After making his incredibly cool exit, Ruan Xian turned down two streets and slipped directly into a narrow alley.
He tossed his motorcycle to the side of the road and activated his Kiroshi optical scanner, using his Data Fortress to monitor the local data feeds.
The surrounding area was filled with dilapidated factories—not a single security camera in sight.
Ruan Xian leaped into the air, using a double jump to vault straight onto the second floor of a building.
He activated his Breath Concealment, Optical Camo, and Data Concealment before doing a quick sweep of the premises.
It was completely trashed and neglected—a perfect no man’s land.
Slipping into a random room, Ruan Xian prepared to design a “Black Shaman” persona for himself.
He wanted to use it to do some truly occult, creepy things.
For instance, he could stack Scavenger skulls into a pyramid, write some cursed runes, and perform sacrifices.
He could stack Maelstrom skulls into a pyramid, write some cursed runes, and perform sacrifices.
He could stack Tyger Claws skulls into a pyramid, write some cursed runes, and perform sacrifices.
He could stack NCPD…
actually, scratch that.
There were still decent, hardworking cops in the NCPD.
They might not be saints, but in Night City, pure good guys couldn’t survive anyway.
“Once Saburo Arasaka arrives, I’ll put on my Black Shaman alter ego, cause some chaos, and hang him from a lamppost.
Now wouldn’t that be a beautiful sight?
*Jie-jie-jie.*” Just thinking about it made Ruan Xian chuckle.
Given the High-Dimensional Observers’ peculiar tastes, this would surely max out his experience points.
Ruan Xian had been forcefully injected with the Shaman pathway, and its Sequence 6—Literature Enthusiast—allowed him to bring fantasy into reality to a certain extent.
What a perfect coincidence.
It was the perfect excuse to do a little advance acting.
To maximize his attribute and perk points across the board, Ruan Xian decided to sculpt a handsome face.
Although his original body wasn’t exactly ugly, a handsomer face would make it much easier to scam people out of experience points.
Michiko Arasaka, the Queen of Night City, had used a carefully crafted look to establish her Cat-Ear Detective Agency, ruthlessly milking the Americans for eddies.
This proved that prioritizing aesthetics over ethics was a pathology shared by both Americans and Japanese.
If he threw in a dark, tragic backstory—especially since this Black Shaman was going to indiscriminately sacrifice gang members and corporate suits who crossed the line—he might end up even more popular than his main identity.
He might even sell merch.
“He needs to be handsome, cool, have a resolute goal, and be able to squeeze eddies and XP out of both the High-Dimensional Observers and the citizens of Night City.” Ruan Xian scratched his head so hard his scalp almost bled.
“The most powerful factions in Night City are Arasaka and Militech, followed by Kang Tao and Biotechnica.
So, it’s best to make the alter ego an American or a Japanese guy.” Ruan Xian decided to break it down and design the persona step by step.
“My current territory is mainly Watson, with a bit of northern Westbrook.
That’s basically Japanese territory.
6th Street and Militech’s sphere of influence is in the south of Night City.
Even if I level up and my territory expands, I’ll probably swallow the north first.
“The skills I’ve shown so far are stealth, hacking, and high physical stats.
In the future, my main identity will probably rely on those methods.
So, let’s create a contrasting character—someone who uses revolvers, grenades, and sniper rifles.
A cowboy.” Ruan Xian pondered.
In any case, the Black Shaman could still use quickhacks; if anyone asked, he could just say Sean Donnelly did it for him.
“A handsome, charismatic cowboy character…
Boothill, Clint Eastwood, or Arthur ‘Black Lung’?” In Ruan Xian’s mind, those were the three coolest cowboys in existence, bar none.
“But I have an Asian face.
For a bit of contrast, let’s go with Arthur Morgan.
His backstory is easy to make up, too.” Ultimately, Ruan Xian sculpted an Arthur Morgan face and began setting up his lore.
“If strangers ask, I’ll just ignore them.
If someone I know insists on asking, I’ll say I stayed behind to cover the retreat of the Van der Linde clan, a nomad family.
