The price and punch of these potions swung wild. Even the same type could cost way different based on quality.

  For example, a top-shelf pure-blood Wormblood Brew could match the price of a “Dew of Eden.”

  Game discs had grades too.

  Like the three discs “The Snow” offered—rare games not on the market at all, and collector’s editions to boot—they weren’t cheap in this tiny niche.

  Usually, trading one disc for one vial of high-grade “The Bulwark” was a fair ask.

  For three discs...

  The price Pandora would take was one vial… of a “Pandora-grade” “The Bulwark.”

  Third-rank potions weren’t like fourth; Pandora could brew this tier. “Pandora-grade” was her own tag for the top-shelf stuff she put on the market.

  Truth was, she wouldn’t sell 【Perfect-Grade】 potions made with system help—that felt too flashy and risky, like painting a target on her back.

  So what she sold were “flawed perfects”—originally 【Perfect-Grade】 brews she’d manually tweaked to make slightly imperfect.

  But even these hand-adulterated potions still beat the best common market grade. So, Pandora named them after herself.

  Why not use “Wormblood Brew” or even “Dew of Eden” for the trade?

  With 【Assisted Alchemy】, she could brew top versions in theory.

  But in reality, she couldn’t get the right materials.

  Even the best cook needs ingredients.

  She’d brewed a good “Wormblood Brew” once.

  But without the core stuff to buy, she stopped.

  As for “Dew of Eden,” she didn’t even know the recipe.

  But a “Pandora-grade” “The Bulwark” was enough for most deals, like this one…

  “How about one vial of ultra-high-grade ‘The Bulwark’?”

  She sent her offer.

  “I pledge my rep—this vial’s quality tops the market. That work for you?”

  On the other end, trading game discs for a vial of ultra-grade “The Bulwark” instead of some random Firefly Serum clearly beat “The Snow’s” hopes.

  She even added a perky, cute emoji with her text, “Deal! (●'?'●)”

  Price set.

  Next, Pandora and the other side sorted the how and when:

  Three days later, meet at “Ascension Road.”

  Pandora would be there selling her usual batch. The other side just had to bring the discs and swap for the potion on the spot.

  “OK, done!”

  Pandora closed the chat with “The Snow” and looked back at Nicole’s silent window.

  Maybe her quiet hoping worked,

  because right then, Nicole finally replied, though… it was a bust.

  “Sorry, Pandora, I’ve been swamped with something big lately, no juice to hunt your high-tier meditation method.”

  At first, Pandora didn’t get what could be that big?

  But after hearing what Nicole had been buried in for a month, she couldn’t blame her at all.

  It was… Nicole, second-rank, lining up a detailed revenge hit on a third-rank power!

  By her account, she’d spent the last month mapping every base and patrol on Sakura Road run by her mark—the now third-rank “Blighted Hand” Wilbur.

  She’d dug up everything, every way she could.

  Just a bit ago, she’d found a buyer, planning to sell this intel high to “Blighted Hand” Wilbur’s rival.

  Once she sparked a fight between them, she’d use the chaos to land a real blow on that third-rank enemy!

  Trying to kill a third-rank as a second-rank was near dream stuff,

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  but aiming to pay back deep hurt for deep hurt would still satisfy the long-stewing hate in her gut.

  Pandora backed Nicole’s revenge plan hard.

  She knew exactly how bad off Nicole was when that guy had cornered her. Without Nicole’s smarts, she’d have died back then.

  So, after getting the picture, she dropped the push.

  By then,

  her Oat Dirty was nearly gone.

  Luckily—

  the blond broker finally showed at the entrance of the third car.

  But he was alone.

  Pandora couldn’t help thinking:

  Had the other side said no?

  Facing her questioning look, the broker flashed his usual sunny grin, saying:

  “Don’t sweat it, Baroness! This is good!”

  Turns out, the other side hadn’t refused.

  Quite the opposite—after the broker passed the word, the mystery trader stayed eager and said flat out they’d talk price and deal face-to-face with Pandora.

  They even promised to ditch that wild “gambling” condition.

  But…

  “The guy in ‘The Garden’ is just their contact. He can’t haggle this deal for the real trader. So, we gotta move.”

  The broker’s look got a little sly.

  “‘That person’ is at a dead flower market outside Eden right now… I set a meet there. What do you think…?”

  Pandora went quiet a second, running the odds fast in her head.

  Then she nodded, sharp.

  “Fine. Let’s go.”

  “Great! Hope you seal it this time!”

  ………………

  The spot the broker set with the other side was, before the fall, a big wholesale flower market.

  From the entrance’s long-rusted, crumbling iron arch, you could barely make out its old name: “Four Seasons’ Color.”

  Without people to tend them, those delicate, mostly greenhouse-bound flowers had all died in the first cataclysm.

  Even their remains had rotted away to dirt, leaving no trace at all.

