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

Ivan's pupils dilated slightly.

He turned his head abruptly.

The girls' team ran their second lap right in front of the boys, less than ten meters away.

The aroma is even stronger now.

Three meters to Ivan's side, a thin, pale-faced student was slowly rising from the bench.

Ivan recognized that face.

Gilbert was also one of the students participating in the drug trials.

Gilbert's breathing became increasingly heavy, his chest heaving violently like a bellows.

His eyes were now tinged with an unnatural dark red, as if some inner color was shining through his irises.

Ivan's nasal cavity was instantly filled with a strong smell of blood.

The smell was coming from Gilbert.

Intense, fresh, with a warmth like that of steel after it has been heated to a high temperature.

"Can you smell something?"

Ivan asked the person next to him in a low voice.

Ryan shook his head blankly.

A skinny young man named John grinned, revealing a row of uneven teeth.

"What else could it smell like? The scent of a rich young lady."

Ivan's brows furrowed deeply.

How could this group of people not smell such a strong stench of blood?

Hey! Gilbert! What are you doing?

John then noticed the classmate who had stood up and waved and called out.

next second.

Gilbert's body seemed to be set ablaze from within.

He rushed towards the flank of the girls' group without hesitation.

That speed was unusual for a skinny patient.

Coal dust flew up at his feet, and his body almost grazed the ground as he flew past, leaving the boys sitting around him no time to react.

The girls were completely unprepared.

In their world, these poor boys from the bottom of society are people they wouldn't even dare to look at, and they simply can't imagine that anyone would rush towards them.

"Ah!"

The piercing screams exploded across the playground like shattered glass.

The entire running formation instantly collapsed, and the light-colored sports skirts were scattered in disarray under the sunlight.

His Witcher traits, combined with his hunting instincts, caused him to react instinctively.

He didn't even think about it; his body reacted first.

He took two steps forward and three steps closer; the power from his two points of physique made him a beat faster than Gilbert.

Just as Gilbert's sharpened right hand, with its nails stretched into claws, was about to tear open a blonde girl's shoulder, Evan's left hand grabbed his shoulder.

"Ah!"

The girl let out a high-pitched scream.

Ivan ignored her and grabbed Gilbert's shoulder with his left hand.

A strange instinct surged up from the depths of his spinal cord, directing his muscles to make a rather stylish and skillful move.

Use leverage. Turn around. Press down on the waist. Throw.

Gilbert's gaunt body was slammed to the ground with a standard over-the-shoulder throw, kicking up a cloud of coal dust.

But he did not lose his ability to resist.

A low growl, like a howl, came from his throat, completely unlike anything a human throat could produce.

Muscles bulged under the skin at a visible rate, and the thin body was stretched and swollen by some internal force.

Ivan squinted and leaned closer to look.

Gilbert's two upper canines are slowly getting longer and sharper.

"This is... a chain reaction of side effects from the Night Demon Potion and the Blood Potion?"

Ivan immediately thought of the extraordinary trait of "Basic Vampire" on his character panel.

He didn't mutate because of the panel reversal side effect.

But the other test subjects did not have this miracle; their bodies were torn and twisted by the chain reaction of the two potions, and they eventually turned into some kind of unfinished monster.

Gilbert struggled violently beneath him.

That kind of power was not something a skinny, sickly student could possess.

His fingernails dug deep furrows into the cinder floor, and his body twisted like a wildly writhing crocodile.

"Help! Help! Another poor person has gone mad!"

The noble ladies scattered and fled, screaming in terror.

The word "again" made Evan's heart sink.

It seems this has happened countless times.

Faced with Gilbert's violent struggle, Evan suddenly recalled some memories that he had never learned but were extremely familiar with.

Those memories were like the old witcher in the tricorn hat whispering in his ear by the campfire.

"A crippled, bloodthirsty beast."

"The weakness is located on the bulge on the side of the throat, a spot called the blood-thirsty sac."

"It will continuously stimulate the host's nerves, driving them into a state of blood thirst."

“Breaking the Bloodsucking Sac can temporarily dampen the Bloodsucking Beast’s offensive desire.”

"But the blood sac will automatically recover after about two hours."

Chapter 38: The Witcher's Instinct

Images from my memory flashed by, frame after frame.

A single chop to the wrist, a precise angle, a precise strike.

He knelt down, pressing his knees down onto Gilbert's arms, pinning the crazed monster to the ground.

With his left hand gripping Gilbert's chin, he lifted it sharply upwards.

A section of pale neck was exposed, and on the side of his Adam's apple, a lump the size of a pigeon egg was slowly pulsating under the skin. With each pulsation, Gilbert let out a suppressed roar.

Ivan brought his right hand together to form a chop.

It struck precisely on that pulsating protrusion.

"Uh uh uh……"

The lump shattered under his scalpel, and some kind of viscous liquid seeped into his body from under the skin.

Gilbert's body twitched twice beneath Ivan.

Then all the strength was quickly drained from his body, his muscles relaxed, the dark red in his eyes faded, and he returned to a deathly gray.

He lay limply on the cinder floor like a sack with its bones removed, his chest rising and falling slightly.

He didn't die, but he lost his fighting ability.

Ivan got off him and brushed the coal dust off his knees.

Looking at Gilbert, whom he had subdued, he felt a special sense of accomplishment.

It felt like finally defeating your first monster in the starting village of a game and gaining a generous amount of experience points.

"It seems that the demon-hunting traits I digested last night have enhanced my sense of smell. That's why only I can smell that bloody scent."

He looked down at his palm.

"And the knowledge and practical experience related to witchers have been subtly integrated into my instincts."

"There is no need to actively recall; it will automatically surface when there is an external stimulus."

This feeling was like a song he knew very well.

He can't just recite the lyrics from memory.

But the moment the melody started, he sang along with it, perfectly matching each line.

And monsters.

It's the melody of the Witcher.

"Witcher. It seems that to fully digest the knowledge in the traits, I must come into contact with more monsters."

Evan silently summarized in his mind.

"Isn't this just the role-playing method from the mystery?"

Eighteen years of experience as a veteran online novelist perfectly matched what he was going through at this moment.

The Witcher's legacy is not dead knowledge written in books, but a library of instinctive reactions that need to be activated in actual combat.

The closer you get to the monster, the easier it is for those dormant memories and instincts to awaken.

As Evan was pondering this in his mind, the playground fell into complete silence.

The crimson sunset sank behind the rooftops of the western buildings, turning the entire cinder playground into a solidified orange.

Ryan, John, and the group of poor students in tattered clothes stood there, eyes wide, their faces filled with shock.