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

Chapter 159 So it turns out I'm really the only brute in this place!

After hearing Ivan's request, Mons frowned slightly: "What's the matter that requires you to take leave?"

Evan said with some difficulty, "I have some important business to attend to in New Haven. I'll try to be back this afternoon or tomorrow morning."

Mons acknowledged Ivan's character and attitude towards learning, and signed the document.

"You also need to go to the academic affairs director."

Evan arrived at the dean's office with his leave request. The new dean frowned slightly after reading it.

"You need to apply for leave three days in advance here. Your request for leave is too sudden, so I can't approve it."

Hearing this, Ivan smiled and said, "But Director, I really have an urgent matter to attend to."

The director stood up abruptly, his voice stern: "Shutting your face like that, is your urgent matter more important than the school's rules and regulations?"

Seeing the other party's unyielding and domineering attitude, Ivan sighed.

Then he took out his elegant wallet and pulled out an ID card.

"Professor, I acknowledge the importance of school rules, but I do have an urgent matter."

The director said righteously, "You can use whose signature you want—"

Before he could finish speaking, Evan handed over his senior detective ID and investigative credentials.

"Director, I need to go over there urgently to investigate a case."

"If the suspect gets away because of this, the consequences will be quite serious."

The director was shocked as he took the relevant documents and checked them several times.

Looking at the numerous stamps and signatures on it, my eyes widened in disbelief.

"You—how could you—"

He was an industry insider with relevant connections, so he naturally knew what such a high-level detective investigation badge represented.

After staring at Evan in shock for a few seconds, he readily signed the leave request.

"If you need anything in the future, feel free to let me know. I will do my best to cooperate with you, Detective Arkham."

After successfully obtaining leave, Evan headed to Bolton South Station as quickly as possible.

I squeezed through the crowd and quickly bought a train ticket to New Haven, barely making the 10:30 train.

This train journey was completely different from the last one.

The last time was when I was a bodyguard in a quiet, customized train carriage. Although it was a guard post, the environment was quiet and clean.

But this time, the entire carriage was packed with people.

The various smells of body odor, fishy smell, cheap perfume, and tobacco mixed together, making Ivan's powerful sense of smell suffer a lot.

He couldn't help but think to himself, "I'm speechless! There are subtle differences in body odor between different people?"

Feeling utterly bored as he squeezed onto the hardwood chair, he instinctively began to analyze the situation.

"Some body odor has a strong sour smell, some has a strange fishy smell, and some has a dry feeling—"

The next second he snapped back to reality: "Damn it! What am I thinking? Why am I analyzing this stuff when I have nothing better to do?"

Three and a half hours later, the train arrived smoothly at Union Station in New Haven.

Having learned from the previous experience, this time it was a breeze.

Arriving at the square, I hopped on the tram and arrived at Dr. Armitage's museum without any problems.

Pushing open the door and stepping inside, I found that the museum was hosting a group of students today.

The group of young men who looked like college students were explaining the exhibits to the students.

In the counter directly in front, Dr. Armitage, whom we hadn't seen for a long time, was still as vigorous as ever.

Wearing a white shirt, a gray knitted sweater, and reading glasses, he leaned back reading a book.

Those aged but sharp eyes were focused intently behind their lenses.

When Evan walked in, the old man seemed to sense it. He instinctively looked up when he heard the doorbell, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes.

He then called to his assistant Miller to maintain order, and with a smile, led Ivan to his office on the second floor.

The two were now somewhat familiar with each other. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Ivan got straight to the point and took out the tree spirit's extraordinary properties from his wallet.

The old man took the extraordinary feature and understood some of the reasons behind it after just one glance.

"You've already had a conflict with the Red King Laboratory?"

Evan nodded, and then recounted his recent experiences in detail, omitting some details about the various things he ate.

Including Kerry's fate, the Nyogda family, the Poison Blade gang, the current plague, factory owner Sap, old Alcott — and last night's killing of an expert-level treant.

Armitage's eyes widened as he listened, nodding repeatedly with a clicking sound.

After Evan finished speaking concisely, the old man couldn't help but clap his hands in approval: "Excellent! I knew I hadn't misjudged you, kid! I never expected you to be able to kill an expert while only being an apprentice! Well done, Arkham!"

"I'm so proud of you!"

"I must say, your life has been quite eventful lately, filled with thrilling moments and remarkable growth every day."

The old man's eyes were filled with emotion and pride as he sighed.

"I'm even a little envious of this! It's truly a youth that's not wasted at all."

Evan, who had always taken praise for granted, was now a little embarrassed by the compliments.

After expressing his approval and praise, Armitage began to analyze quickly.

"I didn't expect the water to be so deep here."

"If nothing unexpected happens, your analysis is absolutely correct."

"Those strange parasites are likely the result of a collaborative research effort between the ghouls and the Red King's laboratory."

"Their core demand is likely to be to complete a special ritual in order to bring something into being."

Ivan asked tentatively, "Is it something like a divine child or an incarnation?"

Armitage thought for a moment and nodded: "It should be this type."

"Many creatures in the Dreamland have now developed intelligence and possess wisdom that is no less than that of humans. Therefore, they have always longed to leave the Dreamland and return to the material world."

Evan suddenly became curious: "Doctor, did these monsters appear from the Dream Realm, or did they originally exist in the human world?"

Armitage said, "We don't know exactly when the Dream Realm existed. It's a completely high-dimensional plane, like a shadow of the material world."

"As for the monsters you mentioned, some of them appeared directly in the Dream Realm, while others were banished from the material world."

"Ghouls are one of them."

"Expel?" Ivan was taken aback.

