I'm a Serious Student, I Only Drink Nine Potions a Day

There was no doubt that word of what happened on the sports field yesterday had already spread throughout the school by Miss Hurst, the center of everyone's attention.

For someone of her status, a single sentence could change a poor student's "standing" in the eyes of wealthy heirs overnight.

Most importantly, after Miss Hurst had taken the initiative to speak to him, the poor boy had not behaved improperly in any way.

That made those wealthy heirs think Evan was sensible and knew his place.

Naturally, most of their hostility faded.

Eleven in the morning.

The chemistry class was halfway through, and Professor Mons had just erased one line of the equation on the blackboard.

A string of notifications suddenly popped up on Evan's panel.

The eighty-eight hours were up.

[You reversed the side effects of the unfinished Demon Hunter Transformation Potion.]

[Your memory has increased significantly. Spirit permanently +0.3.]

[Your sense of taste has increased significantly. Physique permanently +0.1.]

[Your reproductive ability has increased significantly. Physique permanently +0.3.]

Sitting in the back row, Evan stared at those lines on the panel and nearly choked on the mouthful of water he had just swallowed.

He quickly lowered his head and pretended to take notes, while inwardly ranting like mad.

Holy shit.

The potion's side effects were memory loss, loss of taste, and outright infertility?

But on second thought, he immediately understood the logic behind it.

Heavy use of potions would inevitably damage the brain's nerves. That was an indisputable fact.

As a profession built on potions, Demon Hunters could not avoid the cost of declining memory.

The cost of having a sensitive sense of taste, meanwhile, seemed more like an adaptation-driven evolution.

A Demon Hunter who had to swallow all kinds of foul-smelling, bizarre-tasting potions year-round—

If his taste buds were still as sensitive as an ordinary person's, he would practically be tortured every day.

As for reproductive ability—

Evan casually tapped the tip of his fountain pen twice against his scratch paper.

Demon Hunters are like those...

Images of those "hardcore science guys" from Earth's gyms appeared in his mind.

People who take external drugs for long periods will see their body's corresponding functions atrophy.

Inject too much external testosterone, and your own balls naturally shrink.

Once he figured out that correlation, the entire system of Demon Hunter side effects became logically coherent in his mind.

And as he thought that, he felt the changes.

His memory became incomparably clear.

Every word Professor Mons had just said at the podium, every pause, every sound of chalk striking the blackboard, seemed to have been precisely carved into his skull.

The taste buds in his mouth became extraordinarily sharp.

The lingering flavor of the coffee he had drunk that morning, the metallic taste of fountain pen ink, the faint bitterness of chalk dust floating in the air—every flavor appeared distinctly on his tongue, layer by layer.

And a certain physiological sensation in his lower body...

Evan suppressed the urge to laugh.

The values afterward aren't broad, diluted boosts. They're specialized boosts to the corresponding abilities.

He analyzed rapidly in his mind.

Physique and spirit each encompassed many different aspects.

A normal, general increase to [Physique] or [Spirit] would be evenly diluted across every aspect.

But this was different.

An increase to one specific aspect could bring a physique boost equal to one-third of an ordinary person's on the panel.

That meant the boosts to his memory, sense of taste, and reproductive ability were not merely slight increases. They had directly multiplied severalfold!

A massive boost! An explosive boost!! A frenzied boost!!!

After all, no matter how strong his reproductive ability became, it could not immediately affect his immunity, resistance to blows, endurance, or strength.

No matter how strong his memory became, it could not affect his reaction speed, logical ability, thought speed, or resistance to corruption.

Yet these two individual aspects had each risen by 0.3.

This was a numerical increase with no dilution whatsoever, focused entirely on function.

In gaming terms: this was a noble independent multiplier!

Evan lowered his head and stared at the numbers flickering on the panel.

He felt that he had vaguely touched the threshold of photographic memory.

As long as he actively wanted to imprint a piece of information into his mind, it was as if that information had been welded in place and would never fade again.

This feels amazing.

Higher reproductive ability, a huge testosterone boost—this is a true Eight-Ball Warrior!

He silently thought this, then wrote out Professor Mons's earlier explanation of chlorine production word for word on his scratch paper.

[Physique: 2.013→2.433]

[Spirit: 1.107→1.477]

Now that's what you call attributes.

Evan lightly tapped the edge of his scratch paper with his fingers.

