I'm a Proper Student, I Only Take Nine Potions a Day

The Power of the Nine Dragons could reverse side effects. In theory, there was nothing he couldn't try.

He tipped his head back and drained the small bottle of spicy liquid in one gulp.

A scorching heat burned its way down his esophagus and into his stomach.

In an instant, his entire body felt as though someone had stuffed him into a red-hot copper furnace.

[You consumed an Incomplete Blood-Burning Potion. Duration: 5 hours.]

[Effect: Constitution permanently +0.2; during the duration, self-healing ability decreased by 300%, Blood Quality decreased by 50%.]

[Would you like to reverse the side effects?]

The next second, Evan's expression changed dramatically.

He felt like a balloon with its valve punctured, his whole body weak and hollow.

His Constitution stat was still there, but he could clearly sense some kind of "substance" within his body rapidly collapsing.

His skin began to feel faintly as if it were about to rot from the inside.

Worse still, his breathing became rapid, and that long-forgotten ringing in his ears and dizziness came rushing back.

The symptoms were almost exactly the same as when he had suffered severe anemia.

"Bro."

Evan slumped into the chair, both hands braced against the table.

"I'll never randomly take medicine again."

He stared at the two remaining Blood-Burning Potions on the table, on the verge of tears.

"What kind of shitty medicine is this?!"

Only then did Evan realize that he had still underestimated just how bizarre the potions in this world could be.

At least the ones Pulis had given him had been disguised as "health medicine" on the surface, and their positive effects matched their names.

But this thing...

"The reversal option is still there!"

"That means... reducing self-healing ability and Blood Quality are the positive effects of this potion, not the side effects."

"Fuck."

He pressed a hand to his forehead as his temples throbbed.

"What kind of proper medicine has reducing self-healing ability and Blood Quality as its positive effects..."

Halfway through the thought, Evan's pupils suddenly contracted.

"Wait."

"Blood-Burning Potion. Reduced self-healing ability. Reduced Blood Quality."

The scattered thoughts in his mind seemed to be seized by an invisible hand, instantly linking into a clear thread.

He raised his head and stared at the two remaining Blood-Burning Potions on the table.

The blood-colored liquid swayed faintly within the glass bottles, like a small section of venous blood sealed inside a tube.

"This is... a countermeasure potion specifically developed against the Bloodthirsty Species?"

At that thought, Evan's eyes lit up.

"Looks like Byron and Pulis aren't on the same side."

He stared at the two bottles of red liquid on the table, his breathing growing a little faster.

"This is a good opportunity."

"Reverse!"

[Reversal progress: 5 hours.]

"Good thing it's an incomplete version. The duration isn't too long."

"But carrying sacks tonight is out of the question. I'll eat first, then read for a while."

Evan pushed himself up from the table, his calves feeling a little weak.

He walked into the narrow kitchen, fished several chunks of coal from the iron bucket in the corner, and tossed them into the stove.

The orange-red coals gradually settled, casting a warm glow over the soot-blackened tiles in the kitchen.

None of the apartments on Gooding Street had gas service.

Every household had to go out and buy coal for cooking and boiling water.

A bag of ordinary bituminous coal cost twelve cents and lasted five or six days.

Evan took Pulis's leftovers from the cafeteria out of a biscuit tin, tipped them onto an enamel plate, and set it on the iron rack above the stove to warm.

The fried fish sizzled softly in the residual heat. The butter on the vegetables melted again and soaked into the bread crumbs.

He watched the dancing flames in the stove and sighed.

"I'm almost out of coal again. More money down the drain."

Over the past few days, he had just paid a monthly property tax of one dollar eighty cents, fifty cents for water, one dollar for kerosene, and eighty cents for a notebook and ink. All the miscellaneous expenses added up to several more dollars.

Adding the odd-job money he had earned testing potions and carrying sacks over the past few days, along with the eleven dollars he had found at the bottom of Mary's trunk...

His entire fortune now amounted to six dollars and forty-one cents.

Hill: Let Me Taste Your Blood

After dinner, he soaked the enamel plate in the washbasin, returned to the bedroom, sat at the desk, and opened his textbook.

"German is really hard to learn."

Even with twice the Constitution of an ordinary person and a greatly enhanced brain, Evan was still scratching his head over the grammar charts.

