I'm a Proper Student, I Only Take Nine Potions a Day Chapter 13

[Spirit Vision: 0]

[Talent: Power of the Nine Dragons]

Beyond the basic panel, there were now two additional sub-panels.

[Specialty Panel]

[Self-Healing: 108%] (Three Rounds of Potions +6% / Extraordinary Trait +2%)

[Blood Quality: 104%] (Blood Potion +2% / Extraordinary Trait +2%)

[Status Panel]

[Syphilis: 46%]

[Pneumonia: 9%]

[Liver Damage: 41%]

[Digestive Tract Ulcer: 10%]

[Brain Nerve Damage: 15%]

[Mercury Pill: Digesting. Syphilitic rash slowly fading. 2 hours remaining.]

[Night Demon Potion: Digesting. Constitution +0.2. 3 hours remaining.]

[Blood Potion: Digesting. Constitution +0.1. 3 hours remaining.]

[Blood Wine Enhancement: Specially prepared blood wine is nourishing your body. Lasts 3 hours.]

[Phenobarbital: Active. Focus increased by 300%. 4 hours remaining.]

Evan's gaze first fell on the blood wine.

"The Blood Potion's effect curve is the same as ordinary medicine. It doesn't stay steady. The effect is fierce at the beginning, but there's barely anything left by the end."

"There are still three hours left on the blood wine. The urge to exercise is almost gone, leaving only a comfortable warmth."

Then his eyes swept across the entire panel.

Looking at the panel's exhaustive details, Evan felt a solid sense of reassurance.

"The more detailed, the better. That way, I can precisely keep track of every condition in my body and avoid any surprises."

He was immensely satisfied with the Nine Dragons Panel.

"The digestive tract ulcer and brain nerve damage can slowly be repaired by taking Mercury Pills. No rush."

"The main problems now are syphilis and liver damage."

Syphilis was at forty-six percent, and liver damage was at forty-one percent.

The troublesome one was syphilis.

For now, it was only a rash. But if he let it drag on, wart-like growths would start appearing around his little brother.

"I remember that Arsphenamine, which can effectively treat syphilis at this stage, seems to have already entered clinical trials..."

"Let's see if I can get a chance to test it!"

As Evan pondered, his gaze swept over the row of medicine bottles on the table.

There were twenty Aspirin tablets left.

There were six Phenobarbital tablets left.

Altogether, they would only last another three or four days.

There were sixteen Mercury Pills left.

These things cost three cents each. He had bought twenty at once before, spending a full sixty cents.

"I need to get more medicine."

He turned and crouched before the wardrobe, pulled open the hidden compartment at the very bottom, and took out a battered old biscuit tin.

The words "Unida Biscuits" on the lid had been worn down until only a ghostly trace remained.

He opened the tin. Inside was a pile of loose coins and several crumpled small-denomination bills.

He counted each coin and calculated every cent.

Including the thirty-two cents he had earned at the docks last night.

Four dollars and sixty-two cents.

That was everything he owned.

"I need to make some money too."

Evan poured the loose change onto the table and started doing the math on his fingers.

With four times the focus, his mind raced. Every expense was calculated down to the cent.

"Monthly property tax on the tenth, one dollar eighty."

"Water bill on the eighth, fifty cents."

"The kerosene is almost gone. Another can will cost one dollar."

"My notebooks and ink are running low too, around eighty cents."

"My body is consuming more now. To maintain steady growth, the food budget has to go up from fifteen cents a day to forty cents."

"I'm out of brown sugar. Two pounds, ten cents."

His fingers tapped on the tabletop as he added up all the numbers.

Three minutes later, the calculation was complete.

"The bare minimum for this month is twenty dollars."

Four dollars and sixty-two cents, minus twenty dollars.

The shortfall was more than fifteen dollars.

A skilled worker's weekly wages.

"Looks like I need to find a new drug trial contract as soon as possible."

A fire burned in Evan's eyes.

He put the loose change back into the tin and hid it in the wardrobe's secret compartment.

Then he pulled his textbooks from his schoolbag, spread them across the table, and used what remained of his heightened focus to study.

The fountain pen scratched across the paper, the kerosene lamp's flame swayed quietly, and the sky beyond the gap in the curtains changed from pitch-black to deep blue.

Then from deep blue to grayish white, until it finally became the cool, pale gold unique to an early winter morning.

