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

Chapter 92 Now that I'm a hero, do you want to make up?

Two thousand dollars!

In the United States of 1910, which still strictly adhered to the gold standard, this was a truly enormous sum of money.

After all, in banks these days, a single deposit of more than a thousand dollars is considered a big customer.

While instructing someone to pour water, the receptionist respectfully led Evan up to the second floor.

The VIP room on the second floor was decorated quite elegantly.

The dark walnut wainscoting was spotless, and an oriental-style Persian red wool rug was laid on the floor.

A heavy oak desk stood by the window, with a small gilded bronze animal on each of the four corners of the cushion.

Ivan sat down in the armchair covered with calfskin.

A pot of steaming Ceylon tea was already set on the table, served in a set of English white porcelain teaware.

On a small, gilded tray beside it were neatly sliced ​​fruit cakes and a few slices of butter biscuits.

The person who handled this business deal was a seasoned manager named Fleming.

He was a middle-aged man, around forty years old, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, with a gold pocket watch chain tucked diagonally into his vest pocket; he was capable and meticulous.

Fleming was so enthusiastic that it was almost impossible to move.

While personally refilling Ivan's tea, he repeatedly invited him to become a major client of the bank.

After becoming a major client, his annual account management fee of $12 will be waived.

A separate cashier window will be set up at the counter, with a small VIP badge hanging on it, so there will be no need to queue to enter or exit.

The interest rate on fixed deposits is between 0.25% and 0.5% higher.

In an emergency, you can apply for an unsecured small loan of no more than $500.

Before Fleming could finish speaking, Ivan had already opened an account under his guidance.

Ivan took out the identification document from his inner pocket, along with several related documents.

After verifying the information, sign the deposit agreement, clarify the account type, verify the interest rate, and confirm the withdrawal rules.

Finally, I received a small passbook with the bank's logo on the cover and carefully signed my name on the sample card.

As he signed, Fleming stood beside him and took the opportunity to offer several rather sophisticated pieces of financial advice.

"Sir, your two thousand dollars is a very considerable sum of money."

His voice was practiced and composed.

"We suggest you deposit $1,500 of that amount into a one-year fixed deposit account, for which our bank can offer a 3.75% interest rate."

"The remaining $500 will be transferred to a current account for your convenience in daily use."

After a moment's thought, Evan smiled and shook his head.

"Thank you for your suggestion, but I usually have a lot of cash flow, so I'm not considering fixed-term deposits for the time being."

Fleming's smile remained unchanged as he nodded.

"Okay, please feel free to contact me anytime if you need anything."

As he spoke, he turned around and took a small, deep red lacquer box from his female assistant, who was wearing a dark blue suit, and presented it to Evan with both hands.

Upon seeing the box, Evan's forehead twitched slightly, and he rubbed his forehead, feeling a sudden wave of dizziness wash over him.

"This is a souvenir that our bank gives to its major clients."

Fleming's voice came through the dizziness.

"A fountain pen made of pure silver and custom-made by our firm."

"It is very popular with several other major clients."

Ivan blinked.

Although his head was still a little dizzy, his constitution, which had now exceeded 8 points, allowed him to suppress the Bloodthirsty Seed's weak silver mechanism almost instantly.

He examined the box for half a second, then closed it and pressed the lid down.

He then politely bid Fleming farewell and calmly walked towards the second-floor stairwell.

After Ivan's figure disappeared through the doorway, the female assistant who had been standing quietly by the table took a half-step closer to Fleming, her words carrying an undisguised disdain and suspicion.

"Manager, he lives on Guding Street. Where did he get so much money?"

She wrinkled her nose.

"Could it have been smuggled or stolen?"

In the United States, the neighborhood where a person lives directly reflects how respectable they are in that city.

In the mind of this female assistant, who was wearing a tweed suit, the three words "Guding Street" were almost synonymous with the poor, thieves, and dock hooligans.

Fleming was clearly more knowledgeable than she was.

"simple."

He raised his head, his eyes scanning over the top of his gold-rimmed glasses, his tone calm and experienced.

"You must remember one thing."

"In our line of work, we serve money, not people."

"As long as they're willing to hand over the money to us, even if it's just a dog, we'll share the bone with it."

After saying that, he straightened his cuffs and walked out of the carved door with a flourish.

Jane watched the manager's sharp suit from behind and sighed softly.

"No wonder you were able to get to the position of manager."

She muttered softly.

"I don't want to gnaw on a bone with a dog."

When Evan finished his business and walked back to Guding Street, the gas streetlights on the corner had just been turned on.

