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

Ivan weighed the sense of power in his hand.

After confirming the leap in his physical condition, Evan turned and went into the kitchen, pulling an old kitchen knife from the wooden rack next to the cutting board.

It was a German-made small cleaver that had been in service for over ten years. The blade gleamed with a cold light and the edge was sharpened to a fine point.

The mother had just spent 2 cents to finish the treatment when something happened to her just two days later.

Ivan never used it again after that.

He gripped the knife handle and, without hesitation, slashed it down onto his left index finger.

He paused for a moment when the blade touched his skin.

It didn't feel like cutting my own flesh.

It looks more like cutting a piece of high-quality, thick cowhide.

The blade sank to a depth less than one-third the depth of normal skin.

"After the physical breakthrough, the skin's resilience and resistance to impact have undergone a qualitative change."

He smiled, readjusted his grip on the knife, and increased the downward pressure.

The blade finally cut through the skin, leaving a wound about half a centimeter deep on the fingertip.

Crimson blood gushed out.

Then he saw it with his own eyes.

In ten seconds, the blood coagulated automatically at the wound, forming a thin, dark red scab.

Five minutes later, the edges of the scab began to dry and shrink, entering the recovery period.

It is foreseeable that the wound will not leave a scar for at most two hours.

"Awesome."

"While it doesn't reach the instantaneous self-healing of a vampire, this speed is enough for me to deal with most of the fatal injuries I suffered before."

After confirming his condition, Evan went back to his bedroom and drew back the curtains.

The sky outside was just beginning to brighten.

The sun is slowly rising above the horizon on a winter morning.

A blood-red sun had just peeked out from behind the buildings, bathing the entire Guding Street in a warm orange hue.

Sunlight streamed obliquely into the bedroom through the window.

Ivan stood by the window, arms outstretched, letting himself bask in the morning sun.

No discomfort.

There was no stinging on the skin, no burning sensation in the eyes, and none of the instinctive fears that are typical of vampires.

Standing in the sunlight is no different from being a normal person.

"Just as I expected."

He clenched his fist.

"With the basic vampire traits and a constitution of 5.4, at least I don't have to worry about being killed by some random cold knife or cold gun anymore."

"As a witcher, I have no intention of dying under the pitchforks of mortals."

squeak...

A faint scratching sound came from the corner of the wall.

That was the sound of some kind of living thing moving through the cracks in the moldy walls and wooden floors.

Ivan's ears twitched.

The next instant.

Whoosh.

He then threw the kitchen knife in his hand with a purely instinctive, aimless motion.

The blade spun once in the air and precisely embedded itself in the moldy, blackened patch of plaster in the corner of the bedroom.

Beneath the blade, firmly pinned to the ground, was a large, brown-haired rat.

The rat was almost the size of an adult man's hand, its red eyes were wide open, and its limbs were still twitching in their final moments before death.

Swift. Precise.

There's no need to think, no need to look back.

Ivan walked to the corner, bent down, pulled out a kitchen knife, and picked up the still convulsing rat.

The rough mouse fur rubbed between his fingers, emitting a musty smell and the stench of the sewer.

He picked up the rat and gave the empty bedroom a strange smile.

"Brothers!"

"Today I'm going to do something really tough—drink raw rat blood!"

"Tsk, too bad no one's sending gifts."

He took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself.

But his sense of smell, amplified more than ten times, immediately diminished his original resolve.

The aroma was simply too rich.

The smells of rat droppings, damp mold, rotting food scraps, sewer water, the sour stench of fleas, and the metallic rust of blood itself…

Each one entered his nasal cavity in distinct layers.

The mouse's mouth had just reached his lips.

"yue...yue!!"

He turned his head abruptly and almost vomited up the potion he had drunk the night before.

He leaned against the wall for a few seconds to catch his breath.

Then he gritted his teeth.

"Awesome! Cheers!"

He held his breath and forcibly blocked his sense of smell.

Then, he squeezed the rat's soft body tightly with both hands, pointed the knife at his mouth, and squeezed out its blood like squeezing a bag of milk.

