I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism! - Chapter 262

Although some organic molecules have been known to occur in nature, the vast majority of them are considered to be synonymous with life. Whether they are hormones, poisons, venoms, energy storage, or information storage, organic molecules serve a vital role in life. These molecules are typically assembled within a cell, and they use a complex list of step-by-step reactions to go from nothing to something.

The instructions for these reactions are typically held in the DNA, which is then read by the RNA, which then informs the cell how to assemble them. These molecules can be assembled anywhere in the cell, but many of the most complex ones are often assembled in the endoplasmic reticulum. The RNA acts as an instruction guide, and amino acids are the building blocks.

Those building blocks are naturally sticky and will often fold and merge with each other in particular ways based on what building blocks have been used. However, that folding process must be done carefully using the endoplasmic reticulum so that you can get a functional chemical rather than a globular mess. After the molecule is properly folded, there can be other processes, such as the addition of sugars or fats, ultimately creating the final molecule.

This is the foundation behind biochemical synthesis. Chemists naturally can’t control cells, so they depend on step-by-step reactions to build the molecules they want, but even they sometimes struggle to produce what they want. One of the best examples would be insulin. Insulin is produced by the body and is necessary to maintain blood sugar. Should you suffer from an inability to make insulin or should your body become resistant to insulin, you develop one of two types of Diabetes. The simplest way to treat this is to periodically inject more insulin.

Chemists of old learned how to extract insulin from pigs. Pig insulin was close enough to human insulin that it was still effective, so they would raise, slaughter, and extract the insulin from pigs through a string of chemical processes. However, human insulin would always be better than pig insulin, and eventually, humans figured out how to make single-celled organisms make human insulin. They essentially genetically engineered bacteria to produce our insulin and then created a way to mass-produce it.

Thus, there are three ways chemists can acquire a drug or medicine. First, they can extract it from a living thing. Second, they can synthesize it in a tube. And third, barring they can’t easily do the second due to the complexity of the molecule in question, they will make a cell do it instead.

This was essentially how I got to where I was. The alchemists and chemists of this world likely created said pill by grinding up a variety of life-based chemicals from sage beasts or mythic plants and then mixed them, carrying out a series of reactions in a cauldron or furnace until they created a product that is advantageous to paragons.

In some cases, they were only isolated chemicals created by evolved plants and animals, purifying them, and then delivering them in a way where the paragon body was able to process them without hurting itself. Perhaps less often, and perhaps what would be the difference between the alchemists of this world and the chemists would be to create new chemicals during the process of these drug recipes.

As for the third option, as far as I could tell, as much as this world knew about evolution, they didn’t have the technology or understanding of biology to bioengineer anything. On the other hand, bioengineering was the thing I was best at. I could assign any cell of my body any role I wanted and then alter it or mutate it until it could fulfil that role. This was my best chance if I wanted to create pills on my own.

I knew about my botany certifications, but I lacked the hands-on experience to be considered an alchemist. Yet, as long as I used biochemistry, I could skip the need for alchemy entirely. This was easier said than done, and even with all of the time I had spent in this world, I had only barely managed to crack the surface. I had analyzed thousands of chemicals and hundreds of plants. Since most pills required mana, I was still severely limited in what I could create, even after my mutation and the levels I’ve already bridged.

Still, once I worked out the recipe, all it took was concentration. The healing pills were sufficient to bring back just about any mortal from the brink of death. This was derived from the mending pill, a rather weak healing pill that didn’t work past the second evolutionary realm. The second medicine I derived from the evolutionary genesis elixir. This elixir allowed someone to gain levels in the first tier quickly. The third medicine I derived was called the immortal beginning pill. This was the same type of pill I had won from Jordan and given to Mara. I had finally cracked it. The second pill and the elixir were the two medicines I was working on creating overnight.

Although this was all being done with biochemistry, I was still assembling things molecule by molecule, and it took some time to accumulate enough to generate a dose. Thus, in the single night I worked, I was only able to create two vials of elixir and two pills. However, considering I wasn’t an alchemist, this would be shocking if anyone knew that I had produced this without expensive ingredients or a cauldron. In fact, medicines were typically rated by their purity, but the ones I produced biochemically would be 100% pure, making them much more efficient than even the finest medicine from this world.

“M-my lord, someone from the Bengal clan is coming. Oh!” My door slammed open, revealing Elara, who, seeing me sitting on the bed with my eyes closed in a meditative state, immediately let out a yelp and tried to back out of my room.

“It’s okay,” I opened my eyes and spoke up, causing her to pause. “Come in, and I’m not a lord.”

She had started calling me lord the night before. Perhaps to her, all paragons were lords.

I could only shake my head and swing my feet over the side of the bed. Elara’s eyes wandered to my chest before quickly snapping away. Since she wasn’t watching me, she didn’t see two vials and two pills mysteriously appear in my hand. I stood up and walked over to her, but she lowered her eyes to keep from looking at me. It wasn’t until I thrust my hand in front of her that she finally looked up.

“Huh?”

“Drink those two vials twelve hours apart from each other. In a week or so, take the pill. As for your brother Finn, you can give him the other pill any time. However, make sure when either of you takes the pill, you are outside and away from the village… or any tall trees. Be ready… to survive a lightning strike or two.”

“Eh?” She tilted her head. “Lightning…. You don’t mean-“

Her eyes began to widen, and she took a step back like I was offering her poison.

“I made this for you. Take it.”

“These are paragon medicines! It’d be wasted on mortals like us!”

I rolled my eyes. “This medicine is specifically designed to be taken by mortals like you. Don’t think about it too much.”

“Even if you say that…” She tried to pull back more, so I stepped forward and forced the tinctures and the pills into her hand. “This…”

“I’m doing this on a whim. You’re also welcome to try to sell them, but I suspect anyone who knows what they are would rather steal them than pay, so you’d best take it yourself. I’d even hide them until they’re used up in this–” I handed her a small baggie on a long string that would hold the items.

“Too… much…” She still tried to argue as she stared at the items in her hand wide-eyed, but her voice had become exceptionally weak.

“Then be glad I don’t help you earn a mutation, or expand your talent. I’d be a real bastard then.” I chuckled as I put the items in the bag and then hung the bag around her neck. “There, out of sight.”

“M-my lord! You could never be a bastard!” She suddenly reached out and grabbed my hand as I was pulling away, looking up at me with teary eyes. “You’re my benefactor! You saved my life. So, I’ll do anything for you!”

“Anything?” I coughed. “What’s your age again?”

I did not have a mutation with my last level, something I sort of regretted. Now that I knew that I had a technique which could help me mutate every level, I could have given myself a double magic mutation and already been in the hundreds for magic power. Instead, I had acted nobly with Tiffany. Now, I felt like I should have just slept with her.

However, it was a new level now, and if I was going to see if the mutation was just a fluke or truly caused by activating that immortal skill, then I needed to test it on another person.

“I turn sixteen next month!” she declared, puffing out her small chest proudly.

“Haaah…” My enthusiasm to experiment died quickly. “No, that’s not the kind of guy I am anymore. What color are your panties?”

“Eh?”

“Never mind!” I quickly coughed. “Didn’t you say something about someone coming?”

“Ah! That’s right!” She shook her head as if she had forgotten. “The scout says a group of men from Bengal is heading our way now! They’ll arrive shortly!”

I nodded. “I’ll go meet them.”

I turned to the door, but as I grabbed the doorknob, she spoke up again. “My lord?”

“Hmm?”

“As to your question… I-I’m not wearing any.”

“…”