Cyberpunk: Starting in 2071

Chapter 98 Technological Breakthrough

"Wow! Mano! This place is so cool!"

Jack hadn't stopped praising the place since he came in.

Whether it's the newly built residential area by the Adka people or the work area filled with various equipment.

The entrance, the hidden underground area, the underground machine room, and the work area that Mercer had taken him and Sasha to see all excited Jack immensely.

He'd never seen anything like this in gangs before. Even the best territory, if it fell into the hands of a bunch of street thugs, would quickly become filthy and chaotic because of a group of guys who smoke and drink.

Especially when he saw that there was a dedicated garage and a complete set of professional tools for modifying and repairing cars, he laughed excitedly and said that he must save money quickly, buy a motorcycle he likes, and then modify it thoroughly.

The excitement became even more intense after the ground-level area was expanded and everyone received a spacious 35-square-meter single dormitory room.

Jack, who has always lived in his own house, has his own room for the first time—yes, in the game, Jack, through his struggles with V, at least has a garage to live in.

But in 2072, Jack has never even moved out of his house to live independently. There's no way he can make money in gangs, and he occasionally gets arrested by the NCPD and locked up for a few months.

If I rent a place, by the time I'm released by the NCPD, my mattress might have already been sold for money.

Sasha seemed much calmer, though it appeared to be her first time living with so many people, especially since Mercer's team consisted of many hackers, all of whom were women.

This allowed her to easily join in the conversation, and she found a rare girl her own age with whom she could have fun, keeping her smiling all the time.

Kyoko, in particular, has a very high level of affection for this older sister who has a strong anime/manga style, dresses cutely, and is kind. Sasha is also very interested in this adorable little girl.

The two quickly became very familiar with each other, and even sat side by side at the dining table.

Mercer was also in a very good mood.

Seeing Mann, Dorio, Jack, Lucy, Anzu, Kivi, Sasha, and V and Rebecca sitting together, chatting and laughing as they ate, gave him a sense of satisfaction that his 'character encyclopedia' was being filled.

Uh... it would be even better if V didn't have such a dark expression.

"Didn't I tell you before? Jack and Sasha were coming this afternoon, and I asked you to get ready in advance so you could come out and welcome them. But instead, you made everyone wait for you for several minutes."

In the kitchen, V took advantage of the moment when Mercer came to help serve the dishes to glare at him fiercely and whispered something about him.

Mercer chuckled softly and whispered beside her, "Okay, okay, I was wrong."

"What a disgrace." V glared at him, handed him the drink and put it on the table, complaining, "My mother used to say that if a family doesn't even eat together, they're bound to fall apart sooner or later."

I'm not asking you to come on time every day, but at least don't be late for formal gatherings.

"Okay, okay, I'll definitely do it next time. Thank you for your hard work, V." Mercer quickly grabbed his things and ran off, not giving V time to grumble.

V rolled her eyes and muttered behind his back, "I'll deal with you after you finish eating."

She always felt that this guy was really unreliable in his daily life, but when he was busy with important matters, he was like a completely different person.

V gets angry whenever she sees him being unreliable in life, and she can't explain why. Everyone else is no better, but she just always picks on him.

She would nag about things like not changing clothes on time, sometimes wearing the same clothes for two days, not sleeping or eating on time, and drinking cola all day long—just like his mother.

The worst part is that Rebecca is the same kind of girl. She always buys him clothes and shoes whenever she has nothing better to do, and she nags him to go out and have fun whenever he works long hours.
Uh, it feels like I have two moms with different personalities.

Mercer's choice is like that of many helpless middle-aged husbands: he can only make an excuse about work and then run away as soon as they start nagging him.

After he placed the food on the table, he quickly started laughing and chatting with the others. Now, he didn't even bother to serve the dishes anymore, acting like a complete lord.

V watched this scene and shook her head, but she never complained about him in front of outsiders. After setting the table with the girls, she sat down next to him, deciding to complain about him when they were alone.

On the table were Mexican-style dishes, American-style home-style dishes, and several stir-fries and Japanese dishes that V had made according to the different preferences of Mercer, Lucy, and the others.

It was a feast for the eyes and ears, with every dish covering the entire table. Each dish looked impressive and drew praise from Jack.

