Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 835

Binding (4)

The underground complex was located in Sector 44, a gray area shrouded in jamming, its precise location unlisted even by satellite coordinates.

Beneath a dark staircase lay a vast corridor. Inside an examination room bathed in pale light, Lenok sat with his eyes closed.

He wore only a thin shirt, with thin connectors attached to various points on his upper body, drawing up his mana.

“Good. Just like that. You’re doing well,” a sticky voice echoed, as if something was caught in the speaker’s throat. It came from a gaunt young man in a wheelchair, who was staring intently at a real-time output graph without blinking.

“Your mana manipulation efficiency is still at an unrealistic level. A grand mage wouldn’t usually care about the gap between body and mind, but even considering that, these are amazing numbers.”

The young man pushed up his thick glasses, a faint glow flickering from his body as if mechanical devices had been implanted.

Woong!!

Lenok ignored the young man’s words, focusing on manipulating his mana with his eyes closed. He was conducting an experiment to react to signals coming through the connectors, sending and withdrawing mana, measuring speed and accuracy.

The graph on the screen twisted into a complex trajectory, then instantly stabilized, drawing parallel lines.

Beep……!!

At the same time, the number [27] appeared on the graph.

The young man leaned his thin body out of the wheelchair, speaking with a hint of admiration. “Passed the 27th stage of the medical mana manipulation test… From here on, the standards aren’t really meant to be passed.”

Even then, the graph continued to rise, drawing an upward curve on the screen, quickly changing the units being measured. Just as it was about to reach 31 or higher, passing 28, 29, and 30, the young man immediately nodded and turned off the equipment.

Pshh!!

“That’s enough. I think I’ve seen enough. Let’s start the other examination.”

“…Why did you stop?” Lenok finally opened his eyes and muttered. “I wanted to test how far I could go for the first time in a while.”

Despite the crude form of testing mana manipulation with connectors, the standards and difficulty of the test were surprisingly high. Even Lenok, an 8th-level grand mage, had to pay attention after the 25th stage. He felt a competitive spirit for the first time in a while and wanted to test his limits, but it was a shame that it was cut off when he still had plenty of energy left.

“You’re like a madman…” The young man shook his head, looking dumbfounded at Lenok. “What you just did was the test sheet software created by Ars Nova [a fallen city known for its advanced magical technology] to certify the ranks of mages.”

“So?”

“Out of all the patients and mages I’ve examined, no one has ever gone up to the 30th stage, and there are no measurement standards beyond that in the first place. If you had continued the test, the software itself would have broken down.”

“……”

“Now as ever, your mana manipulation is at an unprecedented level. Even by Ars Nova’s standards, it’s hard to measure your potential…”

“You seem quite happy for someone saying that.” Lenok, having removed the connector from his arm, glanced back at the young man and asked, “Was the test I just took that interesting?”

As Lenok spoke, the young man shook his head as if he was tired of it, but he had a faint smile on his lips. It was a strange attitude, as if the current situation was so funny that he couldn’t contain it.

The young man smirked at Lenok’s words and said, “No, that’s… yes, that’s right. It’s definitely a little funny.”

“What is?”

“Until Ars Nova was destroyed, we believed that only that city could be the only answer.”

“……”

“We thought there was no need to consider other possibilities except for the cowardly endangered species. But what about now?” The young man chuckled self-deprecatingly. “The central city has collapsed, and there are talents beyond the standards outside the city. Looking back now, how ridiculous it was…”

What was the young man thinking when he saw Lenok pass the Ars Nova test so easily? It was a self-deprecating lament that only someone who had lived in the central city could make. The last words of a survivor who had made that now-destroyed city his hometown, lived there his whole life, and was then driven out. A sneer allowed only to him against a life and civilization that had already died.

When Lenok looked at the young man silently instead of answering, he turned his wheelchair around. “Well, it’s probably not something a genius like you can relate to. Forget about it.”

“……”

“It seems like your mana manipulation has been optimized, so let’s skip that examination. It’s not my specialty anyway.”

The young man’s assertion that it wasn’t his specialty, despite having the Ars Nova mana manipulation test software and the insight to judge its standards, was telling. But Lenok knew that his words weren’t entirely a lie.

