Penicillin

Over the next few months nothing major happened. Ashara spent most of her time with Victor's two little sisters, which gave Isabella time to spent with her husband. Even though she was very happy to have two children that were very depended on her, after having a son that seemed no help in life at all, raising two children was nonetheless a heavy task.

 Let's not pretend she didn't have many maidservants to help with physical exhausting work and night shifts. Isabella was way more fortunate than many mothers that have a lot harder life, but for a refined girl from a noble family there was a huge difference in life, especially after having a little of a false impression on raising children after having Victor.

 She enjoyed her time with her husband and could use more of her time to meet up with former friends and participate in activities of other noble women in Lys.

Victor went back to the Alchemy Guild and some of his teachers were elated that their most favorite and gifted student was finally back. During Victor's absence they build him his own little laboratory to help him in his further research and keep his secrecy.

There was nothing like a 'Patent' during this time, but if you were an alchemist in Lys and stole something from a fellow guild member, especially recipes, then the Tear of Lys would be the last of your concerns. Victor started his experiments and research with the sole intention to produce Penicillin. Whether in war or in the daily life of feudal society Penicillin was pretty much a drug of God. Not only the god of medicine but also the god of wealth.

He was pretty sure to develop this drug before the Usurpers' war would start, which would guarantee him a huge amount of wealth and influence on the war. But before he could make plans on how to exactly use this drug, he first needed to create it. Any synthetic kind of manufacturing was pretty much impossible at this point. The only real chance was trying to create mold on different kind of fungi's and then experiment with them.

While capturing the islands of the Stepstones he noticed in one report that there was one island with many different and exotic fungi's, the Veiled Island. Due to the fog around this island all year long the climate is very moist. This created a perfect environment for the growth of many kinds of fungi. His subordinates already classified all those different mushrooms and send them to the Alchemy Guild. Many of them were not very suitable for the cultivation of penicillin as they were somehow extremely poisonous.

Nonetheless the people of the alchemists were very happy as they found some undiscovered varieties among them which gave them further ideas for experiments in the development of poisons.

Victor used all the non-poisonous mushrooms as test objects. He created mold on them and tried to create some form of Penicillin, together with the help of his close teachers. Many months of testing, the waste of thousands of fungi and the suffering of many test objects later they finally developed Penicillin. Victor was ecstatic when they finally reached success.

Honestly, if not for the information and ideas from his previous life he would never be able to develop something like this in a world without basic chemistry knowledge. He admired the achievements of Alexander Fleming even more after trying to create Penicillin by himself.

He knew the goal and how to reach it, but Fleming just experimented by himself without a clear goal what to achieve. But just developing the drug was not the end of the process. Victor needed a standard process to extract Penicillin on a large scale. Producing something in a laboratory by the hands of educated individuals or producing in a large factory by the hands of simple workers were two different concepts.

They developed a method for cultivating the mold and extracting, purifying, and storing penicillin from it, together with an assay for measuring its purity. Furthermore, they carried out experiments with animals to determine penicillin's safety and effectiveness before conducting trials on slaves and gladiators.

By the end of the year, they finally figured out a process to build a rather large industrial chain and manufacture Penicillin in a safe way on a large scale.

Victor decided to place the site of the future laboratory that would produce Penicillin on a large scale on the Veiled Island. They could build this place into a completely isolated place suitable for producing various drugs and keeping them secret.

Nobody would be able to reach the Veiled Island without crossing numerous checkpoints and defeating the defense mechanisms. This would only be possible with a large-scale war.

If Victor lost a war like this on his doorsteps the secrecy of his drugs would honestly be the last of his concerns. Mushrooms could be produced on the Veiled Island on a large scale and if they were to develop further drugs in the future, they could transport the medical plants from the Golden Haven to the Veiled Island by boat without any problems.

After the medical trials were successful Victor produced a lot of Penicillin and stored it at Canahs in the family estate. If some of his relatives or close guardians would get sick or hurt Penicillin would pretty much be able to safe their life's.

In a world without Penicillin this medicine is the god of all cures as nobody had yet built up any resistance to artificially created drugs. His elders were very grateful when Victor explained what kind of drug, he developed this time. Many of the older generation lost numerous friends and family members to some rather trivial illnesses that simply could not be cured. The same for all the elderly guardians of the last generation.

If you are fighting in a world of iron and blood with cold weapons you get injured a lot, even if you are extremely strong. As much as a little wound can fester and produce inflammation and a high fever. During wars with cold weapons most people didn't they due to blood loss or direct death on the battlefield, but died in the field hospitals after the war because the inflammation and resulting fever could simply not be cured.