The next evening-

  "You are already a Novice Magician?" Antia's eyes flickered with astonishment as she looked at her fiancé.

  "Yes. I finished reading the technique you gave me st night, and I practiced it and broke through in one go." Apollox nodded.

  "As expected from my fiancé. He also broke through on the first try." Antia thought.

  "Does this mean I can now use magic?" Apollox excitedly asked.

  "No. It means you can start Mana Control. It wouldn't be too te to cast spells once you mastered this essential skill." Antia shook her head.

  "Ah, right." Apollox's shoulders slumped.

  "He looks like a depressed puppy. Cute." Antia thought.

  "Don't worry. First, I want you to focus on Mana Control for the next three months. Truthfully, Mana Control is my forte, and I even created an original technique. After three months, I shall pass it down to you." Antia mysteriously said.

  "Original Technique?!" Apollox's eyes lit up.

  He knew that Antia, this gifted genius, could invent truly wondrous techniques that even the system recognized. Of course, he would be excited!

  In Antia's eyes, Apollox now transformed into a happy puppy.

  "Cute." Antia thought.

  "You already know the fundamentals about controlling mana, and I can't help you with that. Now, please go." Antia said and continued reading her scroll.

  Not wanting to disturb her, Apollox quietly left, not knowing that Antia lightly grinned as she saw him leave.

  "I wonder if you have what it takes to learn this technique... My magnum opus."

  .

  .

  .

  "He went to a brothel?!"

  Primanus gaped, looking at the head doctor in shock.

  "I asked you to teach him, not let him whoremonger!"

  It had been two months since Primanus let Apollox study medical skills, and it was the peak of winter. While he didn't ask much about his son-in-w's progress, he still occasionally asked about it while passing through the hospital. So far, Primanus was very satisfied, as Apollox proved to be a brilliant medical student whom the head doctor praised as a prodigy.

  And just when he thought his son-in-w was a diligent student, when he went to casually ask today about his progress while on inspection, he actually went to fuck whores!? What the hell?!

  "Please calm down, Sir... He isn't there for sex. He is examining the sick prostitutes as a doctor." The head doctor warily expined.

  This made Primanus immediately calm down.

  "Examine sick prostitutes, you say?" Primanus frowned and asked.

  He knew that some soldiers slept with prostitutes and got sick from it, but there was no way to prevent his soldiers from sleeping with whores. Many of his men didn't have proper wives, and letting them not have sex for over two decades was demoralizing at best. It was tradition to turn a blind eye to this. Heck, in some legions, they even had dedicated sex sves! It just happened that the affiliated town had a brothel. There was no w against brothels, anyway.

  However, it was strange for a doctor to go and specifically examine the prostitutes!

  And as expected, the head doctor warily smiled.

  "It is common knowledge that having sex causes imbance in the four humors, making you vulnerable to bad air. Brothels are filthy pces full of bad air, so when soldiers have sex with the prostitutes, they are more vulnerable to afflictions. This is in line with the Four Humors Theory and Miasma Theory, and every doctor worth his salt knows this.

  However, Apollox challenged this view, believing that the whores spread disease through bodily fluids and the touch of sensitive body parts. He even went a step further and asked soldiers with partners if their partners contracted simir illnesses..."

  Primanus's eyes flickered.

  "And what was the result?" He asked.

  The Head Doctor had a complex look.

  "Well, in many cases, the common-w wife of the whoremongering soldier indeed became ill. But in some cases, the soldier didn't sleep with a whore, yet still got the disease. However, after asking, it was discovered that the wife contracted it by herself first."

  Primanus did a 1+1=2 in his mind, and his expression turned strange.

  "Wouldn't that mean..."

  "Yes, if Apollox is correct, the wives were likely friendly with other men, like fellow soldiers..." The head doctor nodded with a wry smile.

  "That... actually makes A LOT of sense." Primanus pursed his lips.

  "Not a word about it, I don't want things to get bloody," Primanus said with a deadpan look.

  "My lips are sealed," The head doctor nodded.

  "But I still don't understand why he is studying this. Is he learning how to prevent the spread of disease? Is he advanced enough to challenge long-standing medical norms?" Primanus inquired, feeling puzzled.

  The Head Doctor heavily nodded.

