Making It in Night City

The large elevator I was in shook as it traveled from the streets and stopped in the basement of Vic's clinic. The doors slid open, and Panam pushed my wheelchair and me out into a storage area. Vic was standing next to a locker and was unraveling the boxing tape around his hands after putting up his gloves.

Vic stopped doing what he was doing and took a look at me. He froze momentarily before furrowing his brow, taking a deep breath, and sighing.

"They really did a number on you, didn't they?"

"You should see the other guy."

I responded with a grin, only to be slapped on the back of the head immediately by Panam. She didn't strike me hard, but I was still surprised by the sudden impact. I turned around, disgruntled, only to be met by Panam's stern glare, daring me to give her lip.

"Take this seriously. You almost died."

There was anger in her gaze, but I could also see the undercurrents of sadness. Deciding that the intelligent thing to do was to just take my medicine, I kept my mouth shut. Turning back, I saw Vic close his locker, the metal frame and door rattling against each other. He took the towel around his neck and wiped his forehead. Vic then slung the towel over his shoulder and looked at Panam and me while leaning against the wall.

"She's right, you know? I get it. I've been there. You're young, so you think you're invincible, but you're not. You fucked up big time, and if this happens again, Night City will take its due."

Vic's point was made even more poignant through the tone he delivered it. Vic's gruff voice to the uninitiated might make him out to be a no-nonsense guy, but he's always delivered his jabs with a bit of brevity and casual jest. This time there was no lightheartedness. He was dead serious. I guess I was due for a reality check.

Despite being in a world I once knew as fiction and having video game like abilities, the dangers and consequences were very real. I knew I got lucky. Without my healing factor, I would have bled out long before the Aldecaldos could have stabilized my situation. I rubbed the back of my head awkwardly before acknowledging their point.

"Yeah, sorry. I was too careless with fighting Caesar," I used my good arm to point toward my missing limbs, "Trust me, I learned my lesson".

Seeing me repentant, Panam shifted her hands next to my neck and gently massaged my shoulder. I held back my moan and relaxed into her fantastic technique. Panam then bent down and gave the side of my head a quick kiss before whispering into my ear.

"I love you for what you did, and I can't thank you enough, but if you ever get hurt like this again, I'll kill you myself."

The threat sounded playful, but I knew better. I swear Panam is the only person that can be simultaneously so thankful and angry at the fact that I survived. She constantly spoiled and showered me with love for the last few days, indulging me with sex and caring actions. But she also would repeatedly throw jabs at me, letting me know how sad and infuriated she was with my carelessness.

And she was right. I could have used my Optical Camo before climbing that cliff, activated my Optical Camo, or both. I guess I was expecting the fight to go heavily in my favor as all the others did, and that overconfidence almost cost me my life. I won't stop taking risks because the alternative is a potential world war, but I'll definitely be more cautious from now on.

Vic, seemingly happy with my reaction, grunted.

"Come on back. Panam, help Basil into the chair. We'll get started once I get cleaned up."

Vic walked into the main area of his clinic and disappeared behind a door. Panam wheeled me next to the operating chair and helped me hobble into it. One of the first things I did while recovering at the Nomad Camp was to contact Vic and wire him some Eddies to find some replacement limbs for me. He called yesterday night saying everything came in, so we were here to get them installed.

The Aldecaldos offered to have their Ripperdoc fix me with what they had, but their chrome stock wasn't precisely top-of-the-line, so I declined. Which is understandable since they live out in the Badlands. Not a lot of opportunities to get your hands on advanced cyberware out in the desert.

While we waited for Vic to return, Panam kept me company by discussing this and that. She mostly talked about the goings on in the clan and how they were doing with expanding into the market left empty by the removal of the Shivs. I listened and responded half-heartedly while reviewing my stats and figuring out how to invest the points I got from leveling up.

Despite the setbacks from the assault on the Shivs, one of the silver linings was that I confirmed several things about my body and system. First, despite having regeneration perks from the game, My body still received damage as if it were normal. My severed limbs did not grow back when my health bar was back to full. This revelation will change my direction with choosing stats and perks.

Investing heavily into increasing my health pool and stamina regeneration with perks like True Grit 3, Invincible 3, Regeneration, and Epimorphosis is nice, but they only shine when I take damage in the first place. My focus is on taking perks that are too reactive. Instead of thinking about how to recover, I should be thinking about how never to get hit in the first place.

There's a concept called the survivability onion that applies to survival in a fight. The notion goes that there are four primary "layers" of defenses in battle that increase the chances of survival. In order of most to least effective, these layers are 'don't be seen, don't be hit, don't be pierced, and don't be killed'.

