Chapter 7 – Bleeding Lang dry

 “Soulcraft, Alchemy and Runecraft are all just dfferent sides of the same coin.”
"But don't coins only have two sides?"
"Ok, Alchemy is like the edge between Soulcraft and Runecraft."  - Nathan Young

Getting back, she saw Jill was missing again, but there was a package on the table ‘for Vera’.

Vera became jolly ‘Maybe the calmant will be better than the tea, for research purposes.’, ‘I also need to talk to Lang about drinking the tea. I can make tests on new samples I gather tomorrow.’ “But first, I have to look at its Spirit Signature.” she took out the jar of cut up Koshi, with a bunch of alchemical compounds. She meditated over it and traced over the signature in her head.

After a while she was done with the mental arithmetics and started comparing it to the Kung cyst and the Koshi signatures, which she knew by heart by now.

Vera came to the conclusion that it was workable, the similarity had moved towards the Kung in some ways and away from it in others. ‘I have to use Alchemy, and probably Soulcraft, to slowly edit Koshi mushrooms to have a similar mask, why didn’t I think of this before?’ She stopped herself “I did” ‘I did and the result of the first experiment was inedible, so I decided it was impossible.’

‘that’s another thing to look into, I still have to write the report, give it to the principal, check on Lang, have her drink the Tea I gave her today, get the samples from her...’ “When will I have time for my Sweethearts?” Vera lamented ‘I still need to figure out what that ability was, if they have an easy way of reprogramming the Koi Koshi bacteria I could actually get much further much faster.’

“First Lang, I don’t want to disturb her at night.” She made up her mind.

With that, she came back to her mirror and did the same thing she did in the morning. She felt like it went more naturally and this time Lang’s face wasn’t as smudged.

“Good evening, Lang Bao,” Vera smiled at her. “The samples you have provided were very useful.”

“If this was the you from before the summer holidays, I’d say you just wanted to check up on me, but from the way you’ve been acting recently, I assume you have more to ask of me.” Langs shoulders came down as she made an audible sigh.

“Well yes, remember the Tea I left for you?” Vera asked sheepishly, having been found out.

“Was I not supposed to drink it because it had some of the bacteria you are working on?” Lang came to a conclusion while getting progressively angrier.

“No, no, no.” Vera tried to salvage the situation “No, I originally gave it as a gift cause I bought two packages by mistake.”

“Ahh,” Lang seemed to calm down but she continued “I’m sensing a but.”

“But I realized that maybe samples with Koshi Tea running through your digestive system could be useful.”

Lang’s hand hit her forehead “You can’t be serious, how do you entangle yourself like this?”

“I, I don’t know.” Vera answered the rhetorical question.

“Well whatever, it’s not like I can do much except learn more while sick”

“You know, I feel like I’m getting real close to an actual cure.” Vera softened her voice “At least for people like you who don’t have as much Lifeforce stored up, or as many of the actual parasites as to be lethal.”

“Something about killing the parasites in their cyst stage right?”

“Yup, so can I got get some more samples tomorrow morning?” Vera nodded and smiled as if it was obviously concluded.

“Only if you bring another tasty lunch.” Lang reddened a bit as she looked to the side.

Vera seemed to ignore it completely “Of course. I will have another thing for you to try.” Before Lang could be questioning she added “It’s Koshi calmant.”

“I will try it for your research.” Lang smiled for her.

“Oh by the way, the university tournament is starting soon.” and they continued talking about school and the tournament for a couple minutes before Lang heard a call from her door and she disconnected.

“Now for the report writing.” Vera spent about two hours writing the report before she decided to play around with the Sweetheart bacteria, having finished two pages of her predicted 6-7.

She had a microscope at home, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the university supplied ones, she took it out and looked inside.

More of the Koi Koshi bacteria had formed on top of the small Koshi chunk, but about 150 were actively swimming around in the agar. 4 of the 9-man Sweetheart formations were on the prowl, limiting the Koi Koshi’s.

It seemed to take about half-an-hour between two ‘injections’. In that time the formation would get close to the Koshi mushroom and muscle-out the other bacteria from it, to graze. ‘Does this qualify as sparring for the Body Realm?’ Vera was thinking, she hadn’t heard of micro-organisms cultivating, all of the spirit organisms were the result of a mistake, or a spirit attached to a human, using its Qi and alchemy to create itself a body. Sometimes even created by a cultivator by applying the Spirit Mask.

