I looked at the massive vats, the pink sludge bubbling violently inside. My inspect flickered over the mana stones powering the heaters, they were humming with unstable energy. To a normal chemist, they were a heat source, to me, they were a row of claymore mines waiting for a spark.
But I wasn't wearing the Crimson Trench Coat yet. Without its fire resistance, a mana-explosion in this cramped sewer would char my flesh faster than my blood could knit it back together. And the noise... it would be a dinner bell for every Alchemist Guild enforcer in the district.
I turned toward the exit, my boots squelching in the chemical runoff. I needed to regroup, but a heavy, gloved hand slammed against the stone wall, blocking my path.
"Hey, Zenni, where do you think you're going you little brat? We're working overtime. Oksana wants this shipment by dawn."
I looked up. The man was a mountain of a human, encased in a thick, yellow high-protection suit that made him look like a bloated insect. My inspect cut through the fog:
Gary Pink
Skill: Mana manipulation
Vitality: 500
Strength: 250
Defense: 500
Agility: 400
Mana: 1000
Mana manipulation- able to manipulate mana.
Unlike Anastasia who possess a drug resistant skill, he had only mana mana manipulation, but it's outfit like he is just walked in the radiation zone, filled with layers of protective hazard suit that was looks like a bloated worm.
"You, Zenni, stop daydreaming. Grab that jug of stabilizer and pour the chemicals over that pot. We're making the high-grade stuff tonight."
I stood over the cauldron, the heavy wooden paddle in my hands. Gary shoved a laminated, stained sheet of paper toward me, the Bible of the meth lab. My inspect burned through the grime, memorizing every line for the Council.
The Lotus Dust Formula
1 Liter: Diluted Water (the base, obviously).
1 Spoon: Urea (the stabilizer).
1 Cup: Ammonium Nitrate (the volatile propellant).
2 Cups: Calcium Nitrate (the burning agent, basically an fertilizer).
2 Cups: Triple Superphosphate (the binder).
Main Ingredient: Lotus Flower.
I looked at the basket of pink flowers. In the light, they were beautiful, blooms from the Elven territories known for their sweet, pheromonal scent. In a bouquet, they were a symbol of love. In this vat, stripped of their purity and boiled in nitrates, they were a weapon of mass addiction.
I began to dump the ingredients in, one by one. I stirred with a rhythmic, mindless pace, keeping my head low. The smell was cloying, a mixture of fertilizer and sickeningly sweet perfume.
Gary watched me for a long minute, his arms crossed over his bulky protective suit. When the mixture turned the correct shade of shimmering magenta, he finally let out a grunt of approval. He turned toward Anastasia, who was leaning against a nearby rack of glass vials, her face pale and glistening with sweat.
"Anastasia, go take your break, you've been standing over the vapors for ten hours. You're starting to shake. I'll keep Zenni here on the line. He seems to have finally found his rhythm."
Behind us, Anastasia let out a long, weary groan, wiping chemical sweat from her brow with the back of her glove. She looked at the bubbling vat, then at the door, her eyes glazed over from the fumes and the sheer exhaustion of the graveyard shift.
"I can't look at this pink shit anymore, I'm going to the upper barracks to get a fresh filter and clear my head. Gary, watch the brat. If he messes up the temperature, break his fingers."
Anastasia didn't argue. She let out a ragged sigh, grabbed her coat, and stumbled toward a side door leading deeper into the sewer tunnels, likely toward a small resting quarters.
CLANG.
The heavy door shut behind her, leaving only the two of us.
Gary gave a lazy thumbs-up as the heavy iron door groaned open and then slammed shut, the sound of the deadbolts sliding home echoing through the chamber. Now, it was just the two of us. The only sounds in the lab were the rhythmic bubbling of the toxic stew and the heavy, mechanical breathing of Gary Pink as he stood directly behind me, completely unaware that the girl stirring the pot was currently calculating the exact amount of pressure needed to crush his windpipe.
The atmosphere in the room changed instantly. The bubbling of the vat became the only sound. Gary turned his back to me, reaching for a thermometer to check the heat of the mana-stones. He felt safe. He thought he was alone with a low-level dealer who was too scared to speak.
Gary stepped even closer, reaching out to check the mana-stone's heat level.
"Move your butt and start cooking faster, Zenni, we've got three more crates to fill before the sun hits the desert sands. If this shit messes up, your head would be the answer"
He didn't see me stop stirring. He didn't see the way the hunter eyes, or the way my arm glowed a faint, ominous crimson beneath Zenni's sleeve.
"Make sure the temperature stays at 180°C, If it hits 190°C, the whole sector goes up. You hear me, Zenni?"
I let go of the paddle. It clattered softly against the rim of the pot. I didn't need to answer. I wasn't Zenni anymore. I was the shadow that was about to swallow this lab whole.
He stood there, waiting, his eyes narrowed behind his protective goggles. If I refused, the disguise would shatter. If I complied, I'd be helping produce the very poison I came to destroy.
I moved with a mechanical precision that seemed to satisfy Gary's impatient ego. My hands, disguised as Zenni's, adjusted the heavy ceramic colanders and the thick, chemically treated filters over the collection flasks. It was a delicate process, the nitrates and phosphates had to be stripped away, leaving only the concentrated essence of the Lotus Flower bound to a stabilized mana base. I watched as the liquid dripped, a thick, iridescent pink that looked more like liquid jewels than a life-destroying narcotic.
