Chapter 316: Experiment Log

Chapter 316: Experiment Log

“I, a recognized High-level Stalker with societal status… how did I end up babysitting?” Resting his chin on his hand, Carlin, hidden in a tree, watched the small figure in the classroom far away. After the Contract was signed, that black-and-white-haired woman didn’t make things too difficult for him; she just took a lot of his blood and then let him go.

Later, he found Zheng Yichen, only to be sent to this place by him. It wasn’t for anything troublesome, just to look after a little girl in this Academy. From her appearance, Carlin was quite sure this little girl shared no blood relation with Zheng Yichen. He observed her extra carefully and still didn’t find anything special about her. So, assigning him here for this job was such a waste of talent!

He could never escape those two Contracts in this lifetime. So, Carlin had long abandoned any inappropriate thoughts. Having found a new Boss, he was eager to prove himself. He noticed that Zheng Yichen didn’t seem to have any extra subordinates under him; he was the only one. By taking the chance to prove himself now, even if newcomers arrived later, he wouldn’t have to worry about his position being affected. Well, just because there weren’t any now didn’t mean there wouldn’t be in the future, right?

Anyway, since things had come to this, he might as well join the crowd… ahem, just be honest and show his worth. As for the matters with the Dark Church, as a High-level Stalker, Carlin felt his situation was pretty stable. As long as he didn’t voluntarily reveal too much information about himself, and when he thought about those four fierce women, it was better to quickly find opportunities to prove his worth and make himself appear more important!

So, please, don’t make him babysit anymore.

A day passed by with him secretly observing like this. At night, Zheng Yichen looked at the report Carlin handed over, pinching his chin with one hand. “Not bad, very detailed. Keep it up.”

Zheng Yichen nodded. Regarding Carlin’s assignment, he truly couldn’t think of a suitable position for him at the moment. He himself was currently in a phase of self-development, gradually accumulating strength and growing. Expanding his influence?

Uh, if he were Human, it wouldn’t matter. After all, no matter how much he expanded, it would just be competition among Humans; unrelated parties basically wouldn’t interfere. But if a Dragon Clan did something like this, many people would consider whether they should intervene. Give him a menial job?

Be reasonable, with so many Ghost Maids at home, was there any need for menial tasks? None at all, even though this guy had a pretty delicate face.

After thinking it over and over, Zheng Yichen decided to make the best use of him. Didn’t he boast about being an Infiltrator, how awesome he was? So, let him keep an eye on Lily. Even though nothing usually happened around Lily, having a precaution was still good.

“Yes…” Carlin said somewhat reluctantly. Seeing how satisfied Zheng Yichen seemed, he swallowed back some of the words he wanted to say. It really felt like such a waste of talent.

“Come, come, it’s fresh. Do you want to give it a try? It probably won’t kill anyone.” Zheng Yichen placed a newly concocted Magic Potion in front of Carlin.

Probably won’t kill anyone? Carlin immediately refused. Anyone with some common sense knew that unidentified Magic Potions must never be consumed before being appraised. This stuff, he just watched Zheng Yichen mix it up moments ago. Without knowing the effects, how could he possibly drink it?

“Tsk, such a pity.” Zheng Yichen shook his head at Carlin’s completely refusing expression, looking as if he had suffered a great loss. He walked to a breeding cabinet and took out a cage from inside, which contained nothing less than a Lab Rat… Well, they had these little things in the Otherworld too. When Zheng Yichen first discovered Lab Rats, he found it quite novel, though it seemed not many people used these small animals for experiments.

Grabbing this Lab Rat, he poured some of the newly made Magic Potion into it. The rat, put back into the cage, scurried around wildly as if it had taken stimulants. It only calmed down after about ten minutes. Carlin noticed the Lab Rat’s fur had become a bit brighter and its color showed an extremely faint, almost imperceptible trace. If not for the Infiltrator’s superior eyesight and Insight, Carlin would have hardly been able to spot this nearly non-existent change.

