novellhall Chapter 4: Focused Learning and a Stronger Body
Chapter 4: Focused Learning and a Stronger Body
"Digestion complete?" Evan looked down hurriedly.
You reversed the side effects of the unfinished Night Demon Potion.
Your anemia has been significantly relieved! 65% → 30%
Your self-healing ability is permanently increased by 2%.
"So the anemia has improved! No wonder I feel much better."
He briefly sensed the changes in his body, then turned his attention back to the prompts on the panel and began to ponder them.
"Judging from the effects of mercury pills and phenobarbital, reversal means turning the originally reduced value of side effects into a gain."
"Mercury poisoning can cause gum ulcers and loose teeth, so after the reversal, it strengthened my teeth."
"Mercury poisoning can cause gastrointestinal ulcers and brain nerve damage, so after the reversal, both of these were repaired."
"Following this logic, the side effects of this unfinished Night Demon Potion should be..."
"Further severe anemia and a permanent reduction in the body's self-healing ability."
He paused, still shaken: "One pill, sending you straight down the path to diabetes?"
Ivan was shocked by the potion's potency, and even more shocked by the school's inhumane behavior.
Feeding students this kind of stuff, what kind of eyes are hidden behind those lenses of Priss's?
"Never mind, let's focus on getting used to our bodies now."
Imagine him standing up from the edge of the bed, his bare feet touching the cold floor, feeling every signal his body was sending back.
Just a few hours ago, the body was so weak that it could barely walk, but now it has regained some of the strength of a living person.
My previously stiff and numb limbs have become more flexible, and although I still experience dizziness and tinnitus, they have been greatly relieved.
My inflamed throat and lungs felt much better, and my breathing no longer had that irritating, rapid whistling sound.
My icy hands and feet finally warmed up, and my blood seemed to remember how to flow again.
He took a few steps and walked around the room twice.
His thin legs seemed a little thicker, and you could feel a thin layer of muscle outline on his calves. His steps were steady and powerful.
Evan walked back to the table, picked up the canvas backpack hanging on the back of the chair, unfastened the buckle, and stacked the textbooks inside on the table.
He is currently majoring in six subjects: chemistry, biology, physics, English, mathematics, and German.
Tomorrow, no, today's classes are chemistry, physics, English, and math—all four classes crammed into the morning.
Each class lasts one hour, with a 10-minute break between classes.
The classes start at 1 p.m. with lab sessions and small group recitation sessions, and students don't have any free time until after 4 p.m.
The day before yesterday, Professor Mons assigned a ton of homework in chemistry class, including things to write and things to memorize.
Unfortunately, Evan has been in a daze these past two days, not even having the energy to open his textbooks, and hasn't touched a single word of his homework.
He pulled out his chemistry notebook and worksheets and spread them out on the table; the chemical formulas and equations looked like a group of neatly arranged little insects.
Ivan sighed.
"We've already time-traveled, do we still have to study chemistry?"
Then, in the next second, four times the focus came crashing down like a gate, shutting out all distractions.
His pupils contracted slightly, his gaze fixed on the first line of text in the notebook, and the whole world fell silent.
"Dalton's atomic theory, Mendeleev's periodic table..."
His gaze swept over each page of notes, each formula, and each supplementary explanation dictated by the professor with almost mechanical efficiency.
Information flows into the brain like water, without swirling or stagnating, sinking directly into the depths of memory.
His right hand was writing rapidly on the homework paper at the same time. The scratching sound of the pen tip scraping the paper was even and rapid in the quiet early morning, like a well-functioning sewing machine.
Time slips away unnoticed.
The oil level in the kerosene lamp dropped by more than half an inch, and a section of the wick burned out with black char.
The light filtering through the curtains changed from a dim yellow to a grayish white, and then from grayish white to a pale gold.
The homework sheets on the table were already three pages full, and the notebook was flipped to the last few pages.
When the bell tower of a distant church struck seven times, Evan suddenly snapped out of his reverie.
That feeling of focus faded quickly, like the receding tide, and the world became noisy and trivial again.
I could hear Mary turning over in the next room, the sound of horseshoes of a carriage passing by on the street, and the baby crying downstairs.
He became an ordinary person again.
But I've finished my homework.
The four subjects required at least 10 hours of homework, which I finished in one go in four hours.
"Time to go to school."
Ivan quickly pulled open the wardrobe that had lost a handle.
There were very few things hanging inside: two shirts, one gray with a frayed collar; the other white with a yellowish sweat stain that couldn't be washed off under the arm.
He chose the gray one and put on a dark brown tweed jacket with patches on the elbows and one button missing, which he replaced with a patch made of fabric sewn with a piece of thread of the same color.
The pants were a dark-colored pair of trousers that had pilled, with slight bulges at the knees, and no amount of ironing could restore them to their original shape.
I slipped on a pair of faded secondhand leather shoes. The soles were worn thin, and the heel of the left shoe was slightly crooked, making a slight, asymmetrical clicking sound when I walked.
He went into the adjacent washroom, splashed cold water on his face, which made him shiver, but also cleared his head a bit.
He looked up at the cracked mirror hanging on the wall. In the mirror was a young, thin face with prominent cheekbones and deep-set eyes, black hair and black eyes.
She has a good foundation, but she's so thin she looks unnatural.
I put on my backpack and went out.
Going down the crowded stairs, the hallway was piled with clutter:
A worn-out wooden crate, a rolled-up old carpet, a stroller missing its front wheel, and several empty wine bottles.
Large patches of paint had peeled off the corner of the wall, revealing the gray brick surface underneath.
The air was thick with the stench of boiled cabbage, damp wood, and urine—the unchanging smell of cheap apartment buildings.
