A Proper Student, Only Eating Nine Potions a Day

Evan suddenly opened his eyes.

It was still dark outside.

The last dim, yellow remnants of the streetlights filtered through the gap in the curtains.

But his eyes were unusually clear, his pupils rapidly adjusting their focus in the darkness.

He felt utterly refreshed.

His brain felt as though someone had rinsed it with ice water, every synapse firing with remarkable efficiency.

Even counting the twenty-nine years of Evan's life on Earth, he had not slept this well in a very, very long time.

The feeling was like waking naturally on the first morning of summer vacation as a child, sunlight on his face and the whole world brand-new.

"Chicken you~!"

He abruptly sat up in bed, making the springs let out a strange squeal.

A cheap brass alarm clock sat on the bedside table, its numbers barely visible in the darkness.

The hour hand pointed at three, the minute hand at twelve.

Three o'clock in the morning.

"I slept... four hours?"

"But why do I feel so refreshed, as though I'd been enlightened?"

"Could all four hours have been deep sleep?"

He sat on the edge of the bed, his bare feet on the cold wooden floor, feeling every signal sent by this body.

His heartbeat was steady and his breathing smooth. His limbs were still frail, but that helpless feeling that he might fall apart at any moment had eased considerably.

At three in the morning, Bolton City had finally quieted down.

November weather had driven away many things that made noise in summer.

The gangsters had returned to their dens, and the vagrants had sunk into drunken sleep in some corner.

It was as if someone had pressed the mute button on the entire world.

Yet amid that silence, Evan discovered that he could hear sounds he had never noticed before.

Near the wall, a rat's claws scratched at the dirt, the faint friction sounding like someone sanding something.

In the living room, the wooden frame of the canvas sofa shrank slightly in the nighttime temperature difference, occasionally letting out a crisp little crack.

Outside the window, an empty tin can was pushed by the wind across the cobblestones, clattering farther and farther away before hitting something and stopping.

Every sound came through in crystal clarity, as though someone had turned up the volume in his ears by two notches.

More importantly, his ability to concentrate had improved.

Evan realized this, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.

Then he looked at the status panel on his retina.

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

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

[Night Demon Potion: Digesting. Physique +0.2. 8 hours remaining.]

[Side-effect reversal complete!]

"It's finished digesting?" Evan hurriedly looked down.

[You have reversed the side effects of the incomplete Night Demon Potion.]

[Your anemia has been greatly alleviated! 65% → 30%]

[Your self-healing ability has permanently increased by 2%]

"So the anemia was alleviated! No wonder I feel so much better."

He briefly sensed the changes in his body, then turned his attention back to the messages on the panel and began to think.

"Judging from the effects of the Mercury Pill and Phenobarbital, reversal turns the values that were originally reduced by side effects into bonuses."

"Mercury poisoning causes ulcerated gums and loose teeth, so after reversal, it strengthened my teeth."

"Mercury poisoning causes gastrointestinal ulcers and damage to the brain's nerves, so after reversal, those two areas were repaired."

"Then following that logic, the side effects of this incomplete Night Demon Potion should be..."

"Worsening anemia and a permanent reduction in the body's self-healing ability."

He paused, still shaken. "One pill, and it sends you straight down the road to diabetes?"

Evan was shocked by the potion's potency, and even more shocked by how inhuman the school was.

Feeding this stuff to students—what kind of eyes were hidden behind Pulis's lenses?

"Forget it. I should get familiar with my body while I can."

With that thought, he stood from the bed, his bare feet stepping onto the cold floor as he felt every signal coming from this body.

The shell that had been so weak it staggered while walking only a few hours ago now had a little of a living person's vigor.

His previously stiff, numb limbs had become more agile. The dizziness and ringing in his ears remained, but had eased substantially.

His inflamed throat and lungs felt much better, and his breathing no longer carried that irritating, hurried whistle.

His icy hands and feet finally had some warmth, as though his blood had remembered how to flow again.

He took a couple of laps around the room.

His skinny legs seemed a little thicker, and a thin outline of muscle could be felt on his calves. His steps were steady and strong.

Evan returned to the desk, picked up the canvas schoolbag hanging from the back of the chair, undid the clasp, and stacked the textbooks inside onto the desk.

He was currently majoring in six subjects: chemistry, biology, physics, English, mathematics, and German.

Tomorrow—no, today's classes were chemistry, physics, English, and mathematics, all four crammed into the morning.

Each class lasted an hour, with ten-minute breaks in between.

Practical classes and small-group memorization sessions began at one in the afternoon, and he would not have any time to himself until after four.

Professor Mons had assigned a mountain of homework in chemistry class the day before yesterday, some to write and some to memorize.

Unfortunately, Evan had been muddled and dazed these past two days. He had not even had the strength to open a textbook, let alone do a single word of homework.

He took out his chemistry notebook and assignment sheets and spread them over the desk. The chemical formulas and equations looked like a neat row of tiny bugs.

Evan sighed.

"I've already transmigrated. Do I still have to study chemistry?"

