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

Priss put down his fork.

The corners of his mouth curled up in an extremely subtle arc, so small as to be almost negligible.

That's the kind of satisfaction that comes from when an experimenter observes interesting data.

"Aren't you afraid of dying?" His voice remained calm.

"Experimental drugs are dangerous after all."

Ivan gave a bitter laugh, a laugh that contained just the right amount of bitterness and madness: "Professor, in my current state, if I don't give it my all, I'm probably doomed to never get ahead."

Of course, Priss knew about Evan's syphilis.

The whole school knew. He was silent for a few seconds, his gaze behind his glasses seeming to be making some kind of calculation.

Come to my lab before your afternoon lab class.

The two then quietly finished their lunch.

Pris ate very little; he barely touched most of his plate of food, but he finished his milk.

As he got up to leave, Ivan noticed that his gait was peculiar; his steps were so light they were almost silent, and the soles of his shoes seemed to have never truly touched the ground.

Looking at the soft white bread, sausages, and grilled fish, Evan simply took Pris's plate.

Amidst the snickers and strange looks from the surrounding students, he packed it up to take away, intending to eat it that evening.

After all, this dish would cost at least 20 cents at a restaurant!

At 1:10 p.m. sharp, Evan arrived at Teaching Building No. 2.

The stairwell was filled with the smell of lime and old wood. His leather shoes clattered on the marble steps as he climbed up, one floor at a time.

I was slightly out of breath when I got to the fourth floor, but it was much better than yesterday when I had to lean against the wall after climbing just a few steps.

Pris's laboratory was at the end of the corridor.

A heavy oak door, with no nameplate, only a brass room number.

Dim light shone through the crack in the door.

Ivan knocked twice on the door, and a brief "Come in" came from inside.

He pushed open the door and went inside.

The laboratory is about 100 square meters, much more spacious than a regular classroom.

The curtains were drawn tightly shut, and the overhead light was turned down to its dimmest setting, casting an amber glow over the entire space.

Along the wall are tall wooden storage cabinets, with handwritten Latin labels on the doors, and through the glass doors you can see the densely packed bottles and jars inside.

Some contained liquids, some contained powders, and several large glass jars contained some kind of unidentifiable dark substance, floating in formaldehyde.

There was a complex smell in the air: alcohol, herbs, metal, and something deeper, an indescribable sweet and pungent odor.

Priss stood behind a long laboratory table, his gray hair gleaming silver in the dim light.

He heard footsteps, but without looking up, he picked up a small black glass bottle from the table and held it out to Evan.

"Take one pill once a day for four consecutive days. Remember, the two medications work better when taken together."

Evan took the bottle and weighed it in his palm.

The bottle was slightly larger than yesterday's, and it also had no label. The stopper was sealed with black wax.

He couldn't help but ask, "Teacher, what's the purpose of this?"

Priss finally raised his head, his glasses reflecting the dim light of the overhead lamp, obscuring the expression in his eyes.

"This will help you become stronger faster, supplementing your previous health medications."

He paused for a moment, then added, "However, the effects of this medicine require a combination of adequate nutrition and high-intensity exercise."

Otherwise you'll find the heat unbearable.

Ivan gripped the medicine bottle tightly, his face revealing undisguised excitement.

To Priss, that kind of excitement was probably the expression of a desperate student grasping at a last straw.

"clear!"

Pulis nodded slightly, thus concluding this brief handover.

Evan carefully tucked the medicine bottle into the inside pocket of his jacket, close to his chest, then turned and left the lab.

His footsteps faded into the distance in the corridor.

After the oak door closed, the laboratory was quiet for a few seconds.

Then, a figure silently emerged from behind a row of lockers against the wall.

She was an ordinary-looking young woman, wearing a white lab coat, with her dark brown hair tied in a simple bun at the back of her head.

Her face was so plain that you wouldn't give a second glance to anyone you grabbed on the street, but she walked in the same way as Pris, so light that she made no sound.

"Master." Her voice was low and flat, without any emotional fluctuation.

"If an ordinary person takes the Night Demon Potion and the Blood Potion together, they will probably die of anemia."

Even if they don't die, there's a high probability they'll mutate into a mutilated, bloodthirsty demon.

She paused, then continued cautiously, "This is a bit risky. If those people at the University of Michigan find out, they might cause you trouble."

Pulis did not turn around.

He stood in front of the lab bench, stirring a dark red liquid in a beaker with a glass rod, his movements slow and focused.

"His side effects are less than I expected." His voice was very soft.

"In the first 24 hours after taking Night Demon Drug, most people will experience severe dizziness and uncontrolled anemia at least three times."