Pushing open the heavy iron gate on the ground floor, the street came into view.
A scene of bustling activity.
The streets of Guding are lined with three- or four-story red brick buildings. Over the years, the bricks have been stained a dark brown by coal smoke, as if they have been coated with a dirty glaze.
The ground floor is lined with various shops along the street, with narrow storefronts and crooked signs.
Old Tom, the shoe repairman, was already sitting on a low stool by the door, working with a boot tucked under his knee and a few shoe nails between his teeth.
The oven at the bakery next door was lit in the early morning, and the air was filled with the sour aroma of cheap rye bread.
Further on was a blacksmith shop. The furnace wasn't burning brightly yet, and the apprentice was working the bellows, the rhythm dull and monotonous.
A small clinic is crammed around the street corner. A row of faded medicine bottles is displayed in the glass window at the entrance, and the words "Tooth Extraction 25 Cents" are crookedly written in red paint on the window.
The mornings in November are refreshing, without the dampness of July or the biting cold of January.
The cracks in the rocks were filled with sewage from the previous night, mixed with horse manure, vegetable leaves, and scraps of paper, which were stirred into a sticky slurry by the footsteps and wheels of passing vehicles.
Dockworkers in overalls walked by in small groups, their iron-toed boots clattering on the cobblestones, shouting and exchanging crude jokes, their laughter rough and unrestrained.
A newsboy stood under a lamppost on the street corner, a stack of still-smelling copies of the *Bolton Morning Post* tucked under his arm, shouting at the top of his lungs:
"Steel tycoon buys three more mines! Unidentified body found at East Wharf! For just one cent! One cent!"
Horse-drawn carts crisscrossed the narrow streets, their wheels rumbling over the cobblestones.
An old chestnut horse pulled a cart full of ice as it passed by, the melting water dripping from the back of the cart, leaving a dark, wet trail on the muddy ground.
The air was thick with layers of fishy, earthy, horse manure, and cheap tobacco smells, like an invisible dirty blanket that completely covered the entire street.
"Cough cough cough!"
Ivan, whose pneumonia had not yet fully healed, was choked by the mixed smell and coughed violently for a while, bending over with tears streaming down his face.
He covered his mouth with his sleeve, quickened his pace through the sweaty crowd, and arrived at a fast food cart on the street.
The cart was run by an elderly Italian man. On the cart were an iron pot and a tin coffee pot. The pot was warming several rows of sliced black bread, and thin white steam was rising from the spout of the coffee pot.
A three-cent loaf of dark bread and a two-cent cup of black coffee.
Five cents, that's breakfast.
Ivan slapped a five-cent nickel on the tin table of the cart, then took the bread and a chipped enamel mug.
The over-fermented sourness of the bread and the burnt bitterness of the black coffee combined in his mouth, almost making him vomit.
Fortunately, his stomach was more pragmatic than his willpower; his Adam's apple bobbed twice before he forced the food back down.
As he walked, he finished the last bite of bread, returned the enamel mug to the old man pushing the cart, and turned into a small alley on the south side of Guding Street.
The alley was narrower and dirtier than the street, and the walls of the buildings on both sides were almost within reach.
Clotheslines stretched overhead, and wet sheets and underwear covered most of the sky. Water droplets dripped down onto his shoulders, feeling cool.
Cigarette butts and rotten vegetable scraps floated in the puddles on the ground. A skinny little stray cat squatted on the garbage heap, coldly watching him pass by with its yellowish-green eyes.
After passing through two narrow alleys, the view suddenly opened up.
The main road on the north side and Guding Street are completely different worlds.
The wide street stretched for at least ten meters, paved with smooth stone slabs, with tram tracks embedded in the center, the two tracks gleaming with a cold gray luster in the morning light.
Overhead, power lines crisscross like a giant spider web, connecting the tall concrete buildings on both sides.
These buildings are five or six stories high, with neat and bright windows. The shop windows on the ground floor display ready-made clothes, watches, and leather goods, and the glass is spotless.
The gas lamps on the street corner have been replaced by electric lights. The lamp posts are made of cast iron and painted dark green, and the lampshades on top look superfluous and extravagant in the morning sunlight.
A large number of horse-drawn carriages moved orderly through the streets, the clatter of horseshoes striking the stone slabs creating a continuous rhythm.
Occasionally, a black Ford Model T would drive through the traffic, its engine emitting a rough, sputtering roar.
A cloud of bluish-gray smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe, and the brass parts on the car body gleamed in the sunlight.
Pedestrians stopped and stared, and several newsboys chased after the car for a while, shouting excitedly.
"It feels so real and novel!" Evan felt excited and satisfied as he experienced the loading of scenes from his second life.
I stood on the tram platform for about five minutes, squeezed in with a group of people waiting for the tram.
He pulled out a five-cent coin he had prepared beforehand from his pocket and held it in his hand. When the dark green tram came to a stop with a clanging sound, he squeezed on with the crowd.
The carriage was incredibly crowded, filled with people's shoulders, elbows, hat brims, and various smells.
Ivan was caught between a large butcher and a Polish woman holding a baby, one hand gripping the leather handrail above his head, his body swaying from side to side with the tram's movement.
Amidst the crowded swaying, he noticed something.
His body has become noticeably stronger.
Previously, when he was on a crowded tram, he had trouble even holding onto the handrails, his arms would ache and tremble, and he would often be jostled about by the crowd.
But today, his fingers gripped the leather rings steadily, and his body maintained good balance amidst the shoving of the crowd.
I glanced down at the panel.
My physical fitness score changed from 0.501 to 0.601.
The Night Demon Potion is being digested, gradually rebuilding this dilapidated body.