The next morning, Kellan was woken up by the system speaking. "Ding! You have templated Victor Frankenstein! This templating was delayed due to host's unconscious state, but sufficient duration of contact was made to acquire template. Normally, templation requires either deliberate touch or 5 seconds of accidental touch, but this was increased to 6 hours due to neither party deliberately touching the other and both parties being unconscious. Host has acquired Skills:Alchemical Genetic Engineering,Physics (Electricity),Biology, Genetics. Skills locked due to Host's lack of understanding and Victor Frankenstein having not completely developed said skills yet. Study alongside Victor and build your relationship to unlock the knowledge host does not already possess! Host has acquired items: Victor Frankenstein's Outfit, Victor Frankenstein's Diary, Microscope(Compound), Frankenstein's Locket. Unlocking the Microscope has unlocked modern Light Microscopes from host's world. 2000 points acquired for templating of Victor Frankenstein and associated items. Further items possible if Host completes tasks related to Victor Frankenstein. " The system explained cheerfully.

Hearing all this, Kellan felt a weight on his left arm, and saw the sleeping Frankenstein using his arm as a pillow. Frankenstein- no, Victor, looked innocent and peaceful, as if he had no worries or cares in the world. His shoulder-length black hair seemed to have wrapped itself around Kellan's fingers, and Kellan carefully extracted them and slid his arm out from under the young man's head. He hadn't minded the sensation, but he'd just met the man, and it'd be weird for both of them if he'd just stayed like that. Sitting up, Kellan looked to his right and saw Henry peacefully snoring away. He got up and purchased two simple feather pillows from the system shop, costing 5 points each. He slid them under the two men's heads, and decided to template Frankenstein's furniture, cookware, and the like before heading out to get some food to make breakfast for the three of them. He checked the system catalog and among the other new items, apparently acquired a template for the local currency when he'd ran into Clerval, but the system hadn't mentioned it. He guessed it sort of assumed he'd know that he could convert currencies back and forth or something? He bought a few Gulden and Thaler, the local currency, from the system at 2 points per Gulden and 4 per Thaler.

Kellan walked through Frankenstein's apartment, templating everything he thought would be useful or he'd want to sell, even visiting the cellar to see what kind of food was down there. "Ding! Host has templated Fancy Wooden Chairs, Fancy Wooden Table, Chef's Knife,Silver Fork,Silver Spoon,Silver Table Knife, Ceramic Bowl,Chaise Lounge,Wooden Cup, Tin Tankard, Brass Cooking Pots (various sizes), Brass Cooking Pans (various sizes) , Water Barrel(clean), Pine Logs, Oak Logs, Wood-Burning Stove, Cotton Blankets, Goose Down Pillows, King-sized Bed Frame, King Size Feather Mattress,Herbs & Spices (Bay Leaves, Borage, Caraway Seeds, Chives, Dill, Juniper Berries,Marjoram, Parsley, Thyme, White Pepper, Wild Garlic), Chicken eggs(Augsburger,German Langshan,Vorwerk,Westfälischer Totleger), Meats(Smoked Ham, Smoked Bacon,Bratwurst, Blutwurst, Bockwurst, Knockwurst,Landjäger,Weisswurst) Vegetables(Kohlrabi,Savoy Cabbage, Turnip, White Asparagus,Parsley Root,White Radish), Fruits(Sanguinole Pear,Seaberry,European Raspberry,Cherry, Ananas Renette, Champagner Renette and Zuccalmaglio Renette Apples, German Tomato.)Host also templated like ten types of bread and cheese each, but their names are very long and the system figures you’re probably sick of hearing this list by now. Gained 1000 points for sheer amount and variety of items. Continue templating more items to gain points and see else might happen!"

"Well, I don't think I need to go out right now. I've got plenty of food right here. Time to get cooking." Kellan grabbed several bratwurst, some eggs, several apples, some cheese, and a small loaf of Pumpernickel bread. He also purchased an apron and some cooking mitts, as well as a metal spatula, from the system, tied back his hair with a strip of leather and set to work. He had to start a fire in the wood burning stove, juice the apples while he was waiting for the fire to get hot enough, and then cook.

