Hill's face was a picture of shock and bewilderment.
Looking at the Demon Hunter, now pale and dangerously alluring, Evan hurried to steer his thoughts away from temptation.
This sultry, bad-girl type of older woman was exactly Evan's type.
"What's the Black Blood System?"
Hill turned toward him, her Golden Slit Pupils fixed on him as though he were a man with three heads.
She took a deep breath and began to explain.
"Once the Demon Hunter Trait is awakened, it has three major signs: white hair, Golden Slit Pupils, and Black Blood."
"Every Magic Potion is highly toxic. Demon Hunters rely on them in battle, so we need a powerful detoxification system to fight those toxins."
"That system lets us take multiple Magic Potions at once and stack their effects in combat."
"Black Blood is a key part of it—the clearest sign of our resistance to poison."
She pointed at her neck.
"And my Black Blood System treated that drop of your blood as a Magic Potion."
"Damn it, your blood is nearly as toxic as a whole bottle of Basilisk Potion."
Evan blinked, trying to ease the tension.
"Maybe you're just too sensitive?"
"Heh, heh..."
Hill discovered that when someone was utterly at a loss for words, frustration really could make her laugh.
She took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the corner of her mouth. The black liquid she had spat out immediately stained the cloth.
"You little brat, let me put it this way."
She pointed at Evan's chest.
"There isn't a single drop of clean blood left in your body. It's all drugs."
"All that blood... no, bodily fluid would be the better term. There's enough of it to temporarily paralyze a Low-Level Bloodthirsty Species."
Hearing that, Evan felt a strange surge of satisfaction and pride.
So taking enough drugs actually gave my blood a supernatural effect!?
"Then, Master, will you protect me from the shadows?"
He ventured the question.
"My blood definitely won't work on Pulis, but if he attacks me outright, I won't last more than a few seconds."
By then, Hill had nearly finished neutralizing the poison.
She spat another mouthful of black saliva into the toilet. The black veins on her neck faded visibly, her Golden Slit Pupils turned blue again, and her silver hair slowly regained its original warm gold.
"I don't have time," she said, straightening the collar she had rumpled.
"I've got other work to handle lately."
She paused.
"But I'll have my senior fellow apprentice come protect you. It's about time you two met anyway. We're all fellow apprentices now."
"He's much stronger than I am."
She tugged the brim of her hat lower and winked.
"Just keep going to class as usual. Starting today, he'll be watching over you from the shadows."
"Anyone who tries to attack you directly will have to get past him first."
Evan's shoulders finally relaxed.
"Thank you so much. Now I can keep taking my drugs without worrying."
Hill's mouth twitched.
Evan glanced at his Pocket Watch. It was almost seven.
He snatched up his schoolbag and rushed out of the Washroom.
"I have to go, Master. If I don't leave now, I'll miss the Streetcar."
Hill was left standing alone in the Washroom.
Watching Evan disappear through the door, she braced a hand on the edge of the sink and shook her head helplessly.
"Is everyone from Arkham this strange?"
Evan caught the Streetcar on time and reached school before seven thirty, as usual.
The classes were the same as always.
But he could clearly feel that his classmates' looks had grown much less hostile.
Word of what had happened on the Sports Ground yesterday had undoubtedly spread through Miss Hurst, who had the whole school's attention.
For someone of her standing, a single remark could change how wealthy students ranked a poor student overnight.
More importantly, after Miss Hurst had approached him, the poor kid had not presumed to overstep his bounds.
That convinced the rich students that Evan knew his place.
Naturally, most of their hostility faded.
Eleven in the morning.
Chemistry class was halfway through, and Professor Mons had just erased a line of equations from the blackboard.
A string of notifications suddenly appeared on Evan's Panel.
The eighty-eight hours were up.
[You reversed the side effects of the incomplete Demon Hunter Transformation Potion.] [Your memory increased dramatically. Spirit permanently increased by 0.3.] [Your sense of taste increased dramatically. Physique permanently increased by 0.1.] [Your reproductive ability increased dramatically. Physique permanently increased by 0.3.]
Sitting in the back row, Evan stared at the lines on his Panel and nearly choked on the water he had just drunk.
He quickly lowered his head and pretended to take notes while his mind raced.
Well, damn.
The potion's side effects are memory loss, loss of taste, and outright infertility?
But on second thought, the logic clicked.
Taking large quantities of Magic Potions was bound to damage the brain's nerves. There was no question about it.
For Demon Hunters, whose entire Profession was built on Magic Potions, memory loss was an unavoidable price.
Losing one's sense of taste seemed more like an adaptation.
A Demon Hunter had to swallow Magic Potions with bizarre smells and stranger tastes year after year.
If his taste buds stayed as sensitive as an ordinary person's, every day would be torture.
As for reproductive ability...
Evan discreetly tapped the tip of his Fountain Pen twice against his scratch paper.
Demon Hunters are like those...
Images of the "chemically enhanced athletes" from gyms back on Earth surfaced in his mind.
When people take external hormones for too long, their bodies' own production shuts down.
Inject enough testosterone, and your balls naturally shrink.
Once he made that connection, the entire system of Demon Hunter side effects made sense to him.
And as he thought about it, he felt the change.
His memory became astonishingly clear.
Every word Professor Mons had said at the lectern, every pause, every tap of chalk against the blackboard seemed precisely engraved inside his skull.
The taste buds in his mouth became extraordinarily sharp.
The lingering notes of his morning coffee, the metallic taste of Fountain Pen ink, the faint bitterness of chalk dust drifting in the air—each flavor stood out distinctly on his tongue.
And the sensation in his lower body...
Evan suppressed an urge to laugh.
Those numbers aren't broad increases diluted across the whole attribute. They're targeted boosts to specific abilities.
He analyzed it rapidly.
Physique and spirit each covered many different aspects.
An ordinary, general increase to [Physique] or [Spirit] would be spread across all of them.
But this was different.
A boost to one specific aspect could show up on the Panel as an increase equal to a third of an ordinary person's Physique.
That meant the improvements to his memory, sense of taste, and reproductive ability weren't minor gains. Each had multiplied severalfold!
A huge boost! A massive boost!! An absolutely insane boost!!!
After all, stronger reproductive ability could not immediately or directly improve immunity, resistance to blows, endurance, or strength.
Nor could better memory improve reaction speed, reasoning, speed of thought, or resistance to corruption.
Yet those two specific abilities had each gained 0.3.
There was no dilution. The numbers represented direct increases to those functions.
In gaming terms, these were precious standalone multipliers!
Evan looked down at the changing numbers on his Panel.
He felt as though he were nearing the threshold of a photographic memory.
If he deliberately committed something to memory, it was as though the information had been welded into his mind, never to fade.
This feels incredible.
Better reproductive ability, testosterone through the roof—this makes me a literal Eight-Testicle Warrior!
He thought that silently, then wrote out Professor Mons's earlier explanation of chlorine gas production on his scratch paper without missing a word.
[Physique: 2.013 → 2.433] [Spirit: 1.107 → 1.477]
Now those are stats.
Evan lightly tapped the edge of his scratch paper.
For the rest of the day, he studied with an efficiency that would have left even the best students in the dust.
Every reaction equation Professor Mons explained, every property of every compound.
Every grammar chart the German teacher put up, every word's grammatical gender.
Every calculus formula derived in Mathematics class.
Whatever he wanted to remember felt as though an invisible hand had pressed it into his mind.
Through the classes that followed, he felt like a spectator watching himself absorb the knowledge of this era at a speed far beyond anyone else's.