"V, your cooking is really good! Mercer, why didn't you tell me there would be so much delicious food? I would have come much sooner!"

Jack praised V's skills.

V sat down next to Mercer, leaning back in her chair to catch her breath—preparing such a large meal was really tiring; if it weren't for Dorio, Kivi, and Lucy helping out, she would have been busy all day.

Fortunately, the upstairs restaurant has also doubled in size, and the kitchen area has also been expanded accordingly.

"If you like it, that's fine. Sasha, Jack, if you have any favorite foods or flavors, you can tell me in the future. Our base's menu changes every week, so you never know what we'll be serving on any given day."

V spoke with a smile, showing no trace of the fierceness she had displayed while secretly glaring at Mercer in the kitchen; she appeared both gentle and virtuous.
"Come on, try this. Although it may not be as good as Aunt Wilson's cooking, I made it according to the recipe, so it shouldn't be too bad."

She took meticulous care of everyone at the table, while Mercer just focused on eating and chatting with Jackman, Pila, and a few other men.

These men, none of whom had any proper educational qualifications, could chat about everything from gang stories and sports events to international affairs, and they all spoke eloquently about it.
The meal took more than an hour to finish. After clearing the table, Jack dragged Mercer to play pool. There was a pool table in the living room on the first floor, and the men were betting on the cost of beer, with the loser having to buy the beer.

Mercer displayed unparalleled billiards skills, defeating everyone in his path. In the end, Jack waved his hand in frustration, saying he would never play billiards with him again, and he, along with Pila and Mann, covered his Coke expenses for the month.

There's no way around it. For Mercer right now, this simple game of controlling force and angle is like playing a real-life version of a billiards game. Once he's aiming, it's like there's a line of sight to follow. Who can beat him?

After the others discussed it for a while and kicked Mercer out of the competition, he chuckled smugly and planned to go back to work underground.

However, V, who had been waiting all along, caught him red-handed.

"Right, right? Okay, okay, right? Come on, come with me!" Without waiting for a reply, she hooked her arm around him and headed towards the gym.

"Damn it! What are you doing?!" Mercer's hair stood on end as he recalled the first time he trained with V—this guy is really going all out!
"You just lie there all day, look how withered you've become! With your troublemaking nature and tendency to always be at the forefront, how can you not get by without training your skills?"

V, however, spoke with conviction, giving him no chance to refute, dragging and pulling him into the gym, throwing him a pair of fingerless gloves, and starting to say without further ado:

"Last time I taught you boxing, you said you could learn it after practicing it once. Now, let's see if your body still remembers."

Mercer rolled his eyes: "You just want to beat me up!"

"I didn't exert any effort! You don't have to practice, but you can just sit obediently in the back during missions. Even Lucy and Qiwei come to practice with us every day, and Kyoko comes too. How can you be like a shut-in every day?"

V, however, had his own reasoning, and solemnly put on his gloves: "Strictly speaking, after you activate the synaptic accelerometer, you can even react to bullets. Since you can't use the S.A.S ...
You wouldn't want to one day watch helplessly as a bullet comes hurtling towards you, without even knowing how to dodge it to a vital spot, would you?

墨瑟叹了口气，戴好手套，此刻健身房里就他俩人，他也不怕被V揍了丢面子，只能嘀咕着：

"Then I'll just research an operating system that I can use too. With my physical talent, I could train myself to death and still not be half as good as you. I might as well focus on technology."

V knew he was just being stubborn, so he chuckled and assumed a boxing stance: "Combat awareness isn't something you can train with technology, especially instinctive reactions."
I know you've had some professional training, but that might not be effective against some street moves.

Mercer simply adopted a boxing stance: "Let's make it clear first, it'll only be one hour of training. Any longer and it will affect my energy."

“I think you’re just weak!” V said, and Mercer couldn’t stand it.

A simple two-hit combo of a stepping jab followed by a diving straight punch to the abdomen made V raise an eyebrow, somewhat surprised. But he simply took a small step back and then delivered a cross-punch with a left hook.

Mercer's right hand, which had missed its target, quickly retracted to protect his face, while V's hand suddenly stopped, and then he unexpectedly kicked upwards with his front foot.

