Since he had already taken out the braindance Life Simulator, Leon decided to use today’s simulation opportunity.
Under normal circumstances, if nothing unexpected happened, he would wait until evening before activating the simulator in order to check in advance what events might await him the next day.
Thanks to that habit, he could at least plan his daily schedule somewhat ahead of time.
If nothing unexpected happens, tomorrow, Sunday, he should go to Jig-Jig Street…
the place where he spent his childhood.
[Simulation activated.]
[Tomorrow morning, you will be awakened by the alarm you previously set. You will casually hit it with your hand, after which it will stop ringing. Then you will continue hugging your Shupe the Troll Plushy, intending to sleep a little longer.]
[Five minutes later, the alarm will pull out a water gun and spray you directly in the face. Only then will you realize…]
[In the year 2075, even alarms have evolved into robots; their job is to prevent future corpo slaves from needlessly wasting time sleeping.]
[You will be forced to get up and enjoy a luxurious breakfast, top-tier synthetic delicacies carefully produced in a food processing facility. Unlike ordinary synthetic food that can be bought on the street, these ingredients are almost indistinguishable from real organic ingredients, and sometimes they are even tastier.]
[You cannot help but wonder whether synthetic food is sometimes actually better than completely natural organic food. After all, precisely manufactured laboratory food can be perfectly adapted to human taste receptors.]
[This breakfast will cost a total of 700 Eurodollars, roughly ten days’ wages for the average resident of Night City. You should be ashamed of yourself.]
[After breakfast, you will take your katana and personal equipment, put on your weapon holster, and take a Delamain taxi to Jig-Jig Street.]
[Eight years have passed…]
[Your appearance has completely changed. You are no longer that miserable little street child you once were, and almost no one here will recognize you anymore.]
[You will reach the pachinko parlor without any problems and meet Wakako. She will recognize you and begin the job according to the verbal agreement you made earlier.]
[She has found you a netrunner. As a fixer in Westbrook, Wakako possesses a network of contacts you can trust. The netrunner is named Sasha Yakovleva; she does not belong to any organization, is known in circles around the Afterlife, and is extremely capable, perfectly matching your requirements.]
[You will call Sasha through a holo-call. To your surprise, she will accept the call without hesitation. Her profile picture shows a cute cat. When the connection is established, her face will be partially blurred and unclear, but based on her voice and the features you manage to make out, you will immediately conclude that she perfectly matches your taste.]
[Sasha will very cheerfully accept the job, and the final agreement will fully satisfy your requirements. It seems that you are interesting to her as well, little brother, and she looks forward to your next cooperation.]
[After all, what older sister wouldn’t like a handsome and rich kid?]
[After the call ends, you will continue talking with Wakako. She will notice your equipment and realize that you are probably planning to step into the world of mercs, so she will offer you a job.]
[During the job, a minor gunfight will break out. It will be your first real combat experience, but the situation will not become particularly serious. Thanks to years of training, you will successfully complete the job.]
[That evening, you will encounter several more problems, but you will successfully resolve them as well. It will be tense, but without serious danger.]
[Simulation Rating: First true taste of combat, first blood spilled.]
[Simulation Rewards: 1 Attribute Point, A portion of real combat experience, 1 Perk Point, Basic Netrunner Upgrade Component — allows a minor upgrade to hacking software.]
Leon was not particularly surprised at first while reading the events shown in the simulation, because he had already planned most of them in advance anyway.
But words like “accepting jobs” and “real combat” immediately caught his attention.
And when he saw the simulation rewards, he was overwhelmed by enormous satisfaction, almost as if something valuable had just fallen from the sky.
[1 Attribute Point, 1 Perk Point, combat experience, and an upgrade component.]
This was probably the best reward he had received from the simulator since the beginner package.
The last time he had received something truly high-quality and useful was after the simulation in which the following appeared for the first time:
[First use of a training shard and conducting combat training in virtual space.]
Back then, he had received 1 Attribute Point and a certain amount of swordsmanship experience as a reward.
Based on all of this, Leon could also draw a certain conclusion about the rules by which the simulator awarded rewards:
The rewards for the first time he experienced something in a simulation were probably always the best.
After that, the rewards gradually decreased until they reached some lower limit.
“But a Perk Point… that’s something new.”
Leon opened the Database with interest.
Every new thing he encountered left a short explanation inside the Database.
[Perk Point: Can be assigned to various skill perk options in order to activate and permanently master them.]
[Currently available perks according to attributes:]
[Body: No perks available. Attribute value is insufficient.]
[Reflexes:]
[1. First Strike — When you take action, you almost always react one step before your opponent and can attack them thanks to your exceptionally fast reflexes.]
[2. Ambush Sense — When an enemy suddenly attacks you, you will sense immediate danger.]
