Crossing overpasses, running red lights, bumping into pedestrians, climbing broken stairs—Ruan Xian relied on his imposing, muscular frame to keep the local punks seething in silent rage.
With thick skin, he asked around for directions.
Even though Ruan Xian only spoke Chinese, thanks to the presence of Kang Tao, most of the locals had Chinese translation chips installed, so communication wasn’t much of an issue.
After surviving countless hardships—relying mostly on his charm and a few meager, practically useless Eurodollars stuffed in his trench coat to pay for directions—he finally arrived at his destination.
He patted the money in his trench coat pocket.
A few small rolls of cash, probably around 2,000 eddies.
In Night City, this was just passable—decent to a street-level nobody, peanuts to a mercenary, and not even pocket change to a corpo rat.
Still, if he added a bit more, it would be enough to hire the legendary V to smash a Tyger Claws hideout, the kind where you’d have to flatline at least a dozen or two of those Tyger Claw punks.
Little China in Watson, the inevitable starting point of any playthrough, was indeed a prime spot to grow.
Next up was planting his totem.
As for just chilling and putting it off?
Don’t be ridiculous.
Leaving an objective uncompleted, or a cheat unused, was just asking to get killed.
He stopped at a random roadside stall, grabbed a can of NiCola, and ordered two bowls of wontons.
The filling was subpar, but the wrappers were actually decent.
They were made from a byproduct of Biotechnica’s high-yield energy wheat, which was primarily grown to refine CHOOH2.
In Night City, if you could eat something cheap that actually came from the ground, you should just count your blessings.
Once his stomach was full, Ruan Xian walked over to Misty’s Esoterica.
He stood before a self-proclaimed prophet who was babbling endlessly, pretending to listen to the guy’s ranting.
Then, he simply activated the totem from his system interface.
Spiritual power surged, and everything around him instantly ground to a halt.
Like a sudden fall in a dream, Ruan Xian plunged into the spiritual world.
Perhaps because this universe had never previously hosted a lifeform capable of entering the spirit realm, the place looked incredibly barren and tiny.
It was like deep-sea creatures—since nobody was looking, they just grew however they pleased.
Although it felt like falling into the spirit realm, he might have actually been soaring up into it.
Through the barren earth, Ruan Xian could faintly sense that Night City was actually beneath his feet.
Looking up, a blue matrix of data points formed cyberspace, where countless packets of data flowed back and forth, incredibly busy.
Looking further out, he could see an incredibly magnificent, reddish-black wall.
His Shamanic spiritual intuition told him that to perform the ceremony of planting the totem, he first had to plant the root of the totem in the spirit realm.
“A lotus root.
For a root, a lotus root is perfect.”
In this spiritual world, thoughts were power.
The Shaman’s power guided the totem to transform, burying a section of lotus root deep into the earth of the spirit realm.
Next was the data world, where he needed to raise a fortress to protect data and information.
“Lotus leaves.
Layered lotus leaves will serve as an umbrella, shielding a sky to protect the world.”
Thoughts flashed like lightning, and spiritual power began to flow.
The lotus root buried in the barren earth began to sprout.
Countless green stems pierced fiercely into cyberspace.
Giant lotus leaves grew from every stem, layering over one another to completely shield the sky of the Watson district in the digital world.
Finally, there was the material world, where he needed to anchor himself to purify the world and receive belief.
“A lotus flower.
Rising unsullied from the mud.
Perfect.”
The lotus root in the barren earth sent a main stem downward, piercing through the barrier of reality and impaling Ruan Xian’s physical body.
“Wait, what the hell?
Holy crap!” Ruan Xian watched in horror as a ridiculously thick green stem pierced straight through the crown of his head, while a lotus flower bloomed beneath his feet.
“So the totem in the material world is literally me?
Is this even legal?” Looking at the scene before him, Ruan Xian felt his SAN value plummeting.
What kind of normal person had a giant stem sticking out of their head and flowers blooming under their feet?
What was this, “growing lotuses with every step”?
Was he a living deity, or would some inner demon split off from him later like in those wuxia dramas?
Though things had strayed far from his expectations, the totem was successfully planted.
The sudden, massive drain on his spiritual power made Ruan Xian’s vision go black.
The vacuum of spiritual power was incredibly painful.
Instinct prompted him to begin absorbing the power of his spiritual essence.
1,500 units of essence flooded into the lotus root buried deep beneath the earth of the spirit realm.
It began to grow rapidly, segment by segment, spreading deep beneath the barren soil.
The previously withered, thin stems quickly expanded—growing thicker, longer, larger, and taller.
The lotus leaves in cyberspace became larger and thicker, beginning to expand outward, while spiritual power began to feed back into Ruan Xian’s physical body in the material world.
Finally, he fell once more.
“It’s definitely the evil extraterrestrials from Alpha Centauri!
They’re terrifying vampires, sending malicious radio waves from space to control our minds!” Garry the Prophet was still babbling.
After a moment of daze, Ruan Xian finally snapped back to reality.
It seemed the stem on his head and the lotus under his feet couldn’t be seen by ordinary people unless they had active spiritual vision; otherwise, he’d have been surrounded by staring crowds.
Placing 100 eddies of cash in front of the prophet, Ruan Xian turned and walked away.
[The High-Dimensional Overseer appreciated your actions.]
[Multiple High-Dimensional Observers are watching you.]
[Obtained Attribute Points: 6 (Spiritual Infusion × 3, Appreciation of the High-Dimensional Overseer × 3)]
“150,000 for three attribute points.
Crazy.” Ruan Xian felt a twinge of pain for his lost money.
Transmigrating with unspent funds was painful enough, but even though it had been converted into spiritual essence and fed to his totem as fertilizer, it still hurt.
150,000 yuan—how many KFC Crazy Thursdays could that have bought?
He casually dumped all his attribute points into Body.
Body: 9 -> 15
“Whoa, the power…
I can feel the power surging!” Relying purely on his own hard work and sweat, Ruan Xian’s strength increased once more.
His newly bulked-up physique made his clothes feel a bit tight.
*Open status panel,* Ruan Xian muttered internally.
Spiritual power manifested as a blue interface in his eyes.
[Status: Totem Infused—Rapid health regeneration, rapid SAN recovery, rapid spiritual power recovery, rapid stamina recovery, moderate damage reduction, presence concealment while stealthing, cyberspace data cloaking, cyberspace data intrusion (requires Intelligence 10), accelerated experience gain, slow purification of the natural environment within the totem’s range (requires an altar).]
“What the heck is experience?
I have a system like that?
And what’s an altar?
This buff is seriously overpowered, but it’s a shame it only works within my territory.
Well, the range isn’t small.
Little China, Kabuki, Northside, and the northern part of Japantown…
that’s more than enough.
Before I advance my Sequence and upgrade my territory, I’m absolutely not setting foot outside of Watson.”
Blue light flashed in Ruan Xian’s eyes once more as his spiritual perception provided feedback.
Experience represented the growth gained through combat, learning, broadening his horizons, or consuming spiritual essence, displayed in a quantified form.
Once the experience bar was full, he would gain one attribute point and one perk point.
Perk points could be used to accelerate learning or growth, corresponding to in-game perks.
“Praise Aha!
The experience system is fantastic.
The first step to falling in love with learning is having a progress bar that shows your improvement.”
Ruan Xian was highly satisfied with the Shaman abilities he gained after acquiring his territory.
As expected of the strongest Sequence 9 path in defense and territorial combat, once the totem was planted, his combat strength was easily on par with a Sequence 7, and his growth potential was immense.
Right now, the only drawback was that he still needed to build an altar.