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

Five cents. That was breakfast.

Evan slapped a nickel onto the iron countertop of the cart and took the bread and a chipped enamel cup.

The overly fermented sourness from the bread's crumb mixed with the charred bitterness of black coffee in his mouth, and he nearly threw up.

Fortunately, his stomach was more practical than his willpower. His Adam's apple bobbed twice before he forcibly swallowed it down.

After quickly and painfully forcing down the food, he returned the enamel cup to the old man at the cart and turned into an alley south of Gooding Street.

The alley was narrower and filthier than the street, with the walls of the buildings on either side nearly within arm's reach.

Clotheslines stretched overhead, and damp sheets and undergarments blocked most of the sky. Droplets fell onto his shoulders, sending a chill through him.

Cigarette butts and rotten vegetable leaves floated in the puddles on the ground. A skinny stray kitten perched atop a pile of trash, watching him pass with cold yellow-green eyes.

After passing through two alleys, his view suddenly opened up.

The main road to the north was a completely different world from Gooding Street.

The broad avenue was over ten meters wide, paved with smooth stone slabs, with tram tracks embedded down the center. The two iron rails gleamed a cold gray in the morning light.

Electrical wires crisscrossed overhead like a massive spiderweb, linking the tall concrete buildings on both sides.

Those buildings stood five or six stories tall, their windows neat and bright. The ground-floor shop windows displayed ready-made clothing, watches, and leather goods, their glass spotless.

The gas lamps at the street corners had already been replaced by electric lights. Their cast-iron poles were painted dark green, and the lampshades atop them looked unnecessary and luxurious in the morning sunlight.

A great number of carriages traveled down the street in orderly fashion, the clopping of horseshoes against stone blending into a steady rhythm.

Every now and then, a black Ford Model T passed through the traffic, its engine letting out a rough, sputtering roar.

A cloud of bluish-gray smoke burst from its exhaust pipe, while the brass fittings on its body gleamed in the sunlight.

Pedestrians stopped to stare, and several newsboys chased after the car for a while, shouting excitedly.

"How real and novel!" Evan felt the scenes of his second life loading in, and he was exhilarated and satisfied.

He squeezed onto the tram platform with a crowd of people waiting for the train and stood there for around five minutes.

He pulled out a nickel he had prepared in advance from his trouser pocket and clenched it in his palm. When the dark green tram clanged to a stop, he followed the crowd and squeezed aboard.

The carriage was packed to the brim, filled with shoulders, elbows, hat brims, and all kinds of smells.

Evan was wedged between a hulking butcher and a Polish woman holding a baby. One hand gripped the leather strap above him as his body swayed from side to side with the tram.

Amid the packed, swaying crowd, he noticed something.

His body had clearly grown stronger.

When he used to squeeze onto trams, he could barely hold onto the strap. His arms would ache and tremble, and the crowd often shoved him all over the place.

But today, his fingers were firmly hooked around the leather loop, and he kept his balance well despite the crowd's pushing.

He lowered his head and glanced at the panel.

His physique had risen from 0.501 to 0.601.

The Night Demon Potion was being digested, little by little remolding this ruined shell of a body.

As Long as You Don't Look Up, Everything Is a Thatched Cottage

After a crowded thirty minutes, the tram stopped at a wide intersection.

Evan squeezed out of the mass of people, jumped down from the step, and took a deep breath of relatively fresh air.

Before him stood an imposing gate.

Two square stone pillars supported a classical lintel, inlaid with the name "Sage University" in bronze letters. The solemn lettering was mottled with green patina.

Tall, orderly red-brick walls extended from either side of the gateposts, their tops covered in meticulously trimmed ivy.

Inside the walls stood rows of carefully maintained greenery. The canopies of oak and elm trees cast broad patches of shade in the morning light, while the lawn was trimmed like a green velvet carpet.

Several four-wheeled carriages were parked on the circular drive before the gate, their bodies polished to a shine and their brass fittings glittering.

The coachmen wore neat uniforms and respectfully opened the doors, allowing one well-dressed student after another to step out.

Three-piece suits, polished leather shoes, and some even carried calfskin briefcases, with tie clips shaped like family crests pinned to their ties.

Evan lowered his head and checked his pocket watch.

Seven forty.

The first class started at eight.

He had no time to admire the impressive students or the beautiful scenery.

He put away his pocket watch and started running.

It was the fastest he had run in a very long time.

The cold late-autumn morning wind poured through the collar of his jacket. His schoolbag bounced on his back, and his faded leather shoes rattled urgently against the stone-paved road.

He passed through the tree-lined avenue, rounded the fountain square, charged up the teaching building's steps, and pushed open the heavy oak doors.

His heels slipped across the marble corridor floor as he ran all the way to the classroom at the end of the second floor.

Seven forty-seven.

The forty students in the ordinary classroom had basically all arrived.

Professor Mons, who taught chemistry, was known for being strict and despised lateness.

It was said that a student in the previous cohort had arrived three minutes late and been scolded before the whole class for a full ten minutes. Since then, no one had dared enter just as the bell rang.

