The system was the true foundation of Victor’s confidence.
Not Arasaka’s influence.
Not his growing wealth.
Not the military-grade cyberware integrated throughout his body.
And certainly not the political authority that came with his position as Minister of Special Operations.
All of those things mattered, but they were merely tools.
The system was different.
The system was the reason he had been able to climb so high in only twenty-two years.
Standing beside the panoramic windows of his penthouse, Victor gazed out at the glittering lights of Night City.
Thousands of neon signs illuminated the darkness, creating the illusion of prosperity and endless opportunity.
To most people, the city looked magnificent from this height.
Victor knew better.
Behind every glowing billboard was another corporate scheme.
Behind every luxury tower was another struggle for power.
And behind every smiling face was another person trying desperately to survive.
Taking a slow drag from his cigarette, Victor exhaled a thin stream of smoke before silently opening the familiar blue interface only he could see.
The system panel appeared before his eyes.
— [System Status] Body: 11 Intelligence: 10 Reflexes: 12 Technical Ability: 8 Cool: 10 — A faint smile appeared on Victor’s face.
To an outsider, the numbers might not seem particularly impressive.
But the reality was entirely different.
These weren’t enhanced values.
They weren’t boosted by cyberware.
They weren’t temporary combat modifications.
These were his natural attributes.
His base statistics.
The foundation upon which everything else had been built.
And that foundation was already approaching the limits of normal human capability.
When combined with his cyberware, the numbers became far more frightening.
His Body attribute could temporarily climb as high as sixteen or eighteen.
His Reflexes could comfortably reach seventeen.
For comparison, even Adam Smasher’s Body attribute only reached around eighteen after decades of replacing nearly every piece of flesh in his body.
Victor wasn’t quite there yet.
But he was close enough that the comparison no longer sounded absurd.
That fact alone was enough to terrify most people in Night City.
The truly dangerous part, however, wasn’t the attributes.
It was the perks.
Victor shifted his attention to the abilities he had accumulated throughout the years.
Unlike ordinary cyberware, perks couldn’t be purchased.
They couldn’t be stolen.
They couldn’t be replicated.
Every single one had been earned through life-threatening experiences.
Some had cost him blood.
Others had nearly cost him his life.
The first category was Body.
He possessed two perks under it.
Crushing Might and Valiant Body.
The first was brutally straightforward.
All close-quarters attacks dealt significantly more damage, and the chance of stunning an opponent increased dramatically.
Simple.
Efficient.
Deadly.
The second was even more valuable.
Valiant Body ensured that injuries had minimal impact on his combat performance.
More importantly, the more wounded he became, the stronger he grew.
For every ten percent reduction in health, his attack power increased while his regenerative capabilities accelerated.
The perk essentially transformed him into a monster that became harder to stop the longer a fight continued.
Victor had tested it more than once.
The results were terrifying.
Many opponents who believed they were gaining the upper hand eventually discovered the exact opposite.
By the time they realized their mistake, they were usually already dead.
Moving down the list, Victor examined his Intelligence category.
Only one perk existed there.
But that single perk was worth more than several ordinary abilities combined.
No Place to Stand.
Even now, Victor couldn’t help appreciating its elegant simplicity.
The effect was straightforward.
Whenever he suffered a fatal attack while diving through Cyberspace, the perk instantly severed all active network connections.
No delays.
No restrictions.
No exceptions.
One moment he could be fighting for his life inside a corporate server.
The next moment he would simply disappear.
Gone.
Disconnected.
Untouchable.
The ability bypassed every obstacle and every defensive measure.
Unless Victor willingly reconnected, nobody could locate him again.
In practical terms, it meant that even rogue AIs struggled to permanently threaten him.
After all, how could they attack someone who no longer existed on the network?
The perk had saved his life more than once.
And because of it, Victor possessed a level of confidence in Cyberspace that very few netrunners could match.
His Technical Ability section remained mostly empty.
Not because he ignored it.
Rather, because Technical Ability functioned differently in this reality than it had in the game he remembered from his previous life.
Here, it focused almost entirely on engineering, manufacturing, and research.
Weapons.
Cyberware.
Biotechnology.
Industrial design.
Most of Victor’s wealth actually originated from this attribute.
Many of the products sold by Arasaka contained his designs.
Others remained exclusive military-grade equipment reserved for internal use.
Either way, every successful project generated profits.
Massive profits.
So while he lacked perks in this category, he wasn’t particularly concerned.
Eventually, that would change.
The Cool category contained another perk Victor valued highly.
Unshakable Countenance.
At first glance, it sounded almost mundane.
Yet it had proven incredibly useful.
The ability stabilized his emotions and prevented extreme psychological fluctuations.
Fear.
Panic.
Rage.
Despair.
All became easier to control.
The original version of the perk had only affected his facial expressions.
Back then, it merely prevented obvious emotional reactions.
However, years of corporate warfare and dangerous missions had somehow caused the ability to evolve.
Victor still didn’t know exactly how.
The system had never provided any explanation.
No notification.
No progress bar.
Nothing.
One day the perk had simply become stronger.
That discovery had fascinated him.
Because it proved something important.
Perks could grow.
The challenge was figuring out how.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to replicate the process with his other abilities.
At least not yet.
Finally, Victor examined his Reflexes perks.
These were perhaps his favorites.
After all, reflexes won battles.
And winning battles generally increased life expectancy.
The first perk was Sword Master.
Officially, it granted twenty percent additional blade damage.
