Wizard from The Modern

In the blink of an eye, several days had passed.

Afternoon, side tower loft.

Sunlight streamed in, brightening the laboratory, where Richard was engaged in an incredibly complex experiment. The table was crowded with a multitude of bottles and jars, more than ten times what he had used during the distillation, creating a dizzying display.

"Puff, puff…" White steam constantly billowed from the connected bamboo pipes.

"Puh, puh, puh, puh…" Containers bobbed up and down in the boiling water.

"Bang, bang, bang, bang…" Sealed jars filled with boiling liquid shook violently, their lids threatening to pop off at any moment.

Richard's face was serious as he surveyed the entire experimental setup, continuously directing, "Add 100 milliliters of water to jar number two using container number five. I hope you remember the method I explained last month."

"Open the lid of jar number nine to vent the gas—hurry!"

"Cool down jar number seventeen with cold water, slowly! We need to prevent explosions…"

"…"

Under Richard's instructions, the young maid Lucy scurried about, adding water here and adjusting pipes there. Her face was slick with sweat from nerves, causing the strands of her bangs to cling to her forehead.

Richard paid no mind to her, continuing to issue commands while his eyes remained fixed on the minuscule amount of extracted substance in the last jar, his expression grave.

As the extracted substance increased, its color grew more intense. The moment he saw the hue shift from light yellow to dark yellow, he knew the experiment had failed. He glanced up at the young maid and said, "Alright, no need to keep going. Just stop."

"Ah!" The young maid Lucy gasped, halting her movement as she carefully turned to ask, "Did you manage to create what you wanted, Master?"

"No." Richard shook his head, letting out a breath as his expression returned to calm. "On the contrary, the experiment failed; the final product has too many impurities and is completely unusable."

"This…" Lucy opened her mouth in surprise, unsure of what to say. Comfort? It seemed that the master didn't need it. Admitting fault? Richard never unjustly blamed anyone.

"The experimental method wasn't at fault," Richard reasoned, analyzing the cause of the failure. "It was the equipment that was inadequate; after all, it's terribly crude. Generally, minor errors can be tolerated, but this experiment's lengthy process accumulated too many discrepancies, resulting in a qualitative change that led to failure."

"Well…" Lucy still didn't know what to say.

"Alright, that's enough. Just clean up the apparatus," Richard waved his hand, "and I'll think of other methods to try making different anesthetic agents."

As he spoke, Richard walked over to a table against the wall of the laboratory, retrieving papyrus and a quill to begin sketching out ideas.

For the last few days, Richard had been striving to overcome the first of the three challenges outlined in the Human Skin Diary related to deep meditation.

He had formulated a simple solution to the meditation challenge: since he couldn't naturally enter the required state, why not leverage an external aid? Using anesthetic agents could perfectly facilitate the state described in the diary.

However, making anesthetics was no easy task, particularly in this world, which was at a technological level akin to Earth's medieval period.

Considering this, despite the hundreds of anesthetics available on Earth, Richard ultimately selected three types to experiment with: plant alkaloid anesthetic agents, nitrous oxide, and ether.

Richard believed that plant alkaloids would be the easiest to prepare, as many plants contain the necessary components and would simply need to be purified.

Yet following his earlier failed experiment, Richard had to rethink some of his assumptions.

"Shh, shh, shh…"

Richard quickly scribbled his thoughts on the papyrus, attempting to devise an experimental plan for the second anesthetic—nitrous oxide.

Nitrous oxide, the N2O, was a very simple anesthetic agent; in modern Earth's history, it was first used in dental surgery. It allowed patients to undergo tooth extraction without feeling pain while remaining conscious enough to follow the dentist's instructions.

Given this, Richard focused on how to produce it.

He wrote the symbol representing nitrous oxide on the papyrus and began contemplating.

The most straightforward method to create nitrous oxide was through thermal decomposition. Heating ammonium nitrate at about two hundred degrees Celsius would yield both nitrous oxide and water.

The problem was that ammonium nitrate was not a naturally occurring substance but a chemical synthesis product. On modern Earth, it wasn't until the late 19th century that Europeans began producing ammonium nitrate through a double decomposition reaction between ammonium sulfate and Chilean nitrate.

Now the situation became complicated: ammonium sulfate, a key ingredient in fertilizers, also required synthesis, and Chilean nitrate, a certain type of sodium nitrate, had a unique composition that necessitated synthesis, often more challenging than ammonium sulfate.

To synthesize these two compounds would require...

Layer upon layer, Richard looked at the copious notes he had written on the papyrus and couldn't help but chuckle bitterly.

Creating nitrous oxide on modern Earth was a remarkably simple task, but in this world, it was akin to a pipe dream. The absence of just one necessary ingredient forced him to substitute more materials, which in turn led to the need for even more ingredients—a simple process spiraling into an extremely complex one.

As Richard stared at the lengthy procedure written on the papyrus, he let out a helpless sigh, ultimately abandoning the idea of producing nitrous oxide and placing his hopes on the last anesthetic option he had chosen: ether.

In contrast to the solid nature of plant alkaloids and the gaseous state of nitrous oxide, ether was a colorless, transparent liquid with a peculiar sweet odor. Even at very low concentrations, it could produce anesthesia. It featured prominently in many films on modern Earth, often depicted as soaking a handkerchief in ether and holding it over a target's mouth and nose, causing them to collapse into a state of complete relaxation.

So, how did one create this substance?

Taking a fresh sheet of papyrus, Richard once again began plotting an experimental procedure.

Ether on modern Earth wasn't solely used for anesthesia; it was often utilized as an extracting agent. The industrial method for its production appeared to rely on aluminum catalysis.

Thus, to obtain ether via this method, one would first need to source aluminum.

"Rustle, rustle…" Just as he had written this down, Richard suddenly paused the quill, quickly dismissing the method.

The reason was straightforward: securing aluminum was impossible.