This was also the believed origin of the Kung parasite. The similarity, between its Cysts and the Koshi mushrooms came from the fact that both were parasites, the Koshi mushroom attached itself to the Spirit-Sakura tree, whose cells and other known parasites Vera had tested.

“Time for some cultivation.” Vera stopped her train of thought by saying it out loud.

“That might be a good idea Vera” Jill answered, in a slightly tipsy manner.

Vera jittered out from behind the microscope, “Hello, didn’t hear you enter.” Vera stood up abashedly. “You reek… of stuff.” Jill really had a heavy scent of alchemical compounds, smoke, alcohol and many other odors Vera had trouble discerning.

“And you reek of nerd.” Jill served out the punishment “No, but seriously, what is the reason for you to be playing around with a microscope at the dorm. Can’t you like, take a break even outside of school?” Jill went from a fully mocking tone to a serious in just a couple seconds.

Vera gulped “I feel it, you know, like I’m on the verge of a cure.” She was embarrassed, not because she didn’t think it was true, but because it felt embarrassing complimenting herself in front of others.

“That would be great, my grandfather would surely thank you.”

“Your grandfather also has it?” Vera wasn’t aware of that yet.

“He’s had it for a couple weeks now, took off 40 years of his life already, even though he only has about 40 left, so he should survive it by a close margin, but its painful seeing him age at that rate.”

“Well, it wouldn’t actually help your grandpa, as it only destroys cysts. And as he has less than 50 years of Lifeforce, the likelihood is, that almost no new cysts are being created.” Vera ventured.

“Ah yes, you did explain how your cure was supposed to work.” Jill looked out the window “A bit of a roundabout way of doing things, isn’t it?” Vera knew this was Jill’s inebriation speaking. Still, for some reason, that jab hurt.

“You should go sleep Jill, you aren’t doing that well.”

Jill’s smile froze, but she conceded and went to bed.

Vera waited for a couple moments until she heard Jill’s heartbeat steady, she took the Petri dish from the microscope and hid it, then she placed the microscope where it originally was, as if nothing changed.

Jill will remember, but she won’t ask questions, at least that was Vera’s line of thinking as she went to sleep.

********

Sunday morning, no school today, but still a lot of work to do. Vera prepared breakfast for both her and Jill, prepared lunch for Lang and brought everything with her along with protective gear.

It went similarly to last time, with the guard escorting her, Vera couldn't really talk to Lang, but they could still have a conversation via mirror-talk.

As before she took off her protection gear, and while flying back home she realized that she had to get a box for this, so it wouldn’t be in the fridge with regular food.

Her mind wandered thinking of how the cooling of the fridge and almost everything else worked on Alchemical fire- generating alchemical power from tiny granules and a Transferrance rune on the fridge along with the socket.

The comfortable inventions of the past 100 years were useful for everyone, even those who couldn't deal with cultivation.

While buying a sealed box in a pharmacy, she saw that there was a commotion around a new shelf labeled Li’s newest health inventions. People were trying to get some of the new products. ‘Ugh, hype chasers.’ Vera thought to herself. ‘I probably don’t have the time or money for that stuff.’

She bought her box and went out shopping for food, just a little bit around the marketplace. There she met Mila, one of the Shan twins, with her Raccoon familiar, eating peanuts on her shoulder. He was so cute. Vera came closer to Mila “Hey there Mila, how’s it going?” She then scritched the Raccoon with her index finger. He smiled and closed his eyes, angling his head towards the pleasant sensation.

“Didn’t expect you here Vera” after a short pause “Honestly, I didn’t expect you anywhere outside a research lab.” Vera smiled back at Mila.

They talked a while about school until the tournament came up.

“I know its a lot to ask, but me and my sister have been training for the melee.” Their spirit link was as much of a boon as a flaw in combat, they could compensate for their blindsides, but at the same time, they would share pain. This was also the main reason they weren’t allowed to join the military corps, having one damaged twin would suddenly become a liability.

“I wish you both luck, but the competition won’t be easy.” Vera offered, knowing they probably wouldn’t make it, with both Helena and Mike being better at combat and there would be five people from the entire year. Although, if a single twin got in, this weakness would be moot, that is to say, it would really break up their dynamic of equality.