Unofficially, it did much more.
Victor had discovered that the perk provided an instinctive understanding of swordsmanship.
Movement.
Timing.
Positioning.
Technique.
Everything felt natural.
As though decades of training had been compressed into pure instinct.
The second perk was Speed Demon.
A thirty percent increase in movement speed.
Additionally, every defeated enemy granted a temporary bonus.
The longer a battle lasted, the faster Victor became.
Combined with his Sandevistan, the effect was absurd.
Most opponents never even realized what had happened.
The final perk was Neural Pressure.
And it remained the most mysterious.
Whenever Victor entered a genuinely life-threatening situation, the perk automatically activated a Time Dilation state.
The world slowed.
His perception accelerated.
Every movement became visible.
Every opportunity became obvious.
Every mistake became lethal.
Victor had long suspected that the ability possessed untapped potential.
More specifically, he wanted to transform it from a passive effect into an active one.
Imagine triggering Time Dilation voluntarily.
Then activating a military-grade Sandevistan on top of it.
The resulting combat performance would be terrifying.
Perhaps even enough to challenge monsters like Adam Smasher directly.
The possibility alone was enough to keep him experimenting.
After reviewing the panel, Victor closed it and examined his remaining points.
4,653 points.
Not bad.
A substantial portion had been earned through activities most people considered suicidal.
Specifically, Old Net exploration.
Most netrunners avoided the Old Net whenever possible.
Victor occasionally entered it willingly.
The rewards were simply too valuable.
Data mining remained one of the most profitable activities available to skilled netrunners.
Corporations regularly trained specialists for the task, often selecting talented orphans or the children of loyal employees.
Arasaka was no exception.
Many future Network Security experts began their careers there.
The thought reminded Victor of a familiar name.
Lucy.
Or more accurately— Lucyna Kushinada.
Unlike most trainees, Lucy had never truly belonged within Arasaka’s system.
Her talent was extraordinary.
Unfortunately, so was her dissatisfaction with corporate life.
When her parents noticed that dissatisfaction, they responded exactly as loyal Arasaka employees would.
They volunteered their daughter for the Mining Department.
Victor still found that decision disturbing.
Corporate indoctrination was a frightening thing.
No matter how loyal he became to Arasaka, he couldn’t imagine doing the same.
Some lines were simply too difficult to cross.
As for rogue AIs?
Victor wasn’t arrogant enough to believe he could defeat them alone.
Not consistently.
Not without preparation.
Fortunately, he never fought alone.
Whenever he entered dangerous regions of the Net, he did so backed by Arasaka’s infrastructure.
Arasaka servers.
Arasaka processing power.
Arasaka security programs.
Arasaka hardware.
In gaming terms, he was shamelessly pay-to-win.
And he had absolutely no regrets about it.
Eventually, Victor stood and made his way toward a secured room deeper within the penthouse.
His private netrunning chamber.
Unlike public braindance parlors, this room guaranteed complete privacy and security.
No observers.
No interruptions.
No unnecessary risks.
After changing into specialized netrunning gear, he settled into the neural chair and fitted the braindance headset over his eyes.
The connection established instantly.
For most people, braindances served as an escape.
A temporary refuge from reality.
Every sensation.
Every emotion.
Every memory.
Perfectly preserved.
Perfectly shared.
Many citizens of Night City experienced more happiness through braindances than through their actual lives.
Which was precisely why addiction was so common.
Reality simply couldn’t compete.
Victor understood the appeal.
But unlike many users, he maintained strict control.
To him, braindances remained entertainment.
Nothing more.
Though admittedly…
Some of his preferred recordings were better left unmentioned.
A faint grin appeared on his face before disappearing just as quickly.
Two hours later, he disconnected.
His mind refreshed.
His body relaxed.
His leisure time complete.
Now came the important part.
Training.
The room vanished.
The physical world disappeared.
And Cyberspace emerged.
Endless streams of data surrounded him.
Towering corporate nodes stretched toward infinity.
Encrypted pathways crossed through digital skies.
Entire worlds existed within rivers of information.
This was the true battlefield of the modern era.
Not streets.
Not boardrooms.
The Net.
Victor moved confidently through the vast digital landscape.
Unlike the ancient network of decades past, today’s Net no longer existed as a single connected system.
That era had ended with one man.
Rache Bartmoss.
Even now, the name carried almost mythical weight.
According to historical records, Bartmoss possessed an intellect so extraordinary that ordinary people struggled to comprehend it.
If Adam Smasher represented physical perfection, Bartmoss represented intellectual insanity.
And years ago, he had changed the world forever.
His virus shattered the Old Net.
Triggered AI rebellions.
Destroyed global infrastructure.
And ultimately forced humanity to create the Blackwall.
NetWatch existed because of Bartmoss.
The modern Net existed because of Bartmoss.
The entire digital world still lived in the shadow of his actions.
Victor couldn’t help respecting him.
Dangerous as the man had been.
With practiced ease, Victor dove deeper into the data streams.
Programs activated around him.
Training simulations loaded.
Security challenges emerged.
This was why he came here every night.
Not for entertainment.
Not for profit.
Preparation.
Because in Night City, bullets weren’t always made of metal.
Sometimes they were made of code.
And Victor refused to entrust his survival to anyone else.
If someone wanted access to his mind…
They would first have to defeat him.
And tonight, inside the endless ocean of Cyberspace, Victor intended to become even harder to kill.
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