{6th Floor, Megabuilding H10, Little China, Watson}

{A Week later}

...

*Twang* *Tang*

*Twang* *Tang*

*Twang* *Tang*

The sound of bullets colliding against metal rang around the air. I lowered my pistol and summoned my interface with a thought. Going through the list once again, my eyes stayed on the skill exp counter next to the Handgun skill. The skill had just leveled up to level 3 a few magazines ago, and even after unloading six magazines worth of bullets, the exp bar hadn't budged.

'The exp gain went from 5 bullets for 100 exp at level 1 to 50 bullets for 100 exp at level 2 to who knows how many for level 3. I don't think grinding anymore would help me. It's just a waste of time like this.' I lowered the weapon and changed the magazine before holstering it onto my thigh.

The Level 3 knowledge transfer for the handgun skill mainly focused on the quick draw mechanics, from knowing when and how to move my arms to minimizing the time required to draw almost any pistol. While the new muscle memory was quite good, I had already practiced quick draws and shots. The perks were a bit disappointing.

...

[Perks Unlocked:]

[-Knives]

[—Sharpen: Sharpen the edge of any blade to a grade higher]

[-Programming]

[—Swift Coder: Increases the efficiency of neural pathways to create pattern recognition that helps swiftly deal with time-sensitive problems.]

[-Netrunner]

[-Grade I Perks:]

[—Ghost: Your Daemons and subroutines can't be traced across the virtual net.]

[—Empowered Deamons: A completely new Daemon created from scratch gains some semblance of AI and can operate without feedback.]

[—Defensive expert: Gain an increased 50% perception bonus while in the NET.]

[-Boxing]

[—Counter: A perfect block slows down perception of time by 50% for 1s.]

[-Handgun]

[-Grade I Perks:]

[—Steady aim: Eliminates the recoil for the second shot.]

[—Intimate Knowledge: Gain instant knowledge about the quirks of any held handgun.]

[—Critical Point: Gain an insight into the weak points of an enemy.]

...

I'm not saying the options were bad, but they weren't as overpowered as [Sharpen], which I got for the [Knives] skill. I just thought that if the same perk was available for the handgun skill, I could shoot Tier-4-grade bullets and obliterate everyone.

'Lamenting will not change anything, and I have little money left. This last bit of gunslinging has been bleeding me dry, but at least I completed my short goal.' I walked out of the firing range and nodded to Wilson before leaving his shop.

Red neon light bled on the floor as I looked at the elevator before me. It's been a week since I stepped outside this floor, let alone the building. Although I'm very aware that the main reason behind my decisions is fear and trauma, the good thing about the rest function was that I didn't have to lie in bed looking at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to take over.

I wasn't a licensed psychiatrist, but I'm pretty sure a good night's sleep helped me a lot. Though there was some hesitation in my decision-making when it came to going outside, I was quite aware of it.

'But I can't really delay it any longer now, can I? The experience gained has now dropped off, and without actual combat, I don't think I will be able to progress,' I thought, my eyes zooming on the first person I saw, a girl with two metallic limbs who was smoking a cigarette along the fence.

My eyes scanned her data, fetching it straight from the NCPD database, and the heat signal gave away how much chrome she had. With her hands being the only exception and no outward protruding metallic parts at the back of her head, with a quick thought, the neural port in my eyes established a local connection with her own cybernetic eyes and uploaded a quickhack.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

...

[100 {Quickhack} EXP gained]

...

"What the fuck!" She explained as lightning sparked from her eyes. Her palms covered her eyes as she stumbled. The cigarette was discarded, and everyone's eyes remained focused on her as everyone backed away. I followed the general trend as I mirrored everyone's response. My acting skills might not be the most sophisticated, but after experimenting with stealth for the past week, something as nominal as escaping from the eyes of a civilian wasn't hard.

The Reboot Optics quickhack was one of the few taught in the course. Apparently, if I wanted to get more skeletons for basic quickhacks, I needed to shell out more credits for the Quickhack course. For now, that wasn't necessary, though. The effects of the quickhack lasted for a very short while. The lady stabilized herself and looked around, her eyes glowing as she looked at everyone.

Her gaze didn't last on me for more than a cursory glance, and I knew I had succeded. After looking around and not finding her target, she grumbled and walked toward the elevator. A notification sprung before me, telling me I had gained another 100 Exp in Stealth. Unsurprisingly, it was my highest-level skill, and grinding it was pretty easy, even though it was going through the natural process of diminishing returns.

