I'm a Serious Student; I Only Take Nine Kinds of Potions Every Day

He looked up and glared at Yuri, his eyes burning with offended fury.

"Whose blood is this?"

Yuri recoiled half a step at his reaction. He had worked beside Pierson for nearly a year, yet he had never seen the young man lose his composure like this.

Even when Pierson had previously tasted the pus-and-blood-mixed urine of a patient in the late stages of Syphilis, he had merely frowned.

"Arkham, Mr. Pierson," Yuri said cautiously.

"That young university student. One of the Syphilis-infected subjects mass-produced two months ago on your orders."

At the name "Arkham," Pierson's frown deepened.

"Arkham."

He quietly repeated the surname, as though chewing on a sour, bitter fruit.

"What an unlucky surname."

He clenched his teeth, and his expression grew uglier by the second.

The lingering taste on his tongue continued to spread. A mixture so complex it defied common sense unfolded across his Beyonder sense of taste like a scalp-numbing chart.

"What medicines has this bastard been taking these past few days?"

His voice carried an irritation that bordered on collapse.

"The scent of Sanguine blood. The stench of Demon Hunters. And the smell of the Healing Church's dungeons!"

Yuri's eyes widened, his lips parting slightly.

He was only an ordinary person.

But he was, after all, a servant on the outer perimeter of the Red King Laboratory. He knew a little about Beyonders, especially the territorial divisions and spheres of influence of the various factions in Bolton City.

Sanguine. Demon Hunters. Healing Church.

Any one of those three names was beyond the level of someone like Yuri to provoke.

Yet traces of all of them had appeared in a poor student's blood.

Pierson's expression worsened.

He pinched his nose with one hand and fumbled across the operating table with the other, grabbing a bottle of water and taking another huge gulp.

"Ugh."

That bizarre odor, mixed with multiple Beyonder components, was infinitely amplified by his Beyonder-enhanced smell and taste, assaulting his brain and senses like madness.

His tongue no longer felt like a tongue. It felt like a rag soaked in filthy water.

"Damn it, this bastard also took the Copper Pills those nuns hand out downstairs."

He forced the words through clenched teeth, his voice warping as he fought back the urge to vomit.

"Is his brain full of shit? Does he just shove every medicine he sees into his mouth?"

He rinsed his mouth several times in a row, viciously spitting the water into the enamel basin beside him each time.

As he rinsed, he continued dry-heaving, his shoulders jerking up and down as his refined appearance completely fell apart.

By the sixth rinse, Pierson finally managed to suppress the last trace of that strange taste.

He spat out the final mouthful of water and straightened up, pale-faced and covered in a fine layer of sweat.

"I knew it."

He gritted his teeth, his voice full of suppressed anger.

"Those nuns have been handing out Copper Pills downstairs lately. Sure enough, they're up to no good."

He turned to look at Evan's file on the operating table.

The moment he lowered his head and skimmed two lines, a sudden wave of dizziness struck him.

His body swayed, and he braced himself against the edge of the operating table to barely steady himself.

Pierson raised a hand to his forehead.

Then his pupils abruptly dilated.

He had been poisoned.

Just from tasting two drops of that poor student's blood.

He, a [Treant Pathway] Beyonder, had actually been poisoned.

Though it was only mild dizziness, he had undeniably been poisoned!

Leaning against the operating table, he slowly adjusted his breathing while dragging the file over in front of him.

Sage University. Chemistry Department.

Signatory of the impoverished student aid agreement.

His gaze swept over the name "Pulis" and stopped.

"Sage University."

His voice had regained some calm, though it still carried weak, labored breaths.

"I remember there are vampires from the Batrus Family there."

He flipped to the next page and continued reading.

"Looks like this bastard has taken quite a few of those vampires' potions at school."

He paused and shook his head, as if confirming that what he had just seen was real.

"But he didn't die? He even looks pretty healthy? What the hell."

Yuri stood to one side, hardly daring to breathe.

Pierson remained silent for several seconds before slowly standing. The dizziness was gone.