The students in the classroom were generally well dressed.

Their shirts were crisply starched, their waistcoats well tailored. Some wore silver cufflinks, while others carried fountain pens bought from the Waterman counter.

After all, most of those who could study here these days were children of the wealthy.

When Evan ran into the classroom, panting heavily, forty pairs of eyes turned toward him in unison.

Whispers spread like a faint breeze from the front rows to the back.

He could not make out the exact words, but he caught several fragments:

"That one..." "Syphilis..." "He still dared to come..."

Someone nudged his deskmate with an elbow and gestured toward Evan with his lips. The two exchanged a knowing look.

Evan panted heavily and pretended not to hear anything.

He walked straight to the corner by the wall in the last row, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

Pre-med studies were demanding.

The new medical reforms had only just been implemented.

For future applications to medical school, grades in every subject had to be outstanding. Even one weak subject could mean elimination.

Science and engineering assignments and experiments were numerous enough to leave one breathless, and every day was packed to the brim.

Under such pressure, serious pre-med students generally had no real social lives.

Even when they did interact, it was mostly hollow politeness on the surface and secret competition underneath.

After all, there were only so many professors. If you got a recommendation letter slot, there would be one less for me.

In this classroom, everyone was a potential rival to everyone else.

And a poor student from the lower class like Evan was not even considered qualified to be a rival. He was just a joke.

Once he pulled his textbooks from his schoolbag and spread them on the desk, the violent wheezing of Evan's weak body sounded especially piercing in the quiet classroom.

Like a leaking bellows, it rasped and puffed.

A student in the front row with a neatly combed side part turned around and frowned, wearing the expression of someone who had smelled something unclean.

Several people beside him whispered to one another, occasionally glancing this way with those subtle, undisguised sneers curling their lips.

The old Evan could not bear this. He had been insecure and sensitive.

Those gazes pricked him like needles, every one of them poisoned.

He would lower his head and hunch his shoulders, wishing he could fold himself up and stuff himself into the desk drawer.

That was how he had brooded himself to death.

But the current Evan was different.

The twenty-nine-year-old soul from Earth had been a small business owner who had already found success.

After graduating from middle school, he had skipped ahead and enrolled in the University of Society.

He had worked in real estate sales and handed out flyers at intersections beneath the blazing sun.

He had spent entire days making sales calls in cubicles, only to be hung up on, and accompanied clients to inspect properties late at night.

He had been cursed out by clients and had deals stolen by coworkers.

When starting his business, he had borrowed money everywhere, only to hit walls at every turn...

He was a true social phobe.

A social terrorist.

So-called pride was nothing more than shackles that made others comfortable and yourself miserable.

As long as you did not look up, everything was a thatched cottage.

As long as I'm not embarrassed, the embarrassed ones are everyone else.

He turned his textbook to today's chapter. His breathing gradually steadied, and his eyes settled on the page as he turned a deaf ear to the snickering around him.

At exactly eight, a bald old gentleman entered the classroom.

He wore reading glasses with thin wire frames perched on a lean hooked nose.

His white shirt was starched perfectly stiff, buttoned all the way to the top, with a dark gray wool waistcoat over it.

He did not walk quickly, but every step landed heavily, the soles of his leather shoes echoing across the classroom floor.

The whispers in the classroom vanished instantly.

Professor Mons placed a stack of handouts on the lectern, removed his glasses and wiped them, then put them back on and swept his gaze over the room from above the lenses.

That gaze was cold and sharp, like a sharpened scalpel.

"First, let us review what we studied previously."

He picked up a piece of chalk and turned to write several keywords on the blackboard. The chalk scraping against the board was shrill and grating, making several students instinctively shrink their necks.

Mons set down the chalk, dusted the white powder from his hands, and faced the class.

"Who can restate and explain the core claims of Dalton Atomic Theory?"

He paused, then added, "Do not merely recite the points. Explain why it can account for the law of definite proportions and the law of multiple proportions."

The classroom was so quiet that they could hear a sparrow chirping on a branch outside the window.

All forty students instinctively lowered their heads.

Some began flipping through their textbooks, some stared at their fingernails, and some suddenly developed an intense interest in the wood grain on their desks.

In two weeks, Sage University and Truth University would hold their important interschool sporting event: the football rivalry match.

As the New Continent's two leading universities, the match drew considerable attention.

The game would be held on November 19, but as soon as November began, students had already started forming cheering squads and making all kinds of banners and commemorative badges.

Students from the lower class took part in all sorts of activities, hoping to become game-day volunteers just to earn a free ticket and meet more people.

Middle-class students, meanwhile, began looking for travel companions, ordering custom clothes, and planning their routes.

This had left people restless lately, and only a very small number of students could still maintain their focus.

Professor Mons frowned, his grizzled brows twisting into a displeased knot. "Did none of you do the homework?"

Silence.

"Lebon, you answer."

In the middle of the classroom, a blond young man in a light blue shirt slowly stood up.

His shirt was made of fine material, and a delicate gold-plated collar pin was fastened at his neck, but his face was currently full of embarrassment.