Chapter 627: Back to Health - 627
Hearing about Skymender's current condition and need to rest, the rest of the family reluctantly left without seeing him.
Inside the hospital, multiple doctors watched from afar to make sure he stayed fine. Skymender was able to rest, missing the next few days of school. A few people came to visit him but the doctors turned them away as he had not yet awoken.
Finally, on the third day, he woke up naturally. His entire body was sore and aching, and he could feel an acute pain in his body.
Most of the feelings quickly faded away, leaving only the feeling of something different about him.
He then remembered what had happened before. He remembered his injuries and his conversations.
However, more importantly, he remembered the vial.
Skymender looked around, and saw a box next to his hospital bed. It was sitting on a desk. He opened it, and the vial was inside.
Skymender looked at it with glowing eyes.
His mind raced with countless thoughts. This only lasted a few moments before multiple doctors entered his room, alerted that he had awoken.
They began to ask him questions. "Lord Skymender, how are you feeling?"
"Does your face hurt?"
"How is your breathing?"
Skymender waved them all off. Speaking wasn't good, so he just gave a thumbs up, indicating that he was fine.
They nodded in relief and began to examine him. Skymender returned the vial to the box as they did so.
They took half an hour to confirm that he was in good health.
"We've already sent the news to Baron Sky. They should be here within the hour."
Skymender nodded and continued to rest as the doctors left.
His peace and quiet only lasted around forty minutes before his room was burst into by a bunch of people.
They surrounded him and asked if he was okay. Skymender repeatedly nodded in confirmation.
Eventually, they calmed down from their initial surge and asked some questions.
"What exactly happened? We heard a bit, but not everything."
Skymender tried speaking for the first time since waking up.
"I was experimenting with poisonous materials and accidentally inhaled some poison."
His voice was rough and scratchy, sounding dark. It instantly caused surprise.
It was at this time that a doctor, who had entered a moment ago, spoke. "It would be harmful for Lord Skymender to speak too much right now, and possibly forever. I would recommend avoiding questions that can't be answered with a thumbs up or thumbs down."
Skymender's family reluctantly nodded.
Skymerge asked a question. "So, when does this mask come off?"
Sitting over nearly a third of Skymender's face, covering his mouth, was a large white mask. It was strapped to his face.
The doctor hesitated for a moment before speaking. "Barring any miracles or new medical developments… I'm afraid Lord Skymender will have to keep the mask on for the rest of his life. We can, however, customize it in terms of size, color, and design. Anything we can do to help, we will do without hesitation."
His words made Skymender's family suddenly feel pity.
Luckily, his looks weren't too terribly damaged to the point of being ugly. Only a small part of his face not covered by the mask was affected, looking wrinkled and aged.
Skymender and his family were told by the doctor that he could be discharged from the hospital if he felt up to it.
Skymender naturally did so.
He stood up and was able to move steadily. Unfortunately, it being hard to breathe, he was unable to exert himself to a large degree. Running for more than a minute would cause him to uncontrollably cough for an unknown period of time. Even the mask would only be able to slightly relieve it.
He walked to a carriage, being slightly held up by Melly. Melly seemed to have forgotten about his words to her, but it was most likely only an act.
Skymender soon reached a carriage, able to walk alone, and entered it. Surprisingly, nobody entered it except his father. There were other carriages for everyone else.
His father looked at him seriously with his arms crossed.
Skymender was not sure what to say. He did not know why his father wanted to talk to him alone.
Finally, his father spoke. "These experiments, you really want to keep doing them?"
Skymender nodded without hesitation.
"Why?" His father asked simply.
Skymender attempted to speak, his voice coming out muffled and rough. "It is simply my passion in life."
His father shook his head. "When did it get like this?"
It felt rhetorical, but Skymender answered it. "After going to the Imperial Capital."
His father sighed. "They say that the person you are when you first enter the Imperial Capital and the person you are when you leave are not the same. It was true for me, it is true for others, and it seems it was true for you as well."
Skymender nodded.
His father sat in silence for a moment before speaking again. "It seems like I can't stop you even if I want to, so know this. You have a family that cares about you. Don't go risking your life or harming yourself, understand?"
Skymender nodded.
The rest of the short carriage ride was taken in silence.
When they arrived, Skymender walked out of the carriage without support. He actually felt good, save for his throat.
Breathing seemed as if it would be difficult for the rest of his life.
Still, Skymender had things to do. After reassuring his family that he was fine, he went to his room and took the poison vial out of the box. He then had a servant bring all of the other stuff that had been with him in the hospital to his room.
This included his notes, his cauldron, and a few other miscellaneous instruments.
Skymender looked at the vial, then at the notes. "Might as well play it safe."
All of his materials and ingredients were at the school, safely stored in a room, so he would have to wait until tomorrow to do what he wanted to do.
