[Welco to the Cyber Era]
Angelica is quite wealthy, and she holds ga accounts of different professions, frequently switching identities to experience various lifestyles.
John is currently using a boxer account.
The main way to earn points is by arranging fights, and battles are frequently encountered in daily activities.
"The recipe chip can't be given to you for free."
Angelica said that missions in the Cyber Era are distributed based on professions.
Both her "Boxer" and "Street Racing Gang" professions have triggered a random storyline, and if it can't be completed, the account will get stuck in an infinite mission loop.
"I'll find a way for the other professions, just help clear these two virtual accounts, how about it?"
[Mission objective updated]
[Complete ga storyline. 0/2 (Not Achieved)]
John didn't have any objections, as he was almost doing missions every day and found it a bit refreshing.
Consciousness synchronization completed.
The standby interface in front of John crumbled, and the wet street was shrouded in dense industrial smoke.
He blinked uncontrollably.
The perspective instantly switched to the inside of a luxuriously decorated boxing gym.
The sparring robot in the ring went out of control, electricity crackling all over it, running frantically around the field, and the nearby boxers were lying face-down on the ground with bloody faces.
The spectators ford a human wall blocking the way.
John tried to interact but found he couldn't escape or communicate with the audience; even if he pushed hard to break out of the encirclent, the endlessly refreshing passersby pushed him back into the boxing gym.
"Well, arena restrictions, I guess you can't break the loop without taking this thing down."
John tried trading punches with the robot and realized he was a bit weak, carefully checking to understand—real-world implants and equipnt couldn't be imported; physical strength was based solely on ga data.
"Do I have to rely on technique alone?"
John attempted to read the chip mory, only for the ga interface to imdiately pop up a firewall warning.
"Fighting Chip is also banned?"
He finally understood why Angelica was stuck.
With all equipnt and chips disabled, unless one inherently had fundantal fighting skills that had settled into mory and instinct, they couldn't be used.
John sighed slightly, retreated two steps to adjust the distance, and thrillingly yet precisely dodged two ferocious attacks.
The situation wasn't at a dire point.
After all, in reality, life-and-death fights were daily, and there was no respawn chanism.
John charged forward to brawl with the tal box, gradually finding his rhythm and adapting to the ga's unique sense of touch.
Each successful hit caused his score in the upper right corner to accumulate.
John beca increasingly proficient, reaching the passing score line, and the black digits turned golden.
A stream of data flashed through the character's pupils.
Black Light suddenly went berserk!
Bang!
John's punching action froze in place, and it seed like an air wall in front of him shattered, generating a black data wave that burst forth from himself as the origin, causing the scene to BUG out and flicker frequently.
Buzz, buzz—
Accompanied by ear-piercing noise, the scene and characters all transford into red and black cyberspace, with broken gaps filled with data, and various symbols and numbers exposed like stuck gears in the air.
[Countdown: 10s↓]
[Hacking detected, data upload/default]
John's image shifted from the ga character to his real-world appearance; without hesitation, he removed the headband before the countdown ended.
The data space vanished from view with a swish.
Angelica straddled in front of John, slapping his cheeks, releasing a sigh of relief only after confirming he was fine.
"Phew~ What the f*ck happened?"
The rendering device flickered with red lights, and the control panel was filled with garbled text.
"It was the ga!"
John sat up straight.
He frowned, enduring the aftereffects of the Black Light's rampage, and recalled and organized the recent events, explaining to Angelica.
"Cyber Era was forcefully uploading user data, which conflicted with the counter-attack program installed in my body, causing the ga to crash."
"Are you okay?"
Angelica didn't care about whether the device was damaged or not.
But John was surprised at her calmness.
"You know the ga's issues?"
"Mmhmm~ But I had no idea your program would conflict with the ga; I've never heard of such a thing. User data upload is Cyber Era's open secret and its cyclical logic."
For example, Angelica's "Bartender" profession unknowingly provided recipes, language patterns, and signature moves during mission completion, uploaded to the server as knowledge.
The gourt recipes she redeed were actually the knowledge contributed by another player, or even many players, in the chef profession.
The ga bans external devices and can't load chips.
"Now you understand why this ga can make arrogant multinational corporations collaborate, right? Companies are banding together to plunder players' skills, absorbing and dividing the gigantic data assets."
"...F*ck."
John frowned in silence for a long ti, finally smiling bitterly and shaking his head.
The mission progress hadn't been updated.
He chose to reconnect to Cyber Era to continue the mission, as uploading combat data posed no loss to John; his combat ability wouldn't make a ripple in the vast information ocean.
Angelica imdiately refused.
"Don't worry about any save files, just teasing you. My account's warehouse is under Gino's care, and I've already asked her to prepare a chip for you."
"It's okay."
John waved his hand to interrupt, lay back on the sofa, and restarted the headband to reload into the ga.
Black Light, through device managent, could control the rendering equipnt.
Angelica watched as the machines, which had just been beeping with all-red lights, started operating again, feeling sothing was off but distracted by a hangover headache before figuring it out.
[Connection Completed]
[Data Calibration, Allow Upload/Yes]
The data world collapsed and slid away.
The chaotic boxing gym reappeared before him.
The fighting robot twitched out from the corner, following the storyline, charging towards a boxer with a broken leg in the corner.
Bang!
A dumbbell smashed the robot.
An arc scorched black marks along the edge of the mat.
John moved swiftly over obstacles and drove a flying knee strike into the yet-to-stabilize machine, toppling the target before swinging the silver barbell bar towards the joint connection.
In an instant, sparks flew, with extravagant explosive patterns popping out, and the upper right corner's score rapidly increasing with the combos.
The boxing machine erged violently under the attack, trying to force back surrounding enemies with its broken stub.
John didn't dodge at all.
His chest was torn open, arcs jumped onto his face, and he quickly inserted the barbell bar diagonally into the broken part of the machine.
[Life Value: 46%↓]
If the rcenary life taught John anything, it's that when it's ti to risk it all, don't be afraid to die, especially in a ga.
John's character lacked an alloy skeleton and firearms, so he picked up equipnt from the ground as weapons, and the effect was indeed decent.
With a fearless mindset, he battled the robot to death, finally taking it down before he got knocked out.
[Congratulations on killing·Random event completed!]
A string of text popped up in front of John.
He blinked hazily, then realized it was a ga prompt from Cyber Era, imdiately frowning as the mission prompt gave him an inexplicable sense of unease.
The boxing gym incident resolved.
The onlookers dispersed, the account cycle ended, and a score settlent interface and more map options popped up.
[Event cases recorded, click to view details]
John smoothly swiped open the information details, which recorded other players' achievents in the boxing gym incident.
On a whim, he filtered by region to Eden City.
[Rank: 213]
"What the heck!?"
John thought he handled it swiftly, but didn't expect over two hundred players in Eden City to do even better.
There were definitely corporate soldiers and super Lone Wolves among them.
John briefly familiarized himself with the ga operations, exited the account to report to Angelica, and snuggled up to chat about the ga content.
He frequently got lost in thought, gazing into the deepening night outside the window.
The holographic advertisents were incredibly clear, climbing next to landmark buildings and reaching into the clouds, like beacons erected in a steel wasteland, with countless dazzling colors and fleeting lights sweeping across the glass.
John withdrew his gaze.
He recalled Angelica's operation and switched the Cyber Era character information to the "Street Racing Gang" account.
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