"Full of motivation, but unfortunately, I've heard this from more than a dozen people before. Guess how many are still alive today? Not a single one." As Jason Grant spoke, he led Grace Lincoln to stand before a metal door that looked like a bank vault. "Come on, my fearless beauty, welcome to the investigators' paradise of the Underworld Bureau—Black Eden."

Chapter 8: The Splendid Pavilion of Black Eden

"Boy's urine! Fresh and still warm, personally produced by the shop owner! Top-quality 38-year-old boy, zero intercourse, zero masturbation! Just 1 point for a big bottle!" shouted a chubby man with a full beard.

"Secret recipe vampire bat wings! Imported directly from Africa! Perfect for talisman crafting, voodoo, or making soup. 1 point for 2 pairs, buy 10 get 5 free, members enjoy an extra 20% discount!" yelled an old woman who looked like a witch.

"Miss Brooks Corpse Collection Specialty Shop, long-term corpse recycling services. No matter where you die, we can retrieve the remaining parts. Only 5 points, fair price, honest business for all ages." a little girl called out.

Welcome to Black Eden, the nation's only dark goods trading market. The spacious market, 30 meters high, is filled with stalls of all sizes, resembling a confectionery and liquor expo held somewhere.

Every stall is doing its best to hawk their wares. Hostesses walking through the aisles will give you a free bag and stuff it with all kinds of brochures you can't understand. As for the products they're promoting, even if you searched Baidu, Google, and 360 together, you wouldn't find any relevant information.

No wonder, because thirty years ago, the vendors here were still hiding in various villages, towns, or even forests, making all sorts of dark items passed down through families or developed privately. They were only circulated in small circles, with extremely limited production and buyers, many even on the verge of being lost to history.

In the past, it was nothing strange for practitioners to travel all over the country just to get their hands on something interesting.

To solve procurement difficulties, the Underworld Bureau began to vigorously integrate traditional folk dark tools, introducing modern techniques to traditional supernatural items to improve product quality and output. They also provided a marketing platform—Black Eden—allowing merchants to earn handsome profits while making it easier for investigators to purchase personalized tools.

Just imagine: one family picks Buddhist beads, another buys talismans, someone in the north gets dog blood, and someone in the south collects corpses. Special products and services separated by hundreds of thousands of kilometers can now be purchased just a few steps apart.

Merchants even offer home delivery services. All special goods are shipped by a dedicated logistics company, "EMSB," with nationwide delivery within three days and cash on delivery.

To improve merchant management in Black Eden, the Underworld Bureau established a dedicated currency for the market, namely the performance points of all investigators.

Every investigator earns corresponding performance points after completing tasks. These points used to be only for regularization exams or promotion tests.

Now, these points can be used directly to purchase all kinds of goods in Black Eden. After receiving investigators' performance points, merchants settle accounts with the Underworld Bureau's logistics department quarterly, with 1 point exchangeable for 50,000 yuan in cash.

The Underworld Bureau also provides these businesses or individuals with official business invoices and collects various value-added business taxes, ensuring that this market they created won't disrupt the external social economy.

A total of 500,000 Underworld Bureau investigators support this Black Eden market, which covers more than 60,000 square meters and is home to about 300 businesses.

Among all these shops, the largest—"Splendid Pavilion"—has established an official partnership with the Underworld Bureau, almost monopolizing the sales of the highest-end combat tools in Black Eden. Its annual profit from performance point exchanges reaches as high as 1 billion, making it the envy of all.

However, Splendid Pavilion also handles onboarding services for new Underworld Bureau recruits, essentially serving the people while enjoying official benefits.

"Listen, I'll only say this once." Walking along the crimson carpet toward Splendid Pavilion, Jason Grant spoke, "For us, performance points are more important than money, because you can use them to buy all kinds of high-level tools and weapons in Black Eden. This is the second biggest guarantee for an investigator's survival, besides integrity. The year-end regularization exam requires 100 performance points. As long as you make sure you have 100 points in your account by the end of the year, that's enough. The rest should be maximized for spending here."

"How many performance points can you usually get for completing a task?" Grace Lincoln asked softly, following closely behind Jason Grant, frowning at everything around her. The disgusting things displayed at the various stalls were testing her limits.

"If you're a full-time investigator, all tasks are assigned strictly according to rank, and the performance points are fixed, just like a salary. But for temps like us, the only advantage is that we can take on higher-level tasks. Besides doing jobs assigned by superiors, we can also go on unsanctioned hunts. But investigators call this kind of unsanctioned hunting 'courting death privileges.'" Jason Grant chewed on a White Rabbit candy, glancing back at his partner. "For you, honestly, every task is courting death."