Mercer instinctively activated his synaptic accelerometer. The moment the world slowed down, he hurriedly reached down to block, but V's immense strength kicked away his blocking arm and aimed directly at his chin.

Mercer barely managed to lean back and dodge, but lost his balance in the process. V quickly pulled back his leg, followed by a series of punches that landed on Mercer's arms with a thud, making both of his arms feel numb and insensitive.

Then she threw another punch at Mercer's abdomen from his blind spot.

Mercer could only tense his abdominal muscles and endure the blow, but she still managed to provoke him, and he instinctively swung his elbow at her face.

"Calm down!" V's voice came from beside his ear. The next moment, he swooped down like the wind, grabbed his stomach, and threw him to the ground. He then flipped over and straddled his waist, delivering a few punches with reduced force before standing up triumphantly.

"What happened to the boxing?" Mercer glared at her, slapped the ground in protest, and stood up.

V laughed and said, "Didn't I tell you? All that training you've done won't work on people on the street. That kick just now, normally it would have been aimed at your groin. Think about it yourself, could you have dodged it?"

However, V first affirmed, "But you really have some talent. You still have all the boxing skills I taught you last time."

"Heh." Mercer stood up and beckoned to her with a finger: "No sportsmanship, huh? Come on, this time I'm serious!"

V curled his lip and said confidently, "If it were a real fight, I'd give you a handicap with one hand!"

"You talk too much nonsense." Mercer said, and suddenly kicked out.

V slapped away his front kick with one hand and was about to step forward when Mercer immediately followed up with a right whip kick from behind.

Control the game? His wingspan isn't that much longer than mine, is it?
V was still pondering this when a line of text suddenly appeared in front of him.

[Intrusion detected.]

The red notification box and the ICE prosthetic implant mounted on the forehead cortex started working, and V's face immediately darkened: "You fucking scare me!"

Mercer laughed loudly, focusing intently on activating brain-computer interface overclocking and synaptic acceleration, causing the heat sink behind him to hum loudly.

V's eyes narrowed. "Seanwistan, start!"

Her speed increased more than double in an instant.

Mercer couldn't bother to reply; he could only try to delay the battle by using his equally accelerated thinking at that moment.

V's figure appeared behind Mercer like a phantom, trying to turn off his brain-computer interface. Although Mercer's body couldn't keep up, his reaction speed was just as fast. At this moment, relying solely on calculating V's movement trajectory, he swung his elbow backward as if anticipating the movement.

V simply moved backward and then forward as if the screen were frozen in time, his whole body twitching slightly.

But then, a black data cable swung out from Mercer's wrist.

V suddenly leaned back, almost completing a bridge pose, and even had time to mutter curses: "They still use monomolecular lines!"

To be precise, Mercer used a monomolecular cable without its attack mode activated, which can be considered an extremely tough but not sharp data cable.

However, in simulated combat, V will definitely have to treat it as if it were real and dodge it.

Mercer was too busy to talk to her at this moment—he was really sweating profusely from the beating, and his V-frontal cortex ICE prosthetic body could almost be considered military-grade.

It could even be said to be stronger than military-grade equipment, because the program and algorithm were written by Mercer, and breaking through ICE's defenses will not be so easy.

Using your own spear to strike the shield you created?
After dodging the monomolecular beam, V almost instantly found an opening in Mercer's monomolecular beam attack, slipped into it, and triumphantly grabbed his wrist.

With just a simple one-legged step, an over-the-shoulder throw sent him slamming onto the mat, followed by a standard NCPD takedown, with the officer kneeling on his back.

"I won't admit it! You're cheating!" V said halfway through his sentence, then suddenly started convulsing, pressed against Mercer's back, and went limp.

Mercer has taken away the authority over her prosthetic body. At this moment, her arm is not obeying her commands, and the data from the brain-computer interface is also being interfered with, making it impossible to accurately issue commands to her body.

Mercer flipped over, baring his teeth and pinning her down, glaring at her as he said, "Trying to bully me, huh! Who in Kass Awynn can beat you!"

"Let go! Hurry up!" Besides the humiliation of being pinned down, seeing Mercer riding on top of her, she felt a strange panic in her heart.

Mercer chuckled, "Admit your mistake! Say you'll never let Sianwistan bully anyone again!"

