A Hospital in Another World?

Garrett Nordmark delegated the most tedious daily alchemical tasks to the newly arrived potion maker, Linde Ferrell. With a joyful heart, he immersed himself in the alchemy lab.

The two worked back-to-back, each busy with their own tasks. Linde set up the distillation apparatus, watching as droplets of condensation fell into a container. When he confirmed that constant attention was not needed, he sneaked a glance at Garrett.

What he saw startled him: Garrett squinted, holding a thin goose feather quill, meticulously marking lines on a long glass tube. The glass tube was fixed on a wooden frame, hanging vertically, with one end dipping into boiling hot water. Steam rolled, and the hot vapor hit Garrett's face, but he seemed oblivious, completely focused on his task.

In the center of the glass tube, a thin, bright silver line rose. Garrett's quill touched the tip of the silver line, drew a horizontal line, then he moved a step to carefully compare. After observing for a while, he finally sighed in relief:

"Done..."

Curious, Linde inquired. Garrett took the glass tube off the rack, laid it down carefully, and drew a long line along its wall. Responding to Linde's inquiry, he turned around with a cheerful expression:

"Making a thermometer!"

"A thermometer?"

"Yes, a thermometer!" Garrett's eyes sparkled. Finally, he managed to bring it out. Stuck in this hot workshop, working day and night with a jeweler— a small-time artisan doubling as a glass blower. He had to work hard for seven or eight days! It was just a glass tube! You could get one for less than 10 yuan on Taobao, 30 yuan for ten, and free shipping! But here in this darn parallel world, everything had to be done by himself! Heating, stretching, snapping—just this step wasted countless glass tubes. Then, heating again, welding a short glass tube, heating to vacuum, letting it suck in mercury. Turning it over, inserting the lower part into ice water, letting it shrink to the bottom, and heating the top to seal it...

Luckily, inhaling mercury was the last step, kept separately in the next room and specifically cooled with ice water. If he worked rough, the mercury vapor could poison him!

"A thermometer? What's it for?" Linde was puzzled. Garrett raised a bright smile:

"Indicating temperature!"

Oh, finally, no need to rely on hands to check if the body temperature was 37.5 or 38.3...

Though a thermometer couldn't compare to a stethoscope or a blood pressure cuff in clinical aspects, it could still be a useful tool! Seriously, without tools, everything was off when it came to diagnosing diseases!

"Well, you see, the mercury in the glass tube expands when it's heated and contracts when it's cold. Now, watch as I insert it into the ice water—goes down, right? Insert it into boiling water, and it goes back up.

At different temperatures, the height of the mercury varies. We'll use this principle to indicate temperature. Hold the bottom part, don't move it, and after a while, you can see the temperature of your fingers..."

"A useful tool," in Garrett's mind, appeared as a little magical device in Linde's eyes. Listening to Garrett's explanation, the more Linde listened, the brighter his eyes became. Holding his breath, he extended his fingertips to touch the mercury bubble on the thermometer. Garrett simply handed the thermometer to him:

"Try it yourself, just be careful not to put it on fire or break it. Don't disturb me... let me think about how to divide a straight line into 100 parts..."

Muttering to himself, Garrett flopped onto the table, scratching his head, recalling how to mark the scale. Murmurs behind him continued:

"Expands when heated... contracts when cold... expands when heated... contracts when cold..."

Hey, old man, you're quite insightful! A thermometer and such, everything else is trivial; only these four words—expands when heated, contracts when cold—are the essence! Garrett smiled inwardly and spoke up:

"Different substances have different boiling points! You can try it out more. When distilling or extracting, use the thermometer to help control the temperature, and efficiency will be higher!"

"Really?!"

Linde responded with excitement. Garrett ignored him, focused on drawing the temperature scale, then turned to conduct a bacterial cultivation experiment.

A thermometer wasn't a precious item, just don't break it, play around. The experiments were more crucial. Since crossing over to this world, he had accumulated a pile of research projects! Finally, with a laborer on hand, the most cumbersome tasks of distilling water, making saline, and brewing alcohol were all handed over. Now was the time to focus on experiments!

Garrett hummed a song, arranging a stack of Petri dishes on the table and placing the culture medium. Half of the dishes had raw meat, the other half had agar. Thank goodness he finally found some stone flower moss...

Next, he laid out a row of gauze, ceramic spoons, scalpels, wooden tongue depressors for making mouth guards, washed his hands, and placed his left hand on the table with the palm facing up—

"One, two, three! Magical trick—cleanse!"

The radiance of the magical trick flowed continuously, passing over all materials.

Garrett wiped each experimental material, including his left hand's fingers, on both culture media. Next, he took out the same materials, high-temperature sterilized, and wiped them on both culture media. Finally, he washed his hands, disinfected with alcohol, and carefully placed the culture medium.

"Let me think about what else is missing... right, purify diet! Water creation spell!"

Using sewage treated with purified diet, and clean water generated by the water creation spell, he completed the bacterial cultivation. Garrett labeled each Petri dish, noting the sample source and cultivation time. After completing these tasks, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and returned to his study to start writing his paper:

"The Sterilization Effects of Magician Tricks, Purified Diet, and Water Creation Spell... hmm, let me think, should I make a trip to the Magician Tower and include the water from the water elemental pool for comparison..."

Boom!!!

A sudden explosion resounded outside the door. Garrett's hand trembled, and a large drop of ink fell onto the paper, instantly staining it:

"What happened?"

Could it be a problem with the alchemy lab! The distillation apparatus is still there! Can't leave now! And downstairs, the disinfection room downstairs, the pressure cooker must not explode...

He rushed outside without a care for his life. In the lounge across from him, High Priest Holna also ran out holding a book. There was a series of footsteps on the stairs, and in the consultation room where Aiven, Joanne, Patrick were reading books, along with little John sitting at the front desk, all rushed upstairs:

"What's going on?"

"What happened?!"

"Garrett, are you okay!"

"I'm fine!" Garrett loudly replied. Following the sound, he rushed into the alchemy lab across the hall, only to see the newcomer Linde leaning out of the window, half of his body hanging outside.

 Hearing Garrett's footsteps, he tremblingly raised his pitch-black right hand, tears and mucus streaming down his face as he cried and laughed:

"I broke through! — I broke through! I finally advanced to Level 1 Magician, wuwuwu..."

So it was you who caused the explosion just now? Garrett reached Linde's side, peering down. The smell of gunpowder had not yet dissipated from the air, and below the alchemy lab, on the roof of the flat building, there was a dark scorch mark, obviously scorched by flames. Garrett's feet shook for a moment, quickly retreating two steps and summoning a strong wind to disperse the smell:

"Linde! If you broke through, don't explode the toilet!"

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