Evan studied Lane.
Lane looked like a different person now.
He had been thin before, but his skin had been clear and pale, and there had still been some light in his eyes.
Now his face had a sickly yellow cast, as though someone had coated it in cheap wax.
His eyes were bloodshot and sunken, his lips dry and peeling.
His breathing was quick and shallow, and every breath carried a heavy stench, as if something were rotting inside him.
His cheeks had hollowed out, his cheekbones jutted, and he swayed where he stood, as though a breeze might knock him over.
Lane looked at Evan, disbelief flashing in his eyes.
"My God, how do you look so healthy?"
His voice was hoarse and weak, his eyes full of envy and confusion.
"Didn't we test the drugs together? I heard Professor Pulis even gave you a Blood-Loss Pill."
He lowered his voice and unconsciously leaned toward Evan.
"Tank... he..."
His lips trembled.
"He died from the pills. I heard his parents got a sum of money and moved away."
Evan fell silent for a moment.
Tank.
He remembered the name. A quiet, hulking young man who had signed the same Financial Aid Agreement and taken the same Magic Potion as him.
"Maybe I'm more resistant to the drugs," Evan said.
He looked at Lane's waxen face and softened his tone.
"Friend, you don't look well."
Lane gave a bitter smile. On his gaunt face, it looked especially bleak.
"No, I don't feel well at all."
He lowered his head, his voice barely more than a murmur to himself.
"My stomach hurts. I can't eat."
"It feels like something's growing inside my stomach. Something hard. It hurts when I press on it."
"My urine's the color of tea. The doctor said I have too much bile."
"I've tried all kinds of treatments. Goldthread was so bitter it made me want to vomit."
"Sulfur had me rolling on the floor with stomach pain."
"I even drank water steeped with dandelion root. Enemas, bloodletting..."
He listed the folk remedies one by one, his voice growing fainter, as if reciting a list of prescriptions that had done nothing.
As Evan listened, complicated feelings welled up in him.
Without the Power of the Nine Dragons, he would probably be in much the same state as Lane.
"I think I'm going to die."
Lane's voice suddenly shook, and tears filled his bloodshot eyes.
"But I don't want to die."
His feeble fingers gripped the corner of his clothes, trembling with the effort.
"I'm only nineteen. There's a girl I like."
"I got into Sage University. My mother spent three years sewing buttons in a factory to pay my tuition. She's nearly gone blind."
Evan didn't know what to say.
Some suffering could not be soothed with a simple "It'll get better."
Lane took a deep breath, wiped his eyes with his sleeve, and struggled to steady his voice.
"Someone told me the Healing Church had medicine for liver disease, so I came to try it."
Evan nodded.
"I have similar symptoms, just not as bad. I thought I'd give it a try too."
Hearing that Evan was not entirely healthy either, Lane relaxed a little.
Sometimes shared suffering did more than any words of comfort.
They stood one behind the other in line, chatting off and on.
"I heard about what happened between you and Thompson's group."
At the mention of it, light suddenly returned to Lane's eyes, a rare spark of life in someone so ill.
"You're an idol and a role model to all of us!"
"I've hated those rich kids for ages, but what could I do?"
"Which of us poor students hasn't had our notes torn up or our bags thrown around by them?"
"But you stood up to them and won. You're the first."
Evan gave a rueful smile.
"The whole school acts like I don't exist. You call that winning?"
Lane sighed, a helpless smile crossing his sallow face.
"What can we do? We're poor."
As they talked, the line shuffled forward a few steps, and their turn came.
"May the Heavenly Father protect you, child."
The middle-aged nun spoke with calm compassion, her gaze resting gently on Evan's face.
"What ails you?"
Evan put on a pained expression and pressed a hand to his abdomen.
"It hurts here, and my intestines hurt too. The doctor said there's something wrong with my liver, so I thought I'd come try the medicine."
The nun sighed. "You poor child."
She turned, took a small black medicine bottle from a wooden chest, and handed it to Evan.
It was only a little thicker than his thumb and had no label, just a symbol carved into the bottom that he did not recognize.
"This is a week's supply. Take one pill every morning and evening."
She paused, her tone turning slightly more serious.
"To keep people from lying to us for medicine to resell, you must take one here first."
"Trust me. You'll feel much better once you do."
Evan immediately went on alert.
What kind of medicine worked the instant you swallowed it?
But he did not refuse.
With the Panel and his Talent, he felt confident enough to try it, whatever trick the medicine might conceal.
He unscrewed the cap and tipped out a pill.
It was smaller than an ordinary tablet, a dull copper-green with a smooth surface and a faint metallic sheen in the morning light.
It felt slightly cool in his hand and was heavier than a normal pill.
He popped it into his mouth and swallowed.
[You have taken a Test Copper Pill. Duration: 10 hours.] [Effects: Powerful pain relief; permanently reduces pain perception; permanently increases your Blood Quality by 0.1%.]
Evan's heart jolted.
"A Copper Pill? A pill made of copper?"
Permanently reduces pain perception.
The words exploded in his mind.
At first glance, it sounded like a good thing. Who wouldn't want to feel less pain?
But one moment's thought revealed the trap.
Pain was the body's warning system.
It made people wary of danger and alert to injury and illness.
If someone gradually lost the ability to feel pain, they would ignore small injuries and fail to notice minor illnesses. By the time they discovered the problem, it could have become serious and irreversible.
Their body could be falling apart without them even realizing it.
It was a slow, insidious trap.
"And it improves Blood Quality? Does this have something from the Vampire Race in it too?"
"Just as I thought. This isn't good medicine."
Evan was not surprised.
Free things came at the highest price. That held true in any world.
There was no such thing as a free lunch.
[Reverse the Side Effects?]
"Reverse them."
[You have reversed the Test Copper Pill's Side Effects.] [Your Liver Damage has eased: 41% → 40%.] [Your Kidney Function has improved. Physique permanently +0.001.] [Your Bone Strength has improved. Physique permanently +0.002.]
"Leave it to the Church to open with something this nasty."
Evan stared at the reversed effects on the Panel, shock surging through him.
The pill's Side Effect was copper poisoning.
Long-term use would damage the liver and kidneys, corrode the bones, and eventually cause every organ in the body to fail.
Meanwhile, its supposed benefits—powerful pain relief and a permanent reduction in pain perception—would keep the person taking it from feeling themselves being poisoned to death.
"If Lane takes this, he might not even last a week."
He turned instinctively to look at Lane beside him.
The sallow young man was reverently accepting a bottle from the nun, his face filled with the gratitude of a drowning man clutching a piece of driftwood.
Evan parted his lips, but in the end, he said nothing.
He did not yet have the power to change anything.
As his thoughts churned, he noticed a new entry in his status display.
[Copperization: 0.01%]
Evan stared at the line, his eyes widening in shock.
Copperization.
It was not a temporary status effect. It was a permanent change with a Progress Bar.
The same format as "Basic Sanguine."
It was a Beyonder Characteristic!!!