Looking at the panel, Evan's tone carried a hint of regret.
"Power of the Nine Dragons... It seems the panel's effects don't calculate those medicines I've taken before. It's a bit of a pity."
"In that case, let's start with two mercury pills to test the waters."
Thinking of this, his gaze fell on the two things he used the most right in front of him.
Mercury ointment and mercury pills.
The former for external use, the latter for internal consumption.
These were the cheapest, most widely used, and also the most toxic drugs for treating syphilis among the lower classes in this era.
Without exception.
Mercury ointment cost seven cents a jar, and mercury pills three cents apiece.
Cheap like peanuts on a street corner vendor's cart.
Ordinary low-class patients usually relied on these to hold on for a few months, with the lucky ones dragging it out for several years.
Of course, by the end of it, their teeth would fall out one by one, their gums would turn black, and a sweet, cloying smell of decay would forever linger in their mouths.
But for Evan's current financial situation, this stuff was the only choice.
He picked up two small off-white pills.
The pills were slightly larger than peas, with rough surfaces, and shed a tiny bit of powder when crushed between his fingertips.
He tossed them into his mouth.
The pills laboriously passed through his swollen throat, scraping against the inflamed mucous membranes as they slid into his stomach, leaving a burning trail behind.
Evan swallowed twice with a frown, forcing down the urge to retch.
Then, a prompt popped up in his field of vision.
[You have taken mercury pills. Drug duration: 6 hours.]
[Effect: Syphilitic rash slightly subsides.]
[Would you like to reverse the side effects?]
Seeing this line of text, Evan's heart was filled with anticipation: "Reverse!"
[You have reversed the side effects of the mercury pills.]
[Your peptic ulcer has been alleviated! 12% → 11%]
[Your cranial nerve damage has been alleviated! 17% → 16%]
[Your oral cavity has been strengthened, physique permanently +0.001.]
After reading the prompt, the corners of Evan's mouth split into a grin.
In this moldy, shabby apartment plastered with old newspapers, a nineteen-year-old youth riddled with disease revealed his very first sincere smile since transmigrating.
"0.001? Fine, even a mosquito's leg is meat."
Thinking of this, he casually picked up the jar of mercury ointment, unscrewed the iron lid, scooped out a lump of dark gray grease with his index finger, and was about to smear it on the red blotch on his arm.
[Warning: Only one type of the same substance medication can take effect.]
Evan's hand paused in mid-air, curled his lip, scraped the grease back into the jar, and wiped his fingers on his trouser leg.
"Fine, then let's look at other drugs."
He picked up a small glass vial.
The vial was barely thicker than a thumb, with no label on the body, only a symbol he didn't recognize carved on the bottom.
After pulling out the cork, four black mud pills rolled out from inside, each exuding a strange odor.
Unlike medicine, it smelled more like humus soil in the forest after the rain, mixed with some indescribable pungency.
This was what he had just collected today from Professor Pulis, who taught him biology.
When the pale professor handed him this small vial, he hadn't even blinked his eyes behind his lenses,
only saying, "Take it on time, record your reactions, and taking it can enhance your physical fitness."
After all, as a signatory of the Financial Aid Agreement, cooperating with the school laboratory's experiments was his duty.
It was written in black and white on the contract.
Originally, he had some misgivings about these black pills of unknown origin.
But now with his talent in hand, he directly picked up one and tossed it into his mouth.
The moment the mud pill entered his mouth, his tongue tasted a strong bitterness, followed by a bizarre numbness that spread all the way from the root of his tongue to his throat.
[You have taken the unfinished Night Demon Potion. Drug duration: 12 hours.]
[Effect: Permanently increases physique by 0.2]
[Do you wish to reverse the side effects?]
"Good grief... A magic potion?"
Evan abruptly sat up straight from the chair, the chair legs scraping a sharp, piercing sound across the floor.
"Isn't this the kind of medicine only used by those in legends who master extraordinary powers?"
"How could it appear in a university..."
His brain spun rapidly, his pupils contracting slightly in the dim light of the kerosene lamp.
"Wait... Could it be that someone is using us mortals to experiment with extraordinary drugs?"
The moment this thought popped up, a chill crept up his spine.
This wasn't unfounded.
In this bustling yet filthy metropolis, all kinds of rumors had never stopped.
The workers in the dock district said that deep in the sewers there were ghouls devouring the corpses of vagrants, and the names of those missing people would never appear in any newspaper.
The textile factory in the East District had an inexplicable gas explosion last year, and right after the explosion, the factory was dismantled overnight.
