I'm a proper student; I only take nine kinds of potions every day.

Chapter 131: Insightful Vision (1 free!), Making your own potions is awesome!

[May trigger disturbing associations; proceed with caution while eating]

After the potion was finished, Ivan picked up the cup and gulped it down.

The moment you step through the entrance, the whole world changes.

He felt as if he had suddenly been thrown into a vast ocean.

All around, there was only a vast expanse of dark water.

The sound of the waves kept rushing past, accompanied by a deafening roar.

Even though the bitter seawater had filled his mouth and nose, he didn't feel suffocated.

"Where am I? Damn! What's that awful smell?!"

Just then, an indescribable stench wafted from all directions.

It was a putrid stench that defied human language.

It smelled like countless piles of flesh and blood had been rotting in a sealed space for tens of thousands of years.

Along with this nauseating, putrid stench came a strange sound.

Eek!

Eek!

The sound was sharp and piercing, and seemed to be transmitted efficiently through seawater.

Each time it played, Ivan felt a piece of his spirituality being worn away.

My thoughts began to become blocked, my mind felt like it was stuck in a swamp, and every thought was incredibly difficult to process.

"Is this thing also some kind of extraordinary being?"

Although his spirituality was fading, Evan did not panic.

He could sense that the source of the sound was getting closer.

He wants to see!

Since the energy potion lasts for another hour, why not take advantage of the extra 40% increase in spiritual power?

[You have consumed a fast-acting purification potion. Effect lasts: 1 hour.]

[Effect: During the duration of the medicine's effects, it continuously purifies the user's curse and alleviates negative status effects.]

Does this reverse the side effects?

Ivan did not click "reverse".

He chose to continue listening.

The sound was getting closer.

Eee-woo~ Eee-woo~ Eee-woo————

Each time it sounded, the interval between them was shorter than the last.

The frequency was increasing, as if some enormous creature was swimming towards him from the bottom of the deep sea.

Evan's brain instinctively wanted to analyze the sound, to understand it, and to categorize it into a known category.

But he couldn't do it.

It wasn't any sound he'd ever heard before, and he wasn't even sure if it was a "sound" at all.

He bypassed the conventional transmission and acted directly on the soul.

"It feels like making elementary school students face calculus equations head-on," Evan commented.

I can't understand it, I'm going crazy, I feel like I'm going insane.

Splash—

The waves were still crashing, and Evan felt his mind begin to feel sluggish and weak.

An uncontrollable sense of irritability quickly arose.

He instinctively wanted to scream, to contort his body, to give up thinking.

How wonderful it would be to give up thinking! No more having to think about and understand those annoying things.

No need to resist anymore! Give in to that voice, let it carry you to the bottom of the sea, and embrace that eternal peace.

How comfortable!

This urge is like countless sleepless nights, where instinct tells you that having sex will make you fall asleep quickly.

call!

Just then, an arm suddenly reached through the waves and grabbed Ivan's neck.

The arm had pale, smooth skin, and the palm had six slender fingers, each twice the length of a normal human finger, but the joints and the direction of extension were completely opposite to those of a human.

pat!

[Spiritual Vision +1]

In the instant that hand touched him, Ivan sensed two things.

First, what the other party is grasping is not his body, but his soul.

Secondly, the touch of that hand was so cold that it transcended the concept of temperature and felt more like a kind of spiritual emptiness.

Before the body could even react, the person's mind had already been completely plunged into darkness.

The eyes are still open, but the soul is about to disappear.

"Twist!"

[Reversal progress: 12 hours.]

In an instant, everything vanished.

call!call!call!

Ivan sat on the living room floor, breathing heavily, as if he had just survived a close call.

You can see that he was soaked in sweat from head to toe and looked very disheveled.

His heart was pounding wildly in his chest, as if he had just survived a life-or-death ordeal. That feeling of surviving a disaster made Evan realize how wonderful it is to be alive.

"Holy crap! That was so exciting!"

Evan's eyes widened as he saw his reflection in the small mirror on the coffee table.

At this moment, the whites of my eyes were filled with a lot of blood vessels.

The pupils were still golden vertical pupils, but the red ring around them made the eyes look like two amber pieces soaked in blood.

He slightly raised his chin, and a dark blue handprint was clearly visible on his neck.

