Elizabeth's current bedroom dwarfed her previous apartment in Jiang Valley by a hundredfold. From the grand balcony of her room, she could look down on the bustling heart of Liuguang City, with its high-rise buildings within reach.

It had been two days since she returned to the Wei City Mountain District, her residence. Although she hadn't seen her busy parents, they had indeed placed her under house arrest, confining her to the expansive yet empty bedroom for "rest."

"Organ truck incident without anomalies? No transcendent beings involved?"

At the moment, Elizabeth paced the balcony, speaking into one of the many expensive video phones mounted on the wall. Despite their cost, her bedroom was equipped with several, a testament to the tech rivalry between Saith and Sando.

On the small screen, a flustered detective from the Secret Bureau appeared, his face almost comical.

The streets labeled the police headquarters a trash heap, yet Elizabeth knew the Secret Bureau was a den of hidden dragons and crouching tigers.

But all her family provided was a rookie detective, who hadn't even conducted a retrovision on-site at Mud Pond!

"Miss Sterling, I've already conducted a tactile vision on the truck..."

"That's not good enough! What kind of thorough investigation is this?"

Elizabeth stomped her foot in frustration, fed up with empty reassurances that she needn't worry or involve herself.

Time and again, they treated her concerns as tantrums, trivializing the loss of hundreds of lives. They must think she was so desperate to return from the mundane life that she'd be satisfied with any placation.

"I demand the Secret Bureau's elite mobile task force for a field investigation!"

She resolved firmly, this task had been entrusted to her by the Master. Was this all she had to show for it?

No wonder the Master hadn't reappeared in two days, as if their mysterious encounter had been a mere dream.

If she botched this task, it might well be over for her.

The organ truck incident was too complex to be so simple; it was likely that transcendent beings were involved...

Since reasoning fell on deaf ears, she would continue to play the part of the most temperamental rebel:

"Nanny, let me be clear—if this matter is not resolved to my satisfaction, I won't attend that upcoming return party in a few days!"

...

Dark clouds threatened a downpour over Mud Pond, located in the northwest of Liuguang City, adjacent to the Western Industrial Zone and leading up to the city's outer freight railway.

Mud Pond wasn't initially a residential area but a depression meant for trash processing, with many incinerators and landfills. Yet, the waste piled up everywhere, slowly turning it into mountains.

Scavengers, migrants, and the destitute congregated here, erecting tents, shanties, and unfinished buildings...

Slums sprouted amidst the trash heaps, stubbornly transforming Mud Pond into a "livable" area.

But "livable" was a relative term; Mud Pond was a dangerous, brutal, and dark place, where any stranger's intrusion might see them become another piece of garbage, buried beneath the sea of waste.

To reach the Western Industrial Zone, one had to traverse a highway cutting through Mud Pond.

The city had attempted several clean-ups and built additional roads for safer and more efficient transport. However, within months, the refurbished areas would be overwhelmed by refuse again, like metastasizing cancer cells or weeds that refuse to burn by a septic tank.

Eventually, no one wanted to waste more money, only maintaining this one crucial highway.

The Mud Pond dwellers refrained from destroying it, too, as the highway was their economic lifeline.

Robbing occasional passersby was their way of acquiring anything better than trash.

Even along the highway, heaps of garbage loomed, with filthy rats scurrying from one side to the other.

At this moment, a rat darted across the stained highway, only to be squashed by a speeding armored pickup truck, its stench-ridden flesh splattering everywhere.

It was part of a convoy, more modified pickups following, guarding a large long-haul truck in the center.

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Some pickups were crowded with towering muscle-bound men from The Arcade Gang, while others were filled with Blood Knife female mercenaries, all brandishing firearms.

The behemoth long-haul truck, its edges lined with guardrails, bore several people atop its cabin.

There stood Lorna, with Landow, the boss of The Arcade Gang, beside her.

This operation was the latest job for her mercenary group.

The Arcade Gang had a bunch of "wild dogs" for sale, including the batch Heath had been part of.

Initially, The Arcade Gang and the Mud Pond Gang had struck a deal, but recently, the latter seemed desperate for the wild dogs, offering a good price, so Landow was more than willing to sell. However, a few days before delivery, the organ truck incident happened.

Landow was a bastard, no doubt, but he only sold the wild dogs as enforcers or laborers, steering clear of organ trading.

His threats to the dogs about selling kidneys and penises were just that—threats.

"I may be scum, but I still have humanity, ha," Landow would say.

So the deal fell through.

Landow turned to the Yakuza for new connections, arranging to sell the batch to the Western Industrial Zone as laborers, with room and board included. Those who performed well might even earn a legitimate worker's status after some years.

Of course, it wasn't as lucrative as becoming a male escort at The Lustrous, but it was still a decent way out.

The selling price for the wild dogs had dropped significantly, but Landow sold them with a clear conscience, able to sleep at night.

Like Miss Ayane often advised him, "Little Zhuang, strive to be an upright person."

