”
Paul had spared no expense in hiring a master lens maker, who finally crafted lenses suitable for an early microscope.
Initially, due to the rough surfaces of the ground lenses, the results were far from ideal. However, as the lens maker continuously improved his craft and with the involvement of apprentices in the experiments, the precision improved significantly, resulting in convex lenses that Paul found satisfactory. Nᴇw ɴovel chaptᴇrs are published on NoveI[F]ire.net
Fortunately, the glass manufacturing technology of this world was already quite advanced; otherwise, Paul would have had a tough time producing high-quality glass.
After numerous failures, Paul and the lens makers assembled a “microscope,” though he wondered how it compared to the early microscopes invented by Leeuwenhoek.
Eileen approached the table, mimicking Paul’s position, and peered into the rear end of the cylinder.
Eileen let out a disgusted sound and quickly turned her head away.
Her eyes widened in shock as she glared at Paul, “Are you making fun of me, Paul Grayman?”
She almost spat out Paul’s name, each word seething with anger.
However, Paul was looking at her with a mischievous grin.
“What is it?” Ladi tugged at her friend’s sleeve. Although she knew the count to be a generous man after spending so much time with him, he was still a lord, and her colleague’s tone was somewhat disrespectful.
“Just look, he put some disgusting worms in this cylinder to scare us.”
Miss Dias said angrily.
Ladi leaned in for a look and was equally startled.
Inside, there were tiny “worms.” Although they were too small to see clearly, their constant movement and wriggling indicated they were alive.
“Lord Grayman?” She suppressed her discomfort, casting a questioning and slightly reproachful glance at Paul.
Paul immediately put on an aggrieved expression, shrugged, and said, “You’ve wronged me. I didn’t deliberately find some worms to scare you. Besides, they aren’t in this metal cylinder; they are here.”
Paul pointed at the glass slide at the front end of the microscope.
The two female advisors looked at the glass slide, but all they saw was a smear of water.
“There’s nothing on it!”
“Think about what I just said. You can see a ‘microscopic world’ that has never been seen before.”
“The ‘microscopic world’? You mean their bodies are so small that we can’t see them with our eyes, and we need your ‘microscope’ to see them?”
Miss Dias asked, her scholarly curiosity overcoming her initial anger.
“Exactly. The microscope works by using two convex lenses to refract light.”
“You have used convex lenses in telescopes before. The magnifying glasses we used to burn ants when we were kids are also a type of convex lens.”
“I never had such vulgar and malicious hobbies when I was a child.”
They carefully examined the microscope, indeed finding a small lens at the cone-like front end, in addition to the one at the back.
Paul explained, “The lens at the front, facing the object under observation, I call the ‘objective lens,’ and the one at the back, facing the eye, I call the ‘eyepiece.’”
Ladi asked him, “How did you get these little bugs onto this glass slide?”
“Little bugs? I think ‘microorganisms’—tiny organisms invisible to the naked eye—would be a more appropriate term. As for how I got them onto this glass slide, I just dipped a bit of clean water onto it.”
Most microorganisms, including bacteria, are transparent, making them difficult to observe directly with an optical microscope. They require staining to be clearly distinguished. Paul couldn’t yet produce artificial stains like crystal violet or eosin solutions, but fortunately, he could use natural dyes like litmus and hematoxylin, with alchemists recruited from the capital helping him solve this problem.
“I see.” The two female scholars nodded, taking turns to observe through the microscope again.
“There are so many things in this world we don’t know about!”
“It’s our duty to diligently explore these unknown mysteries.”
The scholars conversed quietly among themselves.
Suddenly, they realized something.
“You mean… this is just a random drop of clean water…” Ladi, usually composed, showed a look of terror.
“This means… the water we use daily for washing…” Eileen’s voice trembled.
“Hehehe!” Paul grinned mischievously. “Congratulations on discovering the truth of this world.”
With a scream echoing through the lord’s mansion, a large contingent of guards and the chief secretary, Bernard, burst through the door.
They demanded loudly, “Assassin! Is there an assassin?”
But all they saw were two advisors with pale faces and a count looking as if he was enjoying a joke.
Paul waved his hand to explain, “Gentlemen, nothing has happened. I was just discussing some matters about tiny life forms with the two advisors.”
Matters about tiny life? With ladies… and two beautiful ladies at that?
The crowd, thinking the young count had grown up, exited the room with knowing looks on their faces.
“Ladies, there’s nothing to worry about. As long as you don’t drink unboiled water, these little things won’t harm us. And I’ve discovered that boiling the water kills them.”
Seeing the advisors so frightened, Paul reassured them.
Boiling water kills them—this point was firmly remembered by the two advisors.