After Evan answered, the classroom fell silent for a moment.
Several students couldn't help giving him another look, a little surprised.
Professor Mons's expression remained calm. He merely nodded, as though confirming something that should have been obvious.
"Good. Sit down."
Evan sat back down.
His chair creaked. The student with the side part in the front row glanced back at him again, but this time he didn't laugh.
Mons turned and wrote another line on the blackboard, the chalk striking it in crisp, sharp taps.
He set down the chalk and faced the class.
"By what is the Mendeleev Periodic Table ordered? Why do the properties of elements in the same group change as they do? Use the halogens as an example."
The classroom fell deathly silent again.
All forty students came down with a collective case of selective deafness. Their gazes dropped to textbooks, desks, fingernails—anything but Professor Mons.
The old gentleman drew a deep breath, a furious rebuke building in his chest.
Then that thin, bony hand rose again.
"I... know."
Mons looked over the students' heads toward the corner of the back row.
He paused for half a second, then nodded.
"Arkham. Tell them."
Evan stood for the second time.
"Sir, the periodic table is arranged by atomic weight. Elements with similar properties are placed in the same vertical column, or group."
"Among the halogens, from fluorine to iodine, atomic weight and atomic size increase, while electronegativity and reactivity decrease.
Fluorine is the most reactive and reacts violently with water and hydrogen. Chlorine is next, while iodine is the mildest."
"Meanwhile, the acidity of their hydrogen compounds increases from HF to HI, and the solubility of their silver salts decreases in order.
AgF is soluble; AgCl, AgBr, and AgI become progressively less soluble, and their precipitates grow darker."
Mons raised an eyebrow slightly.
A trace of surprise crossed the old face, deeply lined from years of stern expressions.
"Oh?" He took off his glasses, wiped the lenses on his waistcoat, and put them back on, as though checking that he hadn't mistaken the student.
"You can connect different properties, moving from reactivity to acidity to solubility.
That shows you truly understand it, rather than merely memorizing it."
He nodded, his tone a shade or two gentler than before.
"Very good, Arkham."
If answering the first question was simply what a student from the bottom rung ought to do to rise above his station—doing the assigned work and memorizing what he was told—then his answer to the second went beyond mere diligence.
The ease with which he drew on different pieces of knowledge and linked them together was not something rote memorization could fake.
But there was no admiration on the other students' faces.
There was more ridicule and contempt, smug sneers from people looking down on him.
The meaning in their eyes was plain enough to put into words: the idiot had caught Syphilis and run out of options. With no friends or social life left, all he could do was sit alone and bury himself in books.
Mons noticed those looks.
The old gentleman gave a cold snort. His gaze swept over several mocking faces whose owners thought they had hidden them well, but he said nothing more.
At this university, some things were harder to change than chemical equations.
He turned to the blackboard and picked up a fresh piece of chalk.
"Now for today's lesson. Mercury compounds."
The chalk touched the board, and he began to write.
The morning's four classes rumbled past like a fully loaded freight train.
The Night Demon Potion had been fully absorbed, and his Physique had reached 0.701.
[Health has improved further. Spirit has recovered naturally.] [Spirit +0.2]
Evan understood at once.
Looks like I don't need to raise Spirit separately until it reaches 1. It can recover along with my health.
At noon, the bell ending the last Mathematics class rang. Evan packed away his Notebook, now filled with writing, stuffed it and his textbooks into his Canvas Satchel, fastened the clasp, slung it over his shoulder, and headed for the cafeteria.
He hadn't been eating lunch before.
Breakfast and the Streetcar fare already accounted for his biggest daily expenses. He skipped lunch whenever he could and held out until he got home at four in the afternoon.
Besides, testing drugs had already dulled his appetite. He hadn't wanted to eat much.
But that wouldn't do anymore.
The Night Demon Potion was being digested, and his body was rebuilding itself. The furnace needed fuel.
He could feel his stomach growling. This was no familiar, hollow emptiness, but real, urgent hunger rising from deep within his cells.
The cafeteria occupied the ground floor of a two-story red-brick building behind the campus. He pushed open the door.
Inside was a long hall with a high ceiling and several hanging cast-iron chandeliers.
A serving counter ran along one wall. Behind clouds of steam, kitchen workers in white aprons ladled food onto plates.
The air smelled of boiled beans, toasted bread, and butter.
