[It's no surprise that Viktor holes himself up in the alchemy labs, working with whatever he can get his hands on to try and puzzle out a cure for the mysterious ailment. The sickness strikes a personal chord with him for obvious reasons, so he's going to do whatever he can to push them along, if not solve the problem entirely.

Viktor starts with the crystals, figuring he's more familiar with the structure of minerals than the various properties of plants and seed pods. He doesn't use his own powers much, but the hum of the crystals suggest that the respond well to magic, so he tries to and discover the nature of it, holding it for a few seconds and concentrating. After a moment, he opens his eyes.]

This is familiar, isn't it?

[The two of them, in a lab, throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. Viktor allows himself a second to take in the sight of Alucard at a nearby workstation.]

If it can't interact with fluids, we will have to find another way. We could see how it reacts to various kinds of elemental magic?