Today, they were transporting this batch of wild dogs. Fearing interception by the Mud Pond Gang, Landow hired Lorna and her crew for escort.

The convoy set off from Kabukicho, passing through Saint Manga, Jiang Valley, and the Citadel District, before reaching Mud Pond.

"It was my foolishness, Bat, please, Commander Lorna, I know you're close with Mama, she'll listen to you, please..."

Atop the swaying cabin, a stark-naked strongman was groveling on the floor, pleading. His shoulders, groin, and abdomen had fresh stitches—a surgeon Lorna found did a neat job, sparing him much suffering.

"Shut up, or I'll stuff that severed penis of yours into your mouth," Lorna snapped, tired of his blather.

"It wasn't me who wanted to castrate and sell you. But if you had betrayed me, heh. Throw this turncoat into the cabin, gently though—don't let him die."

The surrounding female mercenaries opened a ventilation hatch atop the cabin, hauling the begging-turned-cursing strongman down into the dark, locking him with the ragged wild dogs.

The wild dogs eyed the well-fed, tender-fleshed naked man with a variety of strange gazes in the dim cabin.

"Commander Lorna, cool off, have a smoke," Landow offered a Peace brand cigarette to Lorna in an attempt to appease her.

"I never smoke such low-grade stuff," Lorna's alien right hand swatted away his offer, "I only smoke these."

While speaking, her left hand pulled out a box of long-filtered Dongtu brand cigarettes, lighting one up for herself.

Landow's attempt at mollifying her failed, but he wasn't bothered. His half-metallic, half-flesh grotesque face just smiled and lit up his Peace cigarette.

Two transcendent beings were aboard the cabin.

One from a primary profession—Commander Lorna; the other from a secondary profession—yes, him.

Primary professions, like the Doll or Hero series, have a recognized classification system involving major powers and origins of the era.

Secondary professions, labeled "series" as a formality, often represented just one occupation.

These secondary professions were haphazard creations, unrecognized and lacking in transcendent programs. They paled in comparison to primary professions, with very limited ceilings.

Generally, they were level-one program users, unable to reach the special grade, resorting to self-modification.

There's no ace or wild card distinction in secondary professions; they were all wild cards. Having any program to use was good enough; beggars couldn't be choosers.

If there was any merit to secondary professions, it was their diversity and messiness, sometimes bringing a touch of "surprise" to primary transcendent beings.

Landow was a secondary, part of the "Muscle Mania series," with a third-tier talent and a high-level one-program status.

The series' philosophy was the pursuit of ultimate muscular strength, with programs enhancing that limit—more muscle, more power.

But just by the series' name, one could tell it wasn't high-class.

Who with any culture would come up with such a name?

Indeed, it was his own invention.

Landow was the only Muscle Mania transcendent in the world. If there were others, it was a mere coincidence.

Had he not met Miss Ayane later in life, Landow wouldn't have bothered with it.

Nevertheless, he managed to run The Arcade Gang, a medium-sized operation on Shouei Street, with it.

But the beautiful sister next to him, a primary transcendent being, exuded a different aura.

Commander Lorna, from the Hunter series, a high-level two-program user, following the ghost card route.

Landow knew that boy named Heath or Ming was chosen by Miss Ayane to be crafted into a Doll!

That was a primary profession, what luck. Had he known the kid had such talent, he would have treated him better from the start.

Landow's thoughts were interrupted as the convoy was forced to halt; the road ahead was blocked by a barricade of trash piled into mountains.

Looking back, heaps of garbage had also appeared on the distant road behind them.

Among the mounds of mold, decay, and sludge, figures emerged, dressed in ragged clothes, wielding weapons made from electronic and mechanical scrap.

They were like humanoid rats, members of the Mud Pond Gang.

Road robberies were common here; a brief blockage, and no one would come to inquire.

"They really showed up!" Landow cursed with a grin, unfazed even though the opposition outnumbered them and they were on enemy turf.

The Mud Pond Gang, touted as the largest faction in the district, was just a name. In reality, it was a loose alliance of garbage scroungers who usually minded their own business, often fighting among themselves.

Additionally, the Mud Pond Gang had a secondary "Scavenger series," with some level-one program users, and rumors of a level-two.

But faced with just a bunch of garbage men, at most a level-one program user, and Lorna, a level-two on their side, they were ready for a fight.

"Ladies, get ready for a brawl. Today's dead man lottery is about to draw its winners."

Under the overcast sky, with only the smoke from the distant garbage incinerator visible, not a ray of sunlight in sight, Lorna squinted, still puffing on her unfinished Dongtu cigarette, slowly rotating her peculiar right hand.

The convoy, prepared for battle at both ends, had muscle men and female mercenaries on the pickups, aiming their weaponry at the garbage men, ready to engage.

"Hand over the wild dogs, then roll back to your Kabukicho. Otherwise, last night's screw-up will be your last."

From the front barricade, a raspy voice called out through the mounds of trash.