Preparation of Anesthetic

Clearly, this Spell System was extremely cumbersome, nothing like the simple version described in novels—where one merely had to sit cross-legged with closed eyes, absorb the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth into the body, then release it when needed.

Even with the descriptions in the Chapter of Munro and his own extensive deductions, Richard still had many doubts about this Spell System.

For example, what exactly was the Super Body State required for the first Life Reshaping? What was the Highly Activated State required for the second Life Reshaping? And what was the High Energy State required for the third Life Reshaping? Richard could only guess, explore, and experiment.

According to some of the explanations in the book, the Super Body State of the first Life Reshaping was a mysterious state in which the mind temporarily separated from the flesh and sensed the outside world through consciousness. It felt somewhat like a dream, yet one remained lucidly aware of oneself.

Richard understood it this way: the Super Body State should resemble meditation, namely the Sanskrit "Mantra" of India. In Sanskrit, "Mantra" could be divided into two parts: "Man" and "Tra." "Man" meant "mind," while "Tra" meant "to lead away." Thus, "Mantra" meant leading the human mind away from worldly thoughts, worries, desires, mental burdens, and so on.

Yet the Super Body State was not entirely equivalent to Mantra meditation. It was deeper; while maintaining relaxed self-awareness, it separated one further from the body and delved more deeply into the mind, resembling the ultimate state of meditation—Zen.

Or perhaps it was some kind of "nightmare" state, namely Ghost Bed: when someone suddenly woke from sleep, their brain regained consciousness while their motor center remained asleep, resulting in the mind being unable to control the body. One could think and remember, yet could not move one's limbs at all, leaving those who experienced it utterly terrified.

Or perhaps it was the Lucid Dream pursued by many: consciousness lingered between sleep and wakefulness, allowing one to clearly know they were dreaming and control any dreamscape they created, creating and destroying like a god and fulfilling all sorts of fantasies impossible in reality.

Simply put, the Super Body State was an extremely deep Mantra meditation, and achieving it was no easy task. Even true yoga Masters could not guarantee that they could completely immerse themselves in meditation at any time. As for so-called nightmares and Lucid Dreams, they were even more elusive; even with deliberate adjustments to one's sleep, the success rate was less than one in ten.

Richard could not accept that at all. From a scientific standpoint, only a one-hundred-percent success rate could prove that something was truly feasible.

And to turn the exceedingly difficult-to-achieve Super Body State into something with a one-hundred-percent success rate, Richard's solution was—drugs.

Granted, using drugs would have some effects on the body, but drugs might also be the most convenient and quickest method. Under normal circumstances, one could not keep the mind awake while putting the body to sleep, but special drugs—such as alkaloids with anesthetic effects—could accomplish it.

Many plants contained such alkaloids, such as the nightshade, legume, buttercup, and poppy families among dicotyledonous plants. One only needed to place the plant materials into apparatuses, put them through a series of chemical reactions, and remove impurities to obtain highly pure anesthetic alkaloids.

Richard considered it, then got to work.

The complicated apparatuses continuously performed their functions: distillation, condensation, filtration, precipitation, dissolution, crystallization...

With puff-puff sounds, large amounts of white vapor rose. With clatter-clatter, the lid of a jar kept bouncing. With drip-drip, drops of yellow liquid fell from a horn tube. With gurgle-gurgle, large numbers of bubbles emerged in a beaker...

After working busily for most of the day, the experimental process reached its final stage. As the liquid in a beaker gradually cooled, chunks of crystals precipitated out. They were murky yellow, as though filled with dust.

Richard took only one glance before he could not help shaking his head. He knew this first attempt had failed, for a very simple reason—impurities.

There was nothing wrong with his experimental procedure. He had already accounted for the removal of all kinds of impurities, but the entire experiment involved more than twenty stages. Limited by the apparatuses that could be made in this world, every stage produced a small but significant error.

One or two errors were acceptable, but ten or twenty were fatal. The accumulation of quantitative changes had caused a qualitative change, thoroughly contaminating the crystals of what should have been a pure final product and rendering them unusable.

It had failed! Richard shook his head again, but showed no anger at all. After fifteen full years in this world, he understood what kind of world it was. No matter how angry he became, it was useless; no matter how strict his demands of the craftsmen were, the apparatuses they made would always contain errors.

To solve this problem, he needed to remove impurities and increase purity.

And to remove impurities and increase purity, he needed a suitable solvent—or rather, an extracting agent. Preferably an organic extracting agent.

But making organic extracting agents was easier said than done.

Many organic extracting agents required conditions of high temperature and high pressure. Was he supposed to figure out how to make reaction vessels and fractionating towers now? The only easily obtainable organic extracting agent was probably Ether.

Hm, wait, Ether! Richard's eyes suddenly narrowed as he thought of something.

Ether! Right, Ether!

Ether could be used as a drug-extracting agent, but then again, if he truly had Ether, what need was there for extraction? Ether itself was a superior anesthetic to alkaloids! Right, Ether was an anesthetic! Ether was a liquid anesthetic, and one of the anesthetics most familiar to ordinary people. Even if one had never seen it in reality, a common scene appeared in films of all kinds: a villain fiercely pressed a handkerchief soaked in liquid over a victim's mouth and nose. The victim took a nervous breath, inhaled the vaporized liquid, then went limp and lost consciousness.

In that scene, the liquid in the handkerchief was Ether. It was a colorless, transparent liquid that evaporated easily and worked as an anesthetic extremely quickly.

However, preparing Ether through industrial methods was somewhat difficult, because Aluminum Oxide was needed as a catalyst. In this world, which resembled the Middle Ages, Aluminum Oxide—or rather, metallic aluminum—was ten or even a hundred times rarer than gold or gemstones.

But laboratory preparation was much simpler.

Only two raw materials were needed to prepare Ether in a laboratory: Sulfuric Acid and Ethanol. He had Sulfuric Acid, and as for Ethanol—what was Ethanol? What was Ethanol? Wasn't it simply the scientific name for alcohol? He had more than enough of that. Producing Ether from alcohol seemed to be something from a high school chemistry textbook. It seemed he had truly overcomplicated things."

Richard muttered to himself as he slowly stood, his gaze falling on the apparatuses on a nearby table. He stepped closer and swiftly dismantled the equipment, then used its large test tubes, guide tubes, wooden stoppers, flasks, iron stands, iron rings, separatory funnels, and other parts to assemble another set of apparatuses.

Once the assembly was complete, Richard briefly checked its airtightness before he began adding the reagents. He poured anhydrous Ethanol into a flask, then slowly added concentrated Sulfuric Acid, inserted a wooden stopper... heated it... cooled it...