Alter-Drug

Chapter 6 - Concocting Drugs

Carl clutched his forehead in despair as he realized that he had overestimated this profession in this universe.

It made sense for an unprofessional apothecary like his father to have unpolished and rough tools for work.

What did not make sense was how the personal apothecary of an aristocrat also had such poor-quality tools. The man did not even try to make anything more professional? Or at least tools more precise or refined?

He sighed and dared not ask for too much. “Could you find me a few surgical knives?”

“I know what knives are, but what are surgical knives?” Melissa blinked puzzledly.

Carl explained patiently, “I need knives with very sharp blades.”

“A knife is a knife… What’s this about a surgical knife,” grumbled Melissa to herself. “I’ll get Ralph to get them for you.”

The woman fell silent for a while, but then she suddenly called his name, “Carl.”

“Yes, Your Ladyship.” Carl blinked in surprise and bowed slightly, the same way Ralph always did when the countess spoke to him. “Do you have any other instructions for me?”

“Don’t disappoint me,” said Melissa. It was both an instruction and a warning. She did not wait for him to respond and walked out quickly in her long gown made from soft and expensive fabrics.

“I will not.”

Carl let out a big sigh of relief, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Melissa had never been fierce to him, but he always felt so much pressure whenever he was in the presence of such a high-ranking and beautiful countess.

He went to look for Ralph and gave him a drawing of the surgical knives he wanted.

Ralph frowned at the design that Carl had drawn. “These are such tiny knives! What could you possibly use these for? Even a cook would find them useless for cutting meat.”

“Just get them made according to these specifications.” Carl did not bother elaborating further.

At dinner time, a set of new, shiny and sharp surgical knives wrapped in a piece of calfskin were passed to Carl.

Ralph asked casually, “By the way, Carl, how old are you?”

“Me?” Carl paused to think but was not too sure. “17?”

“Good heavens! You’re 17 already?” exclaimed Ralph. “I thought you were only 15! You’re seriously way too skinny. If you don’t build up your muscles, women will despise you.”

“Ralph, he’s still young and shouldn’t have to worry about such things,” said Milton after he took a large mouthful of ale. “He’s just malnourished. As long as he eats well and sleeps well, he’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Ralph nodded, then stroked his chin as he said thoughtfully, “17, huh… I think Anita’s 17 too…”

“Shush!” Milton became antsy and looked left and right before he scolded Ralph quietly, “Don’t talk about Anita like that! You might not mind getting into trouble, but don’t drag poor Carl into this too!”

Carl checked the knives as he asked nonchalantly, “Who’s Anita?”

“She’s Countess Melissa’s personal maid and she enjoys a special sort of status, so… Well, just remember that if you run into her, make sure you watch your manners.”

Milton then changed the topic. “Carl, how are the, uh, surgical knives?”

“I guess I can make do with these,” said Carl as he sighed softly. These knives were indeed sharp enough, but they were not of the same size and their blades were not straight either. They were nowhere near the stainless steel surgical knives he had used on Earth.

“Not good enough? There’s a metal smithy at the port that’s run by a dwarf, perhaps he could make something that meets your standards.” Milton added, “But his services are more expensive.”

“A dwarf!” This word reminded Carl that he was in a different universe altogether and he became curious. “Besides dwarves, what other races are at the port?”

Milton’s answer did not disappoint him. “There are also beastmen from the Green Moon Continent who come to this side to do business, but they usually just take their goods from the harbor and leave, so they don’t go further inland.”

“I need to go and take a look when I have the time.” Carl began to get excited.

Milton warned him, “You’ve got to be careful though. Both dwarves and beastmen have fairly bad tempers.”

“Got it,” said Carl with a nod. He rolled up the set of knives again and waved to the knights. “All right, gentlemen, I’ve got to get to work now…”

“Work hard!” The knights raised their glasses to cheer him on.

Carl went back into his lab and looked at the extremely primitive and unpolished tools he had in front of him. He really missed all the precise, digital equipment he used to have on Earth.

He was such an expert in this field he could be considered a god of sorts.

Unfortunately, the poor facilities and the uncertainty of the experiments he was about to conduct turned him from a god to a lowly human.

Even so, Carl did not despise the medical knowledge that this universe had. On the contrary, he could sense that the presence of supernatural forces in this universe had caused the development of medicine to go in a different direction from Earth’s.

He took out the notebook from a pocket sewn on the inside of his clothing. It was the only thing left behind by his father.

The notebook was tattered and very old. Its pages were made from thin parchment paper cut into palm-sized pieces, then sewn together into a book. The passage of time had begun to turn the once-white parchment more and more yellow.

Each page was covered in scribbles and was a complete record of several formulas.

The nerve-numbing drug he had concocted when he was still living in the small town was made according to one of the formulas inside this notebook. The formula for a drug that could purge the poison from within Milton’s body was also from this notebook.

These were considered some of the simplest formulas recorded inside.

The front few pages of the notebook looked pretty normal. The ingredients for these formulas were generally various parts of a plant, so that sounded fairly reasonable and logical. But after a certain page, some nonsensical ingredients started appearing.

Ingredients could include strange things like man-eating bear paws, mermaid bones, unicorn hearts, phoenix feathers, dragon blood…

It was not hard to understand why Carl’s first reaction to reading these formulas was one of disdain. His initial thought was that all these formulas were nothing but someone’s wild imagination.

He had only found out that this universe had supernatural forces after meeting Ralph. That was when he suddenly felt that the contents of the notebook could very well be true.

He looked through the notebook and decided to test the reliability of these formulas. A good scientist ought to doubt everything until proven otherwise, after all. He did not have those legendary animals in the lab, but he had plenty of other ingredients that were enough to make at least a couple of the drugs jotted down in the book.

He picked up two red berries, a few black stems, absinthe, Tess of the D'Urbervilles roses, ram horns, toad slime as well as a moonstone.

After that, he hung the cauldron above the furnace, started a fire, boiled some water, then put the ingredients in according to the instructions.

He stirred the ingredients until everything had melted. He broke the ingredients down, sorted them out and put them together again. Those were the instructions written in the notebook.

These were simple processes to Carl, so he did not run into any issues.

Half an hour later, the cauldron was bubbling with a red and black liquid that gave off a rather odd smell. According to the notebook, this was supposed to help someone fall asleep.

In other words, this stuff was equivalent to a sleeping pill.

Had he succeeded?

Carl peered at the liquid inside the cauldron a little hesitantly. He was used to doing things at a professional level, so he could not help but proceed with spending the next 15 minutes purifying the mixture and removing any other substances, which eventually resulted in a translucent, slightly reddish liquid that carried a slightly pungent smell.

Carl turned to look at the metal cage in one corner of the room.

The rats inside that cage were not the little white ones that he used to experiment on when he had been on Earth. These were the nasty gray ones with sharp teeth that had venom in them.

After contemplating for a few seconds, he decided against testing the drug on the rats. Instead, he picked up a fairly cute looking rabbit from a different cage and fed it two drops of his concoction.

Then he placed it back in its cage and observed its reaction.

The rabbit looked clumsy and harmless, and was not aggressive in any way. However, just a few seconds later, its body suddenly started shaking. Its red eyes instantly turned a demonic-looking red, and soon even began glowing eerily.