Klein returned to his room on the third floor.
Without a moment's delay, he walked straight to the large oak table in the center.
A set of precision alchemy tools and several scrolls of parchment covered in complex runes were already laid out.
He took out the runic glass bottle Ophelia had returned to him and placed it gently in the middle of the table.
A faint light shimmered across the glass, where the dark red blood had completely merged with the liquid at the bottom into a deep, shadowy mass, as if some ancient and restless will lay dormant within.
This was no ordinary blood, as Klein well knew.
It carried the mark of the deep-sea whispers, a remnant of a conceptual manifestation.
He had wondered more than once whether that power was a natural disaster or some kind of distorted life form.
It resided within Karen like a bone-deep cancer, yet it showed signs of adaptation once removed from the deep sea.
This change was more intriguing than a simple curse.
He lit an alchemy lamp driven by magic crystals, the soft glow instantly dispelling the shadows in the room and illuminating the hunger for knowledge dancing in his eyes.
He took out several testing crystals of different attributes, arranged them around the runic bottle, and carefully uncorked it.
Using a slender glass rod, he took a tiny drop of the mixture.
The droplet trembled on the tip of the rod, faintly emitting a scent that mixed the saltiness of seawater with ancient decay, yet it possessed a strange vitality.
"Know your enemy and know yourself, and you shall never be defeated," he whispered to himself.
It was both a reminder and a silent declaration of war against the hidden power.
He placed the droplet onto a thin slice of moonlight stone and activated the small alchemical matrix on the table.
The runes lit up, projecting faint beams of light onto the blood drop, revealing its internal structure in minute detail before his eyes.
Under the faint light of the alchemical matrix, Karen's blood cells looked like magnified stars.
Klein focused his observation.
The previously obvious, mutated cells—marked by the characteristic murky hue of the deep sea—now appeared to have their bizarre structures somewhat retracted.
Their edges were no longer as jagged, and some even seemed to be shifting back toward the form of normal blood cells.
He tapped the table, the rhythm of his fingertips matching the pace of his thoughts.
This wasn't a simple recovery. It was more like a deep-seated dormancy.
They might have just temporarily pulled back their thorns, only to wake again and become even more aggressive once they returned to the deep sea.
Away from the suppression and stimulation of the depths, that power chose self-preservation over total extinction.
This gave Klein a deeper understanding of its intelligence.
However, what lay beneath the surface of the cell morphology?
Klein turned his gaze to the other side, where a row of exquisite distillers and spectroscopic prisms stood ready.
He needed a deeper analysis to touch the core of that power.
He extracted a small portion of the blood and injected it into a complex alchemical analysis device.
Facing the intricate instruments before him, a ridiculous thought occasionally crossed Klein's mind.
If he had some legendary cheat that could instantly perceive the composition of all things, it would save so many tedious steps.
But on second thought, wasn't the joy of discovery found precisely in this painstaking, layer-by-layer pursuit?
So-called miracles often just masked the unknown hardships and wisdom behind them.
He carefully introduced the separated micro-samples into the analysis equipment one by one.
The salinity of the seawater, the trace elements of deep-sea minerals, the specific energy signatures, and even those non-living molecular chains that exhibited a certain activity became his focus.
The runic matrix lit up, and subtle electric currents pulsed through the glass tubes, stripping away and identifying the complex components of the blood layer by layer.
Klein remembered that his insistence on taking Karen's blood wasn't because the man was mad, but because he was still alive after going mad.
This in itself was an anomaly, a clue that could not be ignored.
What did this indicate?
It suggested that Karen's blood likely contained some effective mechanism for resisting deep-sea pollution.
It wasn't necessarily a biological antibody, but something closely related to mana and the conceptual power of the deep-sea whispers.
The task at hand thus became clear: compare the old and new blood samples.
Find that true power of resistance.
He took out the first batch of samples he had collected and placed them next to the new one.
Under the light of the alchemy lamp, the two bottles showed subtle differences.
In the dark red of the old sample, the glimmer was more restless, as if countless tiny tentacles were struggling against the glass walls.
The new sample, though still deep in color, possessed a sense of restraint.
That restless will seemed bound by some invisible force, tending toward stability.
"This is interesting," Klein murmured, his voice thick with suppressed curiosity.
He carefully took a drop from the old sample and placed it on another slice of moonlight stone.
The alchemical matrix activated once more, the glow of the runes interlacing as the microscopic worlds of the two blood drops were projected before him simultaneously.
He watched intently as the changes in cell structure, the differences in energy flow, and the activity levels of those deep-sea marks were revealed in his vision.
In the old sample, the deep-sea erosion was total and aggressive. The cell edges were distorted, energy was chaotic, and every fluctuation signaled a loss of control.
However, in the new sample, while the traces of erosion remained, a peculiar balance could be observed.
The mutated cells were no longer expanding haphazardly but seemed disciplined by some force, acting within specific boundaries.
More importantly, he saw faint but persistent energy ripples.
They didn't come from the deep sea, nor were they Karen's normal life energy. They were a completely new and unique vibration.
This vibration was like Karen's heart resisting silently, transforming the deep-sea whispers into a controllable—or at least suppressible—form in a way that defied understanding.
This wasn't a cure, but a coexistence—a compromise forced in a desperate situation.
And this compromise was the core of the power of resistance.
He turned his gaze toward the complex analysis devices, where several displays flickered with dense runes and data streams.
Through precise capture of energy frequencies, he discovered a unique resonance in the new sample that ran contrary to the deep-sea fluctuations.
This resonance was weak but firm, like a small boat in a tsunami—staggering, yet never capsizing.
"Found it..." Klein tapped the table, his eyes shining with bright light.
It wasn't an extractable substance, but a conceptual effect—a defense originating from the individual's will against external erosion.
Karen's heart, or rather the depths of his soul, had unconsciously constructed an invisible barrier.
Now, the question was how to manifest and strengthen this unconscious power of resistance, eventually guiding Karen to break free from the shackles of the deep sea.
This was far more complex and fascinating than simply searching for an antidote.
He realized this wasn't just an alchemical experiment; it was a philosophical exploration of will and concepts.
The alchemy lamp on the table grew more intense, illuminating Klein's thoughtful profile.
He knew the true challenge had only just begun.
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