A Hospital in Another World? C.292

Garrett still remembered the apprentice, Leon Carlos.

This young man with black hair and eyes was quiet by nature but diligent. When others had stopped for a rest, he would still be cleaning test tubes, tidying up the workstation, and organizing samples.

Even when a few priests from the Church of Nature were taking care of the experimental animals, Leon would lend a hand.

Being the first to achieve results again, Garrett noticed and inevitably wanted to teach him more skills. Now that he had acquired the Mage Tower, he had plenty of projects at hand but lamented the lack of hardworking assistants. A student with good qualifications and diligence like this should certainly be kept close!

Hmm, which project should he assign to him?

The next morning, on the eighth floor of the Mage Tower, in Garrett’s study, three youths were lined up.

Besides Leon Carlos, there was a girl from the Church of Nature who had brought a litter of wild boars, and a boy from the School of Transmutation, who were the top three in this assessment. With numerous projects in hand and not worrying about a lack of ideas but rather a lack of manpower, Garrett naturally began to distribute topics to this batch of hard workers...

"You are the first place in this assessment, so I’ll ask you first," Garrett said seriously to Leon Carlos.

"I have three projects on hand, all of which should suit your abilities and direction. One has a short cycle and generates money quickly; another is also short-term and profitable but leans more towards transformation; and the third has a long cycle, hardly makes any money, but aligns most closely with the School of Necromancy. Which one do you choose?"

As Garrett spoke of the second project, the boy from the School of Transmutation twitched slightly. Alas, being third in the assessment, he had to wait for the first two to choose. Clenching his fists slightly, the boy bowed his head, while Leon, after a moment’s thought, looked up with determination in his eyes:

"I choose the third."

"Are you sure?" Garrett scrutinized him. Leon stood straight, his uniform from the Black Crow Swamp, a pure black mage robe, was washed white in places, with sleeves and hems frayed. Such a precarious financial situation, yet choosing a long-term, non-profit project?

Could he really persevere? Even if he did, would it truly benefit him? After all, a mage’s advancement also requires financial support...

"I’m sure. Thank you, sir!"

Garrett nodded, allowing him to step aside. He assigned the research on methane pools to the girl from the Church of Nature, and when it came to the boy from the School of Transmutation, only the last project remained:

"That... you research why fermentation fails, why stored wine turns sour..."

"Master Nordmark!" Leon Carlos suddenly interjected. Garrett turned to look at him:

"What? Changed your mind?"

"Sorry, Master Nordmark." The black-haired, black-eyed boy stepped forward, bowing deeply like a bending bamboo. When he raised his head again, his eyes shone unusually bright, his cheekbones flushed with a fervent glow, as if ignited from within:

"I don’t mean to defy you. But—my father once owned a distillery, and I often helped there as a child. One year, several batches of wine spoiled in succession, and the distillery couldn’t recover, forcing a sale. My father fell ill from despair..."

He bowed deeply again, his shoulders trembling, fists clenched tightly. After a moment, raising his head for the third time, his voice trembled softly:

"I don’t bear grudges, nor do I seek revenge on the one who took the distillery. I just want to know! —Sir, under your guidance, I want to know why wine spoils, why it turns sour! Please, sir!"

"..."

Garrett rubbed his temples. Under the hopeful gaze of the apprentice necromancer, he finally sighed:

"Alright, then start with that!"

A forced melon isn’t sweet, but whether they see the project’s potential for profit or have a personal grievance, if he wants to do it, let him.

At Garrett’s request, a full cart of wine was delivered to the Mage Tower. Along with the wine came a barrel of lees, several barrels of various stages of semi-finished products, raw materials, yeast, and two barrels of failed fermentation, emitting a sour smell. Passing apprentices all gave it a side glance, covering their noses.

"Leon Carlos!" Among a group of nervous young men and women, ready to leave first, Garrett pointed at the two carts of barrels and instructed Leon:

"Choose a room to be your lab, study this stuff. Use your newly learned techniques of bacterial culture and staining, identification, to examine thoroughly. What’s in these spoiled

wines that isn’t in the successful ones!"

"Yes, Master Nordmark!" Leon stood at attention. He then hesitated:

"Sir, should I continue with the classes later?"

"Of course, what were you thinking? I still have projects for you to work on!"

