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chapter 360
That afternoon.
On my way to Kim Eun-yeon’s lab at school, I turned on my phone, which I had kept switched off until then.
Looks like the news that I can make hair-loss medicine has already leaked out.
Well, hours had passed, and those people who broke into the school had even gone wild claiming to worship me.
Maybe that’s why so many inquiries had been made to the Iron-Blood Guild, asking whether they could get the hair-loss medicine.
The guild’s PR team had replied that, for now, it wasn’t available. They also left me a message asking me to contact them when I had the time.
[Thank you. This is the Iron-Blood Guild PR team.]
“It’s me. Keep telling them exactly that—that it’s not available right now.”
[Understood, Artist.]
I was going to experiment today, but honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could complete the medicine in just one trial.
Most of all, the required amount of estrogen was likely different for each person, so I’d need to fine-tune it.
As I was thinking that…
“Gun-woo. Do you think I could help?”
Kim Eun-yeon asked, sounding a little worried.
“You can. Actually, today’s experiment is something anyone could help with.”
To be blunt…
“Even those guys following us right now could help.”
I pointed behind us, where our classmates were trailing along.
When I said I was going to make hair-loss medicine, the whole class had decided to come.
Even Elliot and Lee Doo-min hadn’t left to spar—they were following, too.
They had no knowledge of alchemy, but they could still help with today’s experiment.
“… Them?”
“Yeah.”
Eun-yeon looked puzzled, knowing full well they had no alchemy background.
Potion-making usually required at least some knowledge. Of course, I wasn’t planning to let them handle the delicate steps.
“They can at least handle the simple work.”
“Simple work?”
Elena, who seemed to be listening in while following us, asked that question.
“I’ll need to run as many similar tests as possible. All you’ll have to do is follow instructions.”
This morning, I’d already asked the Association staff to collect as many hair and blood samples as possible.
The students would handle placing those samples in test tubes, emptying them afterward, and organizing the used ones.
Even without knowledge, they could manage that.
“Please move this over here.”
As we walked, chatting, I saw people moving loads under the direction of Association staff.
That was…
“Hair and blood samples, huh.”
And there were a lot.
Way more than I expected…
“Oh, classes are finished already?”
One staff member asked while stepping aside to let us into the lab.
Instead of entering right away, I asked,
“Wait… just how much hair did you collect?”
“Pardon? You said the more, the better…”
“Well, yes, but isn’t this a bit much?”
A quick glance showed that each transparent case—about the size of my index finger—contained a few strands of someone’s hair and a small blood pack.
One box held about 500 of those cases.
And there were 20 boxes.
… By simple math, that was about 10,000 samples. Was that even right?
“… We gathered volunteers from Associations all over the world. That’s how much we managed in the past few hours. And, more importantly…”
The foreign samples hadn’t even arrived yet.
“… What?”
So it wasn’t just Korea’s Association—Associations worldwide were mobilized for this?
“Should we stop the process now?”
“No… haaa…”
After a moment’s thought, I sighed and looked at it objectively.
Well, the more samples, the better.
Once the recipe was complete, mass production wouldn’t be my job—it would fall to whichever company acquired it.
“Don’t stop, but tell them to regulate the numbers a little.”
“Understood.”
With that, I entered the lab.
It was packed with the ingredients and samples I had requested that morning.
“Wow… this is… how much stuff is this, even?”
Eun-yeon was amazed.
“Phew… just organizing this is going to be work.”
Muttering that, I cleared a table, spread out a clean cloth, then drew dividing lines on it with a pen.
“What are you doing?”
“Hold on, I’ll need to focus now. Ha-eun, can you help, too?”
“A magic circle? … Hm…?”
I started inscribing the circle I’d drawn earlier into each square.
Ha-eun frowned, not understanding the circle, but she followed instructions.
… Of course she doesn’t understand it.
It combined magic, alchemy, and shamanism.
Even Shin Han-ji, the Archmage principal, hadn’t fully grasped the shamanistic elements and had needed my explanations.
So it was only natural that Ha-eun couldn’t make sense of the alchemy and shamanism parts.
The effect of this circle was…
“Gun-woo… wait… is this… a circle that replaces clinical trials…?”
“Yeah. For now.”
Eun-yeon seemed to have caught on.
“It won’t work for every drug, but it should work for elixirs that alter someone’s constitution.”
The circle would use the hair and blood samples as mediums to check whether the elixir would work on their owners.
If I explained the principles…
“Since we won’t understand anyway, why not just skip the explanation?”
“… Fair enough.”
Right—nobody else here was skilled in all three arts.
“Alright, you lot put the blood and hair in test tubes. Important point: one tube must only contain the blood and hair of the same person.”
I told the girls that, since they were generally more careful than the boys.
“You guys handle emptying used tubes here, then wash them at that sink.”
The boys got the cleaning job.
Modern test tubes were designed to prevent residue sticking, so washing wasn’t strictly necessary, but better safe than sorry.
“And Eun-yeon, you’ll synthesize the medicine with me.”
“O-okay…”
After assigning tasks, I summoned the ingredients with Aerial Storage.
The compounding didn’t take long.
Normally, you’d simmer the herbs for hours in a sealed environment… but I could accelerate time.
… Even for me, though, accelerating this much is a strain.
Thanks to absorbing ether as internal energy recently, my reserves had grown—but they weren’t infinite.
In some martial arts novels, they say the dantian is as vast as the universe, or the whole world itself… maybe I should find a way to expand mine too…?
It sounded crazy, but my martial arts method had been based on imitating those very novels.
Not impossible—but for now, unproven.
Anyway.
Once complete, the medicine was poured into the test tubes the girls had prepared.
The tubes were placed on the table with the inscribed circles, and…
“The circles darkened in color.”
“Did they all darken?”
“No…? This one didn’t.”
“Tch… then that one’s no good.”
For a moment I thought it was a success, but no—failure.
“But Gun-woo, if most circles darkened, isn’t that success?”
“No. Even if all had, I’d still test further.”
This medicine needed to work on as broad a population as possible.
If some rare constitutions had side effects or no effect, that was acceptable—I could later develop specialized versions for them.
But…
“At the very least, it needs to work on everyone without special constitutions.”
And it had to be reproducible by any company with the right ingredients.
“… Meaning?”
“If the sample that didn’t darken doesn’t belong to a special case, we’ll have to remake it from scratch.”
The Association likely avoided rare constitutions anyway.
“Wait a sec.”
I noticed something on one of the circles where the boys had cleared tubes.
“This one’s way too dark.”
“… Weren’t we just looking for color change?”
“No. If it’s too dark, that means the effect isn’t just working—it’s overloading.”
“What does that mean?”
Should I explain? Probably too technical. Better to put it simply.
“Oh, right. This drug increases estrogen secretion. But if it’s too effective…”
A man could turn into a woman.
“… What?”
“Just as an example, but yes.”
Maybe that was what happened in the previous timeline—cases where men transformed because the medicine worked too well.
That would explain why the “estrogen booster” was known in Korea as the Gender-Swap Potion.
Just speculation, but plausible.
“Anyway, we’ll need to make another batch. Eun-yeon?”
“Mm… everything’s ready.”
She had already prepped for the next attempt.
“This time, let’s reduce the effect a bit.”
“… Just reduce… the effect?”
“Yeah.”
And with that, I began synthesizing a new batch.
Of course, this wouldn’t be the last attempt.
Through trial and error, I’d eventually create a medicine I could be satisfied with.
