The old man you see with your phone is highly suspicious.

"In the next experiment, I will be responsible for culturing bacteriophages and separating samples, while you will further screen out the mutated individuals, striving to develop an effective drug before the pathogenic bacteria mutate."

"Although I think it's unrealistic to expect a cure for bacteriophages, it's the only option. This virus can only spread through bacteria, and it dies very quickly once it leaves the bacteria."

She stared at Xue Dinglu, who was still deep in thought, and paused for a moment.

It wasn't her imagination; her "boyfriend" really did seem much younger, even as if he had returned to the age of 17 or 8, younger than when they first met.

His dark circles were gone, his hairline had receded, and he looked much more energetic. His eyes no longer held that depressed and lifeless look, revealing the clarity and naivety of a high school student who had just finished the college entrance examination.

Xue's Law: "..."

Me, me?

Why would you let a college student who has just started learning clinical medicine conduct this kind of experiment?

Xue Law even just hallucinated the way the two interacted, which was actually the way a professor and his assistant interact in a laboratory.

Did the relationship begin in the lab?

Xue Lude is not good at evaluating his own romantic experiences in parallel worlds, but he doesn't have a good way to deal with it now, especially after using his extraordinary wisdom, he adopts a delaying tactic.

He put down the bacteriophage he had just enhanced with the blood of the curse and said directly, "This is a sample that has become more powerful in suppressing the waste bacteria after mutation. However, I have to go on a business trip for the next two days. You should culture this sample more. When I come back, it may be ready for human experiments."

Xue Law mimicked Doctor Xue's tone as he spoke.

However, these words made her pause for a moment, and Xue Dinglu wondered if he had given himself away.

"Where are you going on a business trip?" she asked.

"The University of Chicago, let's talk to that professor in person." Xue Dinglu immediately thought of his past trip to Chicago and said.

“Okay, then I’ll keep an eye on these samples and results for you. Tell me the methods for separation and selection, and I’ll cultivate a few more samples. When you come back, let’s start doing experiments on mice together.” She didn’t seem to be too bothered by it, as if the relationship between the two was more like that of a doctor and his assistant in a laboratory than that of a couple.

After we came in, more than 80% of the topics we discussed were related to work and research, rather than some emotional problems that Xue's Law couldn't handle at all.

Just as Xue Dinglu was about to leave, a voice suddenly came from inside the laboratory again: "By the way, don't push yourself too hard. We still have time. Get some rest. You looked ten years younger just now. Don't be as anxious as before. Our experimental progress is already very encouraging. Also, I will always support you."

This sentence startled Xue Dinglu. He wondered if it was just his imagination, but he finally realized the pattern of their previous relationship in this sentence.

"Hmm." He simply nodded and left immediately.

I'm too busy right now to think about how to solve such trivial matters. Since the other side has chosen to use a method similar to "Plague Inc." to advance the infection of the wasteland, there must be a deeper conspiracy.

Xue's Law, on the other hand, requires solving the global infection before any disasters erupt, and at the very least, finding the mysterious scholar behind the scenes who has reversed the aging process before the pathogenicity is revealed.

There's no time for him to indulge in romance or feel lost here; if he stays lost any longer, this parallel world will be gone.

Before leaving the lab, Xue Dinglu paused briefly and reminded everyone, "Boston might be in chaos lately. Don't go out; just stay here."

After saying that, he didn't care about the other person's reaction and strode away.

He wouldn't go to Chicago, but rather to Salem, a small town in the northeastern suburbs of Boston, where Ziegler had appeared and which was the first place he needed to investigate.

Before leaving, Xue provided the entire laboratory with a simple procedure for protection and alarm systems.

Soon, he arrived directly in the town of Salem.

This town is considered a holy site for mystics worldwide, mainly because of the trial of a 160-year-old witcher and dozens of witches that took place here in 1692, which caused countless wronged souls and panic.

The wrongful conviction resulted in the deaths of more than twenty "witches," and the nearly two-hundred-year-old witcher disappeared without a trace.

Whether the girls who died were real witches or not is no longer important. This place is already infamous, the vengeful spirits cannot be appeased, and occult rituals can easily summon "evil spirits" here.

That was the most recent extraordinary event in the world since the Age of Gods, and naturally it became a sacred place for mystics to investigate.

Xue Law immediately used his imagination to successfully replicate the body of the old mystic "Austin" within him and put his spirit back into the body.

This was the first time Xue Dinglu had conjured something so intricately in his imagination. He was unsure of his technique. He saw the old mystic beside him slowly open his eyes and immediately asked, "How does it feel?"

“I feel great, thank you, sir.” Austin stretched his body, and for the first time, the mystic felt his body was strong and powerful.

