Book 3 Chapter 17.3 - Requirement
Within a corner inside Dragon City's central region, Persephone's private hospital was brightly lit. Inside this three floors above ground, five floors underground structure, everyone was doing everything they could to rush about. From time to time, nurses would run through this place, their foreheads covered in fine beads of sweat, but no time to wipe to wipe it off.
The enormous Dragon City was a very good example of what is called a vast but sparsely populated place. The enormous area Persephone's private hospital occupied perfectly agreed to this point as well, as the close to ten thousand square meter hospital only had two specially assigned doctors and five nurses, not including Helen herself. The underground portion was almost entirely occupied by Helen's laboratory, but Helen was the only one that managed this enormous laboratory without even a single assistant.
Inside the second floor medications laboratory, Helen stood in front of an apparatus the size of a microwave, using the densely packed data that appeared on the light screen to adjust the apparatus. In addition, she began to place the raw materials into the apparatus one after another in a sequenced order.
This was a molecular compounding device that represented high-end technology. Apart from a small number of compounds that had extremely strict environments, it could produce almost any other known chemical compounds. The only fault was its small production capabilities, and that meant high manufacturing costs. As for the light display that was packed with data, this was just a custom unique to Helen. She just liked to watch the operating of primitive data, not choosing to work on contact surface systems with direct observation. The benefits of this was that apart from herself, no one else could use the instruments inside of her laboratory.
Next to Helen's hands was a metal tray that was divided into several dozen sealed compartments, with each compartment capable of having environments automatically set. There were liquids of all different colors inside these compartments, some of them containing crystals, and others containing organ parts like eyeballs with bloody wisps sticking to them. These were the raw materials Helen used to produce the medicine.
Three minutes later, four fluid-filled syringes were completed, emerging from the molecular compounding apparatus. Helen turned on a broad spectrum light and observed the syringe under all different types of rays. Through the continuously fluctuating radiance, one could see an undisguisable fatigue on Helen's face, dark bags sinking deeply under her eyes and thick purple color all around her eyes. Her cheeks were clearly a bit thinner than what they were like before, and the snow white laboratory robe she wore seemed a bit too big as well. However, with this extra bit of skinny beauty, Helen instead seemed more like a human.
Helen created four powerful stimulants, each with the ability to maintain 48 hours of mental activity. Once these medicinal effects ended, she would enter an extremely depressed state, but when that time came, Helen still had other medicines she could use. This was already her fourth day without sleeping, but there were still so many things to take care of that it would put one in a state of near collapse. She even had thoughts of creating a few intelligent machines or train a few biochemical beings to use as servants, however, Helen never considered the idea of using humans as assistants.
She undid her upper outer garment, revealing her extremely skinny shoulders, and then injected the stimulant into her upper arm. Several minutes later, a strange flush of redness was returned to her cheeks. It seemed like Helen's mental state became a lot better.
Without wasting a minute, she walked out from the medication processing room and rode the elevator down to the first floor office.
Unlike the extremely quiet underground second floor, one could already see nurses and doctors hurriedly rush about in the underground first floor. This was where the acute care wards were located. There weren't that many medical personnel before, but after adding close to 50 doctors and nurses from the Fabregas family, this hospital finally seemed to develop some life.
These doctors and nurses were all temporarily transferred from the Fabregas family. The reason why they appeared here was because the family's rank one inheritor Ricardo insisted on being hospitalized and treated here. As an important member of the Blood Parliament, Old Fabregas naturally knew how much medical personnel Persephone's private hospital had, and he understood even better that the small team they did have was not enough to treat Ricardo and his small troop. If it was just Ricardo, it would have still been okay, but the problem laid in the fact that he also brought back more than ten subordinates that returned alive from Pendulum City's war zone. It made Old Fabregas feel regretful for quite a long time, but the remaining subordinates all met the requirements for advancement, so the death of any one of them would be quite the considerable loss. Persephone's private hospital was managed by Helen, and in the higher levels of the Blood Parliament, Helen's strange mental state was just as well known as her abilities. In addition, Old Fabregas did not believe that a woman with no abilities could save more than ten people. Even if she did have the ability to do so, she still wouldn't have the physical strength to carry it out.
