Chapter 2

Clara spotted a large wholesale market next to the regular market, easily the biggest one in the city.

She went straight in, buying almost anything she saw.

Winter coats, tracksuits, loungewear. She checked the fabrics for comfort and durability and picked dozens of sets. She had the vendor deliver them to her home, telling him she was buying for resale. Her height and weight were fairly average, so she just ordered all standard sizes.

Then, she moved on to all kinds of dried goods. There were beans, lentils, sun-dried tomatoes, dried mushrooms, and seaweed. Everything was sold in bulk at wholesale prices. Then came the seasonings, including olive oil, vinegar, tahini, soy sauce, and stir-fry sauce.

The biggest surprise came when she stumbled upon a vendor selling foraged greens. These grew high up in the mountains and were usually hard to gather. Perfect for stuffed dishes or soft buns, they were a rare treat. Normally, only farmers from the nearby mountains sold them, so Clara couldn't believe her luck at finding them here.

She bought all the foraged greens the woman had.

She also haggled for some seasonal greens, arranging for the vendor to deliver them to her building at the right time.

When she finished at the market, she noticed the antique market across the street was selling books. Since she was already there, she headed straight over.

Thinking about possible power and water outages in the future, Clara raided every bookstore she could find. Comics, novels, cookbooks, manuals, maps, and even obscure professional guides on repair, farming, and planting. If she thought it might be useful, she bought it.

By the time she loaded everything into her car, it was packed to the brim. Not a single book would fit anymore.

Checking the time, about five hours had passed. Clara drove straight back to the jewelry shop.

Sean had finished embedding the chains exactly as she had requested. She paid him, returned to her car, and quietly stowed all the books and weapons inside. She planned to go back out and continue scavenging.

To Clara's surprise, the gem at her chest suddenly trembled as she passed one of the stalls.

The instincts Clara had honed during the apocalypse kicked in immediately.

She froze and took a step back, and the gem on her chest trembled again.

In front of her was a street stall selling so-called antiques.

A quick glance was enough to tell her most of the items were cheap fakes, designed to trick inexperienced buyers.

Clara crouched down in front of the stall, curiosity mingling with caution.

"Hey there, little lady. Looking for something?"

The man running the stall seemed thrilled to see a customer, probably unused to business in a while.

Clara scanned the items on display. Most were worn-looking trinkets and agate bracelets. Only a rough stone tucked in the corner caught her attention. It was hard to read at first glance.

When she reached out and touched the gold-bearing rock, the gem on her chest quivered violently.

She knew she had found the right one.

"How much for this?" she asked.

The stall owner's eyes flicked around, sizing her up, likely thinking he could make a quick profit off someone so young.

Clara didn't wait for him to speak. She held the stone in her hands and said, "This is a gold-bearing rock. From the outside, it doesn't look like it has a high gold content. The shape is plain and it's small. Most people would see it as just a decorative stone. Maybe slightly better than an ordinary oddity. I like it, and I'd pay a thousand dollars. Will you sell it?"

Two minutes later, Clara had tucked the stone into her bag and walked away.

Once she was alone, she placed the stone into her pocket dimension.

As her consciousness entered the pocket dimension, Clara watched the gold ore explode into fragments the moment it entered. Tiny sparks of blue shot out from the golden rock, vanishing in an instant within the pocket dimension.

Before her eyes, the pocket dimension began to change dramatically.

A thick white mist rolled in, and fierce winds whipped through.

Clara froze, panic rising in her chest. She worried the blue sparks she had seen might be some kind of dangerous substance.

But when the mist cleared and the storm subsided, she gasped. Before her lay a patch of black soil, about a hundred square meters in size.

Just looking at it, she could feel how rich and fertile it was.

So the pocket dimension had upgraded?!

Clara clenched her fists in excitement and wandered around the market for another two rounds, but she didn't encounter anything else that made the gem on her chest tremble.

She figured this must be the way to upgrade the pocket dimension, though the reason and the materials involved remained a mystery. For now, it was best to put the experiment on hold as she was still lacking supplies. Once she had stocked up, she could study the pocket dimension in detail.

When she passed a small seed shop, Clara went inside and bought a variety of seeds, including vegetables, flowers, and fruits, as well as everything she could find.

She was already imagining planting them in the rich, black soil of her pocket dimension.

By the time she returned home that evening, her legs ached from a full day of walking.

