Chapter 36
***
After I began researching the smallpox vaccine.
All of my thoughts were fixed on one thing: the 'black magic' needed to make the vaccine.
“So you’re asking me to help you modify the plague curse… so that it isn’t too strong or too harmful?”
“Yes, that’s right, Master.”
“Hmm... Very well. I’d like to see what you’ll make, too.”
Originally, the principle behind making a vaccine is relatively simple, but the time and effort required are anything but.
A few years to analyze the pathogen and design how it should be weakened to remain stable.
A few years to test it on animals after it’s made, to see whether the vaccine is safe.
And finally, a few more years to test it on humans.
Add it all up, and more than fifteen years pass in a flash.
No matter how much magic helped, there were always limits to how much that time could be shortened.
Fifteen years was enough time for my youth to vanish without a trace.
And then, out of nowhere, the great sage who had lived for a thousand years suddenly asked to take me as his disciple.
This might end up as a leash around my neck someday, but there was no option to let it slip away.
“Master. What do you think? Is a curse like this possible?”
“Yulian. As you know, this won’t be easy even for me. Your spell is like asking for a fire that isn’t hot.”
Of course, the answer I got was that it would be a difficult spell even for Master.
A curse of sickness that doesn’t actually make you sick, yet still makes you feel as though you’ve experienced the illness.
And a curse that would keep eggs from spoiling.
The curse I had asked Master to create was something like that.
It was practically the same as asking for a sword that cuts nothing, a fire that doesn’t burn, or ice that isn’t cold.
“By any chance, do you have any knowledge or symbols in mind for making this spell?”
“Yes. I’ve prepared some of it.”
But I wasn’t irresponsible enough to leave it at that.
I had already organized a good amount of the knowledge needed here so Master could create a curse like this.
Of course, getting him to understand the principles of germs and immunity all at once was impossible, so I explained it in a way that fit the knowledge already available as much as possible.
“The longer someone is weakly exposed to a curse, the more resistance they gain to it... Hmm. Indeed. A valid claim.”
“Then will this knowledge help with magic, Master?”
“Yulian. There is no knowledge in this world that is useless. I laid the foundation for earth magic by studying the process of a pebble by the roadside becoming soil.”
In the process, Master wasn’t the only one who gained knowledge.
I, too, inherited a vast amount of knowledge about magic from him.
During that process, exchanges like this also passed between Master and me.
“Yulian. How strange. This hypothesis you’ve brought contains remarkable insight into the workings of disease, yet you’re utterly blank when it comes to the formula for realizing it as magic.”
“I’m still a child who isn’t even at apprentice level when it comes to magic.”
“But most alchemists or scholars would feel ashamed of what they don’t know and would force themselves to pretend otherwise, or try to hide it. Yet you acknowledge your ignorance and accept knowledge.”
“Because that, too, is knowledge.”
“Since it came up, let me ask you this. Yulian. What do you think knowledge is, exactly?”
At his question, I pondered for a moment.
What would be the most fitting, cool line a protagonist would say here?
After thinking it over, I repeated the definition of an expert from twenty-first-century modern society.
“True knowledge does not come from simply knowing things. It comes from knowing what you don’t know, and knowing where to find the answers to what you don’t know. That, I believe, is what knowledge truly is.”
Modern medicine is far too vast for a single genius doctor to master every field.
That’s why hospitals have a consultation system, and why countless medical journals and article search databases exist.
Some people don’t trust doctors who look things up, but in truth, the ability to search properly is itself a qualification of an expert.
Of course, I wasn’t sure whether that definition fit this era, where romance was still alive and breathing and search didn’t exist yet.
Still, I thought it was a pretty decent answer to Master’s question.
“Huh...”
Master was blinking blankly, and a sigh slipped between his lips.
I smiled faintly at him.
“I don’t know anything about curses or magic. But I do know very well whom I should ask for that knowledge. In that case, wouldn’t I also be a fine magician?”
“Pfft.”
A laugh leaked from between Master’s lips.
Soon, he burst into uncontrollable laughter.
“Yes! That’s right! Kua-hahaha!”
Master kept slapping his knees and laughing heartily.
After laughing for a while, he wiped away the tears gathered at the corners of his eyes and spoke.
“The sorts of people holed up in the magic tower these days, just preening and acting superior, would clutch the backs of their necks and foam at the mouth if they heard that! When a disciple asks something for the first time, they never think to teach it; they just blame the disciples for being lazy! If that’s how they’re going to act, why even bother calling themselves masters? I’d love to let those bastards hear your words too!”
“I-I didn’t mean it in that sense.”
“I know, Yulian. You’re not the type to go around badmouthing people. I’m just getting old and rambling nonsense to myself, so don’t mind me.”
He gathered up the knowledge I had organized with a pleased smile.
“Good. My disciple is trying to make use of me like this, so I can’t disappoint you. I’ll finish that curse you’re after.”
After that, we continued spending our time modifying the plague curse.
