Target: Drug Dealer

In the late afternoon, Zac left his apartment carefully to avoid being followed by the man The Vipers had put on his trail.

He took a bus to the center of the city, then went to a subway station, from which he took a train and made two changes along the way until he left a station in the south of the city and took a taxi to his destination.

Almost 80 minutes after leaving home, he felt he had lost the person following him and got out of the taxi not far from Iron Center.

Iron Center was located in a district far from Walney's center, where factories, logistics warehouses, and other types of commercial and industrial buildings were located.

There was little or no residential area there. However, Iron Center, a large gym frequented by bodybuilders from Walney and the surrounding area, was located there.

Walney wasn't known for having a famous football or basketball team in Ushal. This city was known for being home to famous bodybuilders and was even home to the two-time champion of the world's largest bodybuilding competition, Viktor Pilzer, known as the Lord of Olympus.

But that wasn't what had brought Zac to this place earlier in the evening. From the conversations of the three men he had recently dealt with, there were people from the Iron Center, one of several local training centers, who were connected to a clandestine steroid laboratory!

That was what interested Zac!

In Ushal, certain synthetic hormones could only be used by prescription, which were usually given only to patients who needed certain hormones. But the body cult fever was intense, and many healthy young adults were looking for these resources.

Some got prescriptions from others and bought their drugs from pharmacies. However, pharmacies were open to everyone, and prescriptions were much harder to get. 

The result? Many ended up using products of dubious origin.

Thus, the clandestine laboratory business was born, which in some ways was no different from the laboratories that produced drugs like coc*aine, meth*amphetamine, etc.

In a sense, the people behind these labs were drug dealers.

But Zac felt that between a coc*aine dealer and a dealer of some kind of steroid, the one behind the drugs used by bodybuilding athletes was the least dangerous.

That's why the Iron Center was his focus today!

He saw the large Iron Center building, which looked like just another logistics hub but was actually a large space of 10,000 square meters where a huge gym stood.

The place didn't have much decoration on the outside. Except for a parking lot with luxury cars and a few vehicles that were way above the price of a good apartment in the city center, there wasn't much else to see except for a sign with the place's name and the trees nearby.

Zac made his way through the parking lot entrance as if he were just another gym-goer arriving to work out. But instead of heading for the main entrance, he went to the back of the lot once he realized no one was watching him.

Using his powers to see through walls, he soon found a place where the uniforms of cleaning workers were on display.

Soon, he was wearing a blue jumpsuit and carrying some cleaning tools.

He tried to walk naturally through the alternate entrance to the place, following as if he were just another employee there.

Most people wouldn't pay attention to someone like him, so he soon entered the huge place.

He paused momentarily to observe this gym, which had more than 200 machines inside.

'This place looks even bigger than the videos on the Internet suggest.' He thought to himself before turning his attention to looking for suspicious people.

But as he expected, he soon found people using needles in different parts of the gym, some in bathrooms, others in rooms with large mirrors.

Then he approached one of the bathrooms where some bodybuilders were injecting their steroids.

"... I said. That girl is a machine! But you have to be careful. She'll try to make you fall in love with her and give her everything you've got."

Zac started mopping the floor while listening to the voices in the bathroom.

To his surprise, his hearing was much better than that of normal people. Even a few meters away from them, he could hear them well enough to understand everything they said.

"If you want to be with her, you must be careful. Go in thinking it's just casual fun. If you get carried away by her ways, haha, you'll be in trouble."

"Really?"

"Dude, she's already dated about 12 guys from our gym. Trust me, watch out for her. She's perfect as long as you're not in a relationship. After that, well, I'd better not talk." A muscular man who was putting something on one of his biceps said this with a smile on his face.

Three other guys there laughed out loud while the guy being counseled had a strange expression.

"Sigh... It's okay. I thought she was a keeper, but that doesn't seem to be the case."

"She belongs to the streets, my friend." One of the other muscular individuals patted the smallest of them on the shoulder.

"Whatever, but now that you're on CesES, you will turn into a bull. You'll hardly be in the mood to be romantic, haha." Said one of the muscular men.

"Speaking of which, what are your daily doses?" Another of them asked.

The smallest guy in the group said. "I'm taking 5 mg of CesES daily."

"That's good. When you finish the one-month cycle, talk to Dylan. He'll help you get your next medication."

The guy looked in the direction of a man applying something to one of his chests.

But not only did he look that way, Zac did as well, narrowing his eyes.

In the next few minutes, these men would leave the bathroom together, and Zac would follow the one named Dylan, a man about five feet tall with tanned skin and a bald head.

After half an hour of following this man, he found the opportunity he needed to spy on Dylan's phone.

Through the man's messages, he contacted an employee of the secret laboratory called Monsters Lab.

He didn't get its location, but he did get a contact from one of the Monsters Lab salesmen!

With this in hand, Zac sent a message saying he wanted to buy 100 mg of CesES.

In less than an hour, he heard back, agreeing to pay 800 Lunar Pennies for that amount of CesES and to meet the seller in a public place early the next evening.