"Damn it, you were the one who used hacking software on me first!" V retorted, "That's cheating!"

"You yourself said it was a simulated street fight. Isn't it normal for a hacker like me to fight someone on the street using quick hacking!" Mercer didn't let go, but instead grabbed her hands and pressed them down on her head, making her unable to move.

V blushed truly this time. She stopped talking and just stared at Mercer, her face flushed red, whether from shyness or anger was hard to tell.

Mercer met her gaze, sensing something was off, coughed, and released her hand: "Ouch, you seem to have hurt your back. I need to check for heat dissipation."

"Then at least unpack the program for me!" she said angrily.

Mercer got off her first, and then they discussed, "It's a deal, once I'm untied, you won't hurt me!"

"You untie it first!"

"You promise first!"

"Will you untie it or not?"

"If you hit me, I definitely wouldn't understand, would I?"

After a few words of bickering, V, despite the malfunctioning cybernetic permissions, forced herself to her feet, glaring fiercely at him: "Fine! I promise I won't beat you up! Unlock it! Delete the program!"

Mercer hesitated for a moment, but still obediently deleted the program. As expected, as soon as the program was removed, she pounced on him, pinned him down, rolled over, and landed a rear naked choke on his back.

"Cough!" Mercer quickly slapped the floor to beg for mercy, but V said hatefully in his ear, "Even if I, Kais Anwestein, was unfair, I already won and stopped. You still scare me. Do you think that's appropriate?"

"Then I just got beaten up for nothing?" Mercer said righteously, grabbing one of her arms with both hands, flipping her over, and the two of them immediately started practicing ground jiu-jitsu.

But Mercer's jujitsu was also taught by V—it's the same master's technique, so he can't break through it!
Before long, V pinned him to the ground again, twisted one of his arms into her arms, and pressed his legs against Mercer's chest, making a full armbar.

She clung to Mercer's arm, gripped his wrist, and pressed her legs firmly against his chest, rendering him unable to move: "But you used monomolecular lines too! I was fighting bare-handed!"

"That's because Sianwistan is even more cunning!" Mercer retorted stubbornly. The two stared at each other, neither willing to concede, until Mercer realized that the position of her hand in her arms seemed a bit off.
How to put it? Her hand was crushed to death in every sense of the word.

Mercer subconsciously flexed his fingers.

"Damn it!" V belatedly realized that this bastard seemed to be taking advantage of her. After letting go, she was so angry that she almost bit him. She took a step back, covered her chest in shame and indignation, stood up, and glared at him.

Mercer, however, stretched his arms and wrists, looking like he was giving up, and lay down, saying, "I'm injured."

"You're hurting my ass!" V was so angry she laughed.

"Don't you know how strong you are? You were driving a Sinwidman and gave me an over-the-shoulder throw, and you were twisting my arm so hard."

Mercer pretended to be in pain and covered his arm, refusing to get up.

V Ha chuckled – trying to scam me, huh?
She reached out her hand, squinting her eyes: "Then I'll rub it for you."

“There’s really no need for that.” Mercer sat up in one sit-up, stretching his arms. “You need to rest, you understand?”

"Go to hell!" V took off her gloves and threw them at his face, glaring at him angrily. "Why do you always go against me like this? Why aren't you like this with Lucy and Rebecca?"

"When have you ever seen Rebecca get rough with me?" Mercer had his own reasons to say.

"Bullshit! Didn't she use force to hold you down so you couldn't move?" V retorted. Mercer chuckled, "She was just trying to take advantage of me; who knows who attacked whom!"

"Oh, so you're saying that you developed a feel for her hand earlier because you practiced with it and got used to it?" V said meaningfully.

Mercer, however, said in a serious tone, "What are you talking about? I don't understand."

The two stared at each other without saying a word. Finally, V couldn't stand the shameless bastard anymore, rolled her eyes, and took the initiative to let the matter drop: "Go to hell! You bastard, I'm never practicing alone with you again."

"Come on, isn't it because you're bored and want to beat me up? Or are you just like Rebecca?" Mercer said, then deliberately winked and raised an eyebrow at her.

V gritted his teeth, but in the end he just snorted: "Can't you think about how you've been these past few days? You don't eat or sleep all day, and every time you wake up you just plug the data cable into the computer, acting like you've gone mad."