'Now it gives me 100 Exp for every other person whose active detection I manage to evade. And considering that I can't spam this one like shooting bullets without due precaution and extended time windows in between these attacks, it's getting hard to gain Exp, though I still would be able to earn enough Exp to level up without going outside, after level 4 I'm not sure spamming Quickhacks on civilians would do.'

The entire premise of the Sneak skill is mingling in and escaping pursuit. Not wanting to deal with gangs and other hostilities, the easiest way that I had been employing was roaming around the service floor every day at different random times and targeting civilians. This had the dual benefit of leveling up two skills at once.

"Again? What the fuck is going on? Need to talk to Ralf about this sitch?" I heard Wilson mutter as he was looking at the commotion from his shop. I turned to him momentarily and asked, "Worried about sales?"

"Nah, some fucker is obviously testing a quickhack, not in front of my shop, though. They can fuck their brains out somewhere else. There are already too many weirdos waving their irons and weights around the corner." He grumbled as he walked away.

The commotion had died down, and I decided that the wisest course of action was to find my way back to my apartment. One of the reasons I had applied these quickhack and sneaking away tactics was that no one cares about things like a harmless attack in Night City. But I might have to postpone this for a while. One more attack, though, would be prudent so that Wilson doesn't get suspicious of me.

I summoned my interface once again as I walked through my apartment doors. The doors slid behind me with an almost noiseless slink as I sighed.

...

[Character ]

[Stats]

[Body: 5{650/5000}]

[Reflex: 5{1025/5000}]

[Technical Ability: 4{300/4000}]

[Intelligence: 6{2350/6000}]

[Cool: 4{600/4000}]

[Skills]

[Knives Lv 3 {350/3000} *Reflex attuned {Passive}]

[Cooking Lv 0 {100/500} *Intelligence attuned {Passive}]

[Netrunner Lv 3 {900/3000} *Intelligence attuned {Passive}]

[Handgun Lv 3 {0/3000} *Reflex attuned {Passive}]

[Boxing Lv 3 {50/1000} *Body attuned {Passive}]

[Programming Lv 3 {700/3000} *Intelligence attuned {Passive}]

[Stealth Lv 2 {400/2000} *Body attuned {Passive}]

[Cold Blooded Lv 1 {200/1000} *Cool attuned {Passive}]

[Quickhacks Lv 2 {500/2000} *Intelligence attuned {Active}]

[Breaching Lv 2 {200/2000} *Intelligence attuned {Active}]

...

All in all, I have made good progress and gained two new skills that will help me a lot. I finished the courses on Programming and Netrunning. Each course flung me past the threshold of Level 3, which I'm assuming is the first general threshold according to the system. I have selected a couple of perks, though I'm still holding out over a few choices. Each option is too attractive and diverse, thus making it a difficult choice.

'I have to decide at some point, but it's not like I'm going to be running through a gang joint anytime soon. Though if I plan to deal with others over the NET, I must take Ghost as the perk.' I flopped down on the bed. The energy to take a bath wasn't there in me... though that was just me being lazy. At first, I had been downright critical of even the floor in my apartment, but slowly, I had become numb to the reality of it all.

'I'm pretty sure I'm breathing much more filth once I step out of the apartment, so what's the point.' A week in the new world, and I'm already immunized to a lot of shit. Most of the misconceptions about this world have also cleared up. While it was a dangerous world, the Megabuildings were mostly left untouched; I was just unlucky to encounter a dead body on my first night here.

Though safe was a relative term, a couple of days ago, someone did go psycho on the service floor, and the stains were still there. But the frequency of 1 attack per week was milder than what happens outside. An avid watcher of what piss poor excuse of news there is, the weekly casualty report, according to the news in Night City, is 127 this week. And that was just the number of confirmed kills as a result of police confrontations. There was an immeasurable number of deaths due to gang-on Gang and gang-on-civilian violence.

I was going through the number of people dead in my head because I knew what I must do next. A week of sabbatical and grinding skills later, I need to step out of the building. Not only was my progress slowing down, and I would reach a bottleneck pretty soon, but also because the money in my account was running dangerously low.

'Plus, I'm kind of sick of eating these damn bland burritos.'

The time, according to my interface, was 04:34 PM. I could sleep in, but wasting more time would not change anything. Mustering up the will, I forced myself to stand up. To get things done in Night City, you need a special brand of people. They liked to sit in their cushy chair and high thrones while throwing mercs at a problem while taking a cut. My ideologies would not change the city, and I could only abide by its rules for now.

'I need a fixer... and I know just who to go to....'

...