However, he was able to prepare. He called a servant in the room and told them to have a few things ready at the school for tomorrow
Chapter 628: Antibodies - 628
The servant nodded and left the room.
The next morning, Skymender woke up and got ready. As usual, he got on a carriage with Melly and rode to the city.
Melly seemed as usual, but also a bit quieter. Skymender did not feel bad for what he had said to her, for it was the truth. He didn't have any feelings for her. He didn't even really consider her much of a friend. She was more of a close acquaintance, though, to be fair, Skymender had no friends.
They soon arrived at the academy and walked inside. The day went on as normal, save for Skymender's new mask that everyone tried to take glances at.
Skymender had never really spoken in school at all, but now, he actually had an excuse to never talk.
The day went by and Skymender found himself in the same room as before. However, just outside, there were a few horses waiting for him.
Luckily, this room had direct access to the outside, or it would have been awkward to bring the horse inside.
He turned to Melly, who was standing in the room as if she was a servant.
"Go on and wait outside for me." Skymender said.
Melly hesitated. "Are you sure? Whatever you do, I won't tell anyone. What if you get hurt again?"
Skymender shook his head. "Go on."
Melly reluctantly left.
Skymender rummaged through his bag and took out a box. Inside of it was the vial of poison.
He carefully sat it down, grabbed some tools, put on gloves, and opened it.
The vial opened, and a faint green mist poured out of it. However, due to it not being heated, the mist was very faint.
Still, Skymender held it far away from him. He quickly grabbed a tool, extracted a few drops from the vial, and closed it back up.
He looked back at the dropper and began his first test.
Corrosiveness.
Taking varying materials, he dropped a drop of the poisonous substance on them.
However, no matter what it was, the liquid would not corrode it at all. It would slowly release a mist, but other than that, it acted as water.
Next, Skymender repeated the process of opening the vial and extracting a few drops from it for the next test.
Do the effects happen on contact, or does the mist need to be inhaled? Naturally, he didn't plan to test this on himself.
Therefore, the horses.
He walked outside and separated one of the horses from the rest.
On its back, he dropped a drop of the poisonous substance.
There was no reaction, so Skymender dropped a few more, until all of the drops had been used.
He went inside, got a few more drops, and came back out.
He took a different horse and separated it. This time, he was testing the poison once again.
He held out a piece of paper and dropped a drop of the poisonous substance on it.
A mist slowly moved up as the drop soaked into the paper. Skymender held it to the horse's nose.
Just a few moments after inhaling it, the horse yelped and jumped up, its front hooves coming off the ground.
It shook its head as it began to back away, but the mist had already entered it.
Skymender watched as it began to neigh loudly, clearly hurting.
Its hooves soon began to scratch at its face, and a drop of blood poured out of its nose.
However, after that, it seemed to stop. Besides slightly rougher breathing and the initial reaction, the horse seemed back to normal, simply laying down as it was tired.
This was not unexpected. In fact, if the mist from a drop of the substance could kill a horse, Skymender would not have even made it to the hospital.
He had luckily only inhaled a few breaths of the mist before backing away. Otherwise, he would have died.
Skymender also had another reason to experiment on the living today.
It was because of something called antibodies, a discovery that had shocked the world.
It explained something that should have been obvious, but wasn't.
It was like how friction stopped objects from moving infinitely, how could a poison be stopped once it infected someone?
The answer was antibodies, something the body produces to resist poison and disease.
Theoretically, antibodies could be harvested to create an antidote. In fact, this had been proven.
However, it was a complex process, one that very rarely worked.
Usually, this was first started by exposing a poison to an animal in small doses, but for Skymender's purposes, he could not care about the prolonged life of an animal. In other words, he had a better plan.
First, he took the entire vial of poison, making sets of different sizes.
He skipped the horse that had recently been in contact with the poisonous substance, a sort of mercy for its suffering, and skipped to one that had yet to be experimented on.
He tied this one down strongly, making sure it couldn't even move. It resisted, but Skymender had succeeded.
He took a drop of poison on a piece of paper, and let the horse inhale it.
It tried to move, but couldn't. After a while, a drop of blood fell from its nose. Skymender took five drops of blood, put it on the paper, and let the horse inhale the mist.
It had a much more violent reaction this time.
However, in the end, blood poured from its nose, but it lived. Once all the symptoms stopped, Skymender took 25 drops and let the horse inhale the mist.
It struggled violently, resisting on the verge of snapping the ropes that held it down. In the end, it fell, slowly dying.
Skymender waited until the exact end of its life before taking a knife and cutting it. He began to collect its blood in a bucket prepared beforehand.
Eventually, he filled the bucket. The rest would, unfortunately, be wasted.
There was only one more piece of knowledge involving this process, and the rest was classified even for nobles.
It needed intense spinning to separate the antibodies and everything else.
There was no method mentioned, but Skymender had an idea.
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
121 Power
stone 
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