Normally, you would never be late, at least not on a day like today, but look at you, you even forgot about it today.

If you ask me, you should move around every day. Staying squatting underground all the time, like you're in a dungeon, what kind of life is that?

"Sigh, this is what it's like to be completely immersed in your work. You probably don't understand how people with an IQ of 20+ work." Mercer's words made her unable to resist throwing a punch, which landed on Mercer's shoulder, causing him to gasp in pain.

"Damn it! I shouldn't have worried about you!" V turned and left angrily—she didn't drag him here to train just to beat him up, she just couldn't stand how he'd been working like a madman these past few days.

Mercer rubbed his arm, laughed, and caught up with her in a few steps. He naturally hooked his arm around her neck and looked at her angry face: "Alright, alright, I won't tease you anymore, but you should also change this habit of yours. If you care about me, then care about me. What's the point of beating me up?"

V would never admit that she actually wanted to beat him up—this guy only knows how to provoke people with his words all day long. She usually curses people more directly and can't really learn his sarcastic remarks. She's clumsy with words, so she can only show her true strength with her hands.

But after thinking it over carefully, she softened her tone and simply moved his hand away: "I didn't mean to hit you. If I really hit you, would you still be able to stand up now? I could have broken your shady customer service representative."

"That guy's in pain too, look at my delicate skin, look, it's all red!" He unzipped his black jacket a little to show the red marks on his arm.

V turned his face away somewhat guiltily: "More sweat in training, less blood in battle, that's what you told me."

"I use my brain for 16 hours a day, can you exercise your muscles for 16 hours a day?" Mercer said irritably, punching her on the shoulder.

V didn't say anything—to her, the force with which he hit her was like a child's tantrum.

"Oh, so fast?" A sarcastic voice came from the corridor. Rebecca squinted at the two of them and saw that V's hair was a bit messy and Mercer's breathing was uneven. Her alarm bells immediately went off.

“She’s using Sianwistan to bully people, I’m not sparring with her anymore,” Mercer said, while V glanced at him, snorted, and quickened his pace.

Rebecca waited until she was far away before jumping onto Mercer's back, hooking her arms around his neck, and biting his ear—she really bit it, but not hard.

"Damn it! I told you to come out and exercise, and you just pretended to be dead. How come you went when she dragged you along?" she mumbled in a complaint.

"Did I want to go? She could have ripped my arm off with all her might." Mercer turned his head away speechlessly, pushing her head away with one hand: "Don't try to imitate her. She can only rip one of my arms at most, but you might be able to tear me in half."

"Bullshit! Every time we get physical, I reduce the force of my gorilla arm to zero!" Rebecca snorted, but refused to get up from his back.

"Hey~ Mercer~ Don't work today, I bought a VR game. Usually only Xingzi plays with me, and I don't want to bully a kid. Come play with me!"

At this moment, she finally looked more like her age and appearance, unlike her usual self, who was either very outspoken and foul-mouthed, or acted like a little mother.

Mercer sighed, then simply nodded, supporting her thighs with both hands to make her lie down more comfortably so she wouldn't choke him: "Alright, one by one, I'll play with you, okay? I'll play with you until you go to sleep tonight."

"Whoa!" she exclaimed excitedly, nearly strangling him as she clung to him. Then, grinning, she leaned in and gave him a quick, unreserved kiss on the cheek: "Here's a little reward for you in advance."

Mercer looked around furtively, like a thief, and thankfully there was no one else in the hallway. He quickly went to Rebecca's new dorm room, where she then dragged him to play VR games.

The VR games in the Cyber ​​World combine with the HyperDream technology to achieve a fully immersive gaming experience like Sword Art Online, but without completely robbing players of their sense of reality like HyperDream.

Mercer initially thought it was some kind of gory shooting game, but when he opened it, he found out it was 'Hyper-realistic Rural Story'.

She happily took Mercer fishing and plowing fields with a tractor in the VR game, taught him which seeds yielded the highest harvest, and even raised several large dogs with him in the game's save file.
These simulation games are the best way to kill time. Mercer felt like he had just gotten into the swing of fishing in the game when Morning Star popped up in his head with an "anti-addiction break reminder," which made Mercer reluctantly end the game.