Then, the next second, four times his concentration crashed down like a gate, shutting out every stray thought.

His pupils contracted slightly, his gaze locking onto the first line of his notebook. The entire world fell silent.

"Dalton's atomic theory, the Mendeleev Periodic Table..."

His eyes swept over every page of notes, every formula, and every supplementary explanation dictated by the professor with almost mechanical efficiency.

Incredibly smooth!

At the same time, his right hand flew across the assignment paper. The scratch of his fountain pen against paper was steady and urgent in the quiet pre-dawn hours, like a well-oiled sewing machine.

Time slipped away without him noticing.

The oil in the kerosene lamp sank by more than half an inch, and the wick had burned into a blackened stub.

The light through the curtains changed from dim yellow to gray-white, then from gray-white to pale gold.

Three sheets of assignment paper on the desk were already filled, and the notebook had been turned to its final pages.

When the bell tower of some distant church struck seven times, Evan suddenly came back to himself.

That feeling of concentration ebbed away like the tide, and the world became noisy and cluttered again.

Mary shifted in the room next door, horseshoes began clattering along the street, and a baby downstairs started crying.

He was an ordinary person again.

But his homework was done.

At least ten hours of homework across four subjects had been finished in one stretch of four hours.

"Time to go to school."

Evan quickly opened the wardrobe missing one handle.

There was pitifully little hanging inside: two shirts. One was gray, its collar frayed; the other was white, with a yellow sweat stain beneath the arm that would not wash out.

He chose the gray one and put on a dark brown tweed jacket. Its elbows were patched, it was missing a button, and a knot of matching thread had been sewn on as a substitute.

His trousers were dark and covered in pills, the knees slightly baggy and impossible to restore no matter how much they were ironed.

He slipped on a pair of faded secondhand leather shoes. The soles were worn thin, and the heel of the left shoe was a little crooked, making a faintly uneven clicking sound when he walked.

He entered the washroom next door and splashed his face haphazardly with cold water. It made him shudder, but cleared his head a little more.

He looked up at the cracked mirror hanging on the wall. It reflected black hair, black eyes, and a young, gaunt face with prominent cheekbones and deeply sunken eye sockets.

Good features, but thin enough to look misshapen.

He slung on his schoolbag and headed out.

He made his way down the crowded stairs, where the corridor was piled with clutter:

Broken wooden crates, rolled-up old carpets, a child's cart missing its front wheel, and several empty bottles.

Large patches of paint had peeled off the walls, exposing the dull gray brick beneath.

The air was thick with the mingled smells of boiled cabbage, damp wood, and urine—the eternal body odor of cheap apartment buildings.

He pushed open the heavy sheet-metal door on the ground floor, and the street rushed at him.

It was bustling.

Both sides of Gooding Street were lined with three- and four-story red-brick buildings. With age, their brickwork had been blackened dark brown by coal smoke, as if coated in a layer of filthy glaze.

All manner of shops occupied the ground floors along the street, their storefronts narrow and their signs crooked.

Old Tom from the cobbler's shop was already seated on a low stool outside, hard at work with a boot clamped between his knees and several shoe nails in his mouth.

The oven in the bakery next door had been lit before dawn, and the air carried the sour aroma of cheap rye bread.

Farther down was a blacksmith's shop. Its furnace had not yet fully heated up, and an Apprentice was working the bellows in a dull, monotonous rhythm.

A small clinic was squeezed around the corner. A row of faded medicine bottles sat in the glass display window by the door, and "Tooth Extraction, 25 Cents" was scrawled crookedly on the glass in red paint.

Filthy water from the night before had collected between the stones. Mixed with horse manure, vegetable leaves, and scraps of paper, it had been churned into a sticky slurry by passing feet and wheels.

Dockworkers in overalls walked by in groups of three or five, their iron-toed boots thudding against the cobblestones as they shouted and traded crude jokes, their laughter rough and uninhibited.

A newsboy stood beneath a lamppost at the street corner, a stack of freshly ink-scented Bolton Morning News tucked beneath his arm as he shouted at the top of his lungs:

"Steel magnate buys three more mines! An unidentified floater found at the East District docks! One cent! Just one cent!"

Freight wagons shuttled back and forth through the narrow street, their wheels rumbling dully over the stone road.

An old chestnut horse passed by, hauling a cart piled high with ice. Meltwater dripped from the rear of the cart, tracing a dark wet line through the mud.

The smell of fish, dirt, horse manure, and cheap tobacco wrapped around one another in layers, like an invisible filthy blanket smothering the entire street.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

Evan's pneumonia had not fully healed, and the mixed stench made him break into a violent coughing fit. He bent over, coughing until tears came to his eyes.

He covered his mouth with his sleeve and hurried through the crowd reeking of sweat until he reached a food cart by the roadside.

An elderly Italian man ran the cart. An iron pot and a tin coffee pot rested atop it; several rows of sliced dark bread were warming in the pot, while a thin stream of white steam rose from the coffee pot's spout.

A piece of dark bread cost three cents, and a cup of black coffee cost two.