Under the lamppost, the lamplighter wearing a baseball cap was slowly walking towards the next lamppost, carrying a long pole with a hook.

With each lamp lit, a dim, yellowish halo appeared on the street.

I ate a big chunk of food this afternoon, and my stomach still feels greasy and full.

After weighing the options, Evan decided to skip the thirty cents for dinner at the Bee Restaurant and go straight upstairs home.

It was very cold in the apartment, so he lit the kerosene stove and poured himself a glass of water.

I took a few textbooks from the bookshelf and spread them on the table, then carefully reviewed the lessons I needed to study over the weekend.

After reviewing, he decided to read the last two chapters in advance as well.

When he came to his senses, the old clock on the wall had already struck eleven o'clock at night.

He released the secondary brain and had it walk around the room, instructing the little guy to find a secluded spot to ensure the guards were in place.

He draped his coat over the back of the chair, flopped onto the bed, and quickly fell asleep.

Meanwhile, on Hain Street.

Pilsson's face, which had been neatly groomed, was now completely distorted with anger.

He looked at Carey's remains lying on the carpet, his chest cavity so empty that the floor was visible.

Looking again at Lily, who was nowhere to be found in the house, his brows furrowed into a tight knot.

His usually impeccably creased, high-end suit had a few stains on the hem, but he didn't care anymore.

"There are almost no signs of combat."

He analyzed it through gritted teeth.

"There is also no remnant of the Dark Plague."

"Could it be—that bitch drained Kerry dry and then left on her own?"

The Red King's Laboratory and this branch of the Nyogda family have a fairly stable cooperative relationship.

The laboratory needs a dark matrix fungus as a shell for the next generation of viruses, thereby enabling the viruses to upgrade and evolve.

In recent months, the cooperation between the two parties has been progressing quite smoothly.

This is why the higher-ups were willing to keep Kerry, who had become a poisonous corpse, by Lily's side.

They also need Lily to use her abilities to further increase the physical capacity of Carey's body, so that he can swallow more viruses.

The past week has been the smoothest it's had in the last few months.

The group of witchers and vampires fought to a standstill one night (that's their assessment), and both sides disappeared from Bolton's sight.

The agreement between the laboratory and the healing church has also been stamped.

Logically speaking, there should be no mishap.

Pilsson paced back and forth on the carpet a couple of times, cursed a couple of times, and took a deep breath.

He raised his hand.

Under his own gaze, the five originally long and clean fingers rapidly deformed and elongated, turning in the blink of an eye into five thin, grayish-white roots covered with fine hairs.

Tree spirits, demons, bloodthirsty creatures, snake people.

These types of professions are all directly derived from monster races.

Taking this route means abandoning the human form.

The five roots seemed to have their own consciousness, reaching out to different corners of the room, clinging to the floor, wall cracks, and even inch by inch through the carpet fibers.

With each stroke, the muscles at the corner of Pilsner's eye twitched slightly.

After a long while, he suddenly opened his eyes.

"There is no sign of any remnants of the Dark Plague."

"There were signs of a fight. It was Kerry. His body and teeth appeared to have been struck by a blunt object. There were no traces of supernatural abilities; it was just a simple physical attack."

"Someone must have come and severely injured Kerry—that's all we can deduce."

"Lily must not be dead, otherwise even an expert-level superhuman wouldn't be able to clean that lump of mud so thoroughly."

"The room reeked of many other smells: alcohol, sweat, fish, and all sorts of cheap, headache-inducing perfumes —"

The more Pilsson analyzed the situation, the angrier he became.

"That damn monster, how many men have you slept with these past few days?!"

Pilsson was so frustrated he wanted to just smash the house to pieces!

Tree spirits are good at sensing, but only if they have at least a clear clue.

But now the atmosphere in the room was completely mixed up, like a bucket of mixed paint, making it impossible for him, as an apprentice, to discern the underlying colors.

He hesitated for a long time, and finally gave up completely.

"Forget it! Just report it as—Nyogda's family ran away on their own. Anyway, I don't want to do this job anymore."

Then, he raised his hand and pulled the five roots back into his palm, letting out a long sigh.

What should we eat tonight?

He stared at the empty ceiling.

"Are people fatter, or are pigs fatter?"

This is the core flaw of the Tree Spirit class.

They cannot consume normal food and can only survive by relying on the manure needed by various plants.

They had absolutely no resistance to those things.

It's to the point where you have to taste the saltiness of the food before you even meet.

The next morning.

Evan slept until seven o'clock in the morning and stretched.

"You chicken~!"