The owner of this examination room that Lenok had come to was once a resident of Ars Nova and an excellent doctor. The vampire doctor, Alejandro Murphy. An authority specializing in self-examination fields such as blood and genetic analysis, and one of the very few survivors who escaped when the central city of Ars Nova was destroyed. Now, he had cut off all other ties and was a recluse, locked away in a dark underground ward, focusing on his own business.

It was thanks to Madam, who was also a vampire, that he was able to connect with this vampire, who was hardly known in the Balkans. It was a near-coincidental meeting, but now he was a doctor who could be of significant help to Lenok. Even if his personality was eccentric, there were few people who could examine and diagnose Lenok’s body to this extent.

Click!!

Murphy, who came with an armful of all kinds of syringes and needles, unhesitatingly stuck them into Lenok’s shoulder.

“……” Lenok frowned, but shook his head without saying anything. But Murphy, bothered by even that small movement, tapped Lenok’s back. “Just stay still. It’s hard to concentrate when you’re being so distracting.”

“If you forcibly control your body’s reactions with your mind, it will make the examination more difficult,” Lenok replied indifferently. “I’m just trying to react as naturally as possible.”

“A grand mage sure makes grand excuses,” Murphy scoffed. “Isn’t the reason you’re doing this troublesome thing in the first place because you didn’t follow my diagnosis?”

“Diagnosis?”

“Life support device. The data record hasn’t been updated for almost a month.” Murphy, who had stuck dozens of needles into Lenok’s body, glared sharply. “Did you think I customized the life support device into a cane shape so you could carry it around for no reason?”

“……”

“Considering your unique constitution, you need to compare the ups and downs of your condition with the data you’ve accumulated to find the cause, but you only come at such ambiguous times… You’re really something.”

“…It’s not like there’s no reason.” Lenok, realizing that there was no room for excuses, subtly avoided the answer. Lenok was also aware that he had hardly carried the life support device recently. He wore it when he was a demi [a being with a human and non-human nature], but he didn’t carry it around even in urgent battles or situations. Moreover, since he had hardly any external activities as a Guardian recently, it was natural that the life support device’s record had hardly been updated.

“Strictly speaking, it’s not like I’m only coming when I’m about to die. I’m just trying to make opportunities when I have time.”

“Are you trying to play word games with me?”

“……”

Murphy ignored Lenok and stuck needles all over his upper body, then connected tubes to all of them. It was a bizarre scene of Lenok sitting in the middle of the vast examination room, surrounded by dozens of medical devices and insertion tubes. When Murphy, who had moved back in his wheelchair, activated the equipment, Lenok’s blood began to flow out very slowly through the blood vessels. Instead of drawing a large amount of blood through one tube, blood was being drawn simultaneously from various parts of the body through dozens of tubes.

“There is an inflection point where the mana projection rate of blood changes depending on the degree of damage and over-recovery of blood vessels,” Murphy explained, noticing Lenok’s gaze as he stared at his own blood flowing out. “If you had come right after being injured, there would be no need to go this far, but we have to create a comparison group by force like this. Don’t complain.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Be quiet.”

“……”

Murphy quickly finished drawing blood and immediately removed the needles from Lenok’s body. The blood stopped instantly when he applied the hemostatic agent on the skin. It would take some time for the wounds to heal, but even if that wasn’t the case, Lenok’s whole body was covered in bruises, so it didn’t matter.

“Haa…” Even when gathered together, the amount was only about one blood transfusion pack. But Murphy looked at Lenok’s blood, which he had drawn, with a blissful gaze, as if he were looking at the greatest treasure. “Even after a long time, the concentration rate is still amazing. Beautiful…”

“The owner is listening, so please refrain from saying such creepy things?”

“Shut up. What do you, who aren’t even a vampire, know about the aesthetics of blood?”

“I don’t really want to know…” Lenok leaned back on the sofa in the examination room with his arms crossed and chuckled. “There must have been so many people coveting it. You and Madam don’t seem that different in that regard.”

“Ha, that’s…” Murphy scoffed, but unlike before, he couldn’t deny it. That was proof that the blood of a high-level mage had tremendous value for vampires like Murphy.

“Enough, can you tell me the results? How long will it take to upload the results to the database and compare them?” What supported Murphy’s skills and expertise was not just his insight or knowledge. It was the Ars Nova examination records that he had brought with him when he escaped from the central city. Although it was only a part, it was of great help just to look at the patient examination cases recorded in that database. In the first place, the reason Lenok had come to Murphy for this examination was to use that database.

