21st Century Necromancer

While Chen Yu was assessing Misumi Mikoto's learning progress, Jounouchi Hiromi was in the laboratory assembling the custom instruments that had finally been completed and attempting to use these instruments to start her theoretically first experiment.

Mouse embryos, nutrient solution, an artificial placenta, and a cultivation tank connected to various sensors—these were the main components of Jounouchi Hiromi's experiment in cultivating mouse embryos with an artificial womb.

Compared to the artificial womb the Americans used to cultivate preterm lambs in 2017, Jounouchi Hiromi's design initially didn't seem to have anything different, and even borrowed many ideas from the American experiment. Continue your saga on My Virtual Library Empire

But unlike the Americans, Jounouchi Hiromi had an advantage they couldn't match—she knew exactly how to achieve her goal.

Whether it was the Americans or other scientists around the world researching the topic of artificial wombs, they were all merely groping in the dark for the right path and direction.

For them, every direction they faced might lead to success, or just as well to failure, resulting in a time-consuming process of trial and error as they searched for the path that would actually lead them to real success.

But Jounouchi Hiromi was different.

In addition to recording the detailed process and principles of the "Flesh Womb" spell, "Crimson Hymn" also provided access to research materials from scholars who had made improvements to the spell over generations.

These research materials provided Jounouchi Hiromi with the correct goals and approach; she just needed to follow these guidelines, transforming the steps originally performed by spells into scientific procedures to achieve her goal.

It was like a math problem where, knowing the answer and the approach to solving it, the process was much easier than having to grope for the right solution on your own before finally arriving at the correct answer.

After installing and calibrating all the experimental instruments and connecting the mouse embryos to the specially customized artificial placenta, Jounouchi Hiromi took another check to confirm that there were no problems before she took a sigh of relief and said to Nakagawa Susumu at her side, "Next is your job, Nakagawa-san. You need to record the embryo's development process in detail every day and follow the experimental steps I've written to provide enough nutrition for the embryo's development, ensuring normal growth until the embryo fully matures. Do you understand?"

"I've noted everything down, don't worry, Doctor Jounouchi, there won't be any issues!" Although it was his first time being entrusted with such an important task, which made Nakagawa Susumu understandably nervous, he still tried to calm himself down and assured Jounouchi Hiromi.

"Hmm, that's a reliable answer. While Mr. Chen Yu and I return to China for this period, I will leave everything in your hands," Jounouchi Hiromi smiled at Nakagawa Susumu and then handed him the notebook used to record experimental data, signaling him to record the data.

Although Jounouchi Hiromi said she was leaving everything to Nakagawa Susumu, there was still some time before she and Chen Yu would return to their country, which would be just enough to complete the first cultivation experiment.

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Finally finishing their work at hand, Chen Yu and Jounouchi Hiromi took leave and embarked on their journey to China.

"Speaking of which, I still don't know exactly where in China your home is, Mr. Chen Yu! After we fly to Shanghai, how do we get to your place?" Due to a traffic jam en route to the airport, Jounouchi Hiromi, who was sitting in the car, looked at the congested traffic outside the window and started a casual conversation with Chen Yu.

"My home? If you mean the home of my parents and me that I'm taking you to now, it's in a central region of China in a place called Barling." Chen Yu's expression became somewhat nostalgic as he talked about his home, "As for my ancestral home, that's in another province of China. It's roughly the same as if, Hiromi, you were born in Yamagata but lived in Tokyo."

"Oh, but Barling, that name sounds a bit strange, huh? Why is it called that?" Jounouchi Hiromi found the pronunciation of the name Chen Yu said in Chinese to be very peculiar.

Although she had started studying Chinese diligently since Chen Yu's successful proposal, she was like most people who knew very little about the origins of such place names, let alone being Japanese.

"The name means 'the tomb of the Chinese Mountain Pit Viper.'" Chen Yu explained the origin of the name of his hometown to Jounouchi Hiromi to pass the time in the traffic jam: "According to ancient myths, in ancient times there was a monster called the Chinese Mountain Pit Viper causing chaos in Barling. The Chinese Mountain Pit Viper was very large and the ancient texts say, 'The Chinese Mountain Pit Viper eats an elephant and excretes its bones three years later,' meaning it would take three years for the snake to spit out the bones of an elephant it swallowed."

"Swallowing an elephant whole? That's way too big! Even the largest known snake, the fossil of the Titan Python, wouldn't be large enough to swallow elephants! How long must that snake have been!" Jounouchi Hiromi was startled by the immense size of the Chinese Mountain Pit Viper described in the mythological story told by Chen Yu.

"That's why it's a myth, after all. Even if there really was such a thing as the Chinese Mountain Pit Viper, it couldn't be compared to an ordinary living Titan Python," Chen Yu chuckled, obviously amused by Jounouchi Hiromi's attempt to link myth with reality.

However, Jounouchi Hiromi was clearly fascinated by such ancient myths and continued to ask Chen Yu for more details, "So what happened in the end? Did the huge viper die? Why would the area where your family lives be called the tomb of the viper?"

"What happened next? When the viper caused chaos, it naturally provoked the suppression of deities. But now there are two versions of the story. One version is that a Divine Bird called the Golden Osprey happened to pass by Barling, saw the Chinese Mountain Pit Viper causing trouble, fought with it, and ultimately killed it. The Golden Osprey turned itself into a mountain peak to forever suppress the viper's body and prevent its resurrection.

This is the story passed down in the Barling region and also the origin of both the Barling area and the famous Golden Osprey Mountain," Chen Yu continued the story of the Chinese Mountain Pit Viper, also telling Jounouchi Hiromi about the different accounts: "There's another version I personally don't favor because it seems a bit too contrived."

Although Chen Yu kept it simple, Jounouchi Hiromi still envisioned a scene of a snake big enough to swallow an elephant fighting a glittering golden Divine Bird. But Chen Yu's comment about the other version also piqued her interest, "Designed? Why is that?"

"Because in the other version, instead of a Divine Bird, the one who killed the Chinese Mountain Pit Viper was Hou Yi, who shot down nine suns in Chinese mythology." Chen Yu laughed as he provided the answer, though with a hint of disdain.