Closer to Rank 1

Isaiah was awoken by the knock to the compartment he slept in, he quickly put on a jacket and opened the door to be greeted by Farida. She looked as beautiful as yesterday, the tiredness on her face had vanished replaced by her usual gentle demeanor.

"Sorry, I must have slept in.", he couldn't tell the time due to being in this tent with no sunlight and indication of time. Farida shook her head, "You didn't sleep in, I just decided to come early so we could share breakfast.", she lifted the basket in her hand, filled with all kinds of delicious baked goods.

Seeing the subtle eager tint in her eyes made Isaiah chuckle, seems like she wanted to get along with him. He had a few guesses as to why that might be, one of them was her witnessing his talent at formation, "Sure, come in. Lets not eat in that bloody lab.", He said with a chuckle and let Farida in the compartment.

After that they set up the table, putting the various baked good on it. It was a mouth watering scene, the steam of the goods were still on them. Isaiah grabbed one of the breads and split it in half, a gush of steam rushed out and a the red jam inside it leaked out.

Just like herself, her eating manners were also gentle and elegant. Farida ate with small bites, clearly savoring the taste of each bite, a woman who knew how to enjoy delicious food.

After they finished they quickly cleaned the table and entered the lab. Isaiah grabbed his notes and passed it to Farida, this time while it still used the improved method to draw the formation and guide the mana, because it tried to achieve a more complex effect of controlling the behavior of mana rather than simply creating a simple light source.

As Farida was busy trying to remember the formation instruction, he was busy carving the formation on the third subject. His original guess was that he could finish the experiment on his third subject, "Lets see if I will stand corrected." he mused at himself.

His hands moved expertly as he made small formation carving on all of the patients extremities, subjects hands, legs, and head. Soon carvings took their place, now he had to open to gain access to the patients heart to finish his preparations.

Standing in front of his was now a body with formations on all of its extremities and a open heart beating slowly. He gazed at Farida, "Have you memorized it?".

Farida nodded and got to take her place, she had to move the mana through all 5 extremities which would take a mental toll on her as controlling multiple instances of mana was rather hard for a Rank 1 like her.

Isaiah took the gear I prepared that held the mana shards. The moment I stabbed the mana shard through the subjects heart, Farida activated the 5 formations and guided her mana through them.

Mana once again spread through the body of the patient, starting from the heart to all over the body. This time however unlike his previous try, the mana didn't attack when it came to a stop and started to eat at the flesh instead, it meet the formations and calmed down lengthening the time the body would be filled with mana without killing the patient. 3 minutes and 38 seconds later the patient still died due to the toll all that mana took on the body, however Isaiah had managed to take the time limit from 15 seconds to 3 minutes and 38 seconds. A whopping 3 minutes and 18 second difference, this was the difference between life and death so each second mattered!

Happy with the results a large smile formed on Isaiah's face, coupled with the corpse in front of him painted a chilling picture even Farida was a bit taken back. This was definitely not what she had in mind when she decided to migrate to this empire.

Isaiah with his keen observatory ability obviously noticed that Farida was a little disturbed but he didn't care for now. Authority wasn't received when you changed your actions according to your subordinates expectations, it was received when you changed the views of your subordinates to fit your actions. She would come in line in the future.

For now he decided to let her go, "Farida, this is enough for today. You were a great help once more", he wore a warm smile while he said it and he meant each word. Farida indeed ended up being very helpful to him considering his uncles busy schedule having a another Rank 1 help in his research was invaluable.

Seeing the warm smile he gave her, eased Farida's nerves a little, obviously it wasn't enough to wash it away completely but its effects were evident. Farida bowed, "I'm sorry if my demeanor was unsightly today, Mr. Isaiah.", she looked at the corpse laying on the table and continued. "I'm more used to trading as opposed to research but I will try to be more helpful in the future.", with those words she left the tent. Clearly not please with how she let her professionalism fall towards the ends of the experiments.

Isaiah looked at the door she left from, his gaze lingering, "This woman seems to have potential.". He was impressed by Farida's quick adaptability considering he would need more personal in the future, he decided to keep her in mind.

He started cleaning the corpse off the table. Once clean he took of all his clothing till he was fully naked. He then started drawing lines on his body to determine the places he would have to carve out to create the formations. Yes, he was indeed gonna perform the procedure on himself, this was his plan from the very start.

Just as he was drawing the lines, the tent's door was opened and his uncle walked in. The scene in front of him startled him just like the last time, this time due to the implications of what he was witnessing, seeing his nephew drawing lines on himself he figured what he was planning and why he invited him here pretty quickly, "Don't tell me you seriously plan to undergo the procedure yourself?", he said, his shock apparent from his voice.

Seeing his uncles shocked tone made Isaiah laugh, "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." he pointed towards the formation instructions that was present on the table, "Just memorize that and do your best helping in the procedure.". Hearing his confident tone both eased Louie's worried but also made him laugh, "I will trust you if you say so. Just try not to die, kiddo, your aunt would skin me alive", He exploded into laughter when saying the last line.

He soon started carving the formations on his body, he was a lot more careful on himself compared to when he was carving the subjects. He was a lot slower taking his time, waiting for each line to stop bleeding before moving to another. It took hours for him to finish the carvings, after finishing them he laid on the operation table, "Pass me the scalpel", his tone was more serious at the moment, he would have to focus fully for the operation to succeed.

Louie swiftly passed him the scalpel. Holding the grip of the scalpel, Isaiah started to make a line on his chest. He was planning to perform open heart surgery on himself! Louie watched this process with wide eyes. In his many years doing business, he had witnessed many bizarre events, but this was a first even for him.