  "Although Apollox is not as good as our most experienced doctors in practical treatment, in terms of theoretical knowledge, he has already learned everything I know, and is indeed challenging existing views. He even proved that the brain controls voice, and not the heart, by cutting a nerve in the neck of a pig. And he also ascertained that veins carry blood, not air, and that the kidneys produce urine. He even did an open-skull surgery on a living cow, determining that the brain was a complex control center of various body parts.

  His anatomical studies are also stunningly beautiful. I have seen what he did, and I couldn't understand half of it. At least in anatomical studies, I believe he is among the cutting-edge leading physicians of our era. As for disease-reted theories... I am unsure. I understand the underlying concept, but since it conflicts with existing theories, it is impossible to determine whether he is correct or not. He is even vehemently against bloodletting, and I don't understand why. From what I saw, it helps bance out the four humors for sick patients, and the symptoms of the disease are indeed alleviated. However, he posited that it damages one's health and is actually killing them, and that the lowered symptoms are just a very temporary upside for only a portion of the patients, a coincidence, and needs long-term monitoring of many subjects.

  Either way, I am conflicted about what he says. But if he is correct, and he can prove it, it might revolutionize the medical field!"

  Primanus silently looked at the Head Doctor, a man in his early 40s who had practiced medical skills for over half of his life. This Head Doctor wasn't some riff-raff and was every bit comparable to senior doctors in the capital. Additionally, this head doctor never falsely praised anyone and was no fawner. If he said this, it likely meant that it was true. This head doctor, who practiced for over 20 years, was praising a youth who practiced medical skills for two months.

  Initially, Primanus let Apollox become a doctor due to a gut feeling. But now, with results in his face, Primanus couldn't ignore it.

  As a man who was at death's door more than once, Primanus greatly respected doctors. Even more so, a young genius doctor. Any profession that reaches the pinnacle, in his eyes, was comparable to even a senator in status.

  "To think Apollox was this much of a medical genius... perhaps it was a good idea to let him become a doctor. Okay, I'll silently support him and see what results this genius son-in-w of mine can produce... Perhaps he might actually find a way to cure a pgue, something that no doctor has achieved before."

  .

  .

  .

  When studying and practicing, time tends to fly fast.

  Three months passed, and winter was slowly coming to an end.

  In the past three months, I learned all the valuable(mixed with a decent amount of unintended bullshit) information that the head doctor could give me.

  Yes, I appreciated the doctor. He was an honest man trying to save people. I can respect that. However, the information he knew was full of bullshit and misleading false theories. The most infuriating part was that he spoke with such confidence! Honestly, I didn't know whether these doctors were helpful or harmful.

  "Thank the gods I didn't have money for a doctor when I got a fever once. If they tried bloodletting me to bance my four humors, I would probably die." I thought.

  For the first time, I felt grateful for being born poor.

  Anyway, thankfully, high Prestige and dissecting animals helped me increase Medical Student and Anatomical Knowledge enough to unlock new csses despite the difficulties of not having humans to dissect.

  With Prestige surpassing lvl 1,000, my medical intuition was high enough to find all the faults in other theories while applying my own. Yes, the leveling speed was slower than usual, but in the end, I still managed to evolve my css.

  Surprisingly, the Medical Student branched into many, MANY csses of different subjects. It was insane enough that I actually needed to make a list out of it. No, really, it is THAT insane. I never knew medical studies had so many sub-categories.

  Anyways...

  New Medical Css: Ability List:

  Veterinary Healer: Animal AnatomyMilitary Physician: Battlefield TriageTrauma Surgeon: Rapid Wound StabilizationCamp Physician: Disease MonitoringSurgeon: Surgical PrecisionBone Setter: Fracture AlignmentHerbal Pharmacologist: Medicinal Pnt KnowledgeInfectious Disease Physician: Contagion RecognitionSanitation Specialist: Hygiene OptimizationPreventive Physician: Disease PreventionPublic Health Organizer: Popution Health MeasuresMedical Schor: Medical RecordingContagion Researcher: Pathogen HypothesisImmunity Researcher: Immunity Hypothesis

  All of these 14 csses emerged gradually over the past three months.

  For example, when I dissected animals, I obtained the Veterinary Healer css. Through teaching me treatment priority, I learned to be a Military Physician. Through practicing surgery on living animals, I obtained the Surgeon css. Through extensive study of herbs, I obtained the css of Herbal Pharmacologist. Setting someone's fractured arm got me the Bone Setter css.

