Chapter 2 Blood Return

After devouring the white bread, Xia Zhou leaned against the metal bars and stuffed his mouth with several pieces of black bread.

The stark contrast of texture from the bread flooded from his tastebuds to his heart, weaving a bitter-sweet mixture of feelings.

"Little Nose, are you going to finish that black bread? I want to eat some more."

The person lying in the opposite cell waved his hand dismissively.

Xia Zhou stretched his arm, straining to grasp the pieces of bread in the distance, and ate it with water.

He must hurry to gain experience, to level up as soon as possible. Only then can he get new attribute points. The chance of survival will be slightly larger.

Clang. The iron door at the end of the corridor opened.

Leaning on his staff, the Evil Old Man came to the front of the cell, took out a set of keys and held them up to identify the corresponding cell door.

"Both of you, out. Time to take your medicine."

After opening Xia Zhou's cell, the Evil Old Man turned his back to open Little Nose's cell.

Xia Zhou squinted, straining to suppress the urge to launch a surprise attack from behind. He almost spent his free attribute points on strength.

He drove away this gambler's mindset of risking everything on one bet, deciding to observe further instead.

"Hurry up!"

The Evil Old Man turned around to see the hesitant Xia Zhou and pointed at him with the staff.

The staff, which appeared to be just over a meter long, instantly extended to two meters, with the sharp end of the staff poking in Xia Zhou's armpit.

A suppressed groan echoed in the cell.

Little Nose lowered his head, burying his face in his hair, not daring to sneak a peek at the about-to-lose-his-temper Evil Old Man.

Xia Zhou clasped his shoulder. His head was lowered to his chest. As he emerged from the cell, his eyes were filled with suppressed rage.

This dangerous emotion could potentially be perceived by the Evil Old Man who has high perception. Therefore, it was quickly conquered by rationality and hidden deep within.

He mimicked Little Nose's actions, keeping his head down and his eyes on the floor as he obediently followed in the Evil Old Man's footsteps. All the while, he discreetly cast a Detection Spell at the staff.

"Retractable staff, an alchemical item, can be used as a weapon. By pressing the button on the handle, it can be extended to a length of 2 meters."

The three of them arrived at the end of the corridor and turned into an alchemy room.

On the walls around them were several flamboyant candlestands. Candles that had burnt over halfway dripped semi-solid wax over the base of the stands.

On the side of the alchemy chamber were a desk and an alchemy stand, on which lay open books and a set of glass instruments through which liquid flowed.

A light-tight iron door appeared on the opposite wall, blocked by a wide, heavy desk, difficult to open from the outside.

In the middle of the entire room was a large crucible.

A mechanical arm stirring the liquid in the crucible was tied together with a spoon. It hovered and rotated above the surface of the water.

The medicine in the crucible was steaming hot, with tiny bubbles continuously bursting. A pungent smell filled the room.

The Evil Old Man sat on the only wooden stool, pointed to the potion bottles on the alchemy stand, and said in his hoarse voice: "One bottle each, hurry up and drink."

Little Nose quickly stepped forward to grab a potion bottle, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he was overwhelmed by the smell of the medicine, causing him to cough and shed tears uncontrollably.

Xia Zhou seized this opportunity to cast the Detection Spell on the Evil Old Man.

..

[Character Name] ??? (nickname: Evil Old Man)

[Identity] Evil Alchemist

[Health Points] ??

[Strength] 4

[Agility] 3

[Stamina] 4

[Vitality] 2

[Perception] 7

[Will] 5

[Spirit] 5

[Charisma] 0

[Character Attributes] ??

..

As he expected, the Evil Old Man's perception was particularly high, the highest amongst all his attributes.

Xia Zhou looked at the potion in Little Nose's hand and murmured "Detection."

"Unknown potion, will cause physical injuries upon consumption. Expected to result in a loss of 20 HP over the next 60 minutes. Successful consumption of the potion will yield experience points."

20 points?

How much HP do I have?

Xia Zhou summoned his personal stats, a look of stupor on his face.

[HP] 18/18 (Healthy)

By eating and sleeping, he had restored his HP from 15 to its maximum. His status had changed from Slightly Poisoned to Healthy. His head no longer ached, and he had regained his energy.

However, he was still lacking 2 HP… no, 3 HP to safely consume the potion.

Xia Zhou read out the Detection Spell result for the unknown potion once more.

"Lose 20 HP within 60 minutes"

That is to say, if he drinks the potion and straight away eats something and goes to sleep, he just might be able to restore a few HP before his HP runs out, thus surviving the Negative State of continuous HP loss due to the potion.

Vitality can increase his max HP and speed up his blood recovery. It's more reliable than the vaguely described Will attribute.

Xia Zhou immediately spent that one free attribute point on Vitality.

A message from hacker:

"Detecting the host's attribute addition, calculating the specific data of increased HP limit... calculation complete.

"[HP] 20/18+2→20 (Healthy)"

There's hope yet!

Within this short span of time, Xia Zhou's palms were soaked in sweat, his back drenched in it. His heart pounded in his chest and the sound of blood rushing echoed in his ears.

Back at the alchemy table, Little Nose pinched his nose, gathered his courage, and poured the spicy medicine into his mouth. After drinking, he slumped to the ground, retching.

"Your turn." The Evil Old Man glared at the other boy.

Xia Zhou walked to the alchemy table, took a deep breath, then held his breath. He held up the potion bottle with both hands and began to drink the spicy medicine, intentionally leaving a small portion in the bottle to reduce the HP loss as much as possible.

Immediately after, he pretended to collapse due to exhaustion, letting the last bit of medicine spill onto the ground.

"Wait here for 10 minutes." The evil old man seemed indifferent to the boy's small movements.

