Chapter 198: Dragonblood Serum

Teaching was never a difficult task for Richard, given his level of knowledge. He easily completed his first class, which lasted an entire morning, and still felt as if he could go on for longer.

After the class, Richard returned to Jorrod's laboratory with his notebook and the dragonblood he had obtained from Yelina.

Since he was substitute teaching, Richard didn't have his own lab in the Central Black Tower, so he had to use Jorrod's laboratory temporarily.

However, Jorrod's lab was among the best in the entire Black Tower Wizard Academy. Richard was quite familiar with it, and the equipment was all easy to use. It made him realize how inconvenient his own lab in the Wizard Tower had become.

"This won't do. A craftsman must first sharpen his tools. I need to upgrade my lab equipment when I get back. The guild's earned so much Magic Essence, it's time to spend some of it."

After lamenting about his laboratory, Richard took out Jorrod's alchemical centrifuge and prepared to create a serum from the dragonblood.

The dragonblood appeared bright red at first glance, and just looking at it made one feel its vitality. It had a viscous texture, almost like jam.

This was only the blood of a first-tier dragon. If the dragon were a higher tier, the blood would be even more viscous. There were legends that during the primitive times, a four-headed dragon's blood fell on a wizard who didn't stop the bleeding immediately, and the blood turned the wizard into amber.

Dragonblood also had a certain level of corrosiveness and invasiveness. The corrosiveness wasn't too dangerous, as dragons weren't aberrations; even a fourth-tier dragon's blood would only have the corrosiveness of a strong acid.

But the invasiveness was another matter.

Dragonblood could even corrode and transform inorganic matter. While the transformation effect was not very strong, it made it clear that dragonblood containers had to be enchanted.

The higher the tier of dragonblood being stored, the higher the enchantment on the container must be, and periodic checks were needed to ensure the container had not been corroded.

Richard used some alchemical reagents to process the dragonblood and then placed it into the centrifuge.

As the centrifuge hummed with a "whirring" sound, Richard moved to the workbench and took out a large rune base the size of a plate, beginning to inscribe runes on it.

These rune bases would be used for the gravity generators in the gravity training room. Once thirty of these were prepared and properly distributed within the training room, Richard would be able to simulate the gravity conditions of the Mountain World in the Wizarding World.

Half an hour later, the sound of the centrifuge stopped.

Richard walked over to the centrifuge, took out the test tube containing the serum, and separated the remaining residue from it.

Looking at the slightly yellowish serum, Richard moved to the lab window and used magic to call in an Academy monitor.

"Hey, hey, hey, what's this wizard going to do!" the summoned Academy monitor shouted.

Richard ignored the monitor and casually made his request.

"Go to the Clarka Merchant Guild and buy a few lab mice. Also, ask them if they have any young dragon blood for sale."

After speaking, Richard handed the monitor a Magic Essence and a red-glowing elemental gemstone, tossing it back out.

"You rude substitute wizard! Couldn't you be a bit more polite when asking me for a favor?"

The monitor grumbled angrily, but after swallowing the elemental gemstone, he quieted down.

Elemental gemstones weren't very expensive, only costing a few dozen Magic Stones, but for Academy monitors who liked collecting shiny things, these gemstones were more valuable than Magic Essence.

Soon after, the lab mice were delivered to Richard's lab by the Clarka Merchant Guild, along with a note saying that their young dragonblood had been sold out. If Richard wished to purchase it, he would need to pay a deposit and wait ten years for the next stock.

Richard handed the monitor ten Magic Essence.

"Help me reserve five doses of young dragonblood serum. Make sure to note that I want the serum from young dragons in the Wizarding World."

After the monitor left, Richard casually grabbed one of the lab mice from its cage.

These mice were specifically bred by the Wizarding Guild, with each batch having nearly identical measurements. There was very little deviation, so Richard didn't need to worry about any issues that might affect the experiment.

Richard tied the mouse to the experiment table, took out a syringe, and injected half a milliliter of the dragonblood serum into the mouse.

He then took out a recording crystal ball and notebook, starting to document the changes in the mouse.

Thirty seconds after the serum was injected, the mouse began to twitch.

Ten seconds later, the twitching intensified, and blood-soaked tissue fluid began to seep from the mouse's skin, indicating the onset of dragonification.

The dragonification started in the mouse's heart, and then spread along its arteries.

At first, the mouse began to shed large patches of fur, and scales, resembling those of a reptile, began to form on its body.

Thirteen seconds later, the mouse's skin had completely undergone dragonification, and it started spitting up foul blood in large amounts.