They continued their conversations for a couple of minutes while shopping, until they both had the food they came for and they each went their separate ways. When Vera came back to the dorm, Jill was up “Did you hear that they have a gathering of the families today?” Jill asked, still groggy from her elongated sleep.

“Is it about emergency measures while the God-Emperor is in stasis?”

“No idea, my friend didn’t know what the reason was.” Jill supplied.

Vera put the box of materials from Lang into the safe box and moved it to the side, while unloading the rest of the food into the fridge and cupboard.

She clapped her hands and said “I’ve got a large report to write up, so you’ll have to excuse me.” Vera came to the other side of the table and took out her ink and brush and started making strokes, sometimes re-writing what she had written, but mostly going through the motions.

********

After 6 hours of work, she had 5 pages filled with her clumsy handwriting. One however didn’t need great handwriting if one could cultivate. Vera smiled. She had prepared parts of the official paper where she would put diagrams – especially Spirit Signatures along with predictions of the base usage.

The paper had an introduction to the Koshi mushrooms, the Koi Koshi bacteria, continued with the Kung parasite and its cysts’ Spirit Signature, and the difference it had from the Koshi mushrooms one. How the Koi Koshi ate the parasite cysts when there was enough Koshi matter surrounding them.

It finished with the fact that submerging them into high enough concentration of Koshi mushroom matter, they slowly started attacking the cysts more and more, even in lower concentration.

A trend-line of her prediction for when her bacteria could eat 90, 95, 99 and 100% of the cysts in the body of someone who drank a strong Koshi tea twice a day for a couple days was the crowning achievement of this paper. Each taking one month, three months, eight months and 16 months respectively.

Obviously someone who could survive replacing their blood by half- Koshi extract, would be able to get completely healthy much sooner, the prediction being 3 months.

‘Okay, time for the heavy lifting using Telekinesis Printing.’

Vera cracked her knuckles and focused on the ink and on a new sheet of clean papers, the clumsy handwriting was neatly copied on the new paper, almost unrecognizable as her own.

At the proper pauses, she invoked her Mind’s Gate to recollect precisely and accurately, the shape and tenure of the Spirit mask, outlining it in yellow ink. Vera highlighted the important difference areas with green and red, depending on how large the difference was.

After about 20 minutes of painstakingly copying the document, she had a research paper ready to be published. “God, I hate doing that.” She said, silently adding the ‘Emperor’ to his title. She slumped down in her chair, ‘I should at least sleep a bit before I have a full day of research again.’

But first she needed to check on Lang and the last sample she needed, one containing the calmant. She opened up another mirror-talk with her “Hello Lang. How do you feel?”.

“I feel well, even with having some of that calmant thing.” Lang made a face like she was holding a grudge.

“Did it not calm you down?” Vera asked languidly.

“Never mind that, you look and sound like a zombie Vera.” Lang bolted out of her chair, trying to get a better look through the smudged up image in her mirror. “I was calm until now.”

“I was just finishing my report, I can give you a copy tomorrow.” Vera was still out of it, although she did make an effort to look more awake than she was feeling.

“I know I won’t be missing the Wednesday assignments.” Lang offered, sighing with relief.

“Oh. I haven’t even started that one.” Vera was looking into dead space “I meant a lab report, I should be able to make a soft cure in three months, two for the immortals.” When Vera mentioned the immortals, Lang’s eyes became sharp.

“You know they started a long debate about a bunch of stuff, even our elders are at the meeting, everyone is bringing their own food, and protection suits to make sure nothing problematic happens.” Lang was very serious, but Vera couldn't get herself to really care.

“I heard something like that, but I’m focusing on the cure you know.” Vera said matter-of-factly.

Lang smiled “That’s why it was always easier to be friends with you than the other high-brow family people in class. They are always focusing on the family politics, even if they try to act like its not that important to them, they always steer the conversation to them.”

“You mean like you do?” Vera looked much more awake with that remark, hiding a smile.

Now it was Lang’s turn to turn red “I thought we were friends.” She almost sounded hurt, but maybe playfully hurt Vera decided.

“We’re friends despite your family.” to which Lang responded “That’s even lower of a blow.”

“Hahaha, hope you get better, I have to run.”

“Goodbye Vera” Lang waved. Vera waved back.

She ended the connection, dragged herself to her bed and allowed her dreams to take her.