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The true panacea.

After finding I could walk again easily, I committed that page of the book to memory.  If the unknown alchemist had made any other impossible discoveries, we could figure them out later, when I had translator access—for now, the allcure would be enough.

“I suppose there’s an easy way out from here?” I asked Munk. “Possibly some kind of giant-sized exit?”

Munk started walking along the shelf.  I followed.

By one wall there was, in fact, a spiral staircase leading down—had the giant had normal-sized assistants?—leading down to another door like the one I’d come through, and then the golem was leading me through those infernal endless passages again.

This time, of course, there was no pain and no fatigue; I felt I could walk a good long time.  So it probably seemed a good deal less time than it should have before Munk led me out of the halls of illuminated stone and into a dark room in what turned out to be a basement of the university library.

And then there was Internet.

I forwarded the formula to the professor first, of course.

And then I posted it on the alchemy metanetwork.  I didn’t bother explaining—not yet—I needed to get this out as fast as possible.

People were dying, after all, and they didn’t have to be.

There were already confirmations being posted before I left the library.

“I think it’s gonna be a good day, Munk,” I said.

The triage started almost immediately—as fast as the doctors could be convinced. The alchemical principles, of course, were rock-solid, but without an understanding of them the panacea might as well be snake oil to them at best, or possibly harmful or fatal at worst.

But it happened, and we changed the world.

All worlds.

Since that day, though, I never saw another kelvin, not even in those undertunnels when we went back for the rest of the giant alchemist’s discoveries.