……

Shortly after Xue left, a mature woman dressed as a man came to the door of his laboratory and suddenly frowned.

"Xiao Xue, when did he suddenly get married? And when did he learn magic?" The woman looked at the complicated magic incantation at the laboratory door, and finally rang the doorbell.

There was no sound from inside the laboratory. She knew that the girl opposite her was observing her through the peephole, so she immediately said, "I am Xue's aunt. You can call me Xue Sexi, or you can call me Aunt, just like he does to me."

So the witch said.

Chapter 182 The Collective Corruption of the Mystics

Circe, one of the most famous witches of ancient Greece, also has another name in Roman mythology.

“Cersei…Aunt?” You Xiaoniao was obviously also a little sensitive to the famous mythological name. She had no idea that Xue Luding’s elders would give such a strange mythological name, but after a quick confirmation, she found that the person in front of her was indeed her boyfriend’s legal guardian.

The photo on his personal bookshelf couldn't be faked. It showed Xue Daolu with a cold expression, posing with a woman ruffling his hair. In the photo, she was just like the woman outside, wearing a custom-made suit but insisting on keeping the hand-embroidered Greek laurel branches on the cuffs.

The Xue Dinglu in the photo was only about ten years old at the time.

The strange thing is that, more than ten years have passed, and the aunt's appearance seems to have not changed at all.

However, the moment she opened the door, a hand gripped her chin tightly, and as she prepared to resist, she heard, "Don't move, I mean you no harm."

You Xiaoniao was stunned for a moment. She immediately stopped moving and followed her aunt's lead to take a closer look. Then she heard her aunt say, "He's very ordinary. How did you manage to satisfy that brat who has never looked at anyone properly since he was a child? I don't understand."

Auntie threw her suitcase onto Xue Luding's computer chair as if she were in her own home. She saw the petri dishes in the constant temperature cabinet, and what made her pupils shrink the most was the aura of "cursed blood" in one of the petri dishes!

No, she wasn't mistaken; it smelled like cursed blood! And it wasn't residual cursed blood left over from three thousand years ago, but rather cursed blood that had only been used recently!

Auntie didn't know what expression to make. She frantically savored the taste of the cursed blood, and the strange yet familiar virus...

However, her millennia of self-cultivation kept her calm. She didn't laugh out loud, but put her hand in her pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes. However, her hand kept shaking as she lit the cigarette, as if she had Parkinson's disease.

“Aunt, you…” You Xiaoniao looked at her aunt’s strange behavior. She was about to say that smoking was not allowed in the lab, since some bacteria might just die on the spot if they didn’t like it.

"Sorry, I don't smoke..." Aunt threw the cigarette she had just put in her mouth into the trash can, but at this moment, she seemed to be trying her best to suppress the upward curve of her lips.

"It seems I need to tell you my family story." The aunt looked at her "niece-in-law" with a forced smile, while blood flowed in her hand as if it were a living thing she could control at any moment.

This unscientific scene stunned You Xiaoniao, who stared intently at the fluid blood on her hand.

“I’ve been dealing with the remnants of the Age of Gods and those who try to revive it. This is my destiny with Xiao Xue, and also the connection between us.” She smiled, the blood on her hands seeming alive.

"My Noble Phantasm is called 'False Cursed Blood,' a weakened version of the cursed blood I collected, and its origin dates back more than 3200 years..." She seemed to have no intention of hiding it any longer, and instead looked at the girl in front of her, slowly recounting a history from more than three thousand years ago...

……

“I feel great now, Your Excellency.” The old mystic Austin stretched his body.

For this mystic, his current physical condition was far better than he had imagined. For the first time, he felt a surge of energy through his body, as if he could kill a bull with his bare hands.

If he had possessed the power of Phowa before, he wouldn't have become a mystic; he would have become a physicist long ago. He could have cast a Holy Light spell with his left hand and swung his iron fist with his right hand to deliver a set of Barton elbow strikes.

Xue Dinglu didn't waste any words. He immediately began to make arrangements for the two of them, which had been agreed upon before they transmigrated.

"It's 2027 now, more than a year since your death. Quickly contact the old mystics and get the intelligence and information from this period. Share this information with me in my consciousness space," Xue Dinglu said directly.

The old mystic, who possesses a physical manifestation of fantasy, is able to act independently of Xue's laws. Xue's laws are not even afraid that something will happen to him. Even if he dies, only the physical manifestation of fantasy will disappear, and the old mystic's spirit will still appear in the consciousness space.

I've done some simple experiments, and Xue's law won't mislead you in this regard.

"No problem, sir. Where will you be investigating?" he asked casually. The two of them were now planning to go out together and search for clues separately.

