Chapter 206 “Insect swarm”
In the end, the problem of the mirror was solved by Soraya.
According to her, she had went and fetched some mercury from the laboratory, and spread it directly on top of the glass, afterward painting a shiny coated layer on top of it. In this way she achieved a similar effect to that of a mercury mirror, but also eliminating the risk associated with mercury vapor poisoning.
Compared to a pasted silver mirror, the overall coated mirror offered much better reflection. Afterward, Roland simply set aside a number of crystal glassware, so that each witch could get a small hand mirror. The small gift, which allowed the witches to clearly see their appearance made them all very happy, even Scroll who was usually always exposing a neutral expression revealed a rare smile. Seeing all this let Roland sigh in regret, although the witches weren’t fertility, they were still women at nature.
Unfortunately, this useful commodity could temporarily not be sold to the public at a low price. After all, its base was made out of the highly priced crystal glass. Furthermore, the laboratory had also consumed a lot of crystal glass to create this colorless, transparent container.
Kyle Sichi, contrary to what one might expect, knew how to create crystal glass, but the laboratory had been burdened with other tasks so that there were seldom any empty hands. Most of the apprentices were busy with refining the two acids, soaking the cotton fire. While the chief alchemist took two or three disciplines and concentrated entirely on solving the barrier to the creation of mercury fulminate. Until the industrial acid method was thoroughly researched, they still didn’t want to make anything else for the time being.
Apart from the reflecting mirror, Roland also suggested that instead of manually moving the stage to control the distance to the object, it could also be done by turning a small knob on the side. He only needed to describe the two alternation with a few words, before Anna understood what he meant. Summoning her black flame, the new stabilizing framework was quickly constructed. Afterward, she picked the two set of lenses with the highest degree of magnification, in this way creating the very first optical microscope.
Taking advantage of the sufficient afternoon sun, Roland called all of the members of the Witch Union into the castle’s backyard, thereby starting the first ever Fundamental Biology class.
…
When Lily came to the backyard, she discovered that the plants had become more lush and flourishing.
The grapes on the wooden frame had turned into a bright red-purple hue. A foggy memory told her that they were less than a week from turning ripe. From time to time, Lighting would fly up and pick a bunch of ripe grapes for everyone. And that big and silly bird which had recently joined Border Town, bluntly sat on top of the shelf, raising its head to peck at the grapes and swallow them down.
In the backyard under the shade sat His Royal Highness and Anna. They were happily chatting with each other, looking just like an intimate couple. But Lily knew, they were definitely not telling each other words of affection. In case she was to approach them to listen, she would definitely hear a bunch of unfathomable mysterious nouns belonging to a debate that she was unable to make any sense of…
For example, about how the small balls looked like, how a cat could be living and dead at same time, matter turned into a wave, and so on. This was probably also the reason why Nightingale would always keep a distance of five meters away from them. After all, when listening to them for a long time, any person would definitely become drowsy, ai!
Wendy was always waiting with Scroll, whenever she met her, Wendy would show a gentle and soft smiling expression. Sometimes, she even felt that from the other’s point of view she was seen as a child. Lily helplessly sighed, first looking at Wendy’s chest, then bowed her head to look at her own, there was indeed worlds between them.
When can they turn into that, maybe then I won’t be regarded as a child anymore.
After all the witches had arrived, Lord Roland put two gray-black metal utensils on the table, claiming that they made it that with them it would be possible to see the tiny world of microscopy. Lily thought, maybe the object won’t look the same after magnification, but that everything in the world is made up out of small balls? This had always been hard for her to believe, after all how could rolling balls form a solid rock?
His Royal Highness sent a guard to get a bucket of water, then took a few drops and placed them under the microscope, which was different from what Lily had expected. The water in the bucket was neither muddy nor was it dirty. Instead, it was so clear that she could see the sunshine reflecting on the bottom, as if there wasn’t anything there at all. Is it… is it really possible that you can see the flowing balls from under the microscope?
“Something is moving in the water!” To her surprise a sister shrieked, and the moment her voice fell, she shrieked again, “Ah, it ran away!”
“More than one, there seems to be a lot more.”
“Good gracious, these are bugs? None of them look the same at all!”
“This looks more like a transparent crab…”
Lily’s heart suddenly suspended, not the small balls, but bugs? His Royal Highness had indeed lied! However… that there are insects is also very strange, ah, just look at the water, there is clearly nothing in it! When it was her turn, the little girl could no longer pretend to be indifferent, she headed toward the microscope and impatiently narrowed her eyes to take a look for herself.
And then, she saw an incredible scenery.
Just in the narrow illuminated area, she saw many bizarre objects recklessly moving about; some had a square shapes, while others whole bodies were covered with hairs, some looked like a mixed species of bugs and crabs, and others looked somewhat similar to the base of a grain of wheat. No matter which kind of strange shape they had, they were all mostly transparent, as if they had no skin or shell around them, in general, allowing to see the internal body structure clearly. Of course, these insects stomach was almost just as empty as their surroundings.
“Your Royal Highness, are theses really insects?” Scroll asked.
“What you are seeing should be some primitive organism or single-celled algae, calling them insects is not really appropriate, they should be assigned to the class of microorganisms.” The Prince explained.
“Microorganism?”
“Yeah, they’re also an independent life form, but their shape is much smaller, apart from the two you are seeing, there are also even smaller bacteria and viruses. At present the magnification of the microscope is not enough to permit you to see those two microorganism. They are also the reason for food spoilage and a variety of other illnesses.”
The more His Highness Roland explained, the more spirited he became, ” These infinitesimally small life forms are everywhere, and there are many different kinds. Fortunately, the majority of them is vulnerable to high temperature, and that is the reason why we boil the water before drinking, cook the fish before we eat it and do not reuse our bathwater.”
Although it was difficult for her to imagine that there were even smaller creatures, when she thought about that with drinking she will also swallow a lot of insects into her belly, Lily felt goosebumps all over her body.
Hasn’t his Royal Highness said that these humble little things are the culprits of food spoilage?
If I can keep the bread and meat porridge fresh, that water… should also be possible.
Thinking until here, she couldn’t help herself as she released her magic, covering the droplets under the microscope.
Causing unexpected changes to be born.
She saw how the “insects” began to tremble, then began to quickly change their appearance. Their skin was no longer transparent, but seemed as if they had put on a purple armor. Then long tentacles began to grow on their whole body, and soon after, they started to swallow the insects in their surrounding which have not changed. No that wasn’t right… instead of swallowing, Lily saw that they were assimilating each other at an alarming rate. Like a sharp sword, the tentacles stabbed into the body of other microorganisms which then assumed the same appearance as them.
Not knowing whether it was an illusion or not, she still felt that these transformed organism were still changing the invisible creatures, and it didn’t take long until a little purple spot appeared within the water. After a few breaths, more and more of these purple spots appeared, gradually fusing into one piece, as if her field of vision was slowly being covered with a lavender-colored carpet. One by one the tentacle insects arranged themselves into rows, like a neatly organized army. As if they could feel her attention, they all raised their tentacles up, as if in salute.
This was the first time; that she saw the true face of her ability.