At seven in the morning, that unparalleled feeling of focus faded right on time.

Like the tide, it came on time and left on time.

Evan set down his fountain pen and stretched his aching wrist.

The Mercury Pill, Night Demon Potion, and Blood Potion had all finished digesting. The three progress bars on the panel simultaneously dropped to zero.

He lowered his head and glanced at his arm.

The syphilitic rash had indeed faded noticeably.

The copper-red patches that had once merged together were beginning to blur and break apart at the edges, their alarming dark red lightening into a pale pink.

With the potion fully digested, his constitution rose by another 0.1.

1.003.

He had finally returned above an ordinary person's baseline.

Classic American Bullying

After confirming his physical condition, Evan entered the washroom, turned on the tap, scooped up two handfuls of cold water, and splashed his face.

Water dripped from his jaw. He raised his head and looked at himself in the mirror.

He was still thin.

His cheekbones still protruded somewhat, and his cheeks were still slightly sunken. He was nowhere close to being strong.

But compared with the ashen face in yesterday's mirror, like someone who had just crawled out of a coffin, the changes were visible to the naked eye.

His limbs had clearly thickened by a full circle. His forearms, where the outline of his ulna had once been visible, were now covered in firm, even muscle. It was not exaggerated, but the lines were clear.

When he clenched his fists, the tendons in his forearms drew taut like strings, and something pulsed powerfully beneath his skin.

"The change in a single day is this huge. The potion enhancement is terrifying."

After washing up, he changed into his gray shirt and patched tweed jacket, stepped into his repaired leather shoes, and at last both feet stood at the same level.

He popped two Mercury Pills into his mouth.

[You have reversed the side effects of the Mercury Pill.]

[Your digestive tract ulcer has been alleviated! 10% → 9%]

[Your brain nerve damage has been alleviated! 15% → 14%]

[Your mouth has been strengthened. Constitution permanently +0.001.]

Although potions only took twelve hours to digest.

Pulis had told him to take them once a day, and Evan did not dare take more and arouse unnecessary suspicion.

He slung on his schoolbag and headed out for school.

Today, he did not go help with the fast-food cart run by the old Italian man on the corner.

His starving body needed more fuel.

He turned into a slightly wider cross street at the north end of Gooding Street and pushed open the door to a cheap diner called Lucky Bee.

The bell on the door rang, and a heavy wave of cooking smoke and food-laden heat rushed over him.

The diner was small, with more than a dozen wooden tables crammed together. The grease stains on their surfaces had been wiped again and again, yet never fully came clean.

There were quite a few people inside, mostly dockworkers doing heavy labor. They wore overalls and canvas shirts, sleeves rolled to their elbows to reveal thick, sun-darkened forearms.

They ate as though completing a task. Forks and knives scraped noisily against tin plates, mixed with muffled conversation and the occasional burst of coarse laughter.

The smell of sweat mingled with the aroma of food. It was not exactly pleasant, yet it gave him an inexplicable sense of security.

Evan stopped at the counter and glanced at the chalk-written menu board on the wall.

A large piece of dark bread, a cup of black coffee, two sausages, two tomatoes, and a glass of milk.

Sixteen cents.

It was three times more expensive than his previous five-cent breakfast, but his body was now a high-speed boiler that needed enough coal.

When the food arrived, he did not hold back.

He broke the dark bread in half, soaked one half in the black coffee, and stuffed the other half into his mouth with sausage.

He bit into a tomato, and its sweet-and-sour juice burst across his mouth. Then he washed it down in one gulp with milk.

It was not a pretty sight, but in this diner, no one would give you a second glance because of how you ate.

Five minutes later, the plate was empty.

Evan used the last hard crust of bread to wipe the grease from the plate clean, stuffed it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

Then he stood, slung on his schoolbag, pushed open the diner door, and stepped into the cold morning air.

After passing through two alleys, he squeezed onto a streetcar traveling north and south.

The carriage was as packed as ever, but today, his hand held the overhead strap steadily, and his body did not budge amid the crowd's shoving.

The streetcar clattered down the main road as the early November sunlight pierced through the buildings to the east.

Golden beams slanted across the street, illuminating tiny particles of dust drifting through the air.

Evan stood in the carriage as sunlight fell through the window onto his face, warm and bright.