—Nighttime—

I sat in my room holding the bag of poisons Professor Costanzo had handed me. Peering into the bag, I saw multiple different colored pellets. I would’ve thought these were candies if I didn’t know they were actually poison.

I retrieved a bright green pellet out of the bag and sniffed it. You would expect that the poison pellet would have a unique smell given that it is poison, but oddly enough, there was no such odor at all. I assume it’s the encasing of the pellet preventing the scent of the poison from leaking out.

As I lay on my bed, I fiddled the poison pellet in my hands.

“Well, there’s no time like the present,” I said aloud as I chucked the pellet into my mouth and swallowed it.

I lay on my bed tensely as I thought what poison I could have just consumed. One minute passed, five minutes passed, and then ten minutes passed. The poison couldn’t have been defective, could it? Then it hit. All of a sudden, I was rolling back and forth on my bed as a wave of pure agony swept over my body. It felt like there were thousands of needles pricking the inside of my body repeatedly. I wanted to scream but refused to as it would only become a hassle to explain why I consumed dangerous poisons voluntarily.

Not only was I in pain, but I was also starting to feel lightheaded because I was hyperventilating to ease the pain and extremely thirsty as if I hadn’t drunk in days. I was desperately fighting to stay conscious at one point, and I knew that if I were to lose consciousness here, I wouldn’t have what it takes to become strong.

I was fortunate as the whole endeavor lasted only for around twenty minutes. After twenty minutes, the pain gradually faded away until I couldn’t feel it anymore. As I lay on my bed, dripping head to toe in sweat, I was happy that I successfully persevered through the trial. I subsequently passed out.

—The next day—

I woke up feeling terrible because I had slept in a pool of my sweat and was now coated with a layer of dried sweat. I smelled worse than a high school boy’s changing room could ever be and desperately needed to shower and clean my sheets. Those needed cleaning too.

Only after did I take a shower did I feel human again. I also possessed a weird feeling but couldn’t quite place my finger on what it was. Though it was strange, it also felt good simultaneously, so I didn’t put much more thought into it. Since I had woken up very early and the rooster shaved crowed yet, most students were still sleeping in their dorms.

As I was comfortably strolling back to my dorm, the dorm master suddenly turned around the corner and motioned towards me to come to him.

“Do you need anything dorm master?”

“Yes, we need to talk.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“No, not at all.”

“That’s good. I thought I was in trouble or something.”

“Nah, not at all. Here, come sit with me.”

I proceeded to sit in the chair next to the dorm master was sitting in.

“I understand that you are no longer a child.”

“Huh?”

“It’s ok. I won’t share with anybody else what you did last night.”

I immediately tensed up.

“What did I do last night dorm master?”

“I understand it’s an embarrassing topic. You don’t have to say it. I already know.”

“Dorm master, I—“

“Shhhh, I know. As a young adult, it is a very natural occurrence, but as a man, I am obligated to help the younger generations learn why they shouldn’t be doing it.”

“Wait what?”

“You see, although it might feel pleasurable to do it, you are harming yourself in the long run. Each time you do it, you are wasting precious nutrients your body uses to grow. Not only that, but you are training yourself to come fast. You don’t want to come fast when you’re embracing a woman, right? It also impacts your studies as it lowers your overall productivity for the day. And…”

I sat there still-faced, occasionally nodding, feeling dead inside as my dorm master spent the next hour talking to me. My dorm master also seemed to be very fervent about the topic as he didn’t stop until the roosters started crowing. Throughout the whole conversation, I didn’t get a single chance to escape. I wondered whether or not it would have been better if I just were to tell him that I was actually eating poison and not masturbating.