A warm, viscous liquid flowed into his mouth.

The rusty taste dominated my taste buds.

"Um?"

He blinked.

"It tastes a bit fishy, ​​but not as disgusting as I imagined?"

"Oh no! Now I'm really a vampire!"

He gulped down the handful of blood.

As his throat bobbed, his secondary brain emitted a kind of "satisfaction" hum within his body, like a long-thirsty child finally getting a sip of milk.

It was at the very moment he swallowed his last mouthful of blood.

The panel exploded.

Yersinia pestis detected!

Rickettsia mollusks detected!

[Streptococcus moniliformes detected!]

Salmonella typhimurium detected!

Lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus detected!

Rabies virus detected!

……

The prompts flooded the panel like a burst dam, one line after another.

Ivan held the shriveled, dead rat in his hand, his mouth smeared with blood.

"Thank you, Brother Mouse, for this amazing gift of bacteria, delivered at the cost of your life!"

He threw the empty shell of a body into the trash can in the corner.

As he continued his rambling, new prompts kept appearing on the panel.

[Copper plague has devoured Yersinia pestis! Progress +0.002%.]

[Copper spores have engulfed *Streptococcus beadans*! Progress +0.001%.]

……

[Copper plague has devoured the rabies virus! Progress +0.003%.]

The copper plague, like a wild dog that hadn't eaten for three days, plunged deep into his veins, swallowing up all the pathogens that the rat had just brought him, bite by bite.

Ivan stared at the panel for a few seconds.

The overall progress of the copper epidemic jumped from 0.21% to 0.221%.

A mouse, a 0.011% improvement.

"Different virus levels provide different progress updates."

He silently filed it in his mind.

"Plague-related doses are 0.002, and rat-bite fever-related doses are 0.001."

"Rabies is the worst, I'll give it 0.003."

"While the extraordinary ability to devour conventional viruses is effective, it is not very efficient."

"But it's better than nothing. It'll solve my daily need to drink blood at the same time."

"A mouse has about eight milliliters of blood. To get one hundred milliliters a day, you would need about thirteen mice."

"Thirteen mice can bring about 0.13% progress."

He nodded.

"That's not slow."

"Besides rats, we can also get some bat blood if we have time. That stuff should be more exciting than rats."

Ivan licked the remaining blood from the corner of his mouth, his eyes narrowing slightly.

He bent down and picked up the knife; the blade gleamed coldly in the morning light outside the window.

The secondary brain slowly crawled out of his chest and landed steadily in his palm.

Ivan gave it instructions.

"Help me kill the rats."

The secondary brain waved the bone spur that represented the "middle finger," like a soldier receiving a mission and saluting.

It seems that in its instinct, giving the middle finger is equated with saluting.

Ivan opened his demon hunter's vision.

The outline of the entire house appeared in a different form before his eyes.

Several pale red streaks of light, like small flames on a gas stove, were slowly moving in the cracks in the walls, behind the cabinets, and between the gaps in the wooden beams of the ceiling.

This is residual heat.

Each streak of light corresponds to a warm, living little life.

"If Hill knew that the first time I activated my Demon Hunter's Vision, my target was the rats in my house..."

He grinned.

"She'll kill me..."

He could tell that Hill was a dignified girl who cared about her image and was competitive.

My current behavior will definitely provoke her protest.

While I was thinking, the first ray of red light appeared in the gap between the two layers at the bottom of the cabinet.

Ivan hadn't even had a chance to move his feet yet.

The secondary brain had already been ejected from his palm in a flash.

The tiny monster, no bigger than a palm, darted across the kitchen at a speed that was impossible for a normal person to follow.

With its five bony claws pressed firmly against the ground and its entire body flattened, it instantly rushed into the less than five-centimeter gap below the cabinet door.

A short, sharp creaking sound came from inside.

Two seconds later, the secondary brain emerged from under the cabinet door, its middle finger bone tip holding a rat with its head pierced through.

The rat's limbs were still in the final spasms, and fresh blood slowly dripped down the bone spurs onto the floor.

"So fast. So ruthless."