“Hmm… not bad!” Seeing the Lab Rat hadn’t died, Zheng Yichen nodded slightly. He then brought out several new cages and fed each Lab Rat inside an equal portion of the Magic Potion. These Lab Rats reacted differently. Some, like the first one, appeared excited. Some struggled as if in pain. Two showed no reaction at all, just watching their differently reacting companions curiously, as if they had just drunk a cup of water.

The duration of the reactions also varied among the Lab Rats. The shortest lasted less than five minutes, while the longest took a full twenty minutes or so to end.

For the short-reacting one, Carlin saw that besides slightly brighter fur, there was no subtle color change at all. He didn’t know if it was too faint or simply didn’t occur. The fur of the Lab Rat with the longest reaction showed a noticeable change; the white fur gained a slight touch of earthy brown. What surprised him even more was that he sensed a faint elemental fluctuation from this previously ordinary Lab Rat!

Magical Beasts couldn’t use Magic, but they possessed Pseudo-Magic abilities. Of course, the main driving force for this ability was also Mana. However, due to their Talent, their Mana generation was passively converted and increased, unlike Humans who had to train to have Mana. One could say every Magical Beast was like a ‘gifted’ Human. Their special Bloodline granted them the ability to perform Pseudo-Magic!

In Earth terms, beings like Magical Beasts were the product of beasts ‘evolving.’ Moreover, after completing evolution, their offspring would inherit these evolutionary traits. So, strictly speaking, many beasts had the potential to become Magical Beasts; they just hadn’t crossed that evolutionary ‘threshold.’ And even without such evolution, the power of some beasts wasn’t necessarily worse than that of powerful Magical Beasts.

But what was Carlin seeing now? An ordinary Lab Rat was transforming into a Magical Beast… Even if it was a slight degree, and artificially induced, not natural, it was still shocking enough. Just how amazing was this semi-forced Boss he had found? Had he already researched a new type of Magic Potion?

“Boss… did you succeed with this thing?” Carlin somewhat regretted not following Zheng Yichen’s suggestion earlier to just drink that bottle of Magic Potion. If he had, he might have awakened some hidden power.

“Regretting it now?”

Zheng Yichen glanced at Carlin.

Carlin didn’t know what to say, only managing a silly laugh.

“Although none of my researched Magic Potions have a record of killing small animals yet, this is only a semi-finished product. Even if you drank it, it might not be useful,” Zheng Yichen said. He was very meticulous in making Magic Potions. This wasn’t like Engineering, where a few faulty steps could be hammered out. If a step went wrong in making Magic Potions, who knew what weird thing it could mutate into? Even with his special ability, most mutated potions turned out bad. If someone else did it, getting one benign mutation out of a hundred experiments would be considered a win. “Just wait.”

Afterward, Zheng Yichen continued performing some experiments on these Lab Rats, mainly recording the changes they underwent. From this, the significant connection between Potionology and the Life Domain could be seen! Magic Potions that induced changes in living organisms could also play a great role in Life Domain research!

Also, paralysis potions had significant uses in creating Stitched Abominations. Why were Stitched Abominations mostly violent types and not calm ones? Even those with some intelligence still had very irritable tempers, exploding like gunpowder kegs with the slightest provocation.

The reason lay in the process of creating Stitched Abominations! When making one, it wasn’t about starting with the body as the main foundation, but controlling the body’s brain. First, you had to connect part of the brain to an incomplete torso, confirm the connection was successful, and ensure the brain could control the body. Only then could you gradually add the subsequent parts to be stitched on. Throughout the entire process, the brain endured immense, non-stop pain.

Moreover, you couldn’t let the brain enter a dormant state during the process. Once it went dormant, you couldn’t observe the post-stitching connection, and you couldn’t determine if that part could be controlled by the Stitched Abomination. If it couldn’t be controlled, attaching it was useless. So, the brain had to remain conscious throughout. The brain, being something that could affect the Soul, made the accumulated pain from slowly stitching together a body a tremendous torment for the Soul.