Rebecca kept smiling happily until she took off the headband: "Was it fun?"

"It's fun." Mercer said honestly, this joyful gaming experience gave him a long-lost feeling of returning to the past.

Rebecca could tell he wasn't just making excuses or saying it for fun to please her, so she seemed even happier. She smiled and reached out to hug him, pulling him onto the bed: "Then let's not work today, let's just rest?"

"Then I need to go back to my room to rest too. What are you doing?" Mercer looked at her helplessly, but secretly thought to himself - No, I need to talk to Old Wei about this. How can a girl make me unable to get up?

Right now, they can only immobilize me, but who knows what they might do to me in the future? It seems I need to strengthen my body as soon as possible.

"Why don't you rest here? Look, I specifically chose a double bed." She moved closer to Mercer, her breath carrying a slightly sweet, candy-like scent. "I only need a little space to sleep here~"

"Don't touch me like that!" Mercer warned her not-so-clean little hands—you're forcing me to break the rules.

Rebecca, however, widened her eyes with a grin and exclaimed, "Wow!"

Wow, you're kidding me.

Mercer lost control and flipped her over, pinning her down. She didn't resist much, so Mercer slapped her twice hard before sitting up: "You just wait, it'll only be a year or two. You'll be sorry then."

Rebecca simply struck a seductive pose on the bed with her petite frame, blew him a kiss, and winked mischievously.

“Coward~ When Pila was your age, she would have taken apart a car exhaust pipe to use. I have no idea what you are suppressing.”

Damn, that's really a bit perverted.

Mercer sighed, turned and left. If he stayed any longer, he feared he would really have to deal with the little devil.

Back in his room, he tossed and turned for a while, V and Rebecca swirling in his mind, with Lucy occasionally popping into his head. In the end, he secretly sent a message to Qiwei.

Mercer: Are you asleep?

Qiwei didn't say anything, but sent him a selfie of herself wearing a slightly see-through black nightgown, lazily hugging a blanket and smiling.

So, late at night, he sneaked into her room like a thief. More than two hours later, he finally found the wise posture he should have when sleeping and returned to his room to fall asleep peacefully.

However, whether it was V or Rebecca, it served as a reminder to him.

What people need from him is sometimes not just material stability, but also some emotional support.

So for a period of time afterward, he reduced his working hours to 12 hours and planned 4 hours of entertainment, relaxation, and exercise each day—spending time with everyone in moderation.

Sometimes he goes jogging with Lucy, sometimes he watches a movie with Anzu, sometimes he practices his martial arts with V, or sometimes he plays games with Rebecca.

And everyone was busy too.

As the Fireseed Squad's reputation grew, commissions from various intermediaries followed, which Mercer accepted without hesitation.

Mercer entrusts any task that can generate profit, regardless of its level of danger, to V. Currently, his team consists of V, Mann, Dorio, Jack, and Rebecca leading the charge.

Pila provides cover as a tech expert and sniper, along with Lucy, Qiwei, and Sasha's hacking support.

Finally, there are Venus and Mercer providing remote support and developing mission plans, and Polaris driving the vehicles.
It can be said that, at this moment, even excluding Mercer, the Fire Seed Squad is definitely a rare top-tier mercenary team in Night City.

For the next six months, the group easily completed two commissions almost every month, earning hundreds of thousands of euros each time.

They even continue to do small, miscellaneous business deals worth tens of thousands of euros.

These jobs are passed on to Mercer through an intermediary, who then posts them in the team communication program's commission section, allowing them to take them on as side jobs, form small teams, go out, earn some pocket money, and buy things they like.

Hansen and Sliding also dutifully paid their share of the profits, earning around a million euros each month, which they used to fund the team and provide free loans to new members like Mann and Jack to upgrade their equipment and cybernetic bodies.
Of course, in return, Mercer also has to put in some corresponding effort.

For example, Hansen paid him his salary for two months, but then couldn't resist starting to put him on some new projects, such as cracking the program locks of certain military equipment, or having Mercer upgrade the existing equipment of the Ghost Hound.
Mercer controlled the pace, giving him at most one task a month. If it was difficult, he would drag it out for two months. Although Hansen was very unhappy about being slack off and ripped off like this, the tasks he assigned Mercer always turned out beautifully.

