Mystical Journey

He waited patiently while the blood from the heart muscle seeped into the fluids in the bottle, dying the interior of the small bottle a dark red. Only then did he twist the bottle cap open, used a pair of forceps to retrieve the heart muscle and put it inside another bottle filled with the same type of fluids.

The Dual Headed Salamander’s heart muscle possessed extremely high vitality, and over time it remained bright red without any sign of decay.

After Garen transferred the heart muscle, he walked towards the other side of the room where a pile of equipment and apparatus had been placed in a corner, and picked up a small cage covered with black cloth.

Suddenly, piercing squeaks were roused from the cage.

The black cloth on top of the cage was pulled off to reveal more than ten aberration mice with ashen coloured fur.

All of these mice had red eyes, and were frantically running around in the cage without stopping. Two of the mice even jumped up and tried to bite Garen’s hand, but were obstructed by the cage each time.

Garen opened the small door of the cage and shot his right hand in quickly, catching one of the mice and closing the small door.

It was time to proceed with the second test of the plan.

He anesthetized the little grey mouse and sliced its abdominal cavity open, before removing a identically shaped and sized piece of flesh from both the Salamander’s heart muscle and the mouse’s heart. He planted the Salamander’s heart muscle carefully into the mouse’s heart muscle.

The experiment was proceeding smoothly, and the heart muscle had been successfully implanted.

Next, Garen sewed up the wound and placed the little grey mouse in a cage by itself for observation.

The mouse that received a new heart muscle implant now seemed like it was dying. After the anaesthetic effect wore off, it began moving again, but its four paws could not stop shaking. It was only able to crawl a few steps forward before its whole body began to shiver.

Garen used the purple crystal rod that had been dipped in a blended blood mixture to feed the mouse.

This was a medicinal blood concoction tailored for the rejection reaction, and it had to be fed using a crystal rod to avoid adverse side effects.

After drinking a few drops of the blood concoction, the mouse finally calmed down again.

Garen crouched down beside the cage and took out his notebook to begin recording his experiment observations.

Bang!!

Suddenly a loud noise rang from the cage, as the mouse within suddenly exploded into a cloud of bloody mist, while slivers of its flesh and bone splattered everywhere.

Garen put his pen down.

"The first experimental mouse, failed."

After that, he continued with the second mouse.

Another ‘bang’ sounded, and the cage was filled with blood and bits of flesh once again.

Garen’s expression was unchanging as he continued with the third mouse, proceeding with the same heart muscle transplant again.

This mouse turned out better. Because he’d reduced the transplanted amount, the mouse appeared to be entirely normal, except that it was more energetic. It looked like this was the effect of the heart muscle.

Garen recorded the current ratio.

A few days passed, and he continued to stay in the underground space that Vanderman had dug out under of the manor. Not only were there instruments and containers here, there were also various experiment manuscripts and recorded data.

Garen studied every single piece of information.

Vanderman Trejons was a genius, a genius in his field of research.

He invented various techniques that even Totem Users had never dreamed of, and most of them were techniques that the Obscuro Society had tried to acquire using other methods. Although he had yet to achieve the level of a Crystal Derivator, he was already very close

While Garen flipped through the manuscripts, not only did he find research on the Green Vine Sphere, he also found various techniques such as organ transplantation, in vitro reproduction, and Totem power separation, amongst others.

Using these manuscripts and research information helped Garen’s theoretical knowledge to increase rapidly. Regarding the entire research system, he had also gained a deeper understanding.

*****************

Pap.

Garen placed the cup of black tea on the table, picked up a manuscript and read it intently. The rows of experimental data were like sacred cheat codes in his eyes, and were incredibly precious to him.

The table in the hall was piled with tall stacks of manuscripts and books that all contained copious amounts of officially released analysis, tests, results, and discussions.

Garen was unsure of the amount of data he had processed in the past few days. All of these were still elementary level, and Vanderman’s manuscripts filled up three underground rooms in total, which were arranged by difficulty and date respectively, and progressively increased, indicating that his research constantly went deeper.

Currently, what Garen was studying was merely the manuscripts and books from the first room. Right now, he was only able to understand the things from the first room as well.

Hours and minutes ticked by, as ashen rays glimmered from the balcony. Lala, dressed in her white servant’s skirt, walked in and took the empty coffee and tea cups, before placing some ready-made snacks on an empty space near the manuscripts.

She glanced at the manuscripts on the table. The data was completely foreign to her, and although she recognized the individual words inside, she could no longer comprehend them once they were strung together with a variety of terminological pronouns, which seemed extremely deep to her.

"Your afternoon tea cakes and cherry milkshake are here."

Lala murmured the sentence, and as she had expected, did not receive a reply. She shook her head and turned around to walk out before noticing that the fireplace was full of charcoal ashes again. She went to dispose of them while she was still in the room, as it would be troublesome once the rubbish truck had left.

Garen flipped through the manuscripts and read them attentively, subconsciously picking up a piece of cake and shoving it into his mouth.

Suddenly, his gaze shifted towards a moving red dot.

A thought stirred in his head as he steered his gaze towards the bottom quickly and looked towards his Skill Pane.

‘Biological engineering: Elementary level. (Theoretical framework has been established completely, Three phases overall, elementary, intermediate, advanced)’

Regarding his initial beginner-level biological engineering, after he had read all the experiment information and a large number of subject books, it had finally advanced to the elementary level. However, this was not the most important part. The most important part was that his Overall Framework had finally been established, which would allow him to use his Potential Points to speed up the learning process.

