Isaiah was awoken by the knock on the compartment he slept in, he quickly put on a jacket and opened the door to be greeted by Farida. She looked as beautiful as yesterday, the tiredness on her face had vanished replaced by her usual gentle demeanor.
"Sorry, I must have slept in.", he couldn't tell the time due to being in this tent with no sunlight and nor any other indication of time. Farida shook her head, "You didn't sleep in, I just decided to come early so we could share breakfast.", she lifted the basket in her hand, filled with all kinds of delicious baked goods.
Seeing the subtle eager tint in her eyes made Isaiah chuckle, seems like she wanted to get along with him. He had a few guesses as to why that might be, one of them was her witnessing his talent at formation, "Sure, come in. Let's not eat in that bloody lab.", He said with a chuckle and let Farida in the compartment.
After that they set up the table, putting the various baked goods on it. It was a mouth watering scene, the steam of the goods were still present. Isaiah grabbed one of the breads and split it in half, a gush of steam rushed out and a red jam inside it leaked out.
Just like herself, her eating manners were also gentle and elegant. Farida ate with small bites, clearly savoring the taste of each bite, a woman who knew how to enjoy delicious food.
After they finished they quickly cleaned the table and entered the lab. Isaiah grabbed his notes and passed them to Farida, this time while it still used the improved method to draw the formation and guide her mana because it tried to achieve a more complex effect of controlling the behavior of mana rather than simply creating a simple light source.
As Farida was busy trying to remember the formation instruction, he was busy carving the formation on the third subject. His original guess was that he could finish the experiment on his third subject, "Let's see if I will stand corrected." he mused to himself.
His hands moved expertly as he made small formation carving on the patient's extremities, subject's hands, legs, and head. Soon carvings took their place, now he had to open to gain access to the patient's heart to finish his preparations.
Standing in front of him was now a body with formations on all of its extremities and an open heart beating slowly. He gazed at Farida, "Have you memorized it?".
Farida nodded and got to take her place, she had to move the mana through all 5 extremities which would take a mental toll on her as controlling multiple instances of mana was rather hard for a Rank 1 like her.
Isaiah took the gear I prepared that held the mana shards. The moment I stabbed the mana shard through the subject's heart, Farida activated the 5 formations and guided her mana through them.
Mana once again spread through the body of the patient, starting from the heart to all over the body. This time however unlike his previous try, the mana didn't attack when it came to a stop and started to eat at the flesh instead, it met the formations and calmed down lengthening the time the body would be filled with mana without killing the patient. 3 minutes and 38 seconds later the patient still died due to the toll all that mana took on the body, however, Isaiah had managed to take the time limit from 15 seconds to 3 minutes and 38 seconds. A whopping 3 minutes and 18 seconds difference, this was the difference between life and death so each second mattered!
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Happy with the results a large smile formed on Isaiah's face, coupled with the corpse in front of him painted a chilling picture even Farida was a bit taken back. This was definitely not what she had in mind when she decided to migrate to this empire.
Isaiah, with his keen observatory ability, obviously had noticed that Farida was a little disturbed but he didn't care for now. Authority wasn't received when you changed your actions according to your subordinates' expectations, it was received when you changed the views of your subordinates to fit your actions. She would come in line in the future.
For now, he decided to let her go, "Farida, this is enough for today. You were a great help once more", he wore a warm smile while he said it and meant each word. Farida indeed ended up being very helpful to him considering his uncle's busy schedule having another Rank 1 help in his research was invaluable.
Seeing the warm smile he gave her, eased Farida's nerves a little, obviously, it wasn't enough to wash it away completely but its effects were evident. Farida bowed, "I'm sorry if my demeanor was unsightly today, Mr. Isaiah.", she looked at the corpse lying on the table and continued. "I'm more used to trading as opposed to research but I will try to be more helpful in the future.", with those words she left the tent. Clearly, not pleased with how she let her professionalism fall towards the end of the experiments.
Isaiah looked at the door she left from, his gaze lingering, "This woman seems to have potential.". He was impressed by Farida's quick adaptability considering he would need more personnel in the future, he decided to keep her in mind.
He started cleaning the corpse off the table. Once clean he took off all his clothing till he was fully naked. He then started drawing lines on his body to determine the sections he would have to carve out to create the formations. Yes, he was indeed going to perform the procedure on himself, this was his plan from the very start.
Just as he was drawing the lines, the tent's door was opened and his uncle walked in. The scene in front of him startled him just like the last time, this time due to the implications of what he was witnessing, seeing his nephew drawing lines on himself he figured out what he was planning and why he invited him here pretty quickly without Isaiah needing to speak a word, "Don't tell me you seriously plan to undergo the procedure yourself?", he said, his shock apparent from his voice. While he knew this was the plan from the start, seeing the process with his own eyes was different from seeing it on paper.
Seeing his uncle's shocked tone made Isaiah laugh, "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." he pointed towards the formation instructions on the table, "Just memorize that and do your best helping in the procedure.". Hearing his confident tone both eased Louie's worry but also made him laugh, "I will trust you if you say so. Just try not to die, kiddo, your aunt would skin me alive", He exploded into laughter after he said the last line, mostly to ease his nerves.
He soon started carving the formations on his body, he was a lot more careful on himself compared to when he carved the subjects. He was a lot slower and deliberate, taking his time, waiting for each line to stop bleeding before moving to another. It took hours for him to finish the carvings, after he finished them, he laid on the operation table, "Pass me the scalpel", his tone was more serious at the moment, he would have to focus fully for the operation to succeed.
Louie swiftly passed him the scalpel. Holding the grip of the scalpel, Isaiah started to make a line on his chest. He was planning to perform open heart surgery on himself! Louie watched this process with wide eyes. In his many years doing business, he had witnessed many bizarre events, but this was a first even for him.