After dinner, Evan left his enamel plate soaking in a basin, returned to his bedroom, sat down at the desk, and opened his textbook.
"German is damn hard to learn."
Even with a physique twice as strong as an ordinary person's and a greatly enhanced brain, Evan found himself scratching his head over the grammar tables.
"Säure... Säure..."
He repeated the word for "acid" in his textbook several times. The more he said it, the more his tongue seemed to tie itself in knots.
"Damn it, why does it sound weirder every time?"
He turned the page and looked at three more basic nouns.
"Der Tisch, die Lampe, das Buch..."
"Table is masculine, lamp is feminine, and book is neuter."
Evan circled the three words on his scratch paper with his fountain pen, his frown deepening.
"There's no pattern at all."
He propped up his head and sighed.
"Nope. I'm dizzy."
He really was dizzy.
The acute anemia caused by the Blood-Burning Potion was still ravaging his body, sending throbs of pain through his temples.
His ears rang as though someone had pressed an old gramophone right up against them.
He gave up on German, switched to a friendlier chemistry manual, and forced himself to keep reading.
Time passed slowly in the dim glow of the kerosene lamp.
Five hours later.
Evan was copying notes on a chemical equation when the tip of his pen suddenly stopped against the paper.
The ringing in his ears was gone. So was the dizziness.
The weakness that had welled up from deep in his bones receded like a tide, and strength filled his body once more.
He had recovered.
Evan let out a long breath, set his pen back in the ink bottle, and rolled his shoulders.
[You reversed the side effects of the Incomplete Blood-Burning Potion.] [Beyonder Characteristic: Basic Sanguine +4%]
The brief result appeared before his eyes. Evan stared at it, his eyes lighting up.
"Basic Sanguine went up four percent at once?"
He sat up straight, his mind racing back to Gilbert's half-human, half-beast appearance on the sports ground.
Lengthened fangs, swollen muscles, and eyes gleaming dark red.
An ordinary test subject who took the potion but could not reverse its effects became an Incomplete Bloodthirsty Beast.
Evan had taken the same potion, but once he reversed its effects, the power that should have mutated him became progress toward the Beyonder Characteristic on his panel.
"So that's how it works."
A smile slowly spread across Evan's face.
"That means reversing any side effect that would turn someone into an Incomplete Bloodthirsty Beast can increase my Beyonder Characteristic."
"Now that's useful."
He glanced down. Basic Sanguine had jumped from eight percent to twelve percent.
He was another big step closer to the thirty-percent threshold needed to activate the basic characteristic.
Once he reached it, he could unlock the first stage of Physical Strength Enhancement and Self-Healing Enhancement.
He would have a body truly approaching the Beyonder.
Evan carefully tucked the two remaining bottles of Blood-Burning Potion into the hidden compartment beneath his bed. They were two "experience potions" for the future.
Then he took the first of the five new potions Pulis had given him that day from the inside pocket of his jacket.
This bottle was different from the earlier red potions.
Its liquid was dark brown, cloudy and viscous, and the wax seal over its mouth was black.
When he gently shook it, tiny particles could be seen floating and settling in the liquid.
Evan pushed off the wax seal with his thumb and sniffed.
There was no obvious smell.
But his partially assimilated Demon-Hunting Instinct told him this bottle was fiercer than any he had taken before.
"I've already drunk this many. Might as well."
He tipped his head back and swallowed the entire bottle of brown liquid in one gulp.
As it went down his throat, it lacked the bloody bite of the red potions. Instead, it carried an indescribable rotten smell, like old leather soaked in water.
[You consumed a Diluted Transformation Potion. Duration: 10 hours.] [Effect: Slowly gain Beyonder Characteristic: Basic Sanguine over the duration, for a total of 2%.] [Reverse the side effects?]
Evan stared at the words and fell silent for three seconds.
"Reverse them."
After confirming, he leaned back in his chair. His eyes gleamed as he stared at "Diluted Transformation Potion" on the panel.
"Pulis, looks like you're finally ready to make your move against me."
Transformation Potion.
The name alone sounded like bad news.
Ordinary enhancement potions had names like "Fresh Blood" and "Night Demon." The strengthening ingredient was called "Blood Wine."
But in the Beyonder world, the word "transformation" suggested something far more sinister.