That was why he spared no effort to send the family's best medical personnel to Persephone's private hospital, as well as being so considerate as to bring entire sets of medical tools and a sea of medications. After all, as a family that was relatively new to the Blood Parliament, the Fabregas family possessed the two model characteristics of one: abundant ordinary supplies, but a weakness in their weapons and talented individuals.
Upon recovering communication functionalities, Ricardo immediately conveyed his body's current situation back to the family. The 41 useable evolutionary points he obtained immediately shocked the entire Fabregas family. Ricardo was originally already a lieutenant commander with many fifth level abilities, and 41 evolutionary points already exceeded the requirements of a sixth level ability. According to the data analysis, Ricardo's genes were still extremely stable, along with abundant room for growth. This meant that Ricardo's abilities, at least in the Mental Domain, had the potential to reach seven levels. Right now at least, Ricardo didn't have the abilities to become a general, but there was no issue for him to become a colonel. For the Fabregas family that was lacking military strength, this was undoubtedly good news.
The Fabregas family with its abundant wealth had constantly been working on its development of the mobile armor. This type of super weapon system could grant its user power that could bypass ability levels. The second generation mobile armor Ricardo used previously, if switched for anti-armor weapons, could easily destroy main battle tanks. In addition, the adaptability of mobile armors towards various terrain was naturally something main battle tanks didn't have. In reality, the technology for the Fabregas family's third generation mobile armor was already fully ripe, and several mobile suits were already created. Even the design for the fourth generation mobile armor was completed, and tests of experimental models were currently underway.
However, six levels of complex weapon system mastery ability was needed to operate the third and fourth generation mobile armors, and only the fifth generation mobile suit would have a relatively lower requirement of six levels of ability. However, the Fabregas family's rise was too short, so their level of micro and intelligent system technology was not enough, unable to produce the fifth generation mobile armors.
Inside the Fabregas family who greatly lacked descendants with great combat prowess, Ricardo was already their strongest candidate, and now, he was clearly the one with the most outstanding potential as well. His first rank successor position was already secure to the point of leaving other younger family members in despair.
This was why Old Fabregas' attitude towards Ricardo shifted so greatly, changing from a total lack of concern to one of full support. Inside the family's mobile armor factory, the technicians were currently building a brand new third generation mobile armor around Ricardo's body data. Once Ricardo was discharged from the hospital, he could use it, and his strength on the battlefield would increase more than just one fold.
For a family on the scale of Fabregas, having a colonel was far from enough to increase their status, but it could at least prevent the terrible image of being looked at by others as a piece of fatty meat.
Old Fabregas had actually been paying quite close attention to data related to Su, and the more he saw, the more terrified he felt. Su shot up in ranks like a rocket with seemingly limitless potential for development, and his exceptionally good luck and karma with women left him feeling great restraining fear. Fabregas family was Su's first enemy, as well as the ringleader in what led Persephone to almost sell herself to pay back the debt she owed. Meanwhile, the willpower of this Su made one shiver inwardly, and he covered up his shortcomings with means that didn't align with common sense. As long as he determined who was his enemy, then he cold use any means, fair or foul.
During this past year, Old Fabregas seemed to watch Su whose body radiated sunshine gradually fall into darkness. The one that first began this transformation was precisely the Fabregas family. If this trend continued, in just two more years, if the Fabregas family didn't want to be wiped out under Su's hands, then they would have to rely on a great figure that could keep the Persephone and Su pair in check, becoming their vassal without any freedom.
What really messed things up was that, because of Su and Madeline's mysterious relationship, Fabregas didn't even have the possibility of relying on the Spider Empress. As a result, their only way out was the Blood Parliament's chairman, Bevulas.
Bevulas… without thinking about it further, Old Fabregas knew that this could only be a final choice. Before that time came, he actually had other options, for example, Ricardo.
After a series of battles, Ricardo, who had treated the family's orders like thin air, formed quite a bit of friendship with Su; this was something that could be seen just from his action of having his two powerful subordinates follow Ricardo. From Old Fabregas' political wisdom, by using Ricardo as the breakthrough point, there was still a chance of neutralizing the grudge they had with Su. As long as they could completely reconcile things with Su, he could even repay half of Persephone's debt.
The great mysteries of politics were precisely betting and communication, and Old Fabregas who knew this extremely well didn't even plan on seeing those 50 precious medical personnel return.