Her current body wasn't as resilient as she remembered. In her previous life, the skills and endurance she had developed during the apocalypse were second nature, but this body struggled to keep up.

Still, the apocalypse wouldn't arrive for a few more months. She was confident that with some training, she could regain the strength and stamina of the Clara who had survived ten years in the end of the world.

Clara didn't waste time. She pulled out her little notebook and carefully listed everything she needed to do, circling "improve physical fitness" in bold, determined strokes.

Testing her pocket dimension, she discovered something incredible. It preserved items perfectly. Hot water at 185 degrees put inside would come out just as hot. It was essentially a miracle.

Then Clara thought of something else important.

She was going to get a dog, and not just any dog. She wanted a truly exceptional one.

In the early days of the apocalypse, corrosive acid rain already started falling, and people had stopped going outside altogether.

Meteorologists attributed the phenomenon to global pollution, combined with unknown changes in the Earth's atmosphere. At first, the acid rain wasn't strong, so people didn't pay it much attention. However, the rain intensified, flooding parts of the city so severely that even two-story buildings were submerged.

People couldn't go downstairs to shop, daily life became impossible, and panic began to spread.

But that was only the beginning.

After the acid rain came a blizzard, and temperatures plummeted to over sixty degrees below zero. With electricity and water already cut off, survival became nearly impossible. The snow didn't stop for three months, covering ten-story buildings completely.

It wasn't long before people noticed something extraordinary. Some animals had begun to mutate. They grew larger, stronger, and surprisingly intelligent, becoming invaluable allies for survival in the apocalypse.

And now, Clara was about to get one of these specially selected military dogs.

In her memory, it was supposed to be in these days that the local military would publicly auction off a batch of unqualified dogs.

During the training of military and police dogs, some were rejected for reasons like hyperactivity, timidity, or lack of stamina. These dogs were unsuitable as working animals, but they were still stronger than most ordinary dogs.

In her previous life, Clara had thought about it for a long time but never made a decision.

This time, she was determined. She would choose a strong, obedient, unqualified military dog.

Clara pulled out her phone and began searching for information.

Sure enough, she found details about the auction for unqualified military dogs, and her heart raced with excitement.

She tried contacting the person who posted the information. To her surprise, she got a reply and was told she could visit the military base first thing in the morning.

Clara was thrilled. Sleep didn't come easily, so she decided to experiment with the newly upgraded pocket dimension.

She had a packet of flower seeds in her hand. Focusing her thoughts, she scattered the seeds into the pocket dimension before finally going to bed.

She wondered whether the black soil in the pocket dimension could accelerate plant growth. Ordinary seeds took days to sprout, but this soil didn't feel ordinary at all.

Clara had a strong feeling that this black soil held some hidden power.

The next morning, Clara arrived at the military base.

A tall officer in uniform approached her, a friendly smile on his face. "Good morning, Ms. Summers."

Yesterday, Clara had used her memories from her previous life to track down the auction information for military dogs, then contacted the person in charge.

She hadn't expected the officer to tell her that there happened to be two retired military dogs that weren't suitable for auction. He asked if she might be interested.

Clara didn't hesitate. She remembered all too well that unqualified military dogs in her previous life had sometimes sold for over a million dollars. There was no way she could afford that.

Through the introduction, Clara learned that the officer's name was Lieutenant Adam Reed, a junior officer in charge of the military dog training unit, and the same person who had contacted her online.

On the way to the dog training base, Adam asked Clara about her experience with dogs and raising them.

Her parents had owned dogs when she was young, and she had even spent time playing with the military dogs at the base, so her answers came easily.

When they arrived at the dog training base, a chorus of barks filled the air. Twelve dogs were lined up, being photographed to upload for online records.

There were eight German Shepherds, three Labradors, and one Doberman.

Almost instantly, Clara's gaze locked on the Doberman.

Its coat was pitch-black and glossy, its muscles thick and powerful. Even sitting down, the Doberman's head came up to just below Clara's chest. Mutation or not, a dog like this guarding her home could scare off an entire group of men with bad intentions.

And by sheer luck, this Doberman was one of the retired dogs not suitable for auction.

"Why was this Doberman retired?" Clara asked Adam, carefully suppressing the excitement rising in her chest.

He guided her a couple of steps forward. When they were still about ten feet away, the Doberman lifted its head. Its large head lowered slightly, and its sharp eyes narrowed with a clear edge of aggression. Being stared at like that made her instinctively tense up.