Armitage nodded: "This relates to why the supernatural suddenly disappeared from the material world, although the reason for its disappearance has not yet been fully investigated—"

"But what is certain is that during this process of dissipation, all the monsters from the material world were driven into the dream realm."

"In our supernatural world, they are called legendary creatures."

Ivan exclaimed, "A legendary creature? That sounds incredibly powerful, legendary level!"

Armitage smiled and shook his head, saying, "This legend doesn't mean legendary; it means myth or legend."

"Ghouls, dragons, griffins, chimeras—these supernatural monsters that exist in various folk tales all fall into the category of legendary creatures."

"Legends don't mean they're powerful; they just exist in various legends."

He then asked Ivan, "Do you think ghouls are powerful?"

Evan thought about Leto, whose paw he had eaten, and shook his head: "Pretty trash."

Armitage smiled and nodded, continuing, "And in this process, a small number of legendary creatures managed to remain in the material world by changing their beliefs."

You should be very familiar with these kinds of creatures.

Ivan's eyes lit up: "Could it be—"

Armitage nodded: "Yes, vampires, demons, tree spirits, and snake people."

"During this great extinction of legendary creatures, they assimilated into the supernatural symbols because of their unique beliefs, making them part of their profession."

Ivan's worldview was further enriched: "I see."

After a brief explanation, Armitage stood up and spoke.

"The waters here are too deep right now; at your level, it's best not to get too involved."

"I've received some special information; something big is indeed going to happen in Bolton City."

"Please keep yourselves safe as much as possible during this period. If you are worried, I suggest that you take refuge in New Haven for the time being."

Ivan nodded: "Thank you, Doctor. This is the final solution. We will consider it if it is suitable."

Armitage grunted, toyed with the extraordinary ability in his hand for a moment, and then with a casual wave of his hand, the item vanished.

As Evan was wondering what Armitage's profession was, he suddenly remembered his earlier question.

"By the way, Doctor! I now possess two and a half extraordinary abilities, and my flaws are becoming quite apparent."

"Wouldn't that mean the stronger a person is, the more weaknesses they have? Couldn't we fall into a situation where the higher one's rank, the more weaknesses they have?"

'

Armitage sighed, "You're quite the greenhorn! I didn't expect you to have mastered two extraordinary abilities so quickly."

"I have to say, the talent that witch left you is indeed quite good."

Evan scratched his head somewhat awkwardly: "Well, what can I do? I'm just a brute who came to this field halfway through."

Armitage smiled and continued his explanation.

"First, you need to recognize a misconception: only professions that require complete extraordinary characteristics can complete a job change."

"For the remaining extraordinary characteristics, it is generally enough to activate only the first stage. The second and third stages can be gradually mastered through long-term cultivation."

"According to the intelligence I have, there should be a prophet named Gust in the area where you live. He has been hiding there all these years in order to hone his extraordinary abilities."

"As for the weaknesses you mentioned, they don't necessarily need to be remedied by taking medication."

"For example, if you need sufficient physical fitness, you can exercise; if you need solar or lunar affinity, you can improve it by basking in the sun or moon more often, or by performing related rituals."

"However, this kind of improvement will be very slow, not as quick and direct as potions. It will take years to see any effects."

Ivan nodded knowingly.

Armitage continued, "And the drawbacks of extraordinary abilities are not as severe as you might imagine."

"You could even say that if you are patient enough, you can reduce the flaws of the complete extraordinary characteristics to the level of the first stage."

"ah!?"

Ivan's eyes widened, and he asked with his mouth agape, "Is this even possible? How did they do that?"

Armitage explained: "Extraordinary abilities originate from monsters, and mastering extraordinary abilities is the process of using our humanity to integrate and tame our bestial nature."

"This process itself requires the body to have enough time to adapt."

"To use an analogy, you can think of the entire extraordinary ability as a dose of one hundred pills."

"The harm to your body from eating all 100 pills at once is vastly different from the harm from eating 100 pills one a day for 100 days."

"That's what I meant by being able to suppress the flaws of a complete superhuman ability in the first stage."

"After acquiring basic extraordinary traits, you can gradually accumulate progress through long periods of training and gradual absorption."

"The side effects of acquiring a complete superhuman trait in a week versus in a year will be vastly different."

Ivan plopped down in the chair.

He reflected on the enemies and friends he had encountered along the way and found that the weaknesses of their extraordinary characteristics were not very obvious.

At first, he thought it was because the two sides had not known each other for long enough that he had not discovered the other party's weaknesses.

But now that I think about it carefully...

He spent over a month wolfing down four extraordinary traits, and has already fully activated two of them, as well as one in the second stage.

The other party's extraordinary characteristics likely took a year, two years, or even five or ten years to activate.

This is why their flaws are not so obvious.

Armitage continued, "Another point that can reduce the side effects is when you become a master."

""

"After successfully integrating the three characteristics, you can choose one side effect to completely eliminate."

"This is a reward for your rank advancement."

"The path to the extraordinary is about pursuing perfection, so it's impossible for it to have more and more flaws as you go along it."

"This is why you can see many extraordinary people who have clearly entered the realm of immortality, but they do not appear young. Instead, they generally look like they are in their thirties, forties, or even fifties."

"A large part of the reason is that they spent their entire youth slowly digesting these extraordinary characteristics, striving to minimize their weaknesses."

"To minimize weaknesses, depending on individual talent and physique, this process generally takes ten or even twenty years."

At this moment, Evan thought of Forem, Byron, old Alcott, and even Richard, who looked like a middle-aged man.

Evan finally understood why the tree spirit was able to guess his identity in an instant last night.

It turns out that in the extraordinary realm of Bolton City, I'm the only pure brute among them lately!

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