Accompanied by the familiar scream of the trampoline, Evan climbed out of bed.

He ultimately couldn't bear to wear that brand-new suit.

He changed into the old shirt he had worn for two years, the old jacket with a missing button, and the woolen trousers worn shiny at the knees.

[The side effects of the cystic gland have been reversed.]

Your flexibility has increased. Your constitution has been permanently increased by 0.2.

[Your self-awareness has improved. Mental strength permanently increased by +0.2.]

Ivan fastened his belt while looking at the panel, and smacked his lips.

"A decline in self-awareness and a stiffening of the body are quite consistent with the effects of cadaveric poisoning."

"Giving both spirit and physique attributes at the same time is quite generous, but the conversion time is indeed long."

"When there are no potions available, you can choose to eat some."

I went downstairs while thinking about it.

Guding Street was as bustling as ever.

An elderly Italian man with a cart on the street corner is brewing coffee, the pot bubbling loudly.

Old Tom, the shoe repairman downstairs, was sitting on a small stool by the door, nailing the soles of a pair of men's work shoes.

"Breaking news! Breaking news! The Alcott family is guilty of heinous crimes! A cult that controls women!"

A newsboy on the street corner held up a morning paper with the smell of ink in both hands and drank it at the top of his lungs.

The largest line of text on the front page of the newspaper was printed with the thickest lead type by the typesetters.

Finally, news from Newhafen reached Bolton.

"Since it's on the front page, that means—it's been put on the scales."

Ivan silently recited a phrase to himself, without stopping.

He walked into the familiar Bee Restaurant, and amidst the wide-eyed stares of the other regulars, he ate a hearty breakfast of forty cents, enough for three people.

After finishing the last bite, he walked through the alley and boarded the tram to go to school.

After the rugby game, the overly excited atmosphere on campus had mostly subsided.

But Evan keenly sensed that another kind of oppressive feeling was quietly spreading.

As soon as he stepped into the school gate, he saw several police cars parked at the main entrance, and several plainclothes detectives wearing top hats were standing on the steps whispering to each other.

The students walked past them in twos and threes, whispering about the gossip they had heard from who-knows-where.

"I heard it's their son, in New Haven—"

"I thought there were only two or three, but there are actually more than a dozen —"

Ivan didn't make eye contact with anyone as he walked straight to his classroom.

The moment I pushed open the door and stepped inside, the classroom, which had been buzzing just moments before, fell into complete silence.

Everyone instinctively focused their attention on Ivan.

There were quite a few classmates in the hotel lobby that night, and many of them already knew that Evan was the key figure in this series of events.

"Arkham, can you tell us what exactly happened that night?"

A relatively cheerful young man walked over with a smile, his tone full of curiosity.

The entire Phoenix Brotherhood has now become utterly discredited.

The front page of the newspaper!

The dockworkers could talk about the crazy and evil deeds of those people in great detail.

And Evan, who was previously bullied by the entire Phoenix Brotherhood, has naturally undergone a 180-degree change in his identity and stance.

Faced with the other party's enthusiasm, Ivan gave a lukewarm smile.

"I still prefer you guys, the ones who treated me like I was invisible."

The little bit of renewed energy in the classroom was instantly frozen by that one sentence.

A degree of embarrassment appeared on everyone's face.

Several students instinctively lowered their heads, their shoe tips shuffling nervously on the floor.

Of course they remembered how they had collectively subjected this poor boy to emotional abuse and ridicule a while back.

After a few seconds of silence, another well-dressed student forced himself to speak.

"Arkham, this is all in the past, we—"

Ivan grinned and confronted him head-on.

"I'll stab you now."

His tone was even lighthearted and playful.

"And then I'll say sorry to you."

"To reiterate, this all happened a second ago."

"We're friends now, do you agree?"

The student opened his mouth, but in the end he could only let out a breath and lower his head.

Ivan remained seated in the old chair in the corner, his legs propped up under the edge of the table. He looked around and spoke loudly.

"I am different from other students from underprivileged backgrounds."

"I have no interest in being your dog, and I don't care what you think at all."

"Don't give me that 'what's done is done, we rich kids have already forgiven you, what more do you want?' attitude."

"Your attention, your so-called social connections, your sense of face—"

"for me."

He paused, looked around, and added seriously.

"It's no different from a fart."

Done.

Evan leaned slightly to one side of the chair.

Pfft!

A loud, unfiltered fart echoed through the classroom.

"look!"

He grinned, revealing a sunny and cheerful smile.

"That's the kind of fart I'm talking about!"

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