The land was bought by someone the very next day, with no investigation, no reports, and nothing at all.
And his own parents who had suddenly "committed suicide."
And in the school's underground pipeline system, legend had it that a maintenance worker once ran out screaming,
claiming he saw something, only to be sent to a sanatorium, and no one ever saw them again.
The lower-class people believed in the existence of the extraordinary.
In the taverns, the laundries, and the back pews of the church, people lowered their voices to exchange those impossible stories.
Yet the authorities always denied it.
The explanations in the newspapers were always reasonable and sound: gas leaks, mental derangement, alcoholism-induced hallucinations, case closed.
Science was the new gospel of this era, and things outside of the gospel were not allowed to exist.
"Since Arkham already exists, it means there's definitely something wrong with this world."
Evan's eyes lit up. That wasn't the light of fear, but a feverish heat that only a gambler seeing his bottom card would have.
He smacked the bitterness left by that black mud pill in his mouth, his gaze returning to the small glass vial in his hand, resting on the remaining three black pills.
"Since you treat us ordinary students as consumable test subjects for drugs, don't blame me for tearing your hypocritical hoods off."
"Reverse."
[Reversal Progress: 4 hours.]
"Tch! It still needs a cast time!"
Obviously, magic potions were not on the same level as ordinary medicines.
The side effects of the mercury pills had been reversed instantly.
At this moment, a subtle warm current rose from his stomach, climbing upward along his spine.
This warmth came quickly and left just as fast, jumping violently as it passed his heart, startling him into involuntarily shuddering as if taking off.
Then, that withered, icy body—which felt like it had been lying in a morgue for three days—finally gained a shred of a living person's temperature.
Not much, but enough for him to confirm he was still alive.
Evan moved his fingers, feeling the numbness in his fingertips recede a bit.
The magic potion took effect extremely fast!
"Instant action? As expected of a magic potion!"
Just as Evan was marveling...
A fierce wave of dizziness poured down from the top of his head, as if someone had pressed his head into water.
Immediately afterward, a large patch of cold sweat instantly broke out across his back, sticking his shirt to his spine, wet and chilly.
[Hypoglycemia: 30%... 40%... 51%...]
Red text prompts appeared on the panel.
"The magic potion has taken effect?"
His physique was growing, his body was rebuilding, and the rebuilding required fuel.
That black mud pill was consuming the meager blood sugar reserves left in his body at an astonishing rate.
Accompanied by dizziness, Evan could indeed feel something happening deep within his body.
His muscle fibers were slightly trembling, and a tiny aching sensation came from his bones—a strange feeling where pain and growth coexisted.
His body was growing stronger, but if his blood sugar hit zero first, he would pass out cold before getting stronger.
He struggled to stand up from the chair, his knees going weak as he almost knelt down, steadying his footing only by grabbing the edge of the table.
Then he stumbled and pushed open the bedroom door. That thin wooden door patched with old newspapers banged loudly under his palm, almost coming off its rusted hinges.
The living room was narrow, only five or six steps away, but he walked as if he were wading across a river.
The creaking floorboards each seemed to be discussing whether to break right then and there.
His hips collided with the armrest of the patch-filled canvas sofa in the living room, causing the sofa to slide back half a foot, revealing a patch of grayish-black dust underneath.
The kitchen had no door, only a narrow doorway half-obscured by a floral cloth curtain.
He yanked the curtain aside and plunged in.
His palms trembling violently, he pulled open the peeling, cracked cabinet door.
The hinges let out a sharp, miserable scream, and the white paint on the door panel peeled off like fish scales, dropping onto the stove.
His hands fumbled blindly inside the cabinet, knocked over an empty tin can, and finally grabbed the old, battered iron biscuit tin.
The "Unida" lettering printed on the tin had rubbed off until only a blurry outline remained.
He unscrewed the lid; there were no biscuits inside, only half a small jar of brown sugar that had caked into a hard lump with damp edges.
He shoved his hand straight in, grabbed a large handful, and stuffed it into his mouth.
The cloying sweetness of the brown sugar exploded across the surface of his tongue, the rough grains grinding against his teeth, and some of the crumbs choked his windpipe. He coughed twice, didn't stop, and grabbed another handful.
The sweetness slid down his esophagus like pouring gasoline into an engine about to stall.
By the time the third handful was shoved into his mouth, Evan already felt a sour and cloying taste in his mouth.
Yet his hypoglycemic state was finally slowly receding, and the trembling in his fingers gradually subsided.
[Hypoglycemia has been resolved.]