Legendary Figure

Kraft had experienced the busiest month of his life.

His original lifestyle—giving one lecture in the morning and writing two pages of a book in the afternoon—had undergone a drastic and uncontrollable change, bolting away in a direction he could no longer steer.

The first thing to take the hit was his daily teaching load, which jumped from one major lecture to two: one on Human Anatomy and another on general surgery to prepare for operations. Furthermore, other lecturers were now sitting in on his classes.

This change in his schedule triggered a domino effect.

He had to carve out time from his afternoon anatomy research to rack his brain, trying to figure out how to simplify surgical concepts into something he could actually teach.

The first major hurdle was aseptic technique; he had to carefully consider how to explain it to everyone.

The most direct approach was, "I believe there are organisms around us too small to be seen," a single sentence that effectively summarized the concept of microorganisms.

This led to another problem: after explaining it, he had to find a way to prove his theory, which required the help of a microscope.

High-quality glass had only recently arrived in Dunling, and the most feasible plan for now was to buy two pieces of clear natural crystal, find someone to polish and assemble them, and hope for the best. There was no hope of that happening anytime soon.

Speaking of equipment, he also needed to find a set of apparatus to perform distillation to obtain relatively pure, high-concentration alcohol so he could disinfect skin.

The myriad of demands stemming from a single simple surgery left him physically and mentally exhausted, and he couldn't find the time to resolve most of them outside of teaching and lesson planning.

This was just the situation within the Medical School; worse yet, he discovered he had become a part of the school's absurd rumors and, in a sense, had temporarily lost the "free meal ticket" he had just acquired and barely enjoyed.

Three days after completing the surgery, he had just stepped into the tavern when he was greeted warmly by Gris.

The man shouted a greeting to Kraft, announced to the entire room that this brilliant doctor had saved his daughter's life, and declared that to celebrate, everyone's beer was on him today.

People from various departments had only heard rumors about someone in the Medical School who dared to cut open living people for treatment, but now everyone knew exactly what he looked like—that young, blonde lecturer from the Medical School was Kraft.

Unfortunately, Kraft's blonde hair, much like Ryan's, was highly recognizable, and combined with his youth, students from other departments quickly spread the news. Every time he entered a tavern, he was recognized by people from other faculties.

These students, full of curiosity about Kraft, stared at him as if he were a magical creature. The bolder ones would even pull up a chair at his table to ask all sorts of strange questions.

After a few lunches, Kraft could no longer stand the atmosphere and had to change out of his black robe every day to eat at taverns further away from the school.

He soon discovered that in this era of scarce entertainment, a sensational, slightly thrilling news story spread infinitely faster than he had imagined, especially when a tavern owner was there to vouch for it.

In this month alone, he had heard seven versions of the story in at least five different taverns, and not a single one matched the reality.

The least fantastical version was that Kraft came from an ancient family that had been studying medicine since before the Norse Kingdom existed. He felt his grandfather would not appreciate that rumor.

The most absurd version claimed that Kraft had made a deal with the devil to conceive of such a terrifying treatment method. Kraft listened to the drunken man shouting this nearby and, before leaving, kicked the stool out from under him.

These rumors were a massive headache for Kraft in every respect, but becoming famous did bring him one benefit: patients started coming to him.

Half a month ago, Lis's observation period had reached two weeks, and Lucius's had reached a month. With "no abnormalities" written on their daily check-ups time and again, Kraft's confidence grew day by day.

Thanks to his rising reputation, people were actually willing to come to the school for help. While most of the poor souls with stomach ailments were assigned to lecturer Romolo, Kraft screened out three cases that he needed.

Kraft's initial thought was to extend the observation period by another two weeks, but since the patients were already at his door and the diagnoses were complete, he proceeded.

Driven by the pressure of the thought that "not saving them is equivalent to letting them die," Kraft performed three more surgeries. He further improved the conditions, changing the surgical supplies to finer cotton cloth and having everyone in the room wear boiled linen caps, masks, and gowns.

Under these conditions, he allowed a small number of non-surgical personnel to enter the room to observe and learn.

It wasn't that he didn't want to use better, denser fabric; it was that costs limited his imagination. Wenden Port was located far to the north, and the climate was, to put it mildly, completely unsuitable for growing cotton.

All cotton products were shipped in by sea, and the cost of using them as surgical supplies was already far from optimistic.

Unfortunately, even with all these precautions, one case still suffered from a surgical site infection. Fortunately, it did not spread further into the abdominal cavity. It was later guessed that it was because there was no proper disinfectant for the wound, or perhaps someone had caused the issue while changing the dressings.

This incident served as a wake-up call for Kraft. He spent the night writing up operating protocols and posted them on the wall, forbidding anyone who hadn't memorized them from touching patients. The issue of alcohol distillation was officially put on the agenda from that day forward.

Liston, however, felt the current situation was very optimistic and suggested promoting these protocols and "Clear Clarity" to amputation surgeries—this was the name he had given the diluted solution.

