Boneless Summoning

Whenever Miao Xin found something, she tapped the shelf with an intangible finger, leaving a spiritual energy mark. Bit by bit, she found everything they needed.

After preparing the materials on his end, Su Ming controlled Little Spiky Head to climb into the doctor's office, turn on a computer, and frantically download all kinds of medical data. There was too much data to copy by hand, so he found a USB drive, saved it all there, and summoned it to the other world.

He plugged it into his portable computer there, and sure enough, the data had come across too.

Su Ming then found a few miscellaneous supplies, such as a thermometer and blood pressure monitor. Along with the medicines Miao Xin had marked beforehand, he took everything to an empty room on the hospital's third floor and locked the door from the inside.

Su Ming deployed the spell formula and began the transfer.

"Simplest Form: Summoning of All Things!"

First came some basic vital-sign monitoring equipment. Most of it was successfully projected into the other world, while the originals crumbled into heaps of debris on the hospital room floor.

Next came syringes and similar items, which also went smoothly, but the test kits failed.

Summoning of All Things loaded a model from Earth across space and reconstructed it in the other world. Su Ming needed to have all the corresponding materials on hand.

Su Ming had already prepared for this. The test kits contained many complex compounds that he couldn't possibly have, and that probably didn't exist anywhere in the other world. The medicines were likely the same: their active pharmaceutical ingredients, or APIs, were almost all synthesized through complex processes.

When he had transferred the steam engine, half of the equipment had come through bare after he used up all the paint from the car.

He had taken note of it then. He had been able to gather most of the materials for the steam engine, and it could still run without a few inconsequential things, but that didn't mean the same would hold true for everything else-sooner or later, a lack of materials would stop him.

At the time, he had asked White Bone for a research book called Undead Summoning: From Burial to Exhumation and leafed through it whenever he had time.

Materials had always been a necromancer's weakness. The profession possessed the most powerful and versatile construction abilities, but its raw materials had to be corpses or souls.

Not every necromancer could obtain enough materials to make things without trouble. Whenever someone went missing or a grave was robbed, they were always the first to be suspected and accused. And because the materials determined the finished product's aesthetic, necromancers had the highest rate of singlehood among all types of mages.

Countless researchers had tackled this problem one after another, and the book contained a large number of related papers.

For example, animal corpses could be used, but dead plants couldn't. What about protists?

Another example: bones could be used, so what about turtle shells? Or insects' chitinous exoskeletons?

Experiments had been conducted and papers written on all of these-though the conclusion, of course, was that none of them worked.

Yet another example: bones were the most important material for Undead Summoning. One group of researchers, known as the Breeding School, devoted themselves to finding animals with a higher bone content and breeding them on a large scale, comparing costs and yields.

Su Ming was amazed by what he read.

Those known as the "Boneless School," however, showed Su Ming another possibility for Undead Summoning.

Their central idea was getting something for nothing!

Using lime powder as the main ingredient, they made an extremely cheap artificial bone, then animated it into a stone puppet. They drastically modified the Undead Summoning formula, forcing it to recognize this material and summon it!

Against all odds, the unreliable method actually worked, except that it consumed a teeny-tiny bit too much Magic Power. A mage giving it everything they had could replace roughly seventeen grams of bone!

The method was utterly useless to everyone else, but Su Ming was counting on it. He had looked up the key ingredients in the test kits, and their quantities were measured in milligrams, even micrograms! The elements involved were all common ones; a box of instant noodles would provide them all.

Animation Spell was a universal spell, so Su Ming could use it too. Although he hadn't practiced it much, animating a box of instant noodles was fairly easy.

He found an iron cage and locked the instant noodles inside.

"Animation: Pickled Mustard and Beef Noodles!"

The spell formula formed successfully. The beef noodles jumped up and even began wriggling their way around. After bumping into a wall, they began ramming the cage. Su Ming focused and deployed a spell formula with each hand.

"Simplest Form: Summoning of All Things!"

"Boneless Form: Synthesis Summoning!"

The former generated the parts for which he had materials, while the latter synthesized the missing chemical components for which he had no corresponding molecular formulas.

This was Su Ming's first time casting two spells at once. With no experience at all, he failed to combine them, and a shattered test kit appeared in his hand.

Su Ming flicked it away. At the testing center, Little Spiky Head also shook the debris from her hand and picked up another one.

Again!

As some of the medicine bottles failed to transfer, Su Ming steadily grew more proficient. At last, he succeeded in transferring the medicines.

He looked at the vital-sign monitoring devices that had failed to transfer earlier and assessed whether using the combined summoning was worth the cost.

Forget it. Better save my Magic Power for now, he decided.

Su Ming severed his connection with Little Spiky Head, ordered Miao Xin to stay on guard where she was and await further instructions, then exited the Earth perspective.

The assortment of newly acquired items occupied half the workbench in the workshop. Su Ming reckoned it would be too much trouble to move them, so he went to White Bone's room and carried the girl over.

Su Ming had already built a small bone room on one side of the workshop, laid out his own bedding inside, and disinfected everything with alcohol, himself included.

He carefully wrapped the girl in a blanket and laid White Bone down comfortably. Then he hooked her up to the various vital-sign monitors. Without instructions, he couldn't get the heartbeat monitor connected no matter what he tried, but fortunately, the pulse monitor worked.

The readings didn't seem good, but Su Ming didn't understand them. This was as much as he could manage with what he had learned in his crash course.

Su Ming opened a rapid antigen test kit, took out the long cotton swab, and poked it into White Bone's nose. The girl woke up, shot him a resentful glare, and fell unconscious again.

He then switched to Little Spiky Head and opened an online medical consultation app on her phone. There was a little money in Miao Xin's account, and he had already read the payment password from her memories. So he splurged on the most expensive option and sent over White Bone's condition.

Given the severity of the situation, the person on the other end advised him, as expected, to get the patient to a hospital immediately and not delay under any circumstances.

Su Ming promptly made up a story about being in the Indian Ocean and having just gotten off a ship.

In the story, his group had sailed to a small island in the Indian Ocean for a trip, where they found a group of indigenous people who had always lived in relative isolation. They stayed for a few days and ended up passing the virus to one of the indigenous people, who was now in very bad condition.