Out of the first round of bacterial culture experiments, ten students passed successfully. Three from the Black Crow Swamp, one each from the Transformation and Enchantment schools, two sisters from the Church of Nature hand in hand, and three from the Temple of the God of War. The Spring Goddess’s Temple—

A total failure.

In Garrett’s view, they really should have washed the agar and beef more thoroughly.

And for the ten who passed, Garrett added extra homework.

Groups of five, one group cultivated Staphylococcus aureus, the other Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Once both groups mastered the cultures, they began adding various strange substances to the Petri dishes:

Cheese crumbs!

Moldy clothing fragments!

Soils from various places made into suspensions!

All Petri dishes were divided into n groups, at 18, 20, 25 degrees... the culture medium enriched with blood, corn paste, various pH levels... with light, without light... using divine magic to stimulate growth, or not...

Each person had a lab table, a lab cabinet. Shelves were filled with hundreds of Petri dishes, neatly arranged layer by layer.

"Each person, 100 Petri dishes a day, that’s 1000 for ten people. If ten isn’t enough, we can go to 20; if 20 isn’t enough, we can go to 24. If 24 people still can’t get it done, we’ll just have to recruit more~~~"

Humming, Garrett surveyed the tables of Petri dishes as if surveying fields of verdant wheat. Yes, this is the correct posture for research!

As a leading scientist, not having dozens of graduate students and PhDs to help out, doing everything yourself, not to mention whether it should be this exhausting, the efficiency just couldn’t be tolerated!

Now, all was well. Garrett happily delegated the task of discovering penicillin, streptomycin, and who knows what else to the apprentices, while he focused on teaching these students, helping them grow faster:

"Don’t just look through the microscope! Cultivate! Don’t you need to cultivate for brewing?"

"You... when crystallizing concentrated saltwater, pay attention to maintaining a stable temperature during cooling! Is the water bath for decoration? The equipment I bought for 1000 contribution points, is it for decoration? No? —Then use it!"

"Record! Keep good records! Is the paper and pen I gave you for eating? What was the ratio of your culture medium in the last experiment last night? —See, you can’t remember, can you? A good memory is no match for a bad pen!"

Under such intensive practice and operation, the students’ research level, not to mention, but at least their proficiency improved rapidly. Twenty days later, at the third bacterial culture operation assessment, everyone finally passed the test.

And that afternoon, Leon Carlos, who had taken on the task of researching wine fermentation, excitedly burst into Garrett’s study with a Petri dish in each hand:

"Sir! —Master Nordmark! I’ve found it! In the yeast used for brewing, some batches contain bacteria not found in good wine but present in failed batches! I speculate, it’s these bacteria that cause the fermented wine to turn sour!"

It seemed indeed so... Yeast contamination or raw material contamination. Garrett nodded:

"Well then, go conduct a few experiments to verify it."

"Here?"

"...Or shall I find you a distillery?"

Garrett’s offhand comment, taken seriously by the accountant from the Department of Public Health, who was also pressured by various professional associations to urge Garrett to expedite research, was treated as a serious task. Upon receiving the message, he immediately visited the Wine Industry Association, and the next afternoon at one, the president’s carriage stopped in front of Garrett’s Mage Tower.

At two o’clock, Leon Carlos, as an employee of the Department of Public Health and a delegate from the Magic Council researching the acidification of wine, entered the largest distillery on the upper reaches of the Smith River, accompanied by the president himself.

The distillery was bustling with activity. A strange sour smell permeated everywhere, and the middle-aged accountant stepped in, immediately starting to frown frequently. Leon, however, showed no discomfort, looking around nostalgically.

Long ago, his father had taken him to this distillery, showing it to him from a distance. That year, the quality of the wine was particularly good, and their family’s situation was also good. His father had once said, if he could build such a large distillery in his lifetime...

The president bent slightly, his right hand habitually pressing his right rib, looked past the middle-aged accountant, examining Leon closely. Passing the crushing area, the fermentation room, he suddenly grabbed the accountant, falling two steps behind, whispering to him:

"What’s the last name of this mage? Is it Carlos?"

"Yes, I am—"

Leon paused mid-step, blurting out.

That afternoon, when he left the distillery and got into the carriage, he found a thick, patterned deed on the seat.

Carlos Distillery.