Clear Clarity—the name sounded quite good. Liston said he felt the liquid was as clear as spring water and quite miraculous, hence the name.

Kraft and Lucius felt a twinge of guilt and didn't tell him it was almost entirely water, so they accepted the name. They announced it as a new medicine developed by the Medical School, and the "family secret medicine" story was naturally abandoned.

Amputation was Liston's specialty; he had his own clinic outside the school, and business was quite good. In a place like the port, people inevitably injured themselves during dangerous work, and to save money, they would just patch themselves up and continue working.

Frequent exposure to seawater, severe infections from various bacteria, and unknown powders smeared on wounds often led to rapid deterioration, reaching the point where a quick blade was the only option. Thus, he never lacked patients.

But as a lecturer specializing in anatomy, his vast knowledge was rarely put to use amidst the patients' wails; he could only choose to resolve the problem within a few minutes. "Clear Clarity" gave him hope.

After several failed attempts to persuade Kraft, Liston used the excuse that "the new surgical method needs guidance for amputations" to drag him to his clinic to observe a few surgeries, successfully gaining the right to use the Clear Clarity solution.

Kraft strictly controlled his dosage, allowing it to be used only in more severe amputation cases after careful assessment. He also required that patient information be recorded and that patients return for regular check-ups; those who didn't return had to be followed up. Lucius was responsible for checking these written reports.

But as it turned out, as long as something wasn't entirely under one's own control, it would inevitably develop in unexpected ways.

Within half a month, Liston's clinic had used up nearly half the cup of diluted solution Kraft had given him. When he came to ask for more, Lucius brought along the twenty-three medical records he had documented.

Indeed, they were all very serious cases; the milder ones had fingers that had already rotted away, described as "blackened, foul-smelling, and numb." Kraft couldn't blame him for using Clear Clarity in such extensive amputation surgeries.

This number was far higher than he had anticipated.

Yet, this stack of papers was far thinner than he had expected.

Kraft flipped through them quickly and found that only twelve had follow-up records five days after surgery, and of those, only three had follow-up records after ten days.

Of the remaining eleven, he had managed to track down two, but as for the others, let alone specific information, he didn't even know if they were dead or alive after five days.

Kraft wasn't angry; he was already too exhausted to be angry. Being a legendary figure wasn't easy. In addition to his doubled teaching and writing tasks, he had to receive patients seeking help, many of whom had heard the absurd rumors and came to him with even more absurd requests.

"Lecturer Liston, I need an explanation." Kraft propped his head up from the pile of papers and looked wearily at the two people standing awkwardly before him.

This attitude made Liston, who had expected to be severely reprimanded, even more uneasy. If Kraft had scolded him, he might have felt better, but Kraft's exhausted expression made him feel even more guilty.

The good-natured Lucius stepped forward to explain the issue on his behalf.

"It's like this, we've never had this kind of experience before. We assumed it would be like the follow-up for an intussusception surgery, where parents would bring the child back, or the addresses would be as easy to find as Lis's." He glanced cautiously at Kraft, whose hand on the table was already turning to the next page of the medical record.

"And?" Kraft nodded, signaling for him to continue.

"At the beginning, we performed some amputations—some on port laborers, some on sailors—and told them to come back in five days for a free follow-up."

"Right, that's correct."

"But only one sailor and one laborer returned. We went to the port to look for those sailors and discovered a problem." Seeing that Kraft wasn't as angry as expected, Lucius began to speak more fluently. "Most ships don't stay docked here for that long, so..."

This was a valid reason, and it was indeed Kraft who had taken things for granted, so he decisively admitted his mistake: "My apologies, that's my fault. This follow-up cycle is still too long."

"But it shouldn't be this low, should it?"

"Uh, it's like this." Liston picked up where Lucius left off to explain further. "Later, we improved our process and were very careful to ask for detailed addresses, and they did provide them to us."

"That's right, so why are there only two follow-up records?" Kraft gave up on thinking and waited for his explanation.

"There are two aspects to this problem. A portion of the laborers actually don't have stable residences; they just stay temporarily where they find odd jobs, and once the work is done, they leave. When we went back five days later, we couldn't find them."

"The other type are those with families and fixed residences, but the places they live are quite different from the streets we usually frequent." Liston admitted his failure with great frustration. "I don't know if you've ever been to the Salt Tide District, but it's a filthy, chaotic place. They aren't even sure if the locations they describe are correct themselves, and for an outsider, going in there is like walking through a maze."

"Their work is unstable, they have no spare money, and to take a day off for a follow-up..."

"Knock, knock, knock." A series of knocks interrupted Liston's grievances.

"Is Instructor Kraft in? Someone is looking for you."

"Alright, I'm coming." Kraft struggled to rise from his seat, wondering what kind of strange patient or family member it was this time.

"I'll come up with a new plan, and if I have time, I'll hand it to you tomorrow."