Turning a person into something else.
"Just giving me a Beyonder Characteristic?"
Evan gave a cold laugh and tapped the desk twice.
"More like you're trying to turn me straight into a Blood Slave."
After drinking the Transformation Potion, Evan read for a while, then went straight to sleep.
When he opened his eyes the next morning, he immediately reached for the pocket watch on his bedside table.
The hands on its silver face pointed to six ten.
"Damn. I didn't review enough yesterday."
He sprang out of bed and walked to the desk while buttoning his shirt. He tipped a Copper Pill out of its bottle and popped it into his mouth.
"I need to find some Phenobarbital. Something that boosts concentration by three hundred percent is just too useful."
Fortunately, his fully recovered brain worked remarkably well.
He had also laid the groundwork with five hours of study the night before. He opened his textbook, and his pen flew across the scratch paper.
In an hour, he had gone over all the material he would need that day.
Evan flexed his wrist, drawing a few soft cracks from the joint.
He walked into the washroom, scooped up some cold water, and splashed it on his face.
Only when he looked up at the cracked mirror did he remember to check his panel.
[You reversed the side effects of the Diluted Transformation Potion.] [Your self-awareness increased. Spirit permanently +0.1.] [You like the sun more. Spirit permanently +0.05.]
"Just as I thought."
Evan stared at his reflection. Color had already returned to his face.
"The Transformation Potion's side effects lower self-awareness and make people gradually fear sunlight."
"Looks like Pulis really does intend to turn me into a Bloodthirsty Species."
A drop of water fell from his chin and struck the enamel basin with a soft plink.
"I'll have to talk to Hill after school today."
While he was thinking, that familiar voice sounded again, as if its owner had emerged straight from the shadows in the corner.
"Still no side effects?"
Evan sighed without turning around.
"Let me guess. You came in through the window again."
Hill leaned against the washroom doorframe, still wearing yesterday's outfit.
One button at the collar of her white shirt was undone. She wore a short brown wool jacket with checked trousers, and a few strands of golden hair peeked out from beneath her black newsboy cap.
Evan wiped his face, hung the towel on the washstand, and turned around.
"That's right. Nothing obvious."
After a moment's thought, he told her what had happened the night before.
"Master, I think Pulis is about to make his move against me."
"The potion he gave me yesterday seemed to lower my self-awareness and make me dislike sunlight a little more."
Hill's smile vanished instantly.
She stepped forward, her expression grave, and pressed her fingers against the artery in Evan's neck.
Her blue pupils contracted into golden slits. Light glimmered within her irises in the dim washroom.
She held that position for several seconds, then frowned.
"There's no tainted Vampire Race blood in your body. You haven't been infected."
"I just feel..." Evan shrugged.
"What he gave me yesterday wasn't ordinary."
He went to the bed, pulled one of the four remaining bottles of brown liquid from his jacket's inner pocket, and handed it to her.
Hill took the bottle, removed the wax seal, and held it to her nose.
Her face immediately darkened.
"Diluted Transformation Potion. You drank this?"
Evan nodded.
"Yeah. I feel pretty good."
The corners of Hill's mouth twitched twice.
"Can I taste a drop of your blood?"
Evan instinctively edged back half a step.
"I don't like pain."
Hill narrowed her golden slit pupils.
"You're a grown man. What the hell are you afraid of?"
The words had barely left her mouth when she flicked her wrist, and a silver needle as fine as a hair slipped between her fingers.
She caught Evan's left hand and lightly pricked the pad of his index finger. A dark red bead of blood welled up at once.
Hill touched the bead with the tip of her tongue.
She savored it carefully for three seconds.
Then her expression changed completely.
"Ugh! Pah! Pah, pah, pah!"
She spun around, lunged toward the toilet, and spat into it several times.
Evan watched her from behind. Dark black veins now crawled across the side of her lovely face.
They spread from her jaw up the side of her neck, like a living black vine twisting as it grew.
Her long golden hair visibly faded to white, finally turning silver as moonlight.
In the washroom's dim light, her golden slit pupils now gave off a faint glow.
"Verdammt! Damn it!"
She rinsed her mouth, speaking through gritted teeth.
"Is your blood nothing but potions?"
"That one drop of blood actually triggered my Black Blood System!"