“The FBI, CIA, and the Secret Service.” Xue Dinglu made no attempt to hide his target. He looked towards Boston in the distance and said, “This is where we can get intelligence the fastest. Of course, information about the occultists’ inner workings will still be left to you.”

"Understood, mission accomplished!" The old mystic smiled as he arrived at the familiar world and Salem town, which had been completely reduced to ruins. The streets were deathly quiet, and there was no trace of the ancient plant, Zijera, to be seen.

But it doesn't matter, he can quickly reconnect with his old friends through occult means.

After discovering that his article had drawn a warning from the FBI, Xue immediately sought out the source of the intelligence. For him, peeking at the intelligence of those special agents was as easy as entering his own backyard, and thanks to the intervention of the mystic Austin, he had an even simpler method.

"Hypnosis," a technique whose name may sound a bit unconventional, but whose effect is to completely put ordinary people to sleep.

If a Japanese high school student were to acquire this technique, the only use they could think of would be to initiate certain 18+ scenes through hypnosis.

Just like how stopping time for several hours is only used by some people for things like doing groin, while a vampire stopping time for five seconds thinks about ruling the world.

In Xue Dinglu's hands, hypnosis was...

"In a deep sleep!" In the next instant, everyone in the entire hidden Secret Service branch fell into a deep, infant-like sleep, as if time had stood still.

Xue Dinglu swaggered into the Secret Service, when suddenly the AI ​​seemed to detect him as an unknown person and issued an alarm.

"Sleep!" The AI ​​was taken aback, then went into a shutdown state.

Hypnosis in the fairy tale world can even hypnotize artificial intelligence and electronic devices! Just like in the fairy tale world, the Smurfs can fall asleep. This is why Xue's Law wants to get some magic from old Watson. They can always come up with some new tricks for themselves.

……

Meanwhile, the old mystic immediately found his old friend through their internal communication channels.

That was a special ritual performed by mystics; by changing just one of the nodes, he could naturally find those old friends he had contacted before.

Now, he even felt like he was returning home in glory. After all, he was completely different from his old friends who played magic tricks. He had learned the Holy Light spell and had further applied it in the hands of "that person".

Holy Light Cutting, and derivatives of the Specium Ray.

He is now confident that he can call himself a "magician" instead of the mystic he was before.

But he never forgot the knowledge and rituals of the occult. Before becoming a magician, he thought that if he learned magic, even a dog wouldn't bother with the occult.

But after truly becoming a mage, he became more open-minded. As long as he could achieve his goal, what difference did it make whether it was mysticism or magic? Just like that person's magical skill had reached the level of creating things out of thin air, but he still didn't despise the power of mysticism.

Soon, a mystic arrived at the place where he was transmitting the signal.

Even among occult families, Itzhak Hohenheim was one of the most renowned occultists. His family possessed two versatile occult rituals: "sacrifice" and "living corpse walkers," making them a truly prestigious clan.

In short, for such a person, participating in the Salem ritual of these wild mystics is already an honor. For him, as long as he returns to the Age of Gods, he can immediately complete the reincarnation and breakthrough just like the magicians of the Age of Gods.

Unlike Austen himself, most of his occult rituals required impromptu arrangements at specific times, and his exclusive rituals also required extremely demanding conditions.

But it doesn't matter, I'm a magician now.

"Austin, you actually didn't die in that Salem incident?" The important figure, Hohenheim, carrying a large bundle, said with a sinister air.

“I’m truly sorry, Lord Hohenheim. I was saved by ‘that person’ and even given a new life. Now I want to know what exactly happened in the entire occult community after the Salem incident. Is there any information you can share? I will offer you a spell that you cannot refuse as payment.” Austin spoke to this former great figure with the same gentlemanly manner.

“Hmph, ‘that person’? Little Austin, perhaps you’re the one who’s like a frog in a well, unaware of how vast the world is. The era of mysticism is long gone.” Hohenheim chuckled, a laugh that made Austin very uncomfortable.

"The age of mysticism is over?" Austin pondered the question repeatedly, his brow furrowed. He immediately realized something, cold sweat dripping from his forehead. He asked, "What is Brinton's relationship with you?"

Brington, the mastermind behind the Salem incident, who ultimately rejuvenated and killed his own conspirator, will never forget this man.

"Heh, how dare you address the master by his name..." Hohenheim chuckled sinisterly. The next moment, countless twisted branches appeared on his body. He stood tall and elegant, and even though his body was covered by the mutated vegetation, he still exuded a calm and composed aura. However, the mycelium emerging from his pupils twisted into branches, as if triggering an uncanny valley, causing Austin to immediately retreat.