The imprint of six fingers, each one so thin and long that it doesn't look like a human finger.

The fingertips were deeply embedded in the skin, like a tattoo.

Through this handprint, Evan could instinctively sense a deep, corrupt aura constantly seeping out from the mark.

"Phew! Holy crap! Is this what it's like without a buffer? This is amazing!"

Ivan got goosebumps all over his body, and his mind was trembling.

"What is that?"

He swallowed hard and realized his hands were trembling.

A lack of spirituality leads to loss of bodily control; the soul's control over the body decreases, and fine motor skills begin to deviate.

"This should be a sign of the beast transformation."

Evan analyzed the situation silently in his mind.

"When the spirit collapses, the soul loses control of the body, reason is suppressed, and one instinctively abandons thinking to embrace madness."

"Then the animalistic instincts resurface and take over the body."

"Jack Alcott's final out-of-control beast-like transformation is this process."

An adventure gave him a wealth of valuable firsthand experience.

He even had his first experience of being transformed into a beast.

He looked at his status bar. A new debuff had appeared.

[Gazing upon the truth: Spiritual potential reduced by 20%. Duration: 168 hours.]

a week.

Ivan sighed.

"As expected, spiritual vision is not so easy to obtain."

"Gray is right, witnessing those beings is extremely dangerous."

"For this little bit of spiritual vision, I have to endure a week of debuffs."

"A 20% reduction in my spiritual ceiling means that my mental defenses are 20% weaker than usual this week."

"If it weren't for the power of the Nine Dragons protecting me, I would have died just now, or to be more precise, gone mad."

He reached up and touched the dark blue handprint on his neck.

When you touch it with your fingertips, there is no real tactile sensation; it's neither bumpy nor concave, and it doesn't hurt or itch.

But his spiritual perception could clearly sense the presence of that mark.

"It's terrifying that attacks in illusions can actually have a real impact on the body."

He stood up. Although his spiritual limit had decreased by 20%, the energy potion was still working.

After the two factors cancel each other out, his overall spiritual level is slightly higher than usual.

The 20% shortfall will only become truly apparent after the energy potion expires.

"Let me think. When I took the energy potion, the core ingredient was a banshee's eyeball, so I heard the banshee's cry."

"The main ingredient of the purification potion is the liver of a black water ghost. Was the thing grabbing my neck a black water ghost?"

Ivan stroked his chin, deep in thought.

"No! Although the Black Water Ghost is stronger and faster than the regular White Water Ghost, there is no difference between the two in essence. They are both low-level monsters that can be seen with just 1 point of spiritual vision."

"The banshee needs 4 points of spiritual vision to see!"

"But the succubus only chirped a few times in my ear and didn't actually attack."

"And this hand directly gripped my soul, and even gave me a little bit of spiritual vision."

"A low-level monster that can be seen with just 1 point of spiritual vision cannot possibly have this ability."

"Something's wrong! Something's very wrong!"

"That arm definitely doesn't belong to the Black Water Ghost."

Ivan made a note of this clue for now, and decided to investigate the origins of the Black Water Ghost when he had time.

Why would there be a mark of an existence far exceeding its own rank remaining in the liver of this monster?

Setting aside the root cause for the time being, Evan carefully examined the six-fingered handprint on his neck, which was completely ineffective against the Bloodthirsty race's super self-healing ability.

This indicates that this is not a typical physical injury.

There was no substantial tactile sensation when I touched it; it wasn't a bruise, a burn, or any kind of physical injury.

"I estimate that this handprint is the manifestation of the debuff, and it will take a week to fade away."

He let out a long breath, sorted out his experience, and compared it with his experience when he was injected with the potion.

"A fast-acting version without buffers, it takes effect as quickly as an injection, and both require confronting bestiality and illusion."

"The specific differences in attribute growth are still uncertain, but the pattern of reversal time is clear: injection is five times, rectal is three times, and fast-acting is two times."

"Judging from the position of the entity that attacked me, that sun is the most powerful. I only glanced at it, and my spiritual vision increased by two points."

"But it seems that because of the sun's affinity, I haven't lost my spirituality."

"Secondly, this big hand choked my neck, increasing my spiritual vision by one point and reducing my spiritual limit by 20%."

"Finally, there was that fire monster. Apart from being a little scared, it was perfectly fine."

