The Highest Bounty

Chapter 7: Cell Enhancer

Gu Ding counted the figure carefully three times. He confirmed that his account balance is currently at seven digits.

“Three million and then some… you stole this?” Gu Ding eventually came to his senses.

“It’s just a simple trick. You can’t call that stealing.” Neptune’s tone of voice was nonchalant. “Do you remember that woman who feigned death from yesterday? When she pretended to die, I not only gained access to her Inventory but also all accounts under her name. This, of course, includes her banking account.”

“Heheh, three million. I can buy a Kittyhawk Model with this.” The first thing that Gu Ding thought of was the personal interplanetary spacecraft that he had always dreamed of owning.

“Hey, this money isn’t for you to squander. You’ll need a lot of ingredients to brew Cell Enhancers, and those millions won’t last you for long. If you want to earn more money, you’ll have to study your way to be a pharmacologist!” Neptune chided. “Here’s the recipe for an F-grade Cell Enhancer. Take a good look at it. Go buy twenty portions of all the ingredients, because new students of pharmacology will fail often. The academy has dispensaries for its students’ use, and their rental fees are less than half of the dispensaries outside. You’ll only need the basic set of apparatus to prepare the medicine. What’s left is just buying the ingredients.”

Neptune uploaded some information into Gu Ding’s brain as he spoke. A normal civilian wristwatch would not be able to perform such a task.

The human brain is a finely designed precision instrument. Even in the age of intergalactic travel, many of the brain’s secrets remained undiscovered. Experiments on uploading data to the brain had been performed before, and its preliminary stages were resounding successes. However, all subjects died within ten years of the experiment, and the cause of death was acute brain cancer. The brain cells mutated into stage 4 cancer within a matter of days, and the tumors that formed erupted violently.

“Hey, there’s no problem uploading like this, right?” Gu Ding had heard the stories and was a little worried.

Neptune empathized with Gu Ding’s fears and explained, “Don’t worry, my data archives possess detailed information on the workings of the human brain. This upload operation is essentially risk-free. As long as this isn’t done too often, or as long as I don’t transfer too much data in a single sitting, you can be sure that this operation is totally safe. Most importantly, you ought to know that once an artificial super-intelligence binds to a host, its chances of transferring to another host is exceedingly minute. If we’re talking in terms of probabilities, the chances of me killing you is about one-millionth of the chances of you committing suicide.”

Gu Ding shook his head. He did not know how to respond to Neptune’s claims, though he had heard of the stories that Skynet used to have a human host. When her host died, she did not find another human host for the next million years. The loyalty of an artificial super-intelligence was not to be questioned.

Gu Ding carefully perused the list of ingredients and their prices. He calculated that with his previous savings, he would only be able to buy two portions of ingredients.

“Pharmacology is a money-guzzler indeed…” Gu Ding lamented, then started to review the course.

The modules of the course were all presented in three-dimensional holographic videos, so it looked like you were there watching someone teach you on the spot. Every step of the process was explained in excruciating detail. No procedures and precautions were missed.

Gu Ding watched twelve different modules that explained the process of brewing a Cell Enhancer. Different pharmacologists have different methods of arriving at the same medicine. Gu Ding was silent for a while after reviewing all the processes, then asked, “Neptune, do you have any information on basic medicinal knowledge and brewing techniques?”

“I knew that you were going to ask this, and I’ve already prepared them for you.” In a short while, Neptune uploaded all relevant information into Gu Ding’s brain.

Gu Ding reviewed page by page the book on basic medicinal knowledge in his brain. After confirming that he did not overlook anything, he closed the book and started reading the book on brewing techniques.

When he was done reading both books, he had arrived at the entrance of the Laboratory Building of the Academy.

“Excuse me, I would like to rent a private dispensary,” Gu Ding told the caretaker of the Laboratory Building.

The caretaker glanced sideways at Gu Ding and replied with some disdain in his tone of voice. “All three private dispensaries have been reserved today. You can use the public dispensary which is free. As for medicinal ingredients, you can purchase them at the Warehouse on the second floor.”

Gu Ding did not mind this person’s attitude. He furrowed his brows when he heard that all the private dispensaries were in use, then he walked up to the second floor.

“I need Tiger Gall Grass, Crow Tongue Flower, Red Cobra Marrow… all of them twenty portions each.”

“Twenty portions? A portion of all these ingredients costs 112 Star Credits. Are you sure you want twenty portions?” The caretaker of the warehouse was shocked. He could understand if a teacher of the Academy bought all these ingredients, but a student could not afford all this.

