When the short, stout man finally sat down in the chair and saw the priest approaching him with a black, needle-like object, he immediately regretted his decision to cooperate with the experiment for a barrel of ale.

"Could I...?"

Before Walton could finish speaking, Leslie, standing beside him, snorted and said decisively, "No!"

The woman in the white robe, Adelina, looked somewhat worried: "Father, are you sure this will be alright?"

Todd rolled up his sleeve, revealing a small needle mark on his forearm. He said with absolute certainty, "Don't worry, I've tried it myself several times. It hurts a little when it first goes in, like an ant bite, but then there's no pain at all. Besides, I've never made a mistake in alchemy."

"But I've never heard of alchemy requiring the extraction of blood..."

Leslie interrupted Adelina again: "What does it matter? It's just a little blood. In the tavern, our brave and fearless Lord Walton has said countless times that he once fought against the barbarian army for seven days and seven nights, when the sky darkened and blood flowed like rivers. Of course, he wouldn't care about this little wound, right?"

Walton gave the red-striped boy a smile that was more like a grimace.

Alfonso glanced at the table full of utensils and jars, then raised his chin to the priest and exchanged a look with Huggins beside him: "Have you ever seen him use alchemy before? Is it safe?"

Huggins touched his chin with his gloved hand, looking at the syringe with the sharp needle. Recalling his past experiences with silver refining and glassmaking, he said uncertainly, "I have seen it before, but it didn't seem to be this complicated back then..."

Todd approached Walton, rolled up his sleeves, first wrapped his arms with leather straps, and then used his X-ray vision to locate where the syringe had landed.

The short, stout man struggled and twisted his body, watching the needle get closer and closer to his skin. He shook his head frantically and shouted incoherently, "You're lying to me! This is definitely not alchemy! I swear, I swear! I'll never go to the tavern again!"

The needle pierced the skin, and blood splattered.

Walton fainted.

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After placing Walton's bodily fluid sample under a microscope and adjusting the magnification to 400x, Todd specifically invited everyone to come and watch.

A moment later, a tremendous chorus of praise and exclamations echoed through the laboratory.

Alfonso, Leslie, Adelina, and Hudgens saw a microcosm of the world.

Walton used his "Eagle Eye" ability to magnify the microscopic world several times further than the original 400 times, reaching about 3000 times. He was able to see the entirety and local features of the bacterial world.

When Todd injected the bacteria with the "Eagle Eye" ability into his body using a syringe, he was able to see the life processes and complete structure inside the bacteria under a microscope by using both "Eagle Eye" and "X-ray vision" skills simultaneously.

Finally, the last condition for conducting the 'Sutherland Archaea' mutation experiment was met.

For the next few days, Todd simply lived and ate in the lab. During the day, only Alfonso and Hudgens would occasionally come to check on him. At night, when all was quiet, his lab would be brightly lit, and Karin Forman would stand alone by the window of the small building, watching his busy figure without saying a word or disturbing him. After standing there for a while, she would disappear without a trace.

Todd's experiments were not without their challenges. Injecting a liquid mixed with Sutherland bacteria into the test subjects was the first hurdle.

Any organism exposed to Sutherland bacteria is highly likely to die immediately, and mice are no exception. The first few test subjects died instantly due to the excessive amount of Sutherland bacteria. Todd subsequently reduced the dosage repeatedly, finally finding a safe margin for the dose.

Next, the live observation of the mice was necessary. Due to the lack of electronic monitoring equipment and medical diagnostic instruments, Todd had to use his X-ray vision to observe the subjects' condition every so often. This process was long and tedious; the experimenters couldn't sleep soundly, and every three to four hours they had to use X-ray vision to record their condition in case of any abnormalities.

In the first few days of the experiment, all the values ​​of the experimental subjects were normal.

Starting from the third day, using his clairvoyant ability, Todd discovered that the mice's heartbeat, nerves, blood circulation, and other functions were all experiencing problems of varying degrees.

By the fourth day, some of the experimental subjects' organs and body cavities had been damaged, and some of them vomited blood.

By the fifth day, the experimental subjects' central nervous system, including the brain, was damaged, and their stress response to external stimuli became sluggish.

By the sixth day, the nervous system had died and was occupied by a strange bacterial growth, causing various organs of the test subject to mutate. The mutated state was related to the superpowers; for example, the weakening superpower would lead to the formation of venom sacs and venom bubbles, the X-ray vision superpower would cause the eyes to become compound eyes, and the speed superpower would change the muscle structure and skeletal arrangement of the lower body.

By the seventh day, the experimental subject's appearance had changed. Its fingernails grew longer and sharper, its mouthparts connected to venom sacs, its throat connected to venomous air bubbles in its lungs, its forelimbs degenerated into small claws, its hindlimbs became multi-legged like a centipede, spines appeared on its chest, sharp spikes grew on its back, its tail lengthened and became barbed, its head resembled that of a praying mantis, and it possessed enormous, sharp-edged mouthparts and compound eyes capable of rotating 270 degrees. Its previously dormant nervous system began to reactivate due to the densely packed bacterial spikes, but it lacked basic neuronal connections. The organism had now lost its most basic consciousness and become extremely aggressive.

Upon reaching this point, Todd had to forcibly halt the live experiments, injecting all the subjects with large doses of ether to perform painless euthanasia. As a precaution, decapitation was also carried out.

Through multi-stage live observation of the experimental subjects, he finally pieced together the puzzle of the alienation of Sutherland's relics, one piece at a time.

The Sutherland archaea can block and imprison foreign bacteria, digest the toxic substances they release, and only release them when the nervous system allows it.

However, nothing is perfect, and anything that is beneficial will eventually reveal its harmful side.

The key is that the number of Sutherland archaea remains constant; these archaea cannot divide and regenerate, while the heterogeneous bacteria continue to grow exponentially.

When the ratio of the two reaches a critical point, the Sutherland bacteria transforms from a 'policeman' into a 'butcher.' Its original 'blockade' mechanism changes to 'devouring,' engulfing and digesting foreign bacteria. This process gradually spreads within the host's body, first affecting blood vessels, then organs, and finally nerves, eventually altering the host's appearance and function, turning it into a monstrous creature devoid of reason…