Comprehensive network wizard, magic emperor.

Chapter 268 The Medicine of Salvation
“Darling, I’m sick. Can you hear it? Those coughs are echoing in the streets. It’s not serious yet, but the pathogen has already spread and is lurking in people’s lungs and blood.”

"With every face-to-face conversation, with every lingering sneeze and stench on the street, the plague will erode the bodies of healthy people. In less than three days, you will hear coughs rising and falling, like a flock of hoarse roosters crowing at dawn."

"In six days, you will see many corpses—the corpses of the elderly, the corpses of children, the corpses of civilians, the corpses of soldiers. The cemetery cannot hold them all, so they dig up the bones of their ancestors and fill them with new flesh and blood."

The Tower Dragon pleaded with the mage for help, bewildered and filled with fear and panic. This plague was far more complex than people imagined. It wasn't just the disease itself that caused harm, but also its profound impact on the economies and historical processes of various nations.

Many cities and towns share its fear.

Flu patients waiting for their appointments at the lighthouse were crammed onto benches against the wall. A dozen induction cookers lined up in the kitchen, and a dozen earthenware pots were bubbling with a bitter, steaming medicinal aroma. The room was shrouded in a hazy white mist, and moisture condensed into seven hundred dewdrops on the patients' foreheads.

The apprentices, dressed in colorful cloaks like various mushrooms growing in the woods, quickly gathered, collected, and decocted the herbs, bringing the soup bowls to the patients' lips, whispering words of comfort, and reminding them of hygiene and safety.

Herbal medicine cannot cure epidemics; it can only boost the body's vitality and allow the immune system to function, but its effects are very limited.

To eradicate disease and plague, we need vaccines for prevention and effective drugs for treatment.

"Open your mouth." Lin Bo approached the patient with a long cotton swab, swabbed the throat to collect a sample, and stored it in a test tube. He repeated this process, taking more than a dozen samples.

He entrusted the care of the sick to his disciples, and then set off alone across the sea to the East Cliff Grottoes.

There is a small, rudimentary biochemistry laboratory here, with a limited number of instruments and equipment, but a fairly complete range of types, sufficient to support basic research work.

Lin Bo purified the collected virus samples and then put them into a gene weaver for sequencing in preparation for vaccine production.

The instrument operates silently, the indicator light begins to flash, and the progress bar on the screen slowly climbs.

The intelligent life form, the Crown of the Star, replaced the original White Web Spider and controlled the Gene Weaver. Its abilities were not stronger than those of the White Web Spider, but its rate of progress was very fast.

While waiting for the sequencing results, Lin Bo sought predictions from the Crown of Stars, estimating the speed of the disease's spread and its mortality rate.

The Crown of Stars used data collected over the past few weeks from prosthetic seagulls, particularly facial features, to analyze blood color, expression, and other factors to determine whether someone was infected with a disease.

Some early symptoms of the disease appeared the day before yesterday. It was first introduced to Shita Town by sailors and tourists, manifesting as weakness in the limbs and a brief low-grade fever. It took about two days for the disease to break out in full force.

Today is the first peak period.

Given the wide spread of the disease and the inevitably long incubation period, many asymptomatic carriers move around freely, spreading the virus. By the time symptoms appear, those around them have already been infected.

According to Star Crown's conservative estimate, a quarter of the population of Stone Tower Town has become carriers of the virus. If left unchecked, the number of infected people will exceed 60% by tomorrow morning, and by tomorrow evening, no one will be spared.

Lin Bo took out a communication paper and engraved a line of words on it.

Shortly afterward, the church in Shita Town announced a divine decree: a plague had arrived, and the entire town was under martial law. The black-robed members of the religious order shouted loudly along the streets, ordering the residents to return to their homes and not to go out.

Shita Town refused to allow tourists to linger. Apart from travelers with nowhere else to go, who were taken in at the Bailuo Tavern, all other visitors, including pilgrims, explorers, journalists, and tourists, were asked to leave by armed militia. By dusk, the once bustling streets had become deserted.

The plants and trees of early spring are still blooming in the cold wind, but people who want to enjoy the flowers are huddled under the brown-red roof tiles, peeking out from behind the windows.

Outside the window, there was no torrential rain; the streets were only inhabited by the sea breeze; walls and oracles restrained people's steps, trapping them in a small world.

An old man softly recited the scriptures of miracles; children paced back and forth on their beds, somersaulted, and laughed heartily; a husband stared blankly at the capsized fishing boat; a wife counted the flour, potatoes, turnips, and dried fish in the kitchen and cellar. Muffled coughs echoed in many houses.

The sun is gradually setting in the west.

Several patients from out of town were stranded at the lighthouse. They had difficulty moving around and their condition did not improve even after taking medicine.

The Grand Master had not yet returned. After discussing the matter, the disciples decided to take the patient to their residence, where at least there was a bed for him to lie down and rest.

"Thank you! May miracles befall you, doctors." The patient coughed as he thanked them, and was helped by a group of doctors who looked even older than them to rest in the apprentice cabins gathered on the promontory.

The plague exhaled by the patient was repelled by the apprentice's enchanted cloak, and did not contaminate him.

At this moment, Lin Bo is reading the virus's genetic code.

If we compare a virus to a machine, its structure is not very complex. Just remove a few parts and it will lose its infectivity or lethality.

What Lin Bo needs to do is precisely remove those key components to weaken the virus, so that a vaccine can be obtained. After healthy people are vaccinated, they will acquire immune resistance.

He can understand the protein structure corresponding to each piece of code, but he doesn't know the function of that protein. Genetic code doesn't have comments written by programmers.

Fortunately, intelligent programs can perform simulations, just like building a house in a computer, constructing all the proteins from the genetic blueprint, and their functions will be clear at a glance.

Lin Bo quickly identified the ID protein on the virus's outer shell and added a gene segment to make it easier for the human immune system to quickly identify the ID and target it.

Then, the virus's weapon proteins are cut out of its genes, so that even if it infects a human, it cannot cause serious damage.

Working until nearly midnight, Lin Bo took a break from his work, opened the network, and finished his map-running work for the day.

He didn't waste any time in the game; he bought some biochemistry and infectious disease materials and studied them carefully until the countdown started.

Back in the original world, the gene weaver began cultivating the first generation of weakened viruses, and it would take about fourteen hours to produce the first vaccine.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Lin Bo began preparing a special medicine. For patients who had already contracted the disease, vaccines were ineffective, and a miraculous medicine was needed to save their lives.

With current laboratory conditions and industrial capabilities, it's impossible to produce effective chemically synthesized drugs. However, Lin Bo can create the world's most powerful healing potions because he possesses the crown jewel of alchemy—the Blood of the World. Using this as a catalyst, he can concoct another jewel of alchemy—the Panacea.

This panacea cures all diseases; it can suppress and expel not only mere epidemics, but even magical plagues spread by the Chaos God.

Because the medicine is so potent, it is not cost-effective to use the panacea directly. Instead, one dose of the panacea is mixed into ten thousand doses of the disease-curing decoction. Each dose of the disease-curing decoction can probably cure ten young adults or six elderly people or children.

Lin Bo made a quick calculation: if it only boosts immunity and temporarily suppresses the pathogenic factors, then one dose of the disease-curing decoction can be converted into one hundred doses of health medicine, enough to give the patient a 70% survival rate.

The Philosopher's Stone he possesses can be used to refine approximately forty doses of the Panacea, and at most produce forty million doses of the Health Medicine.

Saving the Kening Empire should be no problem.

(End of this chapter)