Funny thing about Lifedrain Syndrome - they actually found a cure for it.

About thirty years into the future, Adom himself led the research team that cracked it, working with some of the most brilliant healers and alchemists left in the world. It took them the better part of a decade, countless sleepless nights, and expeditions to places most sane people wouldn't go near just to gather ingredients.

As the chief runicologist on the project, Adom had been responsible for the magical framework that made the cure possible. Normally, he wouldn't know the first thing about brewing advanced healing potions or understand half of what the alchemists were muttering about optimal distillation temperatures. But this wasn't just another research assignment for him - it was personal.

So Adom made damn sure he understood every single detail of this one cure.

He'd pestered the alchemists through endless preparation trials until he could recite every heating technique and mixing ratio by heart. He'd sat with the healers as they mapped the disease's interaction with mana pathways, learning injection methods that had absolutely nothing to do with his expertise but everything to do with his survival.

By the time they'd perfected the cure, Adom could reproduce this specific treatment from memory.

The cure worked. That wasn't the problem. The problem was its timing.

If you caught the disease early enough - before any visible symptoms appeared - and took small doses of the treatment over several months, you had an 90% chance of never developing Lifedrain Syndrome at all.

If you'd already shown symptoms, but caught it within the first year, you could try the more aggressive approach: direct injection into the mana pathways. The survival rate for that was 3%.

Three percent didn't sound great. Then again, when you consider that untreated Lifedrain Syndrome had a death rate of 99.99% - with that 0.01% mainly consisting of people who technically hadn't died yet - suddenly three percent looked like a miracle.

Not that any of this had helped Adom in his previous life. By the time they perfected the cure, he'd been living with Lifedrain Syndrome for decades. Well past that one-year window that might have given him even that slim chance at survival. He'd spent years developing a cure he couldn't use himself.

Now, back again, he had exactly 2 months, 21 days, 14 hours, 37 minutes before the first visible symptoms would appear. The System's precision would have been amusing if it wasn't so terrifying.

Adom was supposed to be sleeping now, but his mind kept circling back to the cure's ingredients. Most of them were surprisingly common - herbs any student could gather, plants found in the academy's own grounds, those ubiquitous blue mushrooms that dotted the forest floor.

But then there were the two components that made seasoned alchemists pale: a fresh wyvern's heart and some water of jouvence.

A single wyvern's heart could bankrupt a merchant family. The kind of expense that would force his parents to sell their home, and probably still leave them in debt. And that was assuming he could even convince them to help - somehow he doubted "I'm actually your son from the future and I need this to prevent a magical disease I haven't fully developed yet" would go over well.

The nearest wyverns were in the Ranges of Darakya, a good ten days' journey from Arkhos by boat. Even if Adom somehow managed to slip away from school without raising suspicions - and good luck explaining that absence - actually obtaining a heart meant either facing a wyvern himself (suicide) or finding someone willing to hunt one (ruinously expensive).

Then there was the water of jouvence. Everyone knew it could only be found in one place: the Wellspring Dungeon, deep in the Northern Wastes. The dungeon itself was supposedly only accessible during the winter solstice, and even then, its challenges had killed more adventurers than anyone cared to count.

The few vials of water that made it to market each year cost more than most people earned in a lifetime.

That left Adom with only one choice.

Crime.

Legal channels would take too long and were impossible anyway. No reputable merchant would sell a wyvern's heart and water of jouvence to a student without proper documentation, official research permits, and a master alchemist's sponsorship. Even worse, these components were notorious for their use in forbidden magic. The questions alone would draw exactly the kind of attention he couldn't afford.

And then there was the waiting list for water of jouvence. With only a handful of vials making it to market each year, legitimate buyers often waited years for their turn - noble families and prestigious research institutions had standing orders that stretched back decades. Two months? He might as well wish for wings.

The black market was his only real choice. Criminal enterprises didn't care about permits or credentials, and they knew better than to ask why their clients needed certain ingredients. He'd pay more than legal prices - probably far more, given the risk premium smugglers charged - but at least they'd sell to him at all. Still, he'd need more money than his entire allowance for the year. Far more than he could explain away to his parents without raising questions he couldn't answer.

And so, tomorrow he'd have to visit someone. The thought made him both nervous and oddly excited - he'd never done anything truly illegal. Strange how being young again made even the prospect of criminal activity feel like an adventure.

But excitement wouldn't pay for a wyvern's heart. Or water of jouvence. Especially with the underworld's steep rates, he needed funds. Significant funds. The kind of money a student simply didn't have access to.

Adom sighed into his pillow. Think, think, for God's sake, how does a regressor makes money fast?

Ah! He gasped.

Of course. He smiled.

By using a regressor's greatest advantage: knowledge.

Then Adom deflated almost immediately.

He was starting to regret all those times he'd scorned gambling halls in his past life. And horse racing. And Krozball betting. And stock market speculation. And pretty much anything that would have given him reliable knowledge of winning odds or future market changes.

He'd been too busy with his research, his books, his experiments. Even sports - he couldn't name a single winner of any major tournament from this period.

What kind of regressor didn't know next week's winning lottery numbers?

Adom groaned into his pillow, then rolled onto his back. There had to be something from this time period he could use. Something, anything... what did he know about this year that could make him rich? What happened, what changed, what was discovered...