[3. Adrenaline Reflex — The more seriously injured you are, the faster your reaction speed becomes.]
[4. Ghost Instinct — When you are about to be detected while moving stealthily, you will sense danger and instinctively find a suitable place to hide.]
…
[Eagle Eye — Your dynamic vision seems to have broken through its own natural limits. Increases dynamic visual ability by 50%.]
…
[Still Mind, Thunder Strike — You move between fragments of time. Technology has, for the first time, allowed a human to defy one of the oldest laws of nature, and you remain completely calm before that power, while your blade strikes as fast as lightning. When using Sandevistan, your sword damage increases by 100%. Nothing can remain uncut!]
[Technical Ability: No perks available. Attribute value is insufficient.]
[Intelligence: No perks available. Attribute value is insufficient.]
[Cool: No perks available.]
[Attribute value is insufficient.]
These perks…
Why do they resemble the skill system from the game so much?
“No… actually, there are quite a lot more of them.”
Leon carefully examined every perk before reaching a conclusion.
In games, the skill tree unlocks when a certain attribute reaches the required level, after which the player spends Perk Points to master individual abilities.
And that was exactly how the newly discovered Perk Points worked as well.
The only difference was that many of the perks he could now see obviously did not exist in the original game at all.
Although many years had passed and he no longer remembered every detail of Cyberpunk 2077 perfectly, Leon was completely certain that in the game he could not unlock around twenty perks just because his Reflexes had reached a value of 10.
In addition, Perk Points were obviously extremely valuable.
Sixteen years had passed since he came to this world, and this was the first time he had ever received one.
They had not even been included in the beginner package.
“Looks like I have to spend Perk Points very carefully.”
Leon thoroughly examined all available perks.
The only thing that annoyed him was that his other attributes were too low to unlock their skill tree options.
“Wait… didn’t I just get 1 Attribute Point too?”
After a brief moment of thought, Leon no longer hesitated and added that remaining Attribute Point to [Cool].
One additional point in [Body] would not make any dramatic difference.
He still would not be able to stop a bullet with his body.
Intelligence was even less of a priority for him.
He had no intention of developing a classic netrunner build, so an Intelligence value of 4 was already perfectly good for him.
Technical Ability was currently only 3, so adding one point there would not bring much benefit either.
That was why Cool was without a doubt the best choice.
The value of the [Cool] attribute thus increased to 5.
As if some invisible barrier had broken, a new series of newly unlocked abilities immediately appeared on the perk page.
[Cool:
[1. Ice-Cold Focus — During combat, you remain completely calm and do not allow external factors to disrupt your concentration.]
[2. Exit Strategy — During a tactical retreat, you will not panic and will almost always notice a suitable escape route.]
[3. Iron Will — You ignore the effects of pain. Even when injured, you can continue using 100% of your abilities unless the injury physically prevents movement, such as a severed limb.]
[4. Steady Hand — You reliably throw knives; accuracy increases together with the Cool attribute.]
…
[Blood Rush — After defeating an enemy, you gain the Blood Rush effect. The effect can be activated and stacked up to three times. Each stack grants +10% movement speed and +10% hand movement speed for 10 seconds.]
[Ace Up Your Sleeve? — It seems you always have one more hidden trump card? When you find yourself in an unexpected situation, the Database will randomly generate one item that can help you. Pay attention to the “?” symbol and the word “randomly.”]
The enormous number of perks almost made his head spin.
They covered practically everything he could imagine.
Faster healing, Higher damage, Better defense, Greater speed…
Fuck.
“I want them all…”
If he ignored perks like “improving hacking ability while completely calm” or “never making a mistake while crafting,” which required other attributes as well to show their full effect, Leon wanted a huge number of the remaining perks.
However, considering how rare Perk Points obviously were, he thought for a long time before finally beginning to narrow down his choices.
First, he had to eliminate perks that required other skills or attributes to be truly useful.
At the moment, aside from Reflexes, all his other attributes were still relatively low, so such abilities were not worth considering for now.
Then he eliminated perks that looked useful at first glance but actually offered something he could learn on his own.
For example, [Ice-Cold Focus].
Such perks really could instantly increase his combat ability.
But when he thought about it more carefully…
A person could develop similar composure through years of real combat experience and training.
On the other hand, a perk like [Blood Rush] represented a pure, brutal percentage increase in physical performance.
It did not require years of practice or painstaking effort.
All he had to do was fulfill the activation condition, and his body immediately received a percentage increase in ability.
Without the simulator, an ability like this simply could not exist.
That made the choice obvious.
He still did not know how he would obtain Perk Points in the future.
He had to choose a perk that was both practical and valuable enough to justify such a rare resource.
This is the one!
[Blood Rush]!