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

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

But 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 people?"

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 an 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.

"Go and 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.

Her blonde hair was cut very short, and her gray eyes were hidden behind a pair of thick, round-framed glasses. She 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."

"Morays, 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 time.

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."

Chapter 8: The Potions Chain

The small group class ended at 4:00 PM sharp.

The fifteen students breathed a sigh of relief almost simultaneously, and the classroom was filled with the rustling sound of students packing up their textbooks and notes. The atmosphere of relief was as if they had just walked through the gates of hell.

The ordeal related to academic credits may not be over yet.

As a respectable institution of higher learning, the University of Sages naturally needs to address both the spiritual and physical aspects of education.

There is about half an hour of mandatory physical activity after class every day. Failure to participate will result in a direct deduction of credits, with no room for negotiation.

You can choose the type of sport.

Running, baseball, boxing, rowing, rugby... all count.

With his small frame, Evan naturally chose running, which has the lowest barrier to entry.

At 4 o'clock in November, the setting sun was already dark red, casting long shadows on the playground.

The temperature also dropped to around 9 degrees Celsius.

Ivan jogged slowly around the cinder track with the team, the cinder crunching under his shoes.

He clearly felt much more relaxed than yesterday.

Yesterday, I was panting like a stranded fish after running the first lap, and today I only started to feel the strain on the second lap.

My legs feel stronger, and my lungs don't feel like they're working a bellows every time I breathe in, like before.

"A mere 0.2 improvement in physique is already this noticeable?"

While running, Ivan glanced at the group out of the corner of his eye.

He noticed that more than a dozen students were running listlessly, with dragging steps, pale faces, and some even had an abnormal bluish-purple tinge to their lips.

One of the tall, thin boys suddenly stopped while running, bent over, held his knees, and gagged twice. He was then helped to the sidelines by his classmates.

Ivan knew two of these students.

They were all people who had signed agreements to receive subsidies for impoverished students and were participating in drug trials together.

"If I didn't have the power of the Nine Dragons, I'd probably end up like them."

As Evan thought to himself, his foot instinctively veered towards the tall, thin man who was retching, wanting to go and lend a hand.

But reason prevailed and suppressed the thought in the next second.

"Only by managing yourself can you have the right to manage others."

"Those guys even dare to use students to test potions on universities. If I meddle and give myself away, I'll probably be walking out of the school gate tomorrow."

"At the very least, one must... reach the extraordinary level."

He looked away, lowered his head, and continued running.

Panting heavily, the half-hour of running and stopping finally came to an end.

Ivan was bent over, his hands on his knees, panting heavily.