"I'll stop at White Harbor first," Wylis mumbled to himself, all alone in his solar with a crude map of Westeros on his table.
Stannis' wedding was simply an excuse for him to visit the southern regions, as far as Dorne. But since it was going to be a long trip, he wanted to make the most out of it. He wanted to dig for every treasure on land. So, he planned the route carefully while consulting the treasure locations in his mind.
It wasn't just treasure, however. It was also all forgotten, Valyrian Steel and dragon eggs. So, he tried to pick locations marked for both treasure and steel or eggs as well.
"I'll ride to the Twins and see if they're raising that bridge again. If need be, I'll see it sunk once more. Then on to Stoney Sept to tend the breeding and inspect the supply works. I'll make a round of the Westerlands, visit Genna at Casterly Rock, then turn east for Summerhall."
As he stared at the marked ruins on the map, he felt a little excited for this one. This was one of the few places that were marked for both treasure and the others. The likelihood of it being both Valyrian Steel and dragon eggs was very high.
"Then ride straight for Highgarden, maybe discuss trade if they've no stick up their ass like Tywin. And end it at Brightwater Keep for the wedding."
He scribbled a route for himself. As for the return journey, it was going to be straightforward, as he'd go to Starfall, collect Ashara back, and sail to Ramsgate. But it would take more than a month, so he hoped to stop at King's Landing and Gulltown on the way. Maybe Sunspear as well, if he felt like it. The place was marked for both treasure and steel or eggs as well.
In short, the trip was going to take him months, he reckoned. He felt nervous, leaving his loved ones at home, and all the construction. But he had Brandon and Benjen, and at least Brandon was trained from early to be a lord.
Finishing up the plan, he rolled the map aside and put it in a safe.
Being in his tower's top floor solar, he walked out, went another floor up, and reached the open terrace. It was the highest terrace in the entire castle, and it was only accessible to him, as one could see everything from there. From the town, the docs, to his private spring and forest.
He looked at all the activity. The Industrial district was coming along well, the docks were nearly done, and the city itself was starting to take shape as streets and buildings were being marked with stones and lines on the dirt.
The fleet for Essos had left that morning with Archmaester Marwyn. Gold was being dug out of the river as well; already, gold worth 60,000 Gold Dragons in weight had been recovered. It was a great sum of money, more than what Winterfell earned in a year. But again, Winterfell was a rich land, and taxation was paid in grain, timber, and furs rather than coin. Still, not having coin meant a great many things couldn't be done.
Wylis had decided to spend this gold on building his city, building permanent roads with road markers and mapping, and expanding select towns based on their trade outlook. This was something only money could buy.
"Should give Qyburn some work to do…"
He left the terrace and headed down into the dungeons that he constantly expanded whenever bored. At this point, it needed a whole map to fully traverse, as it was starting to feel like an unescapable maze. That was the plan, in fact.
"M'lord."
"Seamas." Wylis nodded at the guard.
He was taking the other entrance into the dungeon. There were a total of two entrances, one from inside the castle, which was only accessible by him with the help of Earthbending. And the other entrance was from deep within the barracks adjacent to the outer courtyard, separate from the main keep.
There was a reason why he had made the entrance there. Qyburn alone couldn't do everything. And by now, there were multiple printing presses running constantly. It required men to work them and print books at scale. They were highly vetted, ensuring they had roots in Ramsgate, meaning that they had a family with children, parents, and a wife. Something they would fear losing.
There were also others, such as the Midwives Qyburn was teaching to become childbirth specialists. Also, the first batch of workers to learn the Cotton Gin, Spinning Wheel, and Power Loom were now teaching others.
He passed by them all, crossing more guards, and eventually reached the final guarded door beyond which was Qyburn's large lab. As he entered, he found the reinstated Maester reading a book about Hearts that he'd gifted.
"My lord?" Qyburn quickly cleaned his entire workbench, as if an excited boy ready for some crazy experiments. "What are we making today?"