“Yes, twenty portions!” Gu Ding nodded.

When the caretaker prepared the twenty portions for Gu Ding and he paid for it, only then he knew that Gu Ding was not joking.

With the ingredients, Gu Ding headed to the public dispensary on the third floor.

There was no one currently in the public dispensary. All thirty workstations were neatly prepared for immediate use.

Gu Ding selected a workstation at random. He laid out one portion of the ingredients and arranged them in the order of usage.

The four phases in brewing gene medicine are, in order, extraction, distillation, measuring and fusion.

The extraction phase involves cleaning and processing the raw ingredients to extract the liquid essence from the ingredients. The distillation phase aims to remove any impurities from the liquid extracts obtained in the extraction phase and to enhance their medicinal potency through gentle heating.

In the third phase, measuring, the pharmacologist measures the different proportions of distilled extracts needed to brew the medicine. If a mistake is made in this step, there is a high chance that the final product will become useless. The difficulty of the fourth phase, fusion, depends on the recipe. Some medicines require special techniques to complete the fusion process. The completeness of fusion also affects the potency of the final medicine.

Gu Ding followed the instructions carefully and perfectly processed all the ingredients down to the millisecond. The distillation flasks have also been heated to the correct temperature by this time. He placed the different extracts in separate flasks. There was no timing to be considered in this phase of the process. He needed to pay close attention to the color changes of the liquid in the flasks. Even if two extracts were from the same ingredient, the purity of the extract and its volume affected the time needed in this step. Gu Ding dared not slacken. His eyes were transfixed on the several distillation flasks in front of him. In a few minutes, the contents of one of the flasks started to change color. Gu Ding immediately removed it from the heat source. However, the other three flasks also changed color at almost the same time.

“Oh no!” Gu Ding held a flask in each hand. The last one changed color once again. By the time Gu Ding removed the last flask from the heat source, its color had changed from sky-blue to deep blue. “This is over-distilled, so some of the potency is lost… fortunately, it’s still usable.”

After distillation, Gu Ding measured the proportions needed for each extract. Gu Ding found that this step was the easiest so far. He had already learned the best proportions to maximize the medicine’s potency in the instructional hologram videos earlier, and he only needed to follow those instructions exactly. After measuring each ingredient, he poured the ingredients based on the instructed order and setting time into the final fusion flask.

To brew a Cell Enhancer, one only needed to set the fusion flask on the table for it to be complete. While Gu Ding looked through the twelve different instructional videos, he had noticed that each pharmacologist had their unique way of performing this final phase. Gu Ding picked up the fusion flask and started experimenting with the simplest method — gently shaking it in clockwise circles. After three shakes, he reversed the direction and started shaking it in an anti-clockwise direction. He repeated this several times and the liquid in the beaker started to turn into an opaque milk-white color. Three minutes later, the flask of Cell Enhancer liquid had fully turned into an opaque milk-white. If he had let it set, it would have taken him an hour to complete this phase.

“Heheh, success! I’ve brewed the first-ever Cell Enhancer in my life.” Gu Ding was excited. “Neptune, there might be some missteps in the process, but I think this is still of Good quality.”

“I didn’t expect you to have the talent for pharmacology. The quality of this Cell Enhancer is Flawless.” Neptune quickly appraised the quality of this beaker of Cell Enhancer.

Each grade of medicine was further subdivided by its quality. The seven levels of quality from the lowest are Inferior, Poor, Baseline, Good, Superior, Flawless and Perfect.

The Baseline quality was the benchmark for medicinal potency. A Baseline quality F-grade Cell Enhancer could increase the Cell Index of a Gene Level 1 user by 2 points. A Good Cell Enhancer could increase it by three points, a Superior Enhancer by 4 points, a Flawless Enhancer by 5 points, and a Perfect Enhancer by 7 points.

The same grade of Cell Enhancer can have drastically different prices. The price difference between a Baseline and a Good product was usually two times. The difference is five times for Superior quality. Flawless quality products are already very rare and can be eight to ten times of a Baseline quality product. As for Perfect quality products, it would be at least twenty times of a Baseline product.

A Baseline quality F-grade Cell Enhancer could fetch 1200 Star Credits on the open market. The contents of the flask in Gu Ding’s hand could easily fetch at least 10,000 Star Credits.

Gu Ding stashed away the Cell Enhancer into his Inventory, then started on his second brewing attempt. He did not know that there was a camera pointing at him from the corner of the ceiling of this public dispensary…