Around an hour later, Kellan had three plates of sandwiches. The sandwiches had Bratwurst, cheese, and scrambled eggs on them, and the eggs had been seasoned with a little of the white pepper, some garlic, chives, and some salt Kellan had purchased from the system. He also had three wooden cups of freshly squeezed apple juice. Henry and Victor had woken 10 minutes prior, due to the smell of the cooking bratwurst, and eagerly awaited the meal.

“Victor, I think we got lucky. This new friend of ours can cook! I mean, you can somewhat cook since you’ve been taking care of yourself for two years, but this man’s food looks like it might even be as good as your family’s chef!” Henry exclaimed, slamming his fist into the table in excitement.

“Yes, Kellan seems extraordinary in a lot of ways. Speaking of extraordinary, we might have to do something about his odd hair color though, I figure it’s some kind of dye since human hair isn’t naturally capable of that color but he’ll stick out like a sore thumb, especially if we meet someone he can’t pass it off as some sort of Chinese cultural thing to.” Victor said, jerking his mind away from the food for a second.

“I have ways of dyeing my hair back to its natural color, don’t worry. Enjoy the food,gentlemen, we’ve got a long day of research and studying ahead of us.”Kellan smiled as he served the food. He liked his hair color, but Victor wasn’t wrong, and he could always dye it back to its current color later. The three hungry young men greedily dug into their food, excited for what was ahead of them. The Greeks, or the Romans,it was hard to remember which, had created a relatively non-toxic black hair dye made by fermenting leeches in a cauldron for two months. Kellan would do that, as he'd likely be in this world for a long while, given how long it'd take to create and parent the being the three young men were collaborating on, let alone what else might happen.

***

As the three men settled into a cycle of studying,theorizing, relaxing,and somewhat casually living, they blazed through 6 months like a hungry goat eats through a patch of particularly tasty grass. Victor Frankenstein continued his studies at the college while spending much of his spare time working on the project, doing what he had in the books with the added benefit of slightly better tools to study the corpses the three took from graveyards or from people who had donated their bodies to science, as well as the greater knowledge base provided by the biology, psychology, parenting, and genetics books Kellan had brought. Henry immersed himself in his business and language studies, though now that he was part of Victor's project he spent more time thinking about how artificial humans could help people and fit into his grand philanthropic plans than seriously applying himself to business. Kellan spent a decent amount of time buying and selling from an abandoned shop front he'd bought, to pass the time when he wasn't working with his two new friends or ensuring Victor rested, exercised, and ate enough.

With his and Clerval's influence, Victor sent letters back and forth to his family, and after some initial bad feelings from going two years without any communication, they began to chat back and forth,Victor excitedly talking about his life, his father excited to hear that the usually awkward Victor had made another friend, and Elizabeth asking him to visit when the semester was over.The three men discussed this,and came to the conclusion that it'd be possible, as the two college students would have a month off of school and Kellan had enough points and customers to afford being able to close the shop for a month.

They decided they'd all go, and so when the semester ended, they set off. This would be a somewhat brief respite from their grand endeavor, but it would be an important one. When the semester ended, the three men set off for Geneva by carriage, and arrived within about a week. The three men made a rather pretty picture when they arrived at the Frankenstein home. They were welcomed by an excited Alphonse Frankenstein, a curious William Frankenstein, and Elizabeth Lavenza's gentle acceptance. Kellan didn't really get why Victor loved her. She was sweet and delicate and cultured and all, but if that was all she was, she was kinda boring. The book hadn't even mentioned if she had a sense of humor, or if she liked to verbally spar with people, or much about her, really. Hell, it hadn't said much of Clerval's personality either, so Kellan had learned about the man himself. He figured he'd do the same with Elizabeth. After all, real people are always less shallow than fictional ones, right?

Victor introduced Kellan to his family, who welcomed the handsome foreigner with open arms. After all, they'd noticed that,with the attentive care of his two friends, Victor seemed to have bloomed. While he was still pale, he was no longer unhealthily so, and while still thin, he'd regained his physical health.