“But I was betrayed by a clan member named Micah.
After being brutally beaten, I was left to die on a cliff.
“Then Ruan Xian saved me, paid to get me a Biotechnica synthetic lung, and so I joined the Shaman cult Ruan Xian believes in.
If they ask anything else, I’ll just keep quiet and act mysterious.” Ruan Xian planned to keep the initial setup simple.
“Then, his once-kind personality turned freezing cold.
He came to believe that eradicating evil is the only way to protect the good, beating up gang members and corrupt corporate scum at the drop of a hat, leaving no survivors—yet still holding onto his core principles.” After fleshing out the details to prevent getting exposed right out of the gate, Ruan Xian began hacking into the Watson NCPD database.
After reaching 10 Intelligence, the cyberspace database intrusions that were previously locked to him had finally opened up.
Unlike his previous crude brute-forcing, where he had to rely on sheer computing power to smash through firewalls and bypass password blocks, things were different now.
Now, by spending just a tiny bit of Spirituality, Ruan Xian could instantly obtain the passwords.
The only drawback was that this could only be done within his totem territory.
Previously, attacking ICE required Ruan Xian to rely on pure brute force.
Ordinary netrunners had to find vulnerabilities to slip past, but now, a Ruan Xian spending a bit of Spirituality could slide right in.
The NCPD’s ICE was utterly useless against him—just like the invincible French Maginot Line when the Germans simply walked right around it.
Information written, cyberdeck serial number modified, firmware refreshed.
Let us cheer, for Mr.
Arthur Morgan has officially arrived!
The first thing the legendary Arthur did was change his clothes.
Most importantly, he put on a black cowboy hat.
Ruan Xian jumped down from the second floor, walked into the alley, pocketed his motorcycle, and pulled out an Archer Hella he had recently hijacked from Maelstrom.
The piece-of-trash car looked ancient, but it would do.
He stuffed the leftover cyberware from the Scavengers and Maelstrom into the trunk.
He was going to have a little chat with a well-known ripperdoc in North Watson—Dr.
Charles, whose basement happened to serve as a Scavenger headquarters.
—Press F to Skip Travel—
Charles Bucks was one of the few licensed doctors in North Watson.
He had struggled at first, but things had gotten much better since he sold his conscience. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
In Night City, however, personal choices never mattered.
What that really meant was that Night City never gave anyone a choice.
All seemingly different options always led to only two outcomes: drowning in the city’s cesspool while holding onto your conscience, or selling it out to fully embrace the city.
Ruan Xian had come here to do something big.
He wanted to give people a third choice: join his Shaman cult, and live a good life while keeping their conscience.
After all, he would reach Sequence 0 sooner or later, and he would need enough anchors to maintain his humanity.
Besides, even an evil god coming to Night City would think these corporations were too extreme, and the gangs were even worse than cults.
To sell their stockpiles of medicine and vaccines, Biotechnica would literally manufacture and spread plagues in Santo Domingo.
A demoness would look at them and give them a thumbs-up.
And yet, that was just a regular Tuesday in Night City.
It wasn’t like detonating a nuke in the city center had never happened before, either.
Right, Johnny?
Right, Morgan Blackhand?
“This place is pretty isolated.
Been working here a long time, huh?” Arthur (Ruan Xian) walked in with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, carrying the unmistakable aura of a hardened outlaw.
Ever since Charles sold his soul, he had grown accustomed to this dangerous scent.
He replied, “A year or two, maybe longer.
It was hard at first, but then I met some people who could help.
Hard-edged folk, a lot like you.
You know how it is.”
Charles gave Arthur a meaningful look.
“The heaviest part of my business is net-running.
I usually partner up with someone for that.
It’s a very flexible arrangement.”
“You sell some good stuff here.
Very advanced.
Doesn’t look like something the locals can afford, though,” Arthur said, his voice deep and raspy.
“I have the best suppliers in the city.
They keep a very…
low profile.” Charles was practically spelling it out for him.
*Please, just stop asking.*
Arthur spat out his cigarette and said, “Ever thought about changing suppliers?”
Charles blinked.
“Huh?”