Chapter 722: 720 Kurd’s Experiment (Part 2)_1

“Exactly!”

Mr. Ji affirmed confidently.

Seeing Colin’s doubtful expression, he added:

“I’m not bluffing. My teacher, Mage Kurd, dedicated his entire life to studying this phenomenon. He found traces of a substance akin to the Force of Faith in the bodies of both knights and priests, most significantly in the heart!”

Hearing this, Colin couldn’t help but frown.

He could guess that in pursuit of his research, Mage Kurd must have killed many priests and knights.

However, now that Kurd had been sentenced to death, he didn’t dwell on it and asked the doubt he had found from Mr. Ji’s words:

“Similar substance?”

“Yes, it is only similar, not the Force of Faith itself. But my teacher firmly believed that they invariably are connected. You wondered how Mage Kurd managed to rejuvenate and even ascend to the Holy Field, right? It actually relates to this!”

Colin asked uncertainly:

“Did Kurd discover a way to utilize the Force of Faith?”

Mr. Ji shook his head and said:

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“No. Initially, when my teacher discovered a Faith-like substance within the knights, he indeed attempted to use the Force of Faith directly to enhance their strength.

Unfortunately, after numerous failed attempts, he announced all of them to be a failure.

My teacher then surmised that the Force of Faith could not be used directly by humans. It has to be absorbed by the Divine Being, then transmitted to the priest, and only then, via the Baptism Ceremony, could it be disseminated into the knights.

Only then can a knight rely on this to refine their practice, even breakthrough to the Holy Field.”

Interrupting again, Colin voiced the doubt in his mind:

“If that’s the case, then why, even though they receive the same faith-like substance via the same Baptism Ceremony, do the upper limits of knights from different families vary drastically? What distinguishes the descendants of the Seven Holy Knight Families from those of the common families?”

“The ability to receive Faith substance varies,” Mr. Ji immediately answered, “My teacher found that even though they all underwent Baptism, the descendants of certain families can clearly receive more Faith substance. This is somewhat like differing affinities to the Holy Light, or say, differing talents.

Furthermore, the amount of Faith substance received by the baptized varies depending on the priest administering the baptism.

So, the descendants of the Seven Holy Knight Families, who are naturally talented, plus receiving baptism directly from high-ranking priests, even the Pope or Cardinals, receive substantially more Faith substance than others during their Baptism.

And this is why they can reach higher limits.

Moreover, my teacher discovered that as the recipient’s talents heighten so do their requirements from the priest administering the baptism. In fact, if you ask around, you will find that within the Church, it is an unwritten rule that the baptizing of descendants from Holy Knight families must be conducted by priests of Archbishop rank or above.

This is a form of respect to the Holy Knight families, but more importantly, considering the talent of the descendants from the Holy Knight families, if a lower-ranking priest administers the Baptism, it may drain the Faith substance within them!”

Colin stroked his chin, acknowledging that what Mr. Ji said made some sense, and it was certainly a reasonable hypothesis. He then asked:

“So, did Kurd set his sights on the Faith substance within the priests?”

“Yes,” Mr. Ji admitted unabashedly, “If a priest could create a knight through the Baptism Ceremony, then wouldn’t extracting the Faith substance directly from within the priest allow one to artificially create a knight?

Unfortunately, my teacher tried many times, but found that this Faith substance could not be transferred once it left the human body. Thus, my teacher changed his course of thought.

As I just mentioned, this Faith substance gathers in the heart within the priest. So, my teacher came up with an alternative approach–

A heart transplant!”

“A heart transplant?” Colin couldn’t help but look surprised, he really didn’t expect that these mad mages would propose such a highly difficult surgical concept under these medieval medical conditions.

“Exactly! And a heart transplant is even more effective than the baptism ceremony as a method of inheritance, because through baptism, only a portion of the faith substance in the priest’s body will be transferred to the baptised. But if it is through a heart transplant, all the faith substance from the priest’s body can be transferred to the patient!”

Mr. Ji’s eyes shone with fanaticism, but immediately dimmed again, “Regrettably, despite numerous attempts by my teacher, it’s not that there were no successful cases, but what caused him to despair was that he could not find the key reason for success and failure!

Despite the same exact steps, some patients survive, but others, die agonizingly!

Even after devoting his entire life, my teacher could not find the pattern!

It’s as if… as if it’s a curse from the divine being…”

Colin silently listened to Mr. Ji’s assertions, filled with the stench of blood, feeling both hatred and a little pity.

The biggest problem with organ transplantation is immune rejection.

This kind of immune rejection remains a very tricky problem even in an era of more advanced medical practice, so it’s normal that Kurd failed to solve it.

What Colin found surprising, though, was that Kurd actually had successful cases.

Perhaps it was due to the aid of the wonderful force of arcane, or perhaps the patients were professionals, possessing recovery abilities far beyond normal people, and that’s why there were survivors.

But this can’t resolve the problem of immune rejection, because this is the patient’s own immune system attacking the foreign organ. The stronger the patient, the more intense the attack, and the quicker they die.

Unless the match is extremely high, so that immune rejection doesn’t occur by luck.

But Kurd clearly couldn’t understand the mystery of this.

“…My teacher had given up at one point. But later, an experimental subject who had once undergone a heart replacement ceremony unexpectedly reached the Holy Field!”

“Who?”

“Emperor Saruman!”

“The Orc Emperor? You even used orcs for experiments?”

“Yes. In fact, there were even more orcs than humans among my teacher’s test subjects.

The mystery of inheritance between the Skull-shatterer and the shaman is very similar to that between the knight and the priest, and even the faith substance is not much different.

But the political situation in the Holy Light Empire is stable, and knights and priests are both prestigious figures, so using them for experiments would cause a lot of trouble.

It’s much easier with the orcs because before Emperor Saruman unified the empire, the orcs were divided into large and small tribes, warring with each other, which made it easier for my teacher to get subjects for experiments.

When Emperor Saruman was a child, he had his own father’s heart transplanted into him with the help of my teacher. He not only survived but even became a Holy Field Skull-shatterer.

When my teacher found out, he was overjoyed, because he had finally created a Holy Field by his own hand!

Pity that he was already on the verge of death, powerless to continue researching.

Moreover, Emperor Saruman’s success wasn’t universal — my teacher tried it with many father-son pairs, but not all of them could survive.

Later, when Emperor Saruman was defeated, I took advantage of his weakness and killed him, extracting his heart, and took it back to my teacher…”

“Kurd actually dared to transplant an orc’s heart?” Colin’s eyes bulged.

Mr. Ji sighed, and said:

“At that time, my teacher was also aware that his time was running out, so he had the thought of trying it…

To his surprise, it was actually successful!”