So far, my perk investment to survival has been towards the least effective category of 'don't get killed'. Sure, having Optical Camo, Sandivistan, and body armor helped the other three. But other than those things, I have no passive abilities that go toward making me more survivable outside of not bleeding out after getting shot.

I leveled up six times and was now at level 37. This was the most significant jump in levels I've had in one go. I suspect it's partly because of finishing a big mission and partially because all the Shivs killed or incapacitated by the Aldecaldos counted toward my experience. If having allies can increase the rate I level up, I'll have to put some serious effort into taking over one of the gangs.

Using gang wars to clean the streets and strengthen myself tickled my inner gamer that desired maximum grind efficiency. Even better, I already have the perfect in with Yumi. I made a note to myself to help her get the Tygers under control. But that was for the future. Right now, I should focus on my stats and make myself unkillable.

Sandevistan and Optical Camo were far beyond anything else in the survivability category. Optical Camo effectively fulfilled the survivability onion's 'Don't be seen' layer, while Sandevistan worked toward the 'Don't be hit' aspect. They each do their job well, but combined, they could become world beaters with the correct modifications.

Sandivestans have the fantastic ability to extend the operating time of other chrome. Using Optical Camo as an example again, the counter is slowed down while Sandi is in use. Spending 12 seconds in Sandi, which slows time to 25 percent, only reduces the Optical Camo by 3 seconds instead of 12.

The developers knew how overpowered an unchecked Sandi build could be, so they counterbalanced it by having a relatively long cool down so that the cooldown won't start until the effects had finished. Sadly, or maybe happily, depending on how you view things, they left in many ways to work around the cooldown. CD Projekt Red rushed the game's release and didn't have time to balance everything, which I will take advantage of.

QianT, the same company that tried to poach Hellman from Arasaka, makes a Sandevistan that slows down time to 25% for 12 seconds with only a 15-second cooldown and 3 modification slots. Each mod slot could be filled with legendary heatsinks that reduce the cooldown by 4 seconds. With heat sinks alone, I could use Sandevistan every 3 seconds.

A legendary Bioconductor and Nano Relay are also critical parts of this equation. The Bioconductor at the legendary variety reduces all cooldowns by 30%, reducing the Sandi wait time to two seconds. The Bioconductor also allows me to use Optical Camo more frequently as well. Nano Relay extended the Sandi from 12 seconds to 14 seconds.

With all these mods and cyberware, I could theoretically be in almost constant bullet time. And if I time it right, Optical Camo could extend from 15 seconds to more than 40 seconds. If I could recreate my in-game build, I could become an invisible phantom four times faster than an average person. Someone that couldn't be seen and couldn't be hit. The only problem was getting everything I needed.

The QianT Mk.4 was sold by Fingers, the ripperdoc that would have sold Evelyn into slavery if she returned to work for Clouds. He's a real piece of shit, so I have no problem breaking his nose and stealing it from him. If it wasn't for the fact that he was one of the few ripperdocs willing to work with the nightlife of Night City, I might have planned to zero him outright.

Luckily, the Aldecaldos had a Legendary Bioconductor. Apparently, in the real world, they serve to hasten the body's healing process at the cost of supercharging the person's metabolism. The top brass was more than happy to offer it to me when I mentioned I wanted it.

That left finding the top-of-the-line Nano Relay and Optical Camo. Hopefully, whoever has these will be reasonable and let me buy them or offer them for a job. If they're horrible people like Fingers, I wouldn't be opposed to breaking a few bones to get what I want.

All in all, they shouldn't be hard to get my hands on. The real problem is crafting the heatsinks I need to reduce the Sandi cooldowns and get my stats where they must be for the Bioconductor and Nano Relay to work.

The perk that allows me to craft legendary items is Edgerunner Artisan, which is unlocked at level 18. Further, Crafting has to be at the same level as well. If I remember correctly, Bioconductor needed the Body stat at 18, which I was not at as well. The only stat I don't have to worry about is Reflexes, which needs to be 15 to use the QianT Mk.4, if memory serves.

I was 3 points away in the Body stat and 6 in Technical Ability. My Crafting skill was 12 thanks to constantly crafting grenades, medical supplies, and ammo to sell in my business. At first, I thought that was low, only to learn any skill was level capped at the relevant attributes level. In this case, I was stuck at 12 because my Techincal ability was 12. I wept at the wasted experience.