Even if it succeeded in the end, the Soul would already be stimulated to the point of breakdown and frenzy. Therefore, most Stitched Abominations weren’t the calm type. Many, after successful creation, had to be forcibly controlled using some brainwashing methods. Otherwise, if given freedom, the Stitched Abomination would probably first tear apart their Creator.

So, if such pain could be blocked, a Stitched Abomination’s sanity probably wouldn’t be lost so severely. In short, many Magic Potions could be used in the Life Domain.

“Hmm… After activating certain factors in the test subjects, they start to weaken after about half an hour, completely losing their characteristics in about an hour…” Zheng Yichen recorded the changes in these Lab Rats. Then he fed them some more of the Magic Potion. This time, the number of Lab Rats that reacted was halved. And those that didn’t react weren’t like the first time—acting like nothing happened—but appeared listless. “Frequent use within a certain period may cause a weakened state. Cumulative use may lead to excessive weakness and death…”

“Even if successful, the duration of the change is reduced by more than half, and the change produced is different from the first time…”

Three hours later, Carlin had almost grown numb from waiting. Watching Zheng Yichen, who was still engrossed with great interest, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. He didn’t understand the life of a researcher, but he was witnessing the process now. As an observer, he found the whole process quite dull, yet Zheng Yichen remained full of interest the entire time. Was it really that captivating?

“Hmm… Apart from the preparation time being too long, the overall effect is quite good.” Having obtained sufficient experimental results, Zheng Yichen nodded in satisfaction. He put the Lab Rats back into the breeding cabinet. This was a byproduct he developed while improving a new Elixir Formula. Although the effects weren’t comprehensive yet, they could produce sufficiently peculiar results.

As before, the actual effect still deviated vastly from what was described in the Formula, but in reality, this effect was even more powerful. The premise was that Zheng Yichen could continue improving it afterward. “Temporarily name it the Awakening Potion… Do you still want to give it a try?”

Zheng Yichen shook the remaining half bottle of Magic Potion. Having waited nearly three hours and cooled down long ago, Carlin hesitated. From Zheng Yichen’s first round of experiments, he realized the changes in the Lab Rats weren’t permanent; they were temporary, and each time the change was different. Thinking about it, wasn’t it unnecessary to take a risk for a temporary change?

If he refused… he had already refused once. Would refusing again now offend the Boss and earn his resentment? So he should agree…

“Forget it then. This stuff is quite expensive anyway.” Zheng Yichen put a label on the potion bottle and stored away the remaining half.

“…” Having made up his mind and nodded, Carlin felt a breath stuck in his throat, almost making him cough, but he forcefully suppressed it. This made him extremely uncomfortable, his expression turning very animated.

“Hey, hey? I just didn’t let you use it, is there a need to look at me with such a twisted expression? Alright, I’ll definitely give you one next time…” Startled by Carlin’s extremely animated expression, Zheng Yichen waved his hand. He took out a large watch and checked the time. “It’s almost midnight. You should hurry back and sleep.”

“Midnight?” Having caught his breath, Carlin looked at the huge watch in Zheng Yichen’s hand curiously. He had never seen such a thing before. Something for keeping time? Weren’t hourglasses used for keeping time?

“This is a watch, a special timekeeping tool. If you want one, work hard, and I’ll gift you one after a while.”

“It’s too big,” Carlin couldn’t help but say.

“You can choose the color yourself then,” Zheng Yichen said without another word, taking a wristwatch from a drawer and putting it on his own wrist. He showed it off to Carlin. This very talented Infiltrator immediately liked it. He could even choose the color? That was great.

“Don’t worry, Boss. No suspicious person will escape my eyes!” Carlin declared decisively. If he could obtain such an Engineering tool that had never appeared before, he could show it off later. But looking at the style, it somewhat resembled the characteristics that should belong to that Tianwang from the Online Store?

Carlin shook his head, deciding not to dwell on it for now. Whatever the style, he could think about it after acquiring one. Actually, he was still more captivated by the Spatial Ring Zheng Yichen kept. Especially when he saw Zheng Yichen casually tossing it around, he almost couldn’t resist going over to hug his leg. Boss, please don’t just throw it around, throw it to me instead, okay…