After finishing organizing the data, Evan leaned back on the sofa and squinted his eyes.

"It seems that if my spiritual vision isn't strong enough in the future, there's no need to go out and take risks. I can just use quick-acting potions."

"Anyway, with the power of the Nine Dragons backing me up, these illusions can't do anything to me."

"The reason I got choked this time is because I didn't know what was going on and acted recklessly. Next time, just wait and see how I'll outsmart you!"

He straightened up and stretched his stiff shoulders and neck.

"Tsk tsk! You can even win a prize by taking a potion."

"Looks like I need to take more quick-acting potions; maybe I'll see something exciting and delicious."

After finishing all the potion-making work for the night, Evan picked up a rag and carefully wiped the coal ash off the outside of the crucible.

Every inch of the surface was wiped clean, and the grooves of the magic arrays were also carefully cleaned with a corner of the cloth.

Then he carefully placed the crucible into the cupboard and closed the door.

"Get some rest, we'll need you tomorrow."

While I was pondering, a notification appeared on the panel.

The purification potion has taken effect.

[A Glimpse into the Reality: 168 → 166 Hours.]

[Countdown to next purification: 300 seconds.]

"If purifying every 5 minutes reduces the duration by 2 hours, then 1 hour can reduce the debuff duration by 24 hours. I'll buy the materials and keep drinking it tomorrow!"

After getting everything done, Evan yawned and prepared to go to bed.

Then he saw his bed.

To be precise, I saw my own pillow.

On that pillow, dried mucus and stains of various colors mingled together, resembling an abstract painting.

Last night, when Jack pinned his silver cross sword to the pillow, it pierced all the potion bottles underneath.

The pillow was soaked with the basic blasphemous potion from Hill, the Lion potion from Vic, and the Shark potion.

"Alcott, you deserve to die!"

When Evan remembered this incident, he was so angry that he gritted his teeth.

He stared at the stained pillow for a few seconds.

"There are gifts from my senior sister here, as well as a mid-level potion like the Lion King. We can't waste them."

"There's still one slot left in Kowloon, so it's not a big problem."

He picked up the pillow, found a large iron basin, stuffed the pillow inside, and then poured water into it.

Soaking in clean water, the dried stains and slime began to slowly dissolve.

Various colored liquids seeped from the pillowcase, turning the water in the basin into an indescribable, murky color.

"Luckily, I just changed the pillow the day before yesterday, so it's not too dirty."

He activated his Demon Hunter vision and carefully observed the water in the basin.

After all the extraordinary energy had been washed out of the pillow core, he took the pillow out and threw it aside.

Then he picked up the basin of murky medicine and took out the crucible to pour it in.

Reduce the sauce over high heat.

A few minutes later, the thin liquid in the basin evaporated and concentrated, eventually turning into a clump of gelatinous substance about the size of a few fingers, mixed with various colors.

It looks like a piece of colorful chewing gum that has been chewed and spat out.

"This thing is much cleaner than the mutated potion."

Ivan scooped the lump out of the crucible, glanced at it, and then stuffed it directly into his mouth.

I chewed it twice and swallowed it.

"Hmm, it has my own unique flavor."

[You have ingested a corrupted potion. Effect: None.]

Does this reverse the side effects?

Ivan stared at the line of text for three seconds.

Efficacy: None!

Three potions, one of which is a medium-grade potion, together they're worth at least $100!

It's all ruined!

"You're going to die!! Alcott!!"

He mentally cursed Jack Alcott's ancestors for eighteen generations.

"Twist!"

[Reversal progress: 24 hours.]

"You chicken~!"

The trampoline let out a mournful cry.

Ivan lay down on the bed without a pillow and stared at the ceiling.

"Twenty-four hours." He closed his eyes.

"Hey! On the bright side, this can be considered a valuable experience."

"From now on, potions must be kept separately and absolutely not in the same place."

"Mixed potions will lose their effectiveness."

"Also, the next time you see someone from the Alcott family, no matter who it is, beat them up first."

Even if you can't beat them, you should still spit a couple of times!

Having not slept yesterday, and with today's spiritual debuff, Evan turned off the kerosene lamp and went to bed early.

On the roof outside, the black owl turned its head, its silver eyes flashing in the darkness.

After confirming there were no enemies, it hid in the darkness once more.