Most importantly of all, his manic pursuit of knowledge and of creating life was tempered by the responsibility he knew he'd have to face and time spent being dragged into enjoying the world around him. He'd strenuously resisted at first,but he'd quickly discovered that taking breaks and enjoying life let him maintain the proper frame of mind to work well and study well, and kept him much happier and healthier than his former unhealthy level of obsession. Aside from that, he found he legitimately enjoyed rest, relaxation,and entertainment, especially after Kellan took out some popular sci-fi from authors like Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke.

He continually begged Kellan for more, but Kellan didn't have very many sci-fi books as he'd watched much more sci-fi than he'd read, and he wasn't ready to introduce these men of an era where most modern tech didn't exist to the idea of television. His family didn't know about that beyond the whole "this new guy is making sure Victor takes care of both his mind and body" thing, but it was obvious to them that Kellan Klein was a good-natured person and cared about Victor.

Henry Clerval seemed the same ball of sunshine he always was, but the knowledge that he was participating in such a grand endeavor had made him more mature and responsible. He'd thrown himself into studying the childcare and psychology books Kellan had bought with abandon, and grew to enjoy historical fiction and fantasy novels. So far, Kellan had mostly restricted him to classic authors like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, but he eagerly awaited an opportunity to return to his home world and turn these two young scholars into complete nerds.

Kellan, for his part, had gained lots of cultural recipes and templates from the era, and made a few friends among the locals, though his heritage had meant he had to put up with a lot of racism and curious people asking why he didn't wear the hairstyle and outfit of a Qing Dynasty merchant.He'd even been accosted in the streets by racists, drunken or otherwise.

This had enraged the generally gentle Victor Frankenstein, and Henry had had to hold back Victor from trying to beat up people with everything from his own fists to broken wine bottles to a wooden walking staff he'd bought for the hiking trips the three men would occasionally go on. Kellan wanted to return home, to see his family and friends and deal with, if not necessarily less racism, less blatant racism. He knew that that would have to wait a long time, but he didn't know how long, so he figured he'd have to make the best of his time in this world and hope that when he could go home, there wasn't some huge time disparity.

The three young men spent a few weeks with the Frankenstein family before they had to head back to Ingolstadt, and it was during that time Kellan discovered that William was, while a bratty and judgemental child, not necessarily a bad kid.He'd just need guidance. Alphonse, despite clearly still grieving for his wife, was a kind and caring old man, who, while he had little ability to tell a joke himself, very much enjoyed the jokes of others.Elizabeth, under the veneer of the perfect demure lady she presented, had a wicked sense of humor and a great love of philosophy,poetry, and literature.

Kellan wanted to introduce her to some of the modern stuff, but the three young men discussed it and decided that it could wait until they told her about the project they were working on, which they'd decided they'd do at the end of the first week.After all, they couldn't leave the love of Victor's life out of the creation of Victor Frankenstein's child, right? Besides that, Elizabeth was kind, smart,motherly, and capable, and would be a great help in raising the being they would create into a functional, happy person.She was, as in the novel, obsessively in love with Victor, and Kellan hoped that Victor, who apparently felt the same way, would treat her well. He'd even discussed this with him, with backup from Henry, telling him that if he loved Elizabeth he had to treat her as an equal partner and help her follow her own dreams like she helped him follow his with her constant support and care. This had lead Victor to want to bring her into the project, and to ask her what she wanted from the future. The other two agreed, happy to see Victor treat his so-called most important person as more than the "pretty present" his mother had called her.

So on the Sunday of that first week, Victor got her alone in the dining room,with his two friends waiting just outside, and asked her the question he'd been meaning to for the last two years.

"Elizabeth, I know you love me and want us to marry, but... what do you want out of life? Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? Where do you want to live?" He looked her in the eyes, the same intense emerald fire in them as when he talked about his desire to make life. He waited for her response as Kellan and Henry peeked from the door frame, not noticeable unless you looked closely.