Hansen couldn't find any other top-notch technical experts, so he had no choice but to grit his teeth and pay Mercer, this big shot, whatever he wanted. If he didn't, Mercer guaranteed that the next time the work would be even more delayed.
It can only be said that you get what you pay for. After six months, Hansen has figured out the key to cooperating with Mercer.

This bastard is a perfect example of someone who only does what he's paid for. Even when he tried his best to be nice, Mercer only smiled and called him "Colonel" on the surface. Hansen's assessment was: an ungrateful wretch.

Mercer's assessment of Hansen was similar—that bastard, he always did a good job working for him, but the bastard would still assign him work from time to time, and always acted like he wouldn't get paid if he didn't work.
We'll take down this damn boss sooner or later.

As for the slider, Mercer is urging it on quite urgently.

There was no way around it; he had shared the market for the program that he had quickly cracked, and even gave Mercer a cut of the business of smuggling prosthetic bodies. But Mercer seemed to have no intention of taking action against the Taiping State Voodoo Gang. How could this make Slide accept it?

But Mercer continued to do his own thing, busy with his own affairs.

After cracking the Soul Killer program, he couldn't make any further progress in the short term, so he simply started researching the Soul Killer program while also focusing on the development of Relic chips, prosthetics, and equipment.

And in October of 2072, the series of things he had been researching finally began to produce real results, and complete, usable test versions appeared in quick succession.

First, regarding the Relic chip—Mercer has finally broken through the technical barrier of knowledge transmission, and with the help of a 'training chip' program similar to that used by the military, he has developed a complete 'super learning system' using the Relic chip as a carrier.

He named the 'super learning system' mounted on the Relic chip 'Deep Blue System', with the main idea being a simple and straightforward 'Deep Blue, give me some points!'

Its function and goal is to transmit various kinds of knowledge directly to the human brain through the Relic chip, achieving a magical operation similar to the "system adds XX skills to me" in transmigration novels.

However, due to certain concerns, Mercer did not unleash its full power, but simply used it as a 'memory bread' similar to Doraemon's.

The overall process can be simply understood as follows: first, find the materials you need to learn online, then use the Soul Killer program to convert these materials into consciousness data that can be downloaded and understood by humans, and finally upload them to the human brain through Relic.

After experimenting with some unlucky, or rather, deservedly, cleaners to determine the safe range of the program, the Relic chip became a 'super learning machine' shared by the team.

Each person can use the Relic chip once a week to directly transmit millions of characters of knowledge into their brains—a real boon for Rebecca and V, who have never been fond of studying.

Because the converted data of millions of characters can be understood as directly memorizing the amount of textual knowledge in a Xinhua dictionary.

In fact, the Relic chip can directly add skills to people—which is why Mercer named it Deep Blue.

However, the prerequisite for adding skills is that Mercer needs to find a set of skill data, and this skill data comes from the consciousness data of the human who has mastered this technology.

He has actually been able to accurately identify and extract parts of memories from human consciousness data and convert them into downloadable skill data.

However, Mercer was very worried that copying other people's skills in this way might result in some of the other person's memories and ways of thinking being transmitted into the downloader's mind, affecting their personality and subconscious.

That's why only some features were made available to their own people.

But Mercer became even more certain because of this—as long as he thoroughly understood the consciousness data transformed by the Soul Killer, one day he would be able to precisely extract only the technology without taking away any memories.

At that point, Mercer could use Soul Killer to copy, for example, V's melee techniques and Sionistan's usage skills, and then directly transfer them into his own mind, thus getting her melee techniques for free.

Alternatively, you can simply copy Sasha's Russian language skills, using data copying and downloading, to master a language in five minutes and achieve native-like fluency.

You can imagine how powerful this technology will be once it is fully refined.

It was through the use of 'Deep Blue' that Mercer gained greater confidence and control over his ability to master consciousness transfer technology.

If knowledge can be copied and downloaded, then human consciousness can certainly be copied and downloaded as well.

The main difficulty lies in how to completely upload human consciousness data. Mercer is still learning, but he optimistically estimates that he should be able to find a solution in about one or two months.