  Even here, though, among all these dead and dying indoor flowers, you could still find a few stubborn survivors. They weren’t pretty anymore, their colors long faded, but they slapped patches of simple, defiant green across the market’s gloomy canvas.

  A half-hour later, the pair arrived at the entrance to the flower market.

  Pandora stopped, her eyes doing a calm, slow sweep over the place. She took in the deep channels between the abandoned stalls, silent and still, as if running some quiet calculation in her head.

  The blond broker wasn’t so calm. He was already pacing just inside the entrance, a nervous wreck, calling out the trader’s code name into the market’s depths every few seconds.

  He had a good reason to panic.

  The mysterious trader who’d promised to meet them here was gone. Not just late—vanished. The broker had checked his Palmfiend, his stomach sinking when he got nothing. No response. It was like the man had been silently swallowed whole by the “Four Seasons’ Color” market, a place drowning in green yet utterly dead and quiet.

  “Interesting...”

  The broker kept calling out, his voice tight with worry, but Pandora’s gaze had already sharpened. It moved like a hawk's, slicing through the messy greenery and shadow, picking out details that didn’t belong. Things that were off.

  She didn’t wait. She strode forward, directly toward the jittery broker.

  He saw her coming and flinched, a fresh sheen of cold sweat on his forehead. He swiped at it and hurried to meet her, forcing his face into a stiff professional smile that was all apology and confusion. “Baroness, my deepest apologies... the trader, I don’t know what’s happened, he’s still not here. Let me try and find—”

  “Don't.”

  Pandora cut him off, her voice flat, like she was commenting on the weather. “I know what happened.”

  The broker froze, his hand still halfway to his forehead.

  He didn’t have time to process it. In the next second, Pandora’s arm came up. No aim, no hesitation, not even a look his way.

  The muzzle pointed past him, at a two-story building behind him—specifically, a window with ragged curtains.

  BANG!

  The gunshot was a thunderclap, brutally murdering the market’s silence.

  The window exploded. Shards of glass caught the sun for a brilliant, glittering instant before raining down.

  So did the blood.

  A short, wet cry, mostly eaten by the shattering glass, came from behind the ruined window. The smell of gunpowder and copper bloomed in the muggy air, mixing with the dust.

  The broker stood there, brain completely stalled.

  He could only watch, useless, as a blurred figure behind the window clutched at its shoulder—or maybe its neck—staggered, and dropped out of sight behind the frame.

  “What... what is...?”

  His question died as a new sound ripped through the aftermath.

  From their side this time. Inside a single-story shop with a grime-caked glass door, a sudden, chaotic scramble erupted.

  The sound wasn’t loud, but in the fresh quiet, it was terrifyingly clear. The sound of something heavy shifting fast. The sound of something coiling to strike.

  Time squeezed tight.

  Before that warning could fully form in their minds, a blurred, swift shape behind the dirty glass door lurched and expanded with terrifying speed.

  BANG—CRASH!!!

  The entire door vomited inward, shattered by raw, brute force from the inside.

  A waterfall of glass shards exploded outward.

  A man, sheathed in glittering fragments and dust, shot through the opening like a human cannonball. He went straight for Pandora.

  He moved fast. Too fast. Not entirely human. His hands were already wide, fingers splayed into brutal claws, going straight for her throat with force enough to rip through steel.

  THUD—!!

  He hit nothing.

  Those pale, five-fingered claws slammed, full-force, into the cement where Pandora had just been standing. The impact was a sickening crunch. Dust and concrete chips sprayed. A shallow, web-cracked pit marked the spot.

  As the dust began to settle, the broker’s mind finally rebooted with a violent lurch, his pupils shrinking to pins.

  Pandora wasn’t crazy.

  They were ambushed.

  She’d just spotted the trap before it sprung, and without a flicker of doubt, she’d struck first.

  The realization hit his chaotic thoughts like a lightning bolt.

  Then he felt a hand grab his collar with precise, irresistible force. He was yanked off his feet and thrown through the air like a sack of potatoes.

  “Whoa—!”

  He tumbled, shoulder and back scraping across the gritty ground, pain flaring hot. But the rough treatment was a bucket of ice water on his instincts. The pain cleared his head.

  The moment he skidded to a stop, he didn’t moan. He scrambled up, his eyes darting, instantly finding a heap of toppled shelves and broken pots in a nearby corner.

  Cover.

  He didn’t look back. He didn’t hesitate. In three long strides, he dove behind the pile of junk and vanished.

  On the field, only Pandora was left.

  And the man, now slowly rising from his crouch in the settling dust, his chest bare.

  He stood up, revealing a frame two heads taller than Pandora. His torso was a knot-work of muscle and savage old scars. But the real focus was his arms, especially the right one that had just tried to pulverize the concrete.

  The skin there was all wrong—a strange, bloodless white.