Richard collected the foul blood and continued to observe the mouse.

After thirty seconds of dragonification, the mouse stopped vomiting blood, and its vital signs began to rapidly deteriorate.

Fifty seconds after dragonification, the mouse completely lost all vital signs.

Richard dissected the mouse's body and found that its internal organs had undergone twisted changes, likely caused by the dragonification. These changes hadn't fully completed, and when Richard examined the body further, he found that the chemical energy stored in the mouse was completely depleted during the dragonification process.

Theoretically, the mouse had starved to death.

Richard also tested the foul blood collected from the mouse and confirmed that it contained a large number of broken cells. These cells likely represented the failure of the life force integration.

After organizing the experimental results, Richard fell into deep thought as he reviewed the test notes.

The dragonification of the mouse proved that the life force of the dragon existed in the serum. Furthermore, the process required a massive amount of energy, making it very difficult for ordinary creatures to undergo full dragonification.

Looking at the dragonified mouse, Richard couldn't shake the feeling that dragonblood was just too domineering.

Without even using cells, the serum's life force was enough to completely transform a creature, much like a virus.

Richard opened the secret realm and pulled Ulysses out.

After more than a year, Richard's secret realm had been transformed into a religious sanctuary by Ulysses.

It was full of temples, statues, and holy cities, with Ulysses acting as the high priest, occasionally preaching to the sacred tree elves. Due to their intellectual issues, the elves had all been easily swayed by Ulysses. They no longer believed the memories passed down to them and treated the religious texts Ulysses had created as historical fact.

In the texts, Richard was the creator god of the entire secret realm, and the sacred tree elves were the first creatures he had made.

Ulysses and the World Mushroom were Richard's sub-gods.

The sacred tree elves' memories of the past had become trials set by Richard to test their faith.

Honestly, when Richard first saw this, he nearly stopped Ulysses from continuing his preaching.

After a year of being indoctrinated, Richard was now concerned whether the sacred tree elves would be able to grow into first-tier beings.

As a wizard, Richard had always believed that the sacred tree elves should follow the path of spiritual evolution, given their weak physical constitution.

Moreover, their innate abilities required spiritual energy to function.

Spiritual evolution seemed like the only viable path for them.

But if they had been brainwashed and turned into zealots, Richard worried that they wouldn't be able to follow the path of spiritual evolution anymore.

Wizards valued reason above all, and he had never heard of a madman becoming a wizard.

But Ulysses quickly dispelled his doubts.

"Ha, are you discriminating against fools? Spiritual evolution only depends on spiritual power and the soul's obstacles during evolution. It has nothing to do with their mental state."

"Those crazy people in the Astral Realm are all madmen, but many of them are spiritual evolutionists."

"And who knows? After being brainwashed, these little guys might evolve even more smoothly. Sometimes, a firm believer is more likely to overcome the soul's obstacles than some clever person."

After pulling Ulysses out of the holy throne in the holy city, Richard pointed to the serum on the desk and asked this world's ruler to take a look and see if there was anything unusual about it.

Ulysses flew over, took a bit of the serum with his energy, and tasted it.

Not long after, he spat out and cursed, "Ha, what is this stuff? It can erode my body just by using a bit of life force."

Richard's gaze sharpened when he heard this. It seemed that Ulysses hadn't encountered a creature with bloodline power as strong as a dragon before.

"This is the serum from the dragons of the Wizarding World. In the worlds around the Wizarding World, dragon species are widely distributed."

Ulysses flapped his wings and shook his head. "Ha, this thing definitely has problems. The rules between worlds are vastly different. It's impossible for the same species to exist across multiple worlds."

"This creature is either a degenerated predecessor or a biological weapon created by the predecessors."

"Considering how corrosive it is, I lean toward the latter."

Richard nodded. After learning about the predecessors, he became even more suspicious of the dragons being a creation of the predecessors. He was increasingly certain that dragons were a product of the predecessors.

As for why dragons weren't degenerative predecessors, Richard sneered to himself. If they were, they would have been wiped out by wizards long ago, and any remnants would have been kept in secret realms under strict control.

They wouldn't be left out in the open, even guarding wizards' homes.

No one would leave a ticking time bomb in their room.

"Do you have any way to modify this?" Richard asked casually. "I'm very interested in some of the dragons' traits. If we can reduce their corrosiveness, these could be incredibly useful."

Richard wasn't expecting Ulysses to have an answer, given the huge differences between their civilizations. Ulysses' skills were mostly in physical talent and the power of faith.

But this time, Ulysses spoke up.

"Ha, you know, I might actually have a way to solve this."

(End of Chapter)