His Beyonder physique had quickly neutralized the trace amount of Beyonder poison.

"Observe him for two days first and see what happens."

His voice turned cold.

"If he doesn't display the mutation we expected within those two days, throw him out."

He paused, then added,

"Don't explain anything. Just say he failed the screening and doesn't meet the requirements for the second phase of the experiment."

Yuri lowered his head. "Understood."

Beyonder Characteristic: Copper Plague

After giving the order, Pierson looked at Evan's black-and-white ID photograph attached to the file. A gaunt face, ordinary features, and a hint of the stubbornness unique to young people in his eyes.

He looked like an ordinary poor student.

But there was nothing ordinary about what ran through his blood.

Beneath the prosperous city, the various Beyonder factions maintained highly regulated territories and rules.

This was not a lone vampire, nor a lone Demon Hunter.

He was a freak tainted by Sanguine blood, the scent of Demon Hunters, and Healing Church medicine all at once.

The Red King Laboratory was not afraid of any of those factions.

But there was no need to provoke trouble from three powers at once over a Syphilis-infected test subject.

He did not want to provoke the wealthy, well-established noble vampires entrenched at Sage University.

Nor did he want to provoke those lowlife Demon Hunters, barefoot men unafraid of those wearing shoes, clinging like dogged plaster.

And there were also the black-robed lunatics and red-robed madmen hidden beneath the Healing Church's white robes.

Pierson straightened his suit jacket and adjusted his crooked bow tie, his tone regaining its arrogance.

"Collect every medicine he has on him. Don't let him take anything at random for the next two days!"

Yuri was highly efficient.

Just as Evan was bored out of his mind, the door opened. The sound was not loud, but the rhythm of boots on the wooden floor had changed.

Evan looked up and saw Yuri enter, followed by the sturdy, freckled nurse from the downstairs reception desk.

Her arms were folded across her chest. She looked less like a nurse than a thug.

"Hand over all the medicine on you."

There was no room for negotiation in Yuri's tone.

Evan's expression darkened, his brow tightly furrowed.

"Doctor, my stomach and intestines hurt terribly. I can't do without those medicines."

Yuri fell silent for a few seconds, his gaze behind gold-rimmed glasses lingering on Evan's face.

"I'll provide you with different painkillers."

Evan sighed and reluctantly pulled a small black medicine bottle from the inner pocket of his jacket.

It contained the Healing Church's Copper Pills.

He unscrewed the cap and poured out the pills one by one onto the bedsheet, muttering as he counted them.

"One, two, three... thirteen left."

He put the pills back into the bottle, screwed the cap tight, and handed it to Yuri.

"Remember to give it back."

Yuri took the bottle, did not even look at it, and slipped it directly into his white coat pocket.

"Anything else?"

Evan took out a bottle of Aspirin from another pocket and followed the same process, counting them before handing it over.

"Anything else?"

Evan hesitated, then dug a small bottle containing Mercury Pills out from deep within his trouser pocket.

The corner of Yuri's eye twitched.

When he accepted the third bottle, the look he gave Evan had changed from scrutiny to something indescribable.

A strange glint flashed through the eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses, one he did not even notice himself.

"How the fuck have you survived this long?"

Yuri sighed inwardly.

He shoved all three bottles into the deep pockets of his white coat, then turned and gestured for the nurse to step forward.

The freckled nurse's thick hands skillfully searched Evan's body.

From the outer pockets of his jacket to the inner ones, from his shirt pocket to his trouser pockets.

Her movements were brisk and efficient, without the slightest respect, as if she were rummaging through a bag of dirty clothes.

Evan cooperatively raised both hands and stared expressionlessly at the ceiling.

"That's all," the nurse told Yuri.

Yuri nodded and turned to leave.

A few minutes later, the door opened again.

A medicine bottle was tossed through the crack in the door. It bounced twice across the bedsheet before coming to a stop.

"Three pills each time, three times a day," a voice outside said flatly.

The door closed again.

In the testing room.

Yuri placed the three medicine bottles on the operating table in a row.

Pierson stared at the three bottles in silence for ten seconds.