"Step aside, brat," Gary grunted, heaving the massive pot with his gloved hands.
He poured the shimmering liquid into the collection vats, the steam hissing as it met the cooler air. Once the filtration was complete, Gary brought out the final stage: a tray carved from deep blue stone, humming with the cold, crystalline energy of high-tier frost magic.
As the pink liquid hit the frost tray, it didn't just cool, it underwent a violent phase shift. The liquid crystallized instantly, hardening into jagged, candy-like shards that glowed with a sickly, beautiful light. The transition was so rapid it sounded like breaking glass. Gary didn't waste a second, he took a heavy stone mallet and began rhythmically smashing the crystals, grinding them down into the fine, shimmering powder known as Lotus Dust.
"Thirty silver each, one little vial of this, and a scholar will sell their soul and their library card just for a sniff. Most expensive dirt in the world, and we're the ones making it."
Gary muttered, his voice thick with a greedy pride as he began shoveling the dust into small glass vials and sealing them with wax.
I looked at the growing pile of packaged vials. Each one represented a ruined life, a shattered mana circuit, or a family broken. The cost was indeed high, but Gary wasn't counting the silver, he was counting the minutes until his shift was over. He was so focused on the profit and the packaging that he had completely turned his back on me, his thick neck exposed just above the seal of his protective suit. The hunter in my chest hummed with a cold, final frequency. The cooking was done, now, it was time for the cleaning.
"Zenni, now were done, one crates is equal to 30 vials, three crates is equal to 90 vials, 90 times 30 is equal to 2700 silver, convert it into gold coins and you got exactly 27 gold coins."
"Your a mathematician, Gary."
"Indeed Zenni, now our work with Anastasia is now done."
Gary's rough, gloved hand came down on my shoulder in a celebratory high-five that nearly knocked Zenni's cap off my head. The greed in his eyes had softened into a strange, domestic pride as he looked at the three neatly packed crates of shimmering pink death.
"Good work, kid, this haul secures my bonus. My son... he's a genius, you know? A real prodigy at the Sisiphon Magic Academy. This silver pays for his high-tier mana crystals and his tuition. He's going to be a Great Sage one day, far away from the stink of these tunnels."
He spoke of his loving wife and his clean, brilliant son with a warmth that felt sickeningly out of place in a meth lab. He was poisoning a thousand other sons to build a pedestal for his own. The irony was a bitter taste in the back of my throat, the bounty hunter didn't care about his family portraits.
A sharp, rhythmic knock vibrated through the heavy iron door.
"Back already, Anastasia?" Gary called out, his voice echoing in the damp chamber.
He didn't even look at the peephole this time, his guard completely dropped by the success of the batch and the thoughts of his clean life above ground. He reached for the heavy iron bolt to slide it open.
"You must have run all the way to the barracks and back, you old…"
The bolt slid back with a heavy clack, but it wasn't Anastasia's tired face that met us.
As the door swung inward, the sweet scent of the Lotus Dust was met by a cold, sharp draft from the tunnels. My eyes narrowed as I sensed a sudden shift in the mana of the room. This wasn't a weary chemist coming back for a filter.
Gary froze, his hand still on the door handle, his smile dying as the shadows from the sewer spilled over the threshold.
The iron door swung wide, but the person on the other side wasn't Anastasia. It was a nightmare draped in shadow. A masked man stood there, his silhouette jagged against the dim sewer light. With a sickening thud, he tossed a wet, heavy object onto the stone floor.
It was Anastasia's head, her eyes still frozen in that wide, glazed-over expression of exhaustion.
Gary let out a strangled cry, his face turning ashen as the masked men behind the leader raised their weapons, wicked, serrated blades and crossbows that glimmered with poison.
"The Eastern District Clan, rivalry... a guild war..."
The masked leader stepped over Anastasia's remains, his voice a low, gravelly rasp.
"The Alchemist Guild's reign is over. We've already gutted the other labs in the city. You're the last of the rot, Gary."
I felt a brief surge of relief. If this rival gang was destroying Oksana's infrastructure, they were doing my job for me. I wouldn't even have to lift a finger to clean out the lab. But my relief was cut short by a sharp twang of a bowstring.
An arrow, coated in a dark green neurotoxin, whistled through the air and buried itself deep into Gary's temple. He didn't even have time to scream about his prodigy son or his loving wife, he simply crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut, landing beside the crates of pink dust he had worked so hard to fill.
The masked men turned their eyes toward me, or rather, toward the boy they thought was Zenni.
A new, darker plan flickered to life in the bounty hunter of my chest. If I helped these intruders, the Alchemist Guild would be destroyed, and Oksana would go into hiding, making my bounty impossible to collect. But if I saved this shipment, if I became the hero who survived the massacre and brought the product back to the Guild, I would be granted direct access to the inner circle.
I wouldn't just be a dealer. I would be Oksana's most trusted asset. And once I was close enough to smell her perfume, I would claim her head and the four gold pieces I needed.
I didn't run. I didn't cower. I stood over the crates of Lotus Dust, my eyes locking onto the masked leader. I let a small, cold smile touch my lips beneath the disguise.
"You're making a mistake, you bastards" i said
I reached for the blood in my own veins, feeling it pulse with a violent, hunger. To gain Oksana's trust, I needed a pile of bodies to present to her.