Garrett Nordmark actually knew the answer.
He wanted to directly give the result: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Just asure these three. Unfortunately, no cheating was allowed.
Moreover, what if the plants in this world needed other elents to grow?
Since he didn’t give the answer, the alchemists had to roll up their sleeves and use every available detection thod.
For example, "Detect Poison," "Identification Spell," and Garrett’s simplified version of the "Blood Potassium Test," and so on...
"Detect Poison!"
"The soil contains phosphorus!" an alchemist exclaid.
"There is phosphorus! Although not much—I’ve only known phosphorus to exist in graveyards and minerals. So, it exists in soil too?"
"Is there really phosphorus in the soil?" Seven or eight heads crowded together, and a series of "Detect Poison" spells were cast. Discussions erupted:
"There really is phosphorus!"
"Then why aren’t there any ghost fires here?"
"Maybe the phosphorus content is low? ... We should compare this with the burial grounds in Black Crow Swamp. Who’s coming with ?"
"Uh, but I don’t know any mages in Black Crow Swamp. I can’t enter their territory... Do you know anyone who can introduce ?"
"Hey, we can ask the Plague Lord for an introduction! We’re already working for him—"
"Slap!"
A slap landed on the speaker’s forehead.
Garrett: →_→
He pretended not to hear anything and drifted away. At another spot, he saw a few alchemists gathered, casting spells into solutions:
"Bloodline Identification—Modified! Hey, this spell is really convenient for asuring potassium content. We could never asure it accurately with titration before!"
Hmph, "Bloodline Identification—Modified," or the fla ionization thod... or should I say atomic spectroscopy? It’s very effective for asuring tal ions!
So people set up flasks and beakers to start titrations;
So asured pH levels;
So were busy casting various spells and calibrating magical arrays;
Others hugged big books, ticulously comparing readings from instrunts...
Hmm, this looks like titration; could this be the coloritric thod with a spectrophototer? What thod is this?
No matter, as the experint host, I don’t need to do the work myself. I just need to monitor their results and ensure they’re mostly accurate...
"Little Garrett, what are you in charge of?"
Seeing Garrett clasping his hands in front of his abdon and wandering around idly, Elder Wood couldn’t help but laugh and ask. Garrett shrugged:
"? I’m waiting for them to finish and then compile the results..."
"But I haven’t seen you do any work."
A nearby mage, sweating profusely, wiped his forehead, saring black and gray across his face.
While high-level mages don’t necessarily have to do the work themselves, and leaders only need to design the experint and supervise, he looked too relaxed!
He didn’t even take out a notebook!
How was he going to calculate and compile the results later?
Garrett silently took out a portable Tower Spirit. Instantly, all the casters around him stared in amazent.
... Wealthy dog!
After collecting the soil samples, all the mages withdrew. Priests of the God of Nature took over, starting their work:
They collectively used divine spells to accelerate the growth of the crops in the field. Rooting, sprouting, seedling ergence, and tillering. Then, the rapid growth slowed down slightly...
"Stop, stop! Sampling team, enter!"
Chaos ensued. The priests tiptoed out in single file. A young priest, whom Garrett wasn’t familiar with, was stopped mid-spell, choking on his breath and coughing for a long ti, eyes teary:
"What’s the point of stopping midway... Can these mages really determine the right amount of fertilizer..."
"Shh!" The nearest priest whispered:
"Don’t say that out loud! That Nordmark mage, oh, he’s actually also one of our order’s priests. Do you know how many things he invented? Penicillin, cowpox vaccine, including the compost we’re using now, all started with him!"
The young priest fell silent. The older priest continued in a low voice:
"Besides, priests have their thods, and mages have theirs. Who knows, they might just figure it out?"
Then, the divine spell team re-entered to continue growing the seedlings. Elongating, heading, sampling again; heading, flowering, grain filling, maturity, and the final soil sampling. The testing mages were once again busy.
Finally, several sets of data were compiled and handed to Garrett. He clasped his hands in front of him, walked around, and checked each one:
"This one is wrong! Redo it!—Your group’s data is ten tis that of others, sothing must be wrong!"
"This one is wrong!—Why is the iron content higher than potassium? Do you think this is an iron mine? Redo it!"
"This one..."
He picked and chose, throwing back one after another for redoing. The mages he sent back dared not speak out, unable to refute, and had to redo the work. Only Elder Wood could still joke:
"Garrett, you really look like a supervisor... If your hands were behind your back instead of in front, you’d look even more like one..."
Garrett: ...
No help, after being a surgeon for so long, this is the result.
This was with unwashed hands. If his hands were washed, the posture would be even more awkward, either clasped in front of the chest or raised in front of the chest, never above the shoulders or below the waist.
They could be spread a bit, but touching the back? Absolutely not!
He recalibrated the data and had the portable Tower Spirit scan, input, and make charts. Tables, line charts, one large chart printed out, Garrett imdiately wanted to cover his eyes:
"Hmm... This looks exhausting..."
A huge chart, dozens of elents, copper, iron, calcium, magnesium. Garrett pressed the Tower Spirit, whispering:
"Co on, rearrange the table by the difference from the first to the last result, in descending order."
With a swish, the table was reorganized. Garrett looked it over from top to bottom, quite satisfied:
Not bad, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium still made up the bulk. As for the other trace elents, they shouldn’t be too problematic; being slightly off shouldn’t affect the harvest.
He glanced around and clapped his hands:
"Repeat this experint ten tis and take the average. Then, asure the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium content in the manure and river mud too..."
"Seriously—"
Among the mages, groans rose.
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