“Finally off the clock!
Time to take advantage of these delivery app price wars and grab something good—extra drumstick included.
Hope these corporate price wars last a while.”
While milking capitalism for all it was worth, Ruan Xian—who was trash-talking capital behind its back—walked down the narrow lane toward his cheap rented apartment.
Thank goodness for societal progress.
At least nowadays, walking down an alley in an urban village didn’t mean two random guys would jump out to mug you.
However, as that damn saying goes, you never know which will come first: tomorrow or disaster.
Rounding the large dumpster at the mouth of the alley, the moment Ruan Xian stepped out and looked up, towering skyscrapers and dazzling neon lights blinded his eyes.
*Holy shit.
I must’ve stepped out of the alley the wrong way,* Ruan Xian thought, turning right back around into the alley on the spot.
But the alley behind him had changed too—except for the big dumpster by the entrance.
*Motherfucker, where the hell am I?
Is this even China anymore?* Ruan Xian curled up beside the only thing that looked remotely familiar—the dumpster—shrinking into a bundle of non-recyclable trash as his thoughts spiraled into chaos.
Hiding beside the dumpster, he prayed to Buddha, then to the Three Pure Ones, then to Our Lord Cthulhu, and finally to the Six-Armed God-Emperor.
Having regained a shred of sanity, Ruan Xian plucked up his courage and walked out of the alley once more.
Towering skyscrapers, flashy neon, Japanese signboards, uncensored explicit ads, a massive “Happy New Year 2076” projected onto a skyscraper, Tyger Claws graffiti on the wall, and streetwalkers in the distance with two completely golden cyberlegs.
As someone who, whenever he got annoyed after work, would put on David’s jacket in-game, grab the *Guts* shotgun, and bring along his La Chingona Dorada to Arasaka Tower to beat up Adam Smasher—Ruan Xian knew immediately where he was.
Transmigrated.
In his original flesh-and-blood body.
In Night City.
Now he was truly screwed.
Night City—a metropolis where the bottom tier was literally devoured.
If you had neither money nor the strength to protect yourself, stepping into an alley meant getting ambushed by Scavengers, who would strip your skin and harvest your bones.
Usable blood, organs, and cyberware were sold off, while the useless bits went to the All Foods factory to be processed into synthetic meat and sold back to the lower class.
Then new dreamers would arrive at this City of Dreams, feeding a brutal, bloody cycle.
In a world like this, a chrome-less, flesh-and-blood human—even if they weren’t knocked out and chopped up by Scavs or killed in a gang shootout—could be poisoned to death just by breathing Night City’s air.
A city as hardcore as Night City would literally pump neurotoxin into the sewers just to stop Nomads and vagrants from living down there.
Huddling back beside the large dumpster, Ruan Xian pulled out the phone that had transmigrated with him.
He started clearing his browser data and deleting his cherished study material.
Goodbye, Tangxin, Madou, and all the lovely actresses…
Even if he was going to die in another world, he had to leave this world with a clean record.
After deleting the hidden folder in his file manager, Ruan Xian felt a sharp pang in his heart.
It hurt.
It hurt so damn much.
Having prepared everything, Ruan Xian wasn’t about to just curl up and die by the dumpster.
He had to put up a fight, one way or another.
Opening a giant meme image of Our Lord Cthulhu on his phone, he bowed devoutly three times.
“Oh Lord, I offer as a sacrifice all my remaining funds in Alipay, Huabei, WeChat, and my bank accounts.
Please bless me so that in this wretched, brutal world, I can live until I’m old and decrepit, lying in bed with a catheter, taking my very last breath.
…Wait, holy shit?”
*I prayed to all the gods and buddhas in my suffering, yet the only response came from my past countrymen…* An undeniably cool line popped into Ruan Xian’s head as he watched his old phone levitate in midair.
It didn’t help his current situation at all, but it was cool as hell.
After waiting silently for a few minutes while the floating phone remained unresponsive, Ruan Xian touched the belt he’d bought on Pinduoduo for ten bucks for a pack of five.
“Am I supposed to say something now?
Should I try shouting ‘Henshin’?”
Perhaps the loading bar had finally reached 100%.
The old phone disintegrated into a dot-matrix lattice of red and blue data streams, then plunged straight between Ruan Xian’s eyebrows.
[High-Dimensional Overseer’s Gaze Acquired] [Status Confirmed: High-Dimensional Observer] [Pathway Confirmed: Sequence 9: Shaman.
Program Potion Injected.] [Converting Legacy Currency: Alipay Balance 150,000 RMB] [Conversion Successful: 1,500 Spiritual Essences] [Attribute Scan Complete:] [Body: 2 (Weakling)] [Reflexes: 2 (Weakling)] [Cool: 3 (Initial level of Almighty V)] [Technical Ability: 0 (By Night City standards, your hands-on ability is roughly equal to a three-year-old; you could carefully blow yourself up with a toaster)] [Intelligence: 3 (Almighty V)] [Unallocated Attribute Points: 7 (Appreciation from the High-Dimensional Overseer)] [Unallocated Perk Points: 0] [Special Items Owned: Totem (Unset)] [Spiritual Essence Shop: Unlocks after Totem is set]
*What the fuck are these stats?
I’m practically an invalid!* Only his whopping 3 points in Intelligence matched a non-netrunner Almighty V.
Sure enough, V’s badassery was entirely self-made, whereas he, a transmigrator, was weak beyond belief.
Thankfully, he still had 7 attribute points.
Although he didn’t know which god the High-Dimensional Overseer was, he might as well use them.
At least it would help him lay low and survive first.
So, step one: dump points into Body until it hits 40!
In Cyberpunk 2077’s game mechanics, Body governed health points and physical constitution.
Given his current predicament, if he didn’t enhance his organic flesh, breathing the air, drinking the water, or eating the food here would poison him to death.
Now that his mind was made up, it was time to show Night City what sweat and perseverance looked like.
Although this trash game called reality lacked a tutorial, instincts guided by spirituality told Ruan Xian exactly what to do.
[Body: 2 -> 9]
The stat boost took effect instantly.
His lungs, which had been throbbing from Night City’s toxic air, felt unimaginably refreshed.
His sub-healthy body, worn down by daily life, felt filled with endless strength—so good that Ruan Xian wanted to find a local Night City punk and test his fists right then and there.
Fortunately, his whopping 3 points in Cool reminded him that everyone in Night City carried a gun—and those who dared to walk around unarmed were even deadlier than those with guns.
After elbowing his swollen ego out of the way, Ruan Xian shrank back beside the dumpster.
Attributes and perks were clearly local Night City stuff that everyone used, but what the hell was a Sequence 9 Shaman?
A certain tentacle-obsessed author—the one who brought stories of Our Lord Cthulhu into the real world—had once posted a special Sequence on his official WeChat account called the High-Dimensional Overseer.
Judging by how his phone had levitated earlier, the High-Dimensional Overseer and Night City’s local world order—whether it was an AI or something else—must have thrown elbows at each other before coming to a mutual compromise.
Ultimately, it merged with his organic body in digital form, having clearly succeeded in localizing itself.
So, what kind of powers did this Sequence 9 Shaman—injected via a program potion—actually possess?