He only mentioned dizziness, low blood sugar, and muscle swelling once.

The glass rod tapped the beaker wall twice, producing a crisp tinkling sound.

"Maybe this guy has some kind of special drug resistance."

"After all, people who come from Arkham City always have some strange traits."

He finally turned around, and his light blue eyes behind his glasses gleamed with a cold and faint light in the dim light.

"If he can really pull through, he might become the final test subject."

He took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with the cuff of his shirt.

"How are the other five doing?"

The female assistant's answer was equally bland, as if she were reporting a list of laboratory supplies.

"Two are dead. The bodies have been recovered and are in the underground cold storage."

The other three all came to school today.

They were all severely anemic, their faces were ashen, and one of them needed to hold onto a wall to walk.

Pulis put his glasses back on, adjusted the frames on his nose, and nodded.

"Let's dissect it."

He walked towards an iron door deep inside the laboratory that Ivan had never noticed before, took a brass key from his vest pocket, and inserted it into the lock.

The lock cylinder makes a dull clicking sound when it turns.

"I have a feeling."

The iron gate opened.

Although it was a laboratory located on the fifth floor, behind the door was a stone staircase that extended downwards.

"The magic potion that will allow us to overcome the sun is not far off."

……

After receiving the medicine bottle, Evan didn't rush to take it.

I first went to the chemistry lab on the first floor to complete my afternoon lab class.

The experiment involved the preparation and identification of calomel and mercuric chloride.

Ivan stood in front of the workbench, following the steps Professor Mons had written on the blackboard that morning, weighing, grinding, and heating step by step.

The blue flame of the alcohol lamp licked the bottom of the flask, the liquid in the glass tube slowly boiled, and the steam rose up with a pungent metallic smell.

His movements were much more steady than before, his fingers no longer trembled, and the graduations on the measuring cylinder were clearer to see.

After the experiment, he packed up his equipment and rushed to the recitation class in the next building.

The small classroom had three rows of desks, and fifteen students were sitting in it.

The teacher leading the group was a young lecturer in his early thirties from the Chemistry Department, and people called him Professor Wright.

He was Professor Mons's student and stayed on as a teaching assistant after graduation.

His attire was simpler than that of a formal professor: a gray plaid shirt with the cuffs buttoned up neatly.

He had short, blond hair, gray eyes hidden behind thick, round-framed glasses, and wasn't very tall.

He was a little reserved when standing on the podium, and he would always clear his throat before speaking.

"Okay, let's start taking attendance now."

He opened the roster and traced the names down with the nib of his pen.

"Terry Morales?"

"arrive."

"Jack Habini?"

"arrive."

As the names were read out one by one, responses rose and fell in the classroom.

The small group for memorizing texts is not a place for memorizing lessons.

This is a true battlefield where real skills are put to the test. Every time you speak, every answer you give, and every time you stand in front of the blackboard, the lecturer will record it and report it directly to the main professor.

The content is quite strict.

Homework checks include randomly calling on students to recite, solving problems on the blackboard, summarizing the main lecture content, and quick Q&A sessions.

The pace is fast, the pressure is high, and there is no room to hide anything.

Your performance here directly accounts for a significant portion of your final grade for this course.

In other words, no matter how well the professor lectures in a large class or how attentively you listen, if you perform poorly in a small class, the course is basically ruined.

"Now let me reiterate what Professor Mons taught today."

Wright closed the roster, his gaze sweeping across the classroom before settling on the last row.

"Arkham, you go first."

He vaguely remembered the name.

During my lunch break, I ran into Professor Mons in the faculty lounge. The old gentleman mentioned that one of his students had done a good job answering questions that day.

Hearing "not bad" from Mons is roughly equivalent to hearing "talented" from someone else.

Ivan stood up without flipping through his notes.

"Today we will mainly discuss the application and toxicology of heavy metal compounds in medicine."

"The core content is calomel and mercuric chloride..."

After listening, Wright's gray eyes behind his glasses flashed, and he nodded in satisfaction.

"very good."

"Morales, you add to this."

Morales was the student with the side-parted hair who kept turning around to look at Evan that morning.

Ivan glanced at it and sat back down.

The moment I leaned back against the chair, an indescribable feeling of comfort welled up inside me.

The panel states that the effect of phenobarbital reversal is a "slight improvement" in memory and reaction speed.

But Evan's actual feelings were far more than just "slight".

He could clearly feel that his thinking had become clearer, as if someone had wiped a dusty piece of glass clean.

He could recall almost every segment of the four morning classes, even remembering details like drawing a circle on the blackboard with chalk to emphasize something.

"The system should be correct. It should be the combined effect of anemia recovery and the improvement of other bodily functions."