  I even learned valuable lessons about sanitation and public health. For example, where the public trines should be, and where to drain the sewage.

  There are likely many more csses to be unearthed, just waiting to get discovered.

  Of course, wanting to combat a pgue, I needed reted csses. Hence, the first thing I did was to focus on the Camp Physician, Infectious Disease Physician, and Preventive Physician csses.

  As a Camp Physician, I can monitor diseases. This allows me to identify early signs of a pgue outbreak.

  As an Infectious Disease Physician, I can recognize diseases and help mitigate symptoms. This is obviously important, as I can't do anything if I can't identify what people are sick with!

  Last but not least was the Preventive Physician, who specialized in preventing the spread of disease.

  With the help of max prestige, I quickly leveled up these csses, and these, in turn, formed two more csses!

  The first was Contagion Researcher, which appeared when I noticed that people rarely contract the same disease twice. This discovery might sound obvious, but it wasn't. It was a fact that many doctors ignored due to the Humoral Theory. But since I saw the Humoral Theory as contrived nonsense, I naturally noticed the obvious signs by asking soldiers in the hospital.

  For example, if one soldier gets sick, the disease usually spreads to his roommates. However, the roommates seldom contracted the same disease again.

  Both the Humoral Theory and Miasma Theory have reasonable expnations for this. In the Humoral Theory, after resisting a disease, individuals would become temporarily accustomed to and hardened by it, thereby forming resistance to it. As for the Miasma Theory, it posited that people who breathed the same contaminated air would become accustomed to it.

  Of course, these two theories are based on short-term observation, not taking into account what the patient had to say, such as their medical history. For example, when a sick soldier arrived at the hospital, I often asked who hadn't gotten sick. And so, I went to meet the soldiers who didn't get sick and asked them if they ever got sick with what the sick soldiers were sick with. In 80% of the cases, they said yes, sometimes years before that, which contradicts both theories!

  When I made this observation, I earned the Contagion Researcher css. After reaching its maximum prestige, I studied many known afflictions, including those common to soldiers who frequented brothels. To further my research, I went to the brothel myself as a doctor and requested to examine some of the sick prostitutes(I paid them for their time).

  However, I also noticed that fellow soldiers in the same squad who didn't whoremonger were fine. This led me to understand that diseases and infections have different delivery methods, and certain ones require sex or bodily fluids. However, some soldiers cimed that they didn't whoremonger and still got sick, so I asked them if their wives had certain symptoms, and they said yes. Their wives ter cimed it was after going to a public bath. Of course, while this cim is pusible, I had a feeling that most of these women were cheating on their husbands...

  But I wasn't cruel enough to point it out to the men. I didn't want to demoralize them if they realized that half of their children belonged to other men...

  I also noticed that some diseases were persistent and chronic, sting for many years before finally disappearing, which happened with some older prostitutes and soldiers. In some cases, a disease would pop up every few years for several weeks before disappearing again.

  All of these observations, which I carefully documented with Medical Schor, eventually led me to obtain a new css, Immunity Researcher.

  After maxing its prestige, I reviewed my medical logs, along with other existing logs. In three days, I made four conclusions:

  "A subject that got sick with a disease once will usually become immune to it if he survives.""Different patients suffer from varying degrees of symptoms from the same disease.""Not all diseases grant immunity, especially those from infected wounds or parasites. Ergo, they are not diseases.""Some diseases can be persistent, sting for years or even a lifetime. But they usually never return once fully cured."

  From these points, I made an interesting conclusion.

  "By intentionally exposing a subject to a disease, he can obtain immunity to a disease if he survives. However, this should only be used with short-term diseases."

  Of course, intentionally making someone sick was a bad idea. After all, diseases make you weak and even kill you. So this led me to an educated question.

  "If a disease could be first weakened before exposing the subject to it, reducing symptoms and risks, could the body still become immune to the disease?"

  Since conclusion 2 confirmed that different intensities of the same disease provided equal immunity, this led me to a more conclusive hypothesis.

  "By exposing a subject to a weakened disease, it gives more time for the body to adapt to it, which leads to fewer symptoms and risks with the same immunity!"

  Once I reached this revolutionary hypothesis, I madly grinned.

  "Finally! I found the right path! Although it is only applicable to faster-acting diseases, I finally have a weapon to combat a pgue!"

  bignt