Chasing the Dawn

Ch4: Medicine with Strange Words

The night sky was dark, and the cruise ship slowly sailed on the boundless sea, emitting a hazy light.

In a luxurious suite on the cruise ship's high deck, Arthur Wenlock sat at the desk, frowning as he looked at the small medicine box on the table. It had been over half a day since he received the medicine box as a mission reward, but his doubts kept increasing.

This was a small square paper box, like the packaging of ordinary cold medicines, but the text printed on it was neither Chinese nor English, and he needed help recognizing the language.

The medicine box contained the only row of medicines, wrapped in aluminum foil, with only 5 round white capsules.

There was no instruction manual, and the aluminum foil was printed with that text.

"It seems to have some impression..." Arthur thought at first, "Is it the language of the text on the sharp rock? Or some other language in the world?"

However, he has now searched the Internet for a whole night, comparing more than a dozen mainstream languages ​​and hundreds of other languages ​​worldwide. Even those rare minor languages—none of them are even similar, as if this language is not a product of human thinking.

Arthur vaguely felt that this was not a text from Earth, but humans have thousands of languages, and he couldn't tell whether this feeling was right or wrong.

However, brainstem tumor-targeted drugs? Few pharmaceutical companies on Earth have this capability; only a few are pharmaceutical giants.

If this drug is produced on Earth, the text on the medicine box should be in English, German, or French...

In addition to this mysterious text, there is an identical pattern in the upper right corner of the front of both sides of the box, the size of a logo, which should be the trademark. This pattern looks like the side of a marine creature:

A whale-like body, the dorsal fin and tail fin are sharp and serrated, while the pectoral fin and pelvic fin are all weird limb shapes.

Like the text, he couldn't find out what kind of creature this was, but the more he looked at it, the more he felt that this pattern was full of a frenzy that was hard to explain...

After thinking for an unknown period, his head was aching slightly. When Arthur looked at the clock again, he found it was almost midnight.

The system said before that the task list would be refreshed after midnight every day.

He watched the second hand of the clock move. When midnight passed, he immediately opened the task list to see if it had been refreshed.

[Ordinary task: Use an intravenous infusion needle to successfully insert a rubber tube tourniquet 1,000 times to practice your injection skills—task reward: 1 box of human brainstem tumor-targeted drug. The drug effect can extend the host's life by five days.

Challenging task: Successfully diagnose and treat 100 pediatric patients today. Task reward: 1 pair of Carlop brand dissection scissors

Abyss task: Complete the dissection of 1 ghoul within a week. Task reward: Unknown]

"It refreshes at midnight every day. Are you going to force me to stay up late..."

Arthur muttered to himself. The abyss task was still this one. Although the list was refreshed daily, the abyss level would only sometimes be a new task.

There were no conditions for complex tasks on the cruise ship, and ordinary tasks were still straightforward; only a scalp needle and a rubber tube tourniquet were needed.

At that moment, Arthur called the cruise service desk to ask for these two things to be sent, the reason being to practice needle insertion. He was also a supreme VIP, so this little request was naturally no problem. Soon, a waiter brought the things, and both were small boxes.

After getting the things, Arthur accepted the ordinary task and started practicing at the desk.

The rubber tube tourniquet is the most common yellow hollow rubber band. When it is pierced with a needle, it will feel like a blood vessel is pierced, so tying a tourniquet is the first step for a nurse to learn to give an injection. Arthur has yet to receive systematic nursing training, but he has given experimental animals many injections and is unfamiliar with intravenous injections.

He took the scalp needle and carefully inserted it at 30-40 degrees to tie the tourniquet repeatedly. He had tried it before, and random piercing was not considered "successful."

After more than two hours, "1000/1000" times were achieved. He had already pierced a bunch of tourniquets, and his right arm was sore and soft.

At this time, Arthur heard a ding-dong sound in his mind again.

"Ordinary mission - mission completed!"

"Your "Calm Hands" proficiency has increased, and the current level is the first level (1500/5000 proficiency)."

"The mission reward has been issued: 1 box of human brainstem tumor-targeted drugs, the efficacy can extend the host's life by five days"

Once again, Arthur felt a sinking in his pocket, reached out, and took it out to look at another medicine box. Comparing the two boxes, only a few places on the box printing are different, such as numbers, batch, production date, and other information.

If he were a linguist, he might be able to see some clues, but he could only see some medical clues.

"It looks like temozolomide." Arthur took out two rows of ten white capsules from two medicine boxes and looked through them repeatedly.

Temozolomide is the most first-line targeted drug for brainstem tumors, but there are many types of brainstem tumors. Temozolomide treats glioblastoma multiforme and anaplastic astrocytoma. Unfortunately, he suffers from medulloblastoma, and there is no targeted drug on the market...

The ingredients of these capsules are unknown, but they are a chemical drug, a small-molecule drug, which can theoretically pass the blood-brain barrier when taken orally and then have an effect on the tumor. It looks fine.

The problem is, is this a "human brainstem tumor-targeted drug"?

Arthur became increasingly uneasy as he considered it. He looked at the tranquil sea outside the balcony, but it seemed he saw stormy waves, and that indescribable delirium and illusions kept rolling on the sea. He saw a monster struggling to break free from the cage of the abyss. It needed food and fresh lives.

"What if I am the food? What if these drugs are traps set by monsters? What if death is not the most terrible thing?"

This thought made Arthur's heart palpitate. He stood up, looked at the sea, and clenched the pills.

The devil will lure you with what you want most.

That sharp rock on the seabed, this mysterious power... Does my parents' research back then have anything to do with this?

Arthur paced a few steps. Although "Calm Hands" was practical, it didn't mean this medicine box was also helpful. Even though he was dying, he needed to stay calm before figuring out the situation because irrational decisions often caused endless harm.

This cautiousness about the unknown had overshadowed the excitement of regaining life.

Besides, as a medical dog, he couldn't test the medicine directly on himself...

I got it!

Arthur considered a way to see if these two medicine boxes were practical.