"Saure... Saure..."

He repeated the word for "acid" from the textbook several times, and the more he said it, the more his tongue seemed to knot up.

"Fuck, why does this a sound weirder the more I say it?"

He turned to the next page and looked at three other basic nouns.

"Der Tisch, die Lampe, das Buch..."

"The table is masculine, the lamp is feminine, and the book is neuter."

Evan circled the three words on his scratch paper with the tip of his fountain pen, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper.

"There's no pattern at all."

He propped his head up and sighed.

"No, I'm dizzy."

He really was dizzy.

The acute anemia caused by the Blood-Burning Potion was still raging through his veins, and his temples throbbed in waves.

His ears buzzed as though someone had pressed an old gramophone right beside them.

He simply gave up on German, switched to a relatively friendlier chemistry manual, and forced himself to keep reading.

Time slowly passed beneath the faint glow of the kerosene lamp.

Five hours later.

Evan was copying notes on a chemical equation when the tip of his fountain pen suddenly paused on the paper.

The ringing in his ears was gone. So was the dizziness.

The weakness rising from the depths of his bone marrow receded like the tide, and his entire body was once again filled with a solid, brimming strength.

He had recovered.

Evan let out a long breath, returned the fountain pen to the ink bottle, and rolled his shoulders.

[You reversed the side effects of the Incomplete Blood-Burning Potion.]

[Beyonder Characteristic: Basic Sanguine +4%]

Jane's brief reversal result unfolded before his eyes on the panel.

Evan stared at that line, and his eyes suddenly lit up.

"Basic Sanguine went up by four percent all at once?"

He sat up straight, his mind rapidly recalling Gilbert's half-human, half-beast state on the field.

Elongated canine teeth, bulging muscles, and dark-red eyes.

An ordinary potion tester who took the medicine but could not reverse it became an Incomplete Bloodthirsty Beast.

Yet after he took the same potion and reversed it, the power that should have mutated him transformed into progress for a Beyonder Characteristic on his panel.

"So that's how it is."

A smile slowly spread across Evan's lips.

"In other words, once the side effects that would mutate someone into an Incomplete Bloodthirsty Beast are reversed, they can all increase my Beyonder Characteristics."

"This is good stuff."

He looked down and saw that the number beside "Basic Sanguine" had already jumped from eight percent to twelve percent.

He was another big step closer to the thirty-percent activation threshold for the basic characteristic.

Once he reached that point, he would unlock the first-stage "Physical Strength Enhancement" and "Self-Healing Ability Enhancement."

A body that would truly be close to Beyonder.

Evan carefully tucked the two remaining Blood-Burning Potions into a hidden compartment beneath the bedframe. They were two "experience potions" saved for the future.

Then he took the first of the five new potions Pulis had given him today from the inner pocket of his jacket.

This bottle was different from the red potions from before.

The liquid was dark brown, cloudy and viscous, with a black wax seal over the mouth of the bottle.

When he shook it gently, he could see tiny particles suspended in the liquid before settling to the bottom.

Evan popped open the wax seal with his thumb and took a sniff.

There was no obvious smell.

But his partially digested Demon-Hunting Instinct told him that this bottle was more potent than any of the previous ones.

"Since I've already drunk this much..."

He tipped his head back and gulped down the entire bottle of brown liquid.

As it traveled down his esophagus, it lacked the bloody spiciness of the red potion. Instead, it carried an indescribable rotten stench, like old leather soaked in water.

[You consumed a Diluted Transformation Potion. Duration: 10 hours.]

[Effect: During the duration, slowly gain Beyonder Characteristic: Basic Sanguine, gaining a total of 2%.]

[Would you like to reverse the side effects?]

Evan stared at the line in silence for three seconds.

"Reverse."

After confirming the reversal, he leaned back against the chair and stared at the words "Diluted Transformation Potion" on the panel, a sharp gleam repeatedly flashing in his eyes.

"Pulis, it looks like you're finally ready to make a move against me."

Transformation Potion.

Just from the name alone, it was clearly no good thing.

Ordinary enhancement potions were called "Blood" and "Night Demon," while the strengthened ingredient was called "Blood Wine."

But the word "transformation" carried a far deeper meaning in the Beyonder world.

It turned people into something else.