"Well, Victor, you well know that my dream is to be by your side forever but... I want to go places, experience things, work by your side. Besides that, I want to read all the books! I love stories and poetry. You know I love the countryside, and I do, but I want to see the countryside of every country and get to know what the people live like! I have dreams and ambitions separate from yours, as you have dreams separate from mine, but...can we work for our dreams together?" She admitted, shocked into an honest reply by the intensity of his eyes.She blushed from the sheer intensity of his gaze, feeling the weight of his feelings and understanding that Victor Frankenstein loved her with the same passion he loved science and learning.

"I am glad for that, and I have an admission of my own and a request to make. You know how I have long been interested in creating life and understanding the secrets of the world, yes? With the help of Henry and Kellan, my studies have reached the point where I am on the cusp of creating life artificially. I want to do this responsibly, so Elizabeth, please come to Ingolstadt with me and help me raise the child I will bring into the world." His tone seemed pleading, and his expression seemed wary, as if he was terrified she'd reject him.

Elizabeth stood up, her expression shifting from shock, to confusion, to a smug certainty, to a pure joy. She tackled into Victor, the chair he was in falling to the floor as she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest.

"Of course, you absolute fool I could tell something important was on your mind from the second you came home!" She murmured happily into his chest, hiding her smile in his shirt.

"You aren't shocked by the idea of creating life? You don't find it sacreligious?" Victor asked her, lying on the fallen chair with the woman he loved in his arms.

"The way I see it, if God allowed you to discover this knowledge, God wanted you to create life and advance science. I do have one condition, though. I want you to marry me and have a child the natural way, while we build this artificial one with the help of your friends. If I am to be the mother of an artificial person, I must also raise a child that is purely my own." She happily nuzzled into his chest, thinking about the future.

"Absolutely. When do you want to marry? Now that I know that this thing that might have come between us won't, I want you by my side for the rest of our lives." He ran one hand through her hair, the other firmly holding her slim body against his.

"One week, so that we can head to Ingolstadt together as a married couple when you return to college." She pulled her face away from his chest, and her ice-blue eyes met his emerald green ones.

"Absolutely, my dear Eliza. A small ceremony, just a few family and friends?" He returned her loving gaze, his lips quirking into a smile.

"I could ask for nothing more." She smiled and blushed, burying her face in his chest again.

"Am I invited?" Kellan asked from the doorway,smirking at the rather sappy and adorable moment between his friend and his friend's soon-to-be wife.

Elizabeth yelped and sprung out of Victor's arms. Composing herself, she nodded. Victor stood up, setting his chair back up, and Kellan and Clerval came into the room giggling like children. After some initial pleasantries, the four began planning Victor and Elizabeth's wedding, and Kellan revealed his abilities, as he had to Victor and Henry. Elizabeth immediately requested poetry and fiction, which she'd get as wedding gifts, and decided to focus on the parenting and psychology books for her part in the project, though she had some smart suggestions as to the biology aspects and ideas for Kellan's shop.

For instance, she thought of the idea of taking advantage of the system's ability to manifest things from seemingly nothing to set up branch stores in different towns and cities, and offered to help Kellan obtain useful things or things Kellan could make a lot of profit on due to their limited availability.

Within three days, the wedding was planned and invitations delivered to all those who would be there.Victor regretted not being able to have Mr. Waldman come to his wedding, but was otherwise very satisfied with the guest list. Kellan coordinated with the wedding planning, providing much of the necessary refreshments, decoration and the like, persuading a priest to hold a wedding on such short notice,and the like. He was excited to see his friend married, and even more so to see how bringing Elizabeth into the project would throw him even farther off the course of canon.

His quest "A Family Unbroken" currently had three objectives after the completed first one, the first involving creating the creature , the second involving preserving the lives of the Frankenstein Clan, and the third being ensuring the wedding of Victor Frankenstein and Elizabeth Lavenza went well. He was sure this would bring him good rewards, but he was also sure that the future held a lot of trouble he'd have to prepare for. Best to enjoy the good, easy times now while he still had them, and to build up his friendships with these odd, quirky, good people.