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

Looking at the arrogant attitude of the secondary brain, the Ironblood Potion stripped away his smile.

But the thought of approval that comes from "the owner seeing their cat bring back a mouse" still popped into my head.

He picked up the key with his thumb and forefinger; its texture was quite strange.

It is silver, but not silver.

Because I didn't faint.

It has a metallic coolness to the touch, but is lighter than silver of the same volume, and possesses a subtle toughness that does not belong to any known metal in this world.

It seemed to sense the aura of a witcher emanating from Ivan, aura composed purely of killing intent.

The key struggled between his fingers for a moment, then went limp as if resigned to its fate.

The next second, it turned into a silver liquid and melted into Ivan's palm.

Evan remained expressionless, flicked his wrist, and forcibly flung the silver liquid out from under his skin, where it reformed into the shape of a key, hovering above his palm.

"No side effects. No mental strain."

He coldly checked it in his mind.

"This thing... shouldn't be a vessel for escaping, nor a parasitic object."

"Is it some kind of special monster?"

"A monster in the shape of a key?"

Just as Evan was pondering, the old hunter's familiar whisper echoed once again from deep within his skull.

"Activation device".

The sound seemed to be coming from deep within the campfire.

"A special high-level magical artifact."

"In its inactive state, it will not cause any active harm to the holder."

"This kind of magical artifact incorporates a certain extraordinary characteristic and has an active state, but it rarely forms a complete self-awareness."

"They generally possess some very special abilities."

"The cost is varying degrees of side effects."

After hearing this account of his experience, Evan felt completely confident.

"Transcending the extraordinary is really convenient."

He thought for a few seconds and then hung the key at the base of a bone spur on the outer shell of his brain.

The key melted into the secondary brain the moment it touched it.

Instead of adhering to the skin as before, it seeped into the interior of the secondary brain through its translucent bony shell.

Eventually, a thin, uniform silver membrane formed on the inner wall of the accessory brain skeleton.

With a thought, Evan issued a command to the secondary brain.

The response was smooth and without any blockages.

He even felt that the signal between the two was more stable than before.

Moreover, he keenly noticed that his secondary brain's list of instinctive skills had been expanded to include something he had never possessed before.

The secondary brain seemed to sense its master's discovery; it gently pushed off from Ivan's palm and nimbly leaped to the rear of the Ford, where it perched on the locked trunk.

The secondary brain slightly arched its body, striking a pose that appeared quite smug and was unique to it. It held its middle finger bone spike high, pointing it at Evan.

Then, he aligned the tip of the bone spur with the keyhole and gently inserted it.

pat.

The sound was as crisp as a drop of water falling into a porcelain bowl. The trunk popped open.

Ivan watched this scene and remained silent for two seconds.

"...I can pick locks now."

"It's a magic artifact in the shape of a key! It's normal that it can unlock locks."

The instant he made that assessment, his demon-hunting vision, enhanced by the shark potion, detected the anomaly two kilometers away.

Two entities, imbued with a strong aura of the extraordinary, are approaching the road at the maximum speed achievable by a carriage.

Those two auras were very special; they were covered with a faint but absolutely undeniable golden halo.

In his demon-hunting vision, the two people were like two golden lanterns walking in the night, carefully polished.

"Official Witcher".

In that instant, Evan completely understood what Richard meant by "You'll recognize him when you see him."

All dressed in gold.

That's something that would never appear on other ordinary superhumans.

It is not decoration, but a kind of "property rights" luster that has been marked by the official system from the root and from the soul.

He calmly retracted his secondary brain into his body, then remained still without making any unnecessary movements.

About five minutes later, a four-wheeled carriage stopped about 100 meters ahead of the road.

A copper lantern hung on each side of the front of the carriage, the oil inside still swaying slightly.

The car door opened, and a man and a woman got out.

The man was tall with broad shoulders and a wide back, wearing a long, dark black leather trench coat that almost reached his boots.

A pair of golden, vertical pupils appeared exceptionally sharp under the halo of the lantern.

He was holding a revolver in his right hand, and you could tell from his grip that he carried a gun all the time.

It's obvious, he's a Witcher.

The woman stood beside him; she wasn't very tall, and was rather slender. She wore a gray, tight-fitting leather outfit and had a neat short haircut.

Her brow bone and jawline appeared quite hard and cold, and what stood out most were her eyes.

The iris appears as an almost metallic grayish-white.

"Witch".

Evan completed the analysis in his mind in half a second.

"It seems that the so-called official superhumans are not just the three professions under the Gold Rank, but other professions can also be included."

"The sign of joining is being incorporated into this golden system and receiving the protection of gold. Or, to put it another way, accepting the control of gold."

"Friend, what's going on?"

The male witcher spoke first.

His revolver wasn't raised, but the muzzle was angled towards the ground beneath Evan's feet, a posture that suggested it could be raised at any moment.

The silver-white barrel of the revolver was engraved with a dense and complex pattern that Evan did not recognize.

On Ivan's side, the effects of the Lion Potion and the Gecko Potion had completely worn off.

His height returned to 1.81 meters. However, the respectable three-piece suit he had changed into at the hotel was now completely ripped apart by his body, which had swelled to two meters in height.

The cuffs, trouser seams, and underarms of the vest were torn, with tears everywhere, making it look like a tattered garment just torn off from the battlefield.

"I was attacked by a group of cult members. I was forced to fight back."

He spoke. His voice was steady, clear, and without any inflection.

"Forgive my cold tone," he added.

"The effects of the Iron Blood Potion haven't worn off yet."

The male witcher's expression turned serious, and he glanced down at the ground.

The footprints stretched all the way from the other end of the road, each one imprinted deep in the dust.

The distance between them was more than fifteen meters, and the indentations were at least two inches deep; those were not marks left by human legs.

"Did you take the Lion Potion?"

There was a subtle hint of wariness in his voice.

"It's over, my friend. You don't need to be nervous."

As he spoke, Ivan reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

"What are you doing!?"

Almost simultaneously, the two men raised their pistols, the muzzles pointing directly at Ivan's forehead.

The reaction was so fast it was as if they were pulled out by the same thread.

Evan said expressionlessly, "Show me your ID."

He raised his left hand as a gesture, and slowly pulled a stack of things out of his inner pocket with his right hand.

The stack of things was unfolded in the moonlight.

At the very top is a small, dark blue book with a gold-embossed cover and the Miskatonic University crest.

Next was a temporary identity card sealed with wax and bearing the Hearst family crest.

Then there were a few scattered supporting documents, each bearing the small stamps of different institutions.

"First of all, I am an investigator from the University of Michigan, and this is my identification document."

He spoke calmly, each word stripped bare by the Ironblood Potion into pure information.

"Secondly, I am Miss Hearst's security personnel. This is my proof."

He slightly raised his chin towards the corpse behind him, which had been crushed into a pulp by the copper claws.

"The one who died was named Bote Alcott."

"He belonged to an organization that worshipped an evil god—the Theosophical Society."

"He used cruel methods to control a large number of students at the University of the Wise, turning those children into a part of his own body."

“You can tell from the signs of a fight at the abandoned factory outside New Haven.”