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Chapter 272 - Hard-to-Develop Honkai Pharmaceuticals

Taixu Hospital was originally called the Mayo Creek General Hospital, the largest central hospital in Barcelona.

However, after the rise of Heliopolis Life Sciences, all hospitals in Barcelona were suppressed.

Heliopolis Life Sciences poured in massive capital, poaching experienced doctors with high salaries and monopolizing pharmaceuticals.

As a result, hospitals across the city shut down one after another. This largest Mayo Creek General Hospital was no exception, eventually becoming one of the bases of the Treasure-Stealing Gang.

Now, the Taixu Gang had moved into this hospital and renamed it Taixu Hospital, giving it new life.

Compared to the crowded filth of most districts, the streets outside Taixu Hospital were clean and orderly, and even the streetlights had been replaced with new energy-saving bulbs.

Ever since the Mad Hatter Party established its temporary base in Barcelona within this formerly well-known Shenzhou hospital, people had been maintaining order and cleaning the area every day.

Most importantly, many regularly serviced trash bins had been added—something incredibly valuable in a city where garbage collection had nearly come to a halt.

The clean environment also attracted many homeless people to linger nearby.

But before long, they were no longer homeless.

They were absorbed into the Taixu Gang and became its intelligence network.

Because this was also the core stronghold of the emerging gang—the Taixu Gang.

Now, aside from former Treasure-Stealing Gang members who had participated in the Seven-Day Tide, there were also people who had attempted to flee the city. For various reasons, they failed to escape and instead contracted Honkai Sickness.

This was why the Taixu Gang had established its base directly within Taixu Hospital—patients with Honkai Sickness were constantly being brought in.

By operating within a hospital, they could immediately admit and isolate them, preventing further spread of the disease.

Those afflicted with Honkai Sickness all understood its severity—no one could escape the reaper's scythe once it struck.

They knew their time was limited.

Yet at their most desperate moment, they heard that Taixu Hospital possessed the ability to treat Honkai Sickness.

And so, they all came here.

Even the slightest hope was better than none.

The head of this place was named Su, a miraculous healer with unparalleled skill. Under his treatment, every Honkai patient's condition was brought under control.

"Thank you, thank you so much, Dr. Su!"

Two young men knelt before Su, tears streaming down their faces in gratitude.

Their mother had been attacked by a small Honkai Beast while out, contracting Honkai Sickness. Both of them were doctoral students in biology and medicine, and they had tried every possible method to treat her.

But in life, the hardest illness to cure was poverty. No matter how well-read they were, without medical equipment and drugs, even the most skilled hands could do nothing.

They had thought their mother was beyond saving. After hearing the rumors about Taixu Hospital, they came here with a last glimmer of hope.

And so, their mother received treatment from Dr. Su. While she was not fully cured, her condition had visibly improved.

The two doctoral students were overwhelmed with emotion.

Their mother could be saved!

Dr. Su had also told them that as long as she took her medication on schedule, there would be no major issues for at least eight years.

That alone was enough to satisfy them.

Moreover, Dr. Su said that the Honkai-targeted drug was still under development and improvement—perhaps within eight years, a complete cure for Honkai Sickness could be achieved.

Most importantly, the treatment cost was within their means, and they could offset it through work.

Upon hearing this, the two young doctors immediately expressed their desire to join Su's research team and contribute to the development of the drug.

Providing treatment and offering work—Dr. Su was practically their savior.

And such situations had happened countless times before. Previously in North America, even several internationally renowned pharmaceutical experts had joined under Su.

Whether in North America or Barcelona, capital-driven corporations monopolized drugs and medical resources, forcing large numbers of pharmaceutical experts into unemployment.

Most doctors still had a conscience—they could not accept replacing cheap medicine with more expensive alternatives, nor could they tolerate the excessive wage suppression imposed by corporations.

There were also scholars who had been dismissed simply for publicly stating the scientific fact that human sex is determined by X and Y chromosomes.

Even renowned experts had to rely on connections just to enter research teams, and normal academic exchanges had to be conducted in secret, unable to be made public. It was truly lamentable.

There was a forbidden saying in Shenzhou: "If you persuade someone to study medicine, heaven will strike you down with lightning."

This was especially evident in capital-controlled enterprises.

Precisely because of such stark contrasts, many renowned pharmaceutical experts joined Su's small team, greatly expanding the research scale of the Mad Hatter Party.

Now, the research institution under Su had grown into a massive team of over a hundred members.

For this, Su was actually troubled about how to accommodate so many people.

Back in the day, even the core S-1 experimental base of MOTH only had fifty-four researchers.

Of course, while their quality might not match the elite researchers of MOTH, a team of this scale was not inferior in capability to the S-1 base.

Within the Mad Hatter Party's research team, many had a deeper understanding of Honkai pharmaceuticals than Su himself, who had only received temporary training from Vill-V the Scholar.

This was only natural—Su had been just an ordinary high school student two years ago. How could he compare to professional researchers who had spent decades immersed in the medical field?

These researchers worked tirelessly day and night to develop drugs that suppressed Honkai erosion. Almost every month, new breakthroughs were made in suppressing Honkai Sickness.

This did not mean that Su's team was more capable than MOTH's researchers.

Moreover, the scale of clinical trials Su's team could conduct was far inferior to MOTH's global hospital network.

The reason for their high efficiency lay primarily in the fact that they possessed the HoMu Company Honkai Suppression Dissolution Solution provided by Vill-V, which had already achieved the breakthrough from zero to one.

The scientific perspective Vill-V had gained, along with knowledge of the future of Honkai and a correct understanding of its fundamental nature, far surpassed anything scientists of this era could match.

In addition, guidance from the Expert and the Occultist from their respective professional perspectives, along with analysis from the Lecturer, provided technical support that MOTH's research team simply did not have.

This was why Su's research team progressed so smoothly.

In contrast, MOTH's research progress... was still stuck at zero.

Let alone accessing Imaginary Space, scientists of this era did not even truly understand what Honkai was or where it came from—how could they possibly cure Honkai Sickness?

They could only, like Otto in the future, rely on random drug trials and luck.

At least Otto had some knowledge from the Void Archives.

In the end, when MOTH failed to develop a drug, they once again placed their hopes on the human immune system, treating Honkai Sickness as if it were a natural virus.

Ultimately, MOTH lacked a leader with a sufficiently elevated perspective.

At present, the person within MOTH with the deepest research into Honkai pharmaceuticals was only Dr. Spasi.

As for Dr. Mobius, she had little interest in this matter.

Having received guidance from Vill-V, she naturally also possessed a method to suppress Honkai Sickness...

As long as you were willing to accept Honkai Beast genes, a non-human appearance, and an abysmally low survival rate, Mobius would gladly welcome you into her laboratory.

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