Putting the manuscripts down, Garen glanced at the back of his hand, and noticed that pale red lines were beginning to tinge the skin there, resembling strawberry milk of the highest quality.

"The Salamander’s blood is finally showing some effects."

After a long period of injecting dragon’s blood serum, Garen felt that his body had finally shown some changes and was no longer the same as before. There were no changes in his Attribute Pane, but that may have been because his abilities had yet to achieve proper quantitative change levels.

Garen returned to his thoughts and let go of the manuscripts. He was unwilling to proceed with such slow-paced research, because his Overall Framework system had been fully established. His theories were also sufficient, and all he needed was a large amount of experimental practice.

On the contrary, his advanced mathematics had recently been upgraded and had exceeded his biological engineering greatly; he had achieved the highest level. Furthermore, while he was researching the Resonance Stone, Garen had also discovered one of its hidden key principles.

The research progress of the Resonance Stone had gone through a tremendous upgrade, and Garen seemed to have figured out the transfer model of the resonance. It felt like he’d awoken the same obsession as when he first learned the Secret Techniques; once more, he was enduring sleepless nights as he immersed himself into his research.

After acquiring Vanderman’s various techniques, Garen immediately began researching the organ transplant procedures of this world. Compared to the other techniques, organ transplantations and other techniques were extremely mature skills.

The experiments conducted on the little grey mice during these few days, made Garen reminisce to the time when he first entered university and conducted experiments on creatures in the experiment labs.

"Tonight will be the crucial time for my self experiment. If I’m not careful and a problem occurs, it will definitely cause severe injuries," mused Garen. He put down the manuscripts in his hands and picked up a pen to begin checking the plans on his paper again.

Transforming a physical body into a Totem worked when the dragon blood serum was in effect, but once the injections stopped, would return to its original state quickly. Garen had thought of this mad plan early on.

If he could possess a heart as strong as the Dual Headed Salamander, his limits could then be exceeded once again.

But how would he get such a strong heart?

After perusing various sources of information and experiment data, as well as the organ transplantation techniques he had received from Vanderman, a mad thought appeared in Garen’s mind.

He could transplant a strong creature’s organ into his own body and use the resonance principle to absorb the original organ’s energy vitality. It seemed like a viable decision.

Thus, he began to experiment on the Dual Headed Salamander’s heart muscles, transplanting it from time to time to note various side effects and dangerous reactions. He then prepared relieving medicines, and adjusting the different dosages.

The mouse that had received a successful heart muscle transplant now possessed the characteristics of Totem Light. Its body had also undergone changes of a certain degree, and was currently much stronger and more muscular than it was initially. Its strength and speed were now two times of that of a regular grey mouse.

This gave Garen some hope.

However, the mortality rate was still quite high, at about 70%. This was the main reason why he was hesitant to make his next move.

It was just as he’d predicted. The organ transplantation technique would produce a large amount of blood during the heart muscle transplantation. Meanwhile, as the nutrients were being absorbed, the produced blood would continuously mix into the test subject’s body.

The Dual Headed Salamander’s heart naturally possessed haemopoietic abilities, and this was the key reason why Garen had chosen it.

If the transplantation succeeded, Garen assumed that his own flesh body would possess abilities similar to a Totem, and the Totem Light would no longer be an obstacle to himself. Meanwhile, with the Dual Headed Salamander’s strong haemopoietic abilities, his physical limits would probably be increased slowly as well.

"But I’m not worried about the ‘if’s’, I’m only worried about the ‘what if’s’. Although I’m an ultimate Secret Technique User and fighter, my vitality has reached its limits, and I don’t know what I should do about this transplant surgery. To think of completing this heart and heart muscle transplant, the difficulty required…"

"Once I’ve been anaesthetized, I won’t be able to command anything. But if I don’t use anaesthesia, the tremendous pain will cause the blood in my body to flow faster, causing spasm reactions. Even if I was able to endure the pain of the surgery, a successful transplantation would still be difficult to achieve."

But once he succeeded, Garen inferred that similar to the outcome of the little grey mouse’s transplantation,he would be able to achieve a permanent Totem Light effect, which may exceed his physical limits at the same time.

By then, he would become a Core Totem himself, and the Core Totem would be him. Moreover, he would be able to use his Potential Points to increase his own Attributes. When that time came, minor side effects would not matter at all.

While Garen was hesitating, his gaze glanced slightly towards the shadow of Lala in the next room.

Lala had already been fully empowered by him, and two days ago he had tried to use his Potential Points to evolve Lala. Regretfully, Empowered Human Totems seemed to not have any abilities that could be evolved, and this cemented Garen’s thoughts to transplant his own organs.

"Is there a type of medicine that can be used to only make humans lose their sense of pain, without worrying about muscle spasms, increasing blood flow or other natural reactions?" Garen queried mentally.

Suddenly, both of his eyes gleamed, as though he had concocted an idea.

"I remember Reylan once mentioned that the Obscuro Society was also conducting these kinds of experiments. Some of the higher-leveled ones attempted to empower their own bodies, but as they were unable to trust others, decided to find a type of medicine that could get rid of their sense of pain instead, which would enable them to perform surgery on themselves. This type of medicine is commonly used on the battlefield, to make the soldiers forget their suffering, and should probably be found with the pharmacists in the Royal Alliance of Luminarists. The only problem is that it has stronger side effects, but it is definitely something that will yield good results. Maybe I could use the Green Vine Sphere to propose my requests at the same time."