As Xia Zhou lay on the ground, using the shadow of the table to hide his face, he secretly spit out the half mouthful of medicine he'd held in his mouth.

This should stabilise things.

Drinking a little less potion and just having enough health should be alright. Once back in the cell, he could eat the other boys' bread too.

About 5 minutes later, the potion started to warm his stomach, turning from warm to hot, spreading from his abdomen to his limbs, and finally rushing to his forehead, making his whole body feel as if it was soaking in scorching hot spring.

The heat waves from the potion grew more intense wave upon wave. Xia Zhou coiled up in agony, and so did Little Nose.

After 10 minutes, the searing sensation disappeared suddenly.

"Successful consumption of unknown potion. Experience gained 1.33, current progress 1.5/10."

"Due to the effect of the unknown potion, your body suffers some damage and enters a slightly poisoned state. Anticipated to lose 18 HP points within the next 60 minutes."

The two messages appeared in his mind one after another.

Xia Zhou felt a thrill of anticipation. Not only did he gain experience, but he also lost 2 points less of blood. The potion experiment was looking a little brighter.

However, when thinking about the growing toxicity of these potions, his face fell again, returning to a numb expression.

"Everyone up, it's time to go back to your rooms."

The evil old man gathered the boys with his walking stick to follow him.

As Xia Zhou passed by dwarf's cell, he quickly cast a glance at the scene inside and outside the cell. The shadowy figures inside seemed unmoving, and only a few pieces of the black bread at the bottom of the iron bars were missing.

He hooked the remaining pieces of bread in front of his cell with his foot.

The evil old man locked the cells and returned to his alchemist's room.

Xia Zhou immediately picked up the pieces of bread in front of the cell, washed off the dust in water, and began to eat greedily after the water softened the black bread.

On his personal template, a negative effect of continuous loss of blood had already appeared.

[HP] 19/20 (Slightly poisoned: 18 HP points deducted within 60 minutes)

After eating the bread, Xia Zhou immediately curled up to sleep. He felt very cold in his sleep until he overcame the effect of blood loss, his body temperature then returned to normal.

…

In this place without sunlight, it's impossible to keep track of the days.

Xia Zhou could only estimate the time according to the number of times the evil old man appeared, treating the time when bread was handed out as the start of a new day.

In the past few days, the evil old man had taken Xia Zhou and Little Nose, the little fat boy and the little skinny boy to the alchemy room for testing. Xia Zhou had consumed 6 bottles of potions in total.

Each time the potion was consumed, the experience gained increased, and the toxicity grew stronger. The searing heat spreading throughout his body was becoming increasingly unbearable.

He was about to level up after drinking the potion today.

[Experience] 9.98/10

Just 0.02 points left to go.

"Little Nose, I'm going to eat two pieces of your bread."

Xia Zhou finished his bread and reached for Little Nose's.

His cellmate, now accustomed to his increased appetite, gave a couple of wriggles from under his straw mat as agreement.

After eating two pieces of bread, a wave of information flooded his mind.

"You've gained 0.02 experience points. Current upgrade progress 10/10, upgrading..."

[Level] LV.2

[Experience] 0/15

Xia Zhou was disappointed to find that his health had not been fully restored with the level up, diminishing his plan to use the level up as a health restoration cheat.

Fortunately, when assigning points to the vitality attribute, the current health will also increase along with the maximum health. This, at least, could serve as a life-saving measure.

"Successful level up. Calculating free attribute point rewards... Calculation completed, 1 free attribute point rewarded."

When assigning points to vitality, the increase in maximum health is calculated.

The number of free attribute points rewarded for leveling up is also calculated...

Xia Zhou curiously wondered in his heart:

"What's the rule of calculation?"

He didn't expect a response, but to his surprise, the normally indifferent hacker responded:

"The number of free attribute points rewarded for leveling up is calculated according to specific rules. The higher the level, the more free attribute points are obtained during leveling. For more specific rules, the host needs to explore for himself."

"Well, at least I have something to look forward to with level ups." Xia Zhou shuffled his feet and went back to sleep in his bunk.

…

Several days passed. In these days, aside from potion experimenting, some subtle changes had occurred.

The evil old man was becoming increasingly irritable, his temper worsening. His attitude towards the boys had shifted from indifference to disgust; he would lash out with his walking stick even when they had done nothing wrong.

The worst time, after throwing Little Nose's white bread, the evil old man viciously stomped on it several times, taking out his unidentified rage on the rare delicious food.

Even the flattened white bread was still better than black bread.

Xia Zhou gave up half of his white bread, trading it with Little Nose's dirty bread, which repaid the black bread he'd given him.

One day, the little fat boy and the little dwarf came back from testing potions.

The sound of shattering glass vials echoed from the alchemy room, echoing down the long hallway, waking the sleeping boys.

Xia Zhou walked over to the iron bars, shifting his head to peer down the corridor.

Under the glow of the candlelight, a distorted figure projected onto the wall, raising his cane to smash another glass vial.

The second shattering sound woke up Little Nose across the corridor.

The two boys looked at each other across the corridor, seeing fear reflected in each other's eyes.

"What's wrong with the old man?" Xia Zhou asked quietly.

"I don't know either."

Little Nose coughed weakly in between his words. After tens of days of potion testing, his body was incredibly frail. It seemed he wouldn't make it through the next testing.

"You should go lie down." Xia Zhou said with concern.

Little Nose nodded and lay down again.

The first time he performed a potion experiment, he gained 1.33 experience points. The last time, he gained 1.7 points. After about ten potion experiments, the potency of the potion had increased by at least 20%.

If it weren't for secretly pouring away the potion and leveraging off a good diet and enough sleep, Xia Zhou would have been dead long ago.

But during the next experiment...

Xia Zhou glanced at the figure on the corridor wall and felt a growing sense of unease.