For the rest of the time, he studied with an efficiency that even the best students could never hope to match.

Every reaction equation Professor Mons explained, every property of every compound.

Every grammar chart the German teacher hung up, every word's masculine, feminine, and neuter forms.

Every calculus formula derived in math class.

Every piece of information he wanted to remember seemed to be pressed into his mind by an invisible hand.

For the rest of the class, he felt like an observer with cheats enabled, watching himself absorb the knowledge of this era at a speed far beyond ordinary people.

An Invitation with Ulterior Motives

The next few days passed quietly and smoothly.

There was nothing unusual on Professor Byron's end, and Evan did not rashly approach him either.

A chemist researching anti-Vampire potions was not necessarily a good person.

Capitalists bred Vampires. Chemists studied ways to restrain Vampires.

Whether those two threads led to ambitions of immortality or something even darker, he did not dare gamble on it.

At school, thanks to his soaring memory, Evan's learning progress became terrifyingly fast.

Every day after returning home, he needed only an hour to fully absorb all the day's class content, key concepts, and exercises.

He could remember the key page numbers and paragraph locations after flipping through a textbook once, and he could precisely reconstruct in his mind even the extended material teachers casually mentioned in class.

What was strange was that although Pulis had recently made him take the Transformation Potion, he had not made any other moves. He had not even drawn blood, merely telling Evan to report his symptoms.

He seemed to be waiting for something.

The more he acted this way, the stranger Evan found it.

So after returning home, he had not touched the remaining two bottles of Blood-Burning Potion, only drinking one diluted bottle of Transformation Potion on schedule each day.

Since the Blood-Burning Potion was specifically meant to deal with Sanguine, it might come in handy someday.

As for whether Pulis had come at night, Evan knew as well.

Hill had come by for the last time three days ago.

She said she had been entangled by something dirty, possibly Pulis's handiwork, and might not be able to come by anytime soon.

But her senior brother had already arrived and was now hiding in the shadows, so Evan could rest assured.

Sure enough, when he woke up the next morning, he found a note beside his bed that smelled of whiskey.

"He came by. I drove him away. Your dear senior brother—don't be alone with him these next few days."

"Note from one of us: the two dollars you gave Hill smelled like piss."

Seeing the second line, Evan immediately felt a little embarrassed.

Only then did he remember that the hand he had used to take out the money seemed to have touched his rather damp crotch that day.

With someone helping him, Evan relaxed and continued focusing on his growth.

Then, as his reproductive ability surged and testosterone flooded through his body, Evan could visibly feel his muscles changing.

The weight and density of his bones, as well as the density of his muscle fibers, were increasing at a healthy yet ferocious pace.

Every morning when he woke up, he could see small but real changes in the mirror.

His shoulders were half an inch broader, his chest was a finger-width thicker, and his jawline had become sharper.

The first step from skinny weakling to Astartes!

Of course, the price was—

He could really eat now.

Meals that had once filled him up for fifteen cents had now shot up to thirty cents.

Two slices of dark bread, a large bowl of bean soup, two sausages, and a glass of milk would leave him hungry again three hours later.

His food expenses alone were nearing one dollar a day.

Even if he went to the docks every day to haul sacks, that little income could not keep up with the appetite of his new body.

He could earn eighty cents a day, but he ate ninety cents' worth.

His savings were quietly draining away like sand through an hourglass.

Friday arrived quickly.

The dismissal bell rang. Evan slung his schoolbag over his shoulder and headed toward the school gate with Lane, John, and the others.

Students in the hallway chatted in twos and threes about their weekend plans, discussing the highly anticipated football game two days from now.

"Arkham?"

Evan turned around.

Eldin stood two steps behind him.

Today, she wore a dark purple velvet overcoat trimmed with snow-white rabbit fur around the collar.

Her jet-black hair was pinned up with a pearl clip, revealing her slender neck.

Two equally well-dressed girls stood behind her, but neither possessed Eldin's presence.

"Is something the matter?"

Eldin's tone was composed and unhurried.

"The day after tomorrow is the football game between our school and Truth University. A few classmates and I have arranged to go watch it together."

"We need a reliable boy with us to help look after things."

She slightly raised her chin.

"Would you be interested in coming? I'll arrange the tickets and travel expenses."

Lane and John instantly widened their eyes.