As responded with pinpoint uracy, never entirely sure if Mr. Nick was trying to catch him out, so he decided to stick to the truth.


    Nick, hearing this, shut his eyes again. As, noticing Nick didn''t press further, felt a wave of relief. Normally, it''d be easy to see through any pretense.


    Over the next few days, Nick''s recovery was surprisingly swift. Apart from looking a tad pale and sickly, you wouldn''t guess he had been gravely injured by watching him stroll around.


    One day, after Nick wrapped up a phone call, As handed him a ss of water and said, "Time to take your meds."


    Nick took the ss, downed the medicine in one go, and said, "As, book me a flight for tomorrow. The conference in the States wraps up in two days, and I need to be back before it ends."


    As looked concerned, "You''ve just started getting better; a long flight might be too much."


    "It''s alright, I know my limits," Nick replied nonchntly, though he felt his recovery was oddly rapid.


    Understanding Nick''s stubborn nature and knowing it was pointless to argue, As nodded, "Alright, then."


    Nick set the ss down on the coffee table, the bitter aftertaste of the medicine lingering, and casually asked As, "Was this medicine prescribed by Dr. Ray?"


    As kept his expression neutral and nodded, "Yes."


    Nick didn''t say anything more andy back down.


    **


    Meanwhile, over at the medical school.


    After several days of testing, Manuel and a few other researchers had sessfully recreated the solution.


    They were now conducting live tests.


    Live tests involved injecting the solution into the bodies of humans or animals to observe and gradually assess its effectiveness.


    "This batch seems a bit more potent than thest one we made," Manuel said, standing in front of the ss containers, watching the thirdb rat that had been injected with the solution.


    “I agree. The rats weren''t this lively with the previous batch,” another scientist chimed in.


    Manuel nodded, finally breaking into a smile after days of hard work, "Let''s keep observing for a couple more days. If things stay stable, we can think about trying it onrger animals."


    "I think we might be ready for human trials," the other scientist paused, then added, "If the previous batch hadn''t been destroyed, it might have already offered hope to those testing it. Repeating experiments step by step could waste precious time."


    Manuel looked at his colleague with a serious face, "Even though things look good now, the form''s a bit different this time. If something were to go wrong..."


    He was cut off, "There won''t be any issues. Plus, the form only has slight tweaks, which we can adjust as we go."


    Manuel turned his attention to Ben and the other colleagues, "What do you guys think?"


    The others hesitated, but Ben spoke up first, "I''m also in favor of moving to human trials. Rat number three is doing better than before, showing the solution is safe."


    Since Ben''s insights had been invaluable, Manuel took his input to heart. After a few moments of thought, he nodded, "Alright, then."