Since I already had the Bioconductor and could get it put in today, I decided to use 3 of my points to increase Body to 18 and dumped the other three into raising Technical Ability to 15. I still had five days before I had to meet Michiko, which should be enough to raise my Techincal and Crafting levels to 18. With my stats figured out and a plan for what chrome to upgrade formulated, I focused on using my 6 perk points.

Following the same plan of increasing my stealth, I invested 1 point each into Crouching Tiger and Silent and Deadly in the Ninjutsu tree. Crouching Tiger gives a passive boost to my movement while in stealth, making the chances of being caught while creeping around less likely. Silent and Deadly increases damage of silenced weapons by 25% while in stealth. These two perks worked towards the 'Aggressively Stealthy' build.

Going unnoticed is incredibly useful, but the power of stealth comes from wiping out whole groups of enemies before they understand what is happening. I'm already doing something similar with my current build. The only problem is that my Sandi and Optical Camo often run out before I kill everyone. Hence, I try to stay to deal with small groups of thugs or small NCPD contracts. Crouching Tiger should make moving from one enemy to the next faster and give me more wiggle room, while Silent and Deadly make it easier to kill enemies I can't reach with my katana.

I put 3 points into raising Cold Blood to level 3 to increase movement speed further while in combat. Cold Blood gives me a 'stack' every time I take down an enemy. Each 'stack' gives me an additional 2% movement speed, and I can have 3 'stacks' with level 3 in Cold Blood for a 6% increase. I put my last point into the first level of Blood Brawl, which increases damage while Cold Blood is active by 5%.

The first 'stack' of Cold Blood takes 7 seconds to expire, with each subsequent 'stack' lasting one second shorter. All 'stacks' disappear at the same time. So if I had two 'stacks' active, both would disappear at 6 seconds; if I had all three, after 5 seconds, all three would disappear. Later perks increase the duration and make it so "stacks" go away one at a time instead of all at once, but for now, this is enough.

A 6% increase in movement speed and a 5% increase in damage might not sound impressive, but that's often all there is between life and death. Furthermore, I can unlock later perks in the Cold Blood tree that increases resistance, health, armor, attack speed, damage, etc. It might not be impressive now but will become invaluable later, so the investment is worth it.

When I finished spending my points, this was my stats.

I spent the next few minutes conversing with Panam until Vic stepped out of his room with a crate in his arms. He placed the package on a table close by and opened the lid. Inside was an artificial upper arm and leg alongside a collection of random parts and cyberware. Among these included my old Gorilla Arm that Caesar chopped off. The Aldecaldos managed to salvage it, and it was still functioning. Waste not want not.

If you are reading this, it means that you are reading a novel stolen from the original author. If you want to support me, the original author, and read ahead for free, you can find me on scribblehub under SPS4.

The sleek reflective metal panels on the arm and leg were a deep dark navy that bordered on black. The screws and joints had a mirror finish and were made of a different metal, giving the limbs golden bronze accents. I paid almost 60,000 Eddies for replacement limbs, and it seems like Vic came through with the goods.

"That looks like some fancy pieces of kit."

Vic grunted while he searched through some drawers and cabinets.

"Fancy? The outside is mainly made of nitrided Inconel alloy with PVD-coated aluminum joints. Bulletproof, can't rust, self-lubricating, and shielded from electronic interference. Unless you're Yorinobu, you're not getting anything better."

I had no clue what any of that meant, but it sounded impressive.

"*Whistle* Where'd you get stuff like that?"

Vic finally found what he was looking for and turned around.

"Don't worry about it."

Vic dragged a gas tank over, presumably to sedate me, and sat in his seat next to the operating chair. He laid his tools beside him before cracking knuckles and stretching his back and neck. Vic then picked up a gas mask connected to the tank and looked at me.

"You ready?"

I think ordinary people would be at least a bit nervous, but Vic was the best in the biz. I was in good hands. Besides, I was finally about to be able to walk on my own two legs again, so I was more excited than anything else.

"Yup."

He put the mask over me and turned the knob on the tank. A quiet hissing could be heard when the tank started pumping the anesthetic. A faintly sweet odor drifted into my nose, and I started feeling sluggish. Panam walked over and grabbed my hand.

First, I lost the strength to hold my arm up, and I let my hand fall to my side with Panam's inside it. Then I felt my consciousness fading and could barely keep my eyelids up. Noticing my waning awareness, Panam smiled at me.

"I'll be right here when you come back."

She said in a comically slow motion and a deep voice, or more accurately, my brain made it seem like she did. I barely managed to smile at her before everything went dark.