“…Wait a little. I can’t input the drawn blood into the database. I need to make minimal adjustments so that comparison is possible.”

“I hope you finish quickly.”

“It’s something I’ve done before. Be patient. In the first place, why didn’t you come to me right after fighting the Ghoul?”

At that moment, Lenok’s fingers, which had been leisurely tapping his knee, paused for a moment. Murphy, not caring about Lenok’s reaction, put the blood into the centrifuge and said, “The physical records of a high-level mage who has just finished a battle are very valuable data. If you come on time, I’ll process the diagnosis for free, so make sure you visit without forgetting.”

“…The incident with Peisha Grisban. You knew. Who told you?”

“Did you forget that I came to this city working at the Dead Rise trauma hospital?” Murphy smirked. “Even though I don’t work with them anymore, I often hear news about the generals… If it’s a really serious problem, I get contacted.”

“News about the generals…” So he thought the injuries on Lenok’s body were because of the fight with Peisha. Well, the last official record of the Guardian was the fight with the Ghoul, so it wasn’t strange.

“More than that, there’s something I want to talk about while the database is running.” Murphy, who had approached the window of the examination room covered by a curtain, turned to Lenok and grinned. “That business we did last time, would you be willing to cooperate again?”

“Business? I’ve never done business with you in the first place-” Lenok, who had said that far, remembered what had happened before and smiled bitterly. “…You mean the blood selling business.”

When he first visited Murphy, Murphy had suggested experimenting with Lenok’s blood, just like now. A blood selling business that would use the blood of a superhuman as a doping agent and supply it to customers all over the continent. At the time, Murphy had used Lenok’s blood as a showcase to promote his business to his customers. Lenok’s blood was never sold as a doping agent, but he remembered that the showcase itself had ended quite ridiculously.

“I thought we had already come to a conclusion about that, was there any room for further experimentation now?” When they brought in death row inmates and monsters who had committed heinous crimes and injected them with Lenok’s blood, the results were that the higher the level of the superhuman, the more they self-destructed because they couldn’t handle the power. At that time, they had experimented on a 5th-level superhuman, so if they wanted to increase the data now, they would have to target a superhuman above that level. Lenok tilted his head, wondering if this vampire was thinking of capturing a superhuman of level 6 or higher and conducting human experiments.

“No, that’s not it.” Murphy, noticing Lenok’s thoughts, smiled with a sinister expression. “There’s a very interesting project that one of my clients has entrusted to me, and I think I can handle it quickly with your help.”

“……”

“The conditions are the same. I’ll use some of your blood that I just drew for the showcase, and if you don’t agree, I’ll dispose of the remaining blood immediately.” Murphy said leisurely, leaving Lenok silent. “I’ll only use it as a control group to compare the results, just like last time, and your blood won’t be distributed or your identity revealed. In the first place, if I tried such a shallow trick on you, I wouldn’t survive.”

“If it ends similarly to last time, I don’t think there’s a need to do the experiment again…” Lenok, leaning back with his arms crossed, nodded his head towards Murphy, who was standing in front of the curtain. “I’ll decide after hearing what the project is about.”

“Good, the gist of the project is simple. Let’s forcibly strengthen unreformable criminals and raise them as hunting dogs. In the process, the doping agent I was promoting will be used. However…”

“However?”

“The fact that I’m not the only one participating in the project.” Murphy said that and swept away the curtain that was covering the window of the examination room.

Whoosh!!

Beyond the window, on a vast screen, was the scenery of a huge underground arena. In the prison placed in the arena, people with all kinds of vicious expressions were locked up, glaring at each other. Around them, thousands of spectators were shouting with enthusiastic cheers.

[Waaaaaaaah!!!]

Above the heads of the criminals locked in the prison, photos of Murphy and several other people were floating. The moment he realized that they were the photos of the so-called ‘partners’ who were participating in this project with Murphy.

“We’ve gathered business owners who process and sell superhuman blood, like me, and it will be a place to compare whose work is the best,” Murphy said while Lenok frowned. “It’s the so-called ‘Best Doping Tournament’.”

“……”

“One of my clients is a city council senator. It will start in the undeveloped area this evening and end within a day. How about it?” Murphy’s eyes gleamed as he looked at the underground arena beyond the screen. “Among the doping agents using the blood of countless superhumans, why don’t we experiment to see whose blood is the greatest?”