Evan stood before the counter for a long time, scanning the price board three times before gritting his teeth and spending eleven cents on a lunch that was extravagant by his standards.
A piece of brown bread. A small pat of butter. A bowl of hot bean soup. A glass of milk. A tomato.
Eleven cents.
That would have fed him for two days before.
When he turned with his tray, he noticed the people around him parting automatically, like water around a Stone.
News of his Syphilis had spread throughout the school.
After passing through forty mouths, what had happened in gym class four days ago had probably grown into dozens of horrifying versions.
Students turned aside as he passed. Some even picked up their trays and moved, making such a show of it that they might have been avoiding someone with the Plague.
Muted snickers followed him, buzzing like flies around rotting meat.
Evan was happy enough to be left alone.
He found an empty table in a corner and sat down. The three tables around him were vacant; everything within two meters was his private territory.
He set down his tray and took a sip of milk first.
It was warm, faintly musky, and a little sweet.
As it slid down his throat, he could almost feel his body greedily absorbing every gram of protein, every drop of fat, every milligram of calcium.
It was a strange feeling, like the first spring rain falling on cracked earth. Every cell opened its mouth.
He spread the butter on the brown bread and ate, alternating bites of bread with spoonfuls of bean soup, quiet and intent.
He saved the tomato for last. When he bit through its skin, sweet-tart juice burst across his tongue, and the fresh taste made his brow relax without his noticing.
Just as Evan was enjoying his meal, someone pulled out the chair across from him.
The scent of expensive men's cologne arrived before its wearer: sandalwood and bergamot, utterly at odds with the cafeteria's cheap butter.
A gaunt figure sat down and placed his tray gently on the table. Every movement was precise and restrained, without a sound to spare.
He wore a dark hooded Trench Coat, its hood pulled low enough to hide most of his face.
Beneath it were a well-tailored cotton shirt and a black wool waistcoat. A length of silver Pocket Watch chain showed at his waistcoat pocket.
His belt was genuine leather, its Copper buckle polished to a shine.
His Leather Shoes needed no mention. That sheen could not be built up with polish; it came from the quality of the leather itself.
He pulled back his hood, revealing meticulously groomed salt-and-pepper hair, combed neatly back.
Black-framed glasses rested on his thin, pale face. Behind the lenses were pale blue eyes, so light they were almost transparent. Quite distinctive.
Evan's biology teacher.
The man who had given him the Night Demon Potion: Professor Pulis, a handsome gentleman who looked to be in his early fifties.
Rumor had it that he had suffered a severe injury when he was young. Ever since, he had needed medication to keep his body going, and his skin could no longer be exposed to sunlight.
That was why he wore the hooded Trench Coat year-round, drew the curtains tight while teaching, and always kept the lights in his Laboratory at their dimmest.
The students called him "Bat" behind his back, though no one dared say it to his face.
"Did you take the medicine?"
No greeting. No preamble.
His voice was low and cool, as though he were checking an experimental result.
Evan put down his bread and nodded. "I did, Professor."
Pulis studied him.
Behind his lenses, his pale blue eyes narrowed slightly. His gaze moved from Evan's face to his neck, then to the wrist showing below his cuff,
like an invisible scalpel ready to peel back his skin layer by layer and see what lay beneath.
"You seem to be doing well."
Evan's expression brightened. "Professor, right after I took it yesterday, I could feel my body getting stronger."
He instinctively lowered his voice and leaned forward slightly. "Thank you, Professor."
Pulis gave a cool grunt. He picked up the fork from his tray, cut off a small piece of fried fish, and ate it with unhurried elegance.
"Any side effects?"
Evan thought for a moment, choosing his words. "I felt dizzy for a while, then my blood sugar dropped, and after that my muscles felt a little swollen.
Other than that, I didn't feel anything unusual."
Pulis stopped chewing for a beat, then resumed.
He nodded.
"Hmm. Keep taking it. Once a day for four days."
Evan hesitated, then lowered his voice further, sounding cautiously hopeful. "Professor, do you have any other medicine?"
He looked Pulis in the eye, trying to appear sincere and eager. "If it can make me a little healthier, I'll do everything I can to cooperate with your experiments."
He paused, then added, putting on a deliberately awkward tone:
"After I took the medicine you gave me, I felt better for most of the day. More confident, too.
I hardly even cared what other people thought of me."