And so, three years passed.
*
“Yulian.”
“Yes.”
“Now, at least in black magic, you have risen to nearly equal footing with me.”
“... No. I’m still far from adequate.”
By the time I came to my senses, I had built up black magic knowledge nearly on par with the Father of Magic.
Black magic.
The more I studied it, the more it felt like medicine.
Originally, black magic was a broad term for magic that could desecrate another’s life.
Necromancy, which desecrates the dead body.
Hypnosis, which desecrates another person’s mind.
Cursecraft, which desecrates living beings.
Roughly speaking, all of those things are collectively called black magic.
But in the end, the evolved form of such knowledge was medicine.
‘No wonder. It was all too easy to understand.’
It was easier to grasp when I mapped necromancy to surgery and cursecraft to internal medicine.
By the way, I never managed to learn hypnosis.
Psychiatry is an area I don’t know much about either.
‘I shouldn’t be disappointed...’
But maybe because I’m a man too, I did feel a little disappointed.
Still, I’m the protagonist. I’ll drink to that.
Anyway.
The knowledge of black magic I’d learned after shaking off the gloomy temptation of hypnosis had, before I knew it, reached a level comparable to Master’s.
“There’s no need to be modest, Yulian. Black magic was originally a school I founded a thousand years ago, but after creating it, I didn’t study it all that much. It’s no wonder you caught up.”
Even if he said that, the great sage’s knowledge of black magic was by no means shallow.
Roughly speaking, in terms of years of experience, his level was that of a black mage with forty years under his belt.
There was no way I, who had studied for only three years, could catch up to that.
“I still have much to learn, Master.”
“Hmm... So that attitude still hasn’t changed. They say arrogance is the enemy of truth, but this is a bit much, isn’t it?”
In any case.
Still, according to Master, my knowledge of black magic had reached the point where we could have smooth conversations.
In short, I’d reached associate professor level.
Thanks to that, even our dull and lengthy research had finally started to see the end in sight.
“Let’s change the catalyst from lead to silver.”
“Shall we change the symbol of death to a snake’s shed skin, Master?”
“vestigium = verus, inscriptio = falsus. Let’s add this conditional as well. Though I suspect it’ll fizzle out.”
At the end of it all, we were able to create it.
A curse that didn’t make people sick.
“... We finally succeeded, Master.”
Because of Yulian’s character, I couldn’t bring myself to cheer.
But I couldn’t hide the tremor in my voice with acting alone.
That was fortunate, I suppose.
Master, too, seemed too overwhelmed to notice that my voice was shaking.
“I-Is it really true?”
“Yes.”
With trembling hands, I carefully lifted a single egg.
In the past, when I injected failed curses, the inside of the egg had been horrible.
Dark red clots would be coagulated inside, or the entire contents would rot into a black, murky liquid that sloshed around.
That was because the tiny embryo inside the egg couldn’t withstand the curse’s toxicity and died.
But what now shone beneath the mana lamp was completely different.
A thin chorioallantoic membrane wrapped around the interior.
Over that transparent membrane, blood vessels spread out clearly like spiderwebs.
Within it, the embryo pulsed faintly without losing its vitality.
And here and there on the chorioallantoic membrane, white, opaque spots had bloomed.
Those spots were proof of success.
“At last...”
“Then the medicine you’re talking about is finished?”
I shook my head.
We had only just taken our first baby steps.
Now we had to culture the weakened virus inside this egg, and then go through countless tests to see whether the cultured virus was safe.
But,
“Master. We no longer need to fear the plague.”
If the beginning was half, and this was half of the remaining half, then we were almost there.
The joy was short-lived.
I recalled the first thing I needed to do and carefully set the egg down.
“Master.”
And then I bowed my head to Master.
“Thank you.”
“...”
“If it hadn’t been for Master, this would have been an impossible achievement. If I’d been alone, I probably wouldn’t have been able to make it even in twenty years.”
I mustn’t be mistaken.
I had simply devoured, in three years, the knowledge the great sage had accumulated over a thousand years, and used it to create this magic.
Not even the magic itself had been created by me alone.
So I mustn’t forget to give Master the credit.
“It’s all thanks to you, Master.”
“Heh heh. There’s no need for you to thank me, Yulian.”
Master waved his hand.
“I merely translated your idea into magic. You were the one who came up with the concept of this medicine.”
“But you were the one who carried it out, Master.”
“It was you who came up with the idea. Let’s end the argument here. This is both of our achievement, so it would be silly to say who came first.”
I nodded.
I also understood very well the weight of the idea Master was talking about.
“Understood.”
“Now, shouldn’t we prepare for the next stage? You said animal testing, yes?”
“Yes. I’ll have to ask Wangcho... Hex for help.”
“Good. Go on and prepare. I’ll handle the cleanup today.”
“Thank you, Master.”
I bowed my head once more and left the laboratory.
On the way to Wangcho,
my steps felt unusually light today.
***