In her “perception,” the ingredients leaped and cheered.

  They whispered to her in the purest nguage of alchemy, a nguage she now understood. They told her their secrets, the possibilities of their fusion.

  The process was no longer a series of dull, rigorous steps.

  It had transformed into a grand, exhirating dance.

  She sank into the hazy, strange-rhythmed melody, lost in it.

  In this illusion, so real yet so fake, she saw a dy so enchanting you could drown in a single gnce. She couldn't remember the dy’s face, only her dress, woven from moonlight and stardust, and her eyes—eyes that saw everything yet held a pyful smile.

  The dy extended a hand. A silent invitation.

  Pandora didn't resist.

  She and the mysterious dy danced a wild jig.

  Tap, tap, tap. Cp, cp, cp.

  The sharp, rhythmic sound of their shoes striking the ground.

  Every stomp was a pestle, grinding hard materials into dust. Every beat was the hot pulse of a distiller under the fme. Every spin, the arc of her swirling skirt, was the elegant trajectory of a solution purifying in a gss tube.

  Sweat dripped from Pandora’s face. The Witch’s brow beaded with fragrant sweat.

  They were exhausted, panting, but it was exhirating. They had poured all their strength, all their soul, into this wild yet exquisite dance.

  When the beautiful dream, which felt like it had sted a century and yet only an instant, slowly came to an end…

  Pandora’s eyes flew open.

  “Hah… hah… hah…”

  Her cheeks were flushed, her forehead damp with sweat. Her eyes held a trace of daze, as if she’d just broken free from a powerful illusion.

  She looked at the beaker before her, slightly breathless.

  There, a potion y quietly.

  It wasn't glowing. All its essence and splendor seemed to have been reined in, settling within the small vial.

  But its color was identical to the true red moon. Pure and deep. A scarlet that seemed to hold the secrets of the entire night.

  If you held it up to the sky, you’d barely be able to tell it apart from the real, eerie blood-red moon.

  Without needing a System notification, Pandora knew.

  Her perfect-grade 【Potion · Dulles’s Red Moon’s Tears】 was complete.

  No more waiting.

  Pandora called for Elsa and had her stand guard outside the herb room. No one was allowed to approach, for any reason, even if the sky was falling.

  Then, she barred the heavy oak door.

  In the room, only she and the perfect potion remained.

  She gazed at it calmly.

  Then she tilted her head back and downed the entire vial of cold, smooth liquid in one gulp.

  The time she had was only seven days.

  From the start of the corpse-transformation, this “screening” process would only st for seven days.

  When the time was up, the next Warden would arrive. He would take over from the previous administrator, bring in a new batch of “Fruits,” and… take back their batch, which had now ripened.

  But when the new Warden got here, he would discover—the previous Warden, Dulles, was a stinking pile of rotting flesh.

  The key problem was that the heavily guarded research facility showed clear signs of a break-in. That was something Pandora could not erase.

  So, before that happened, she had to get stronger. By any means necessary.

  According to Dulles’s notes, Wardens were generally only demon-hunting apprentices for about a year. Most of them were “mediocre” types like Dulles, with poor talent, who found it hard to advance.

  In that situation, once she had the strength of the “second rank,” she’d have more initiative in the upcoming, unequal “handover.”

  Advance or retreat, she could be more composed. At worst, she could hide in some forgotten corner of this “Fragment World.”

  Could they find her then? A Warden, with the title of “warden,” didn't have the ability to search an entire world. And the Demon Hunter Academy, she figured, would hardly unch a manhunt that would sweep the entire “Orchard,” just for her, an “accidental,” little “Fruit.”

  So, advancing to the second rank was something she had to do.

  The breakthrough to Wizard first-rank wouldn't take long. According to the Wizard’s Book, as long as you could sink your spirit into that sea of consciousness, accept the aura of a spiritual rune, and incorporate the power of the first rune into your mind, you were set.

  If things went smoothly, it could be done in half an hour.

  Today was the sixth day of the corpse-transformation.

  If she was fast, she’d have a full day left to adapt to her new power and pn her next move.

  Without further ado, Pandora sat cross-legged and slowly closed her eyes.

  The potion in her stomach turned into a cold torrent, instantly spreading through her body. And her spirit, under its effect, like a wild horse that had broken its reins, rushed out of the confines of her flesh and sank into that… boundless sea of consciousness, filled with mad gibberish…

  ………………

  Above the manor, the sun set and the moon rose, then the moon set and the sun rose again.

  Time, in a strange quiet that mixed new life with decay, flowed silently.

  Until the sunset of the second day dyed the sky a rich, orange-red.

  Outside the tightly closed oak door of the herb room, Elsa stood guard like a lifeless statue, not moving a single step.

  Not a drop of water. Not a bite of food.

  As a product of the System’s Myriad Alchemy, her human appearance was just one of her two forms. Biological instincts like eating and sleeping had been reduced to a minimum.

  But in exchange, she had to absorb and maintain the “fuel” for her own existence and action…

  Pandora’s blood.

  Right now, it had been more than twenty hours since Pandora entered the room.

  More than twenty hours without absorbing a single drop of her master’s blood.

  Elsa’s state was already very poor.

  Her face, always as fwless as white porcein, was now completely bloodless, presenting a sickly, translucent pallor.

  Her body was uncontrolbly weakening, every muscle emitting a silent, weary ment.

  She had to use all her willpower to force her leaden legs to stand, to avoid colpsing to the ground.

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