"We're saving lives, Qyburn. Going to, at least. Recall the book I gave you on the nature of blood. I'll show you how to tell the kinds apart, most of them at least. The work is simple, though it takes its time. What we seek are those of O-negative and those who bear it we shall value as gold itself."
Wylis walked around and started preparing the whole bench for the project ahead. As he had bought the Chemistry Mastery as well as the Medicine to Surgery Package, he knew how to do this. He wanted to be prepared for any emergency, and that was his whole motivation behind his willingness to do this boring job.
"Now, how many blood types are there?" He asked, questioning Qyburn like a student.
"Eight common ones, my lord."
Wylis nodded and took a test tube, made a little cut on his finger, and let the blood spill into the tube, and finally covered it with a cork, and placed it in a cooled storage, as ice wasn't in short supply there. He then took another tube, walked over to Qyburn, and took some blood from him as well.
"Follow me, bring the whole first aid kit and test tubes. We're collecting blood."
"Ah!" Qyburn suddenly understood what they were doing. "Are we the… Uh… Serums, my lord?"
"We are," Wylis muttered and walked into the room where men were manning the printing press. He called them out one by one, asked them if they were willing, and informed them that this would help save lives.
The people of Ramsgate, the original ones, were very patriotic and loyal to him due to the reward he'd received from dealing with that steward. Once he revealed the reason, they puffed their chest and offered their damn fingers whole.
He collected the samples, a total of ten, wrote names on the wooden cork, and returned to the almost sterile lab. He allowed the samples to clot after that and discussed the process with Qyburn the entire time.
"Recite the reaction chart for both types of serums to me," Wylis questioned his loyal student.
Qyburn thought only for a moment and spoke excitedly. "Wonderful, I'm unable to believe we are to uncover secrets of blood. Aye, with A serum, blood type A…"
Wylis listened to everything. He had to give it to Qyburn; the man had an amazing memory. Not a single mistake.
At least he's competent enough that I can trust him.
"Let's begin, then."
Once the blood clotted and settled at the bottom of the test tube, the clear liquid remaining at the top was the serum he needed. He separated it using pipettes into further tubes. After that, he returned outside to gather more blood samples.
After returning, he made ten glass slides for all twelve people, twelve times each, to remove any possibility of exceptions and mistakes. Finally, he took the serum from each tube and dropped some on the group of twelve slides reserved for that serum alone.
He repeated it for each serum. Qyburn's job was to look for clumps and smoothness and record it all. Since the start, he wasn't even planning to seek anti-Rh serum. That wasn't produced in humans naturally, and needed to inject Rh-negative donors with Rh-positive blood and hope for an immune response. It was a long process with a high level of failure.
For now, he used simple methods.
Very quickly, they had the results. Anti-A Serum made clumps with A+, A-, AB+, and AB-; the rest were smooth. Anti-B serum made clumps with B+, B-, AB+, and AB-.
Just from that, he had the O type separated, as no serum caused clumps with them. The next part was finding the universal donor, O-. The likelihood of it being in that group was slim, but still there.
The next test was simple. They took raw O-type blood and dropped it on some raw drops of other types. Then they used a magnifying lens to check for grainy clumps. The real problem with finding O- was that they also needed A- and B-. Which meant they needed a much bigger sample size.
As expected, they saw no clumping in any sample. They had two O types, and the rest were likely Rh-positive of all other types.
"We have a whole barrack of healthy lads. I shall call them." Wylis left the dungeon for a quick moment and then returned with a long line of soldiers, led by Chett at the front.
One by one, blood samples were taken and quickly tested with the two types of serums. They quickly separated the O groups and the rest. He let Qyburn do the testing while he helped the men tie a quick bandage on their fingers.
He also didn't want any strange rumors, so he explained what he was doing.
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Advance chapters on [PATREON] are in long-form format. I have 12 long chapters of this story on P@treon. That's equal to 45-50 Webnovel chapters.
Check out Solo Dacey Mormont & Wylis X Elia NSFW art, and advance chapters at [email protected]/MrPlotThickens Or Subscribestar.adult/mrplotthickens
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