After that, he could try to find a few guinea pigs, such as some 'kind-hearted' cleaners who like to kidnap others.

Then they were used to test the uploading and downloading of consciousness data, and their bodies were used to directly experiment with a whole process of 'uploading', 'downloading', and 'resurrection'.

Once the Scavenger's experiment succeeds, Mercer can boldly move the plan to the next step.

Mercer also made groundbreaking achievements in the development of prosthetic bodies and equipment.

First, in the development of the prosthetic body, Mercer, based on his own needs and the ideas he had seen in games and movies in his previous life, successfully developed his ideal first 'artificial mechanical arm' prosthetic body.

This prosthetic body is not intended to directly replace an arm. Rather, Mercer developed it based on Viktor's "Three-Armed" character from the game League of Legends and Doctor Octopus's mechanical tentacles from the movie Spider-Man.

The overall design adopts a biomimetic octopus tentacle design that is basically similar to Doctor Octopus, but for the mechanical hand at the end, Mercer referenced Victor's multi-functional mechanical hand in the game.

It was developed and designed into a multifunctional prosthetic body that can assist in normal work and serve as an intelligent weapon for electromagnetic weapon firing in actual combat.

Considering the operational logic of the entire bionic octopus arm, if it is completely controlled by the human brain, it means that the human brain has to control a completely unfamiliar 'other body', which is extremely easy to cause 'phantom limb' disease and mental disorders.

Mercer simply adopted a design method similar to that of Doctor Octopus in the movie.

He inserted a low-level AI, personally designed by the Morning Star, into the octopus's arm.

The sole function of this AI is to transform the human's thought process of controlling the arm into control of the octopus arm through a built-in algorithm, so that humans can control the octopus arm precisely by simply issuing commands as if controlling their own arm.

During the process, it doesn't feel like you've actually grown an octopus arm, which would give the human brain a strange feeling. Instead, it feels more like controlling a magic lizard with a brain-computer interface, greatly reducing the sense of incongruity.

When not in use, the AI ​​will take over all the mental burden of the prosthetic body. In theory, this prosthetic body can be regarded as an 'external mechanical armor'. However, Mercer adopts the same neural connection method as the prosthetic body, reducing the latency to almost zero.

The force of a single arm, when driven by bioelectricity, can generate 1 ton of force.

This design allows him to operate purely on bioelectricity, like Rebecca's gorilla arm, without needing frequent charging. The only cost is to eat and drink more to replenish his energy – this is another kind of cutting-edge technology in the cyber world.

Who knows how so many powerful prosthetic bodies in the cyber world can be powered directly by human bioelectricity?

Is this scientific?

Mercer found it very unscientific, but that's how the cyber world works.

When high-intensity use is required, a single robotic arm can exert a maximum force of 3 tons. In situations where force is mainly used and electromagnetic weapons are launched, the arm can be powered and powered by advanced micro batteries built into it.

This miniature battery came from Colonel Hansen's selfless contribution—Mercer said he wanted to research a high-strength electromagnetic weapon, so he somehow got hold of a few super batteries from the military science institute, and Mercer took two without any qualms.

This battery can be regarded as a cutting-edge product of electromagnetic weapons in the cyber world. Just one battery can enable Mercer's mechanical arm to operate at full power for more than five hours, and it can fire indiscriminately with almost no concern about battery level.

His octopus arm can hold 10-20 rounds of sniper-type tungsten-tipped bullets, as well as 200 rounds of smart bullets for the Zoe shotgun.

When the bullets are exhausted, it can still fire a close-range laser weapon using only the battery power, which can guarantee the terrifying power to burn through a 5mm steel plate in 0.5 seconds within 20 meters.

Furthermore, during daily work, the sensitive robotic arm integrates the functions of Zeta Technology's external robotic arm, enabling it to perform nanoprosthetic surgeries with precision and also has the ability to transform into a multi-functional tool arm.

Mercer has already passed the AI ​​test for this arm; all that's left is to attach it to himself for testing.

Finally, there's the issue of equipment and weapon development.

In terms of equipment, Mercer developed two different styles of individual armor to counter the different playstyles of Rebecca and V, who are typical examples of different personalities.

Yes, he has developed individual armor that can be tested in actual combat—and there are two sets!
(End of this chapter)