Chapter 45: Chapter 43 Balancing Study and Life (Part 2)

"Well done, Lille, now Melissa’s daughter can rest in peace, the money has been transferred, this job is settled."

Huh?

Upon hearing this news, Lille was stunned for a moment before realizing there were unread messages in his inbox—

They were from Father, sent while he was deeply focused on his studies, and he hadn’t noticed them.

It turned out the message contained the details of the commission: the Six Street Gang planned to take over the Valley Region, so they set up a shooting range on the border just for fun, to scare people.

Accidentally, a girl passing by got killed, reportedly just barely on the Six Street Gang’s territory—

because most of her body fell before the bridge.

This district wasn’t just any street carved out, Night City had legislated specifically for the areas where the Six Street Gang operated, so as long as no lines were crossed, NCPD would turn a blind eye.

But her mother didn’t think so, a middle-aged woman running a food stall scraped together the commission money by selling everything she had, requesting Father to seek justice for her.

After reading the message, Lille fell silent...

"To have made such a serious mistake, firing without checking the details of the commission, luckily this guy wasn’t anyone important."

As for the final payment, it was about what Lille had guessed, 2000 euros, split casually among three people.

The job was pretty easy, after all, Pulite had crossed the line, dead is dead, even did NCPD a favor, it wasn’t even considered murder.

In this light, Father seemed rather decent... or perhaps he was unsure of Lille’s limits, intending to make a good impression.

Thinking this, his hands didn’t slow down at all.

Three unfortunate members of the Six Street Gang... now to be called criminals, were being disassembled under Lille’s hands.

The prosthetics on their bodies were quite basic: bionic limbs, brain-machine interfaces, second-hand prosthetic eyes from the black market, many of which were of dubious origin.

In the Cyberpunk World, prosthetics were rampant, yes— but most of them were products of small companies, or even stuff gangs cobbled together themselves.

Take prosthetic eyes, for instance, the largest manufacturer was Qilusi Optics, while there were numerous other manufacturers catering to the poor.

The ones Lille was disassembling, for example, were from an obscure black workshop.

Lille used a Qilusi Type 2, which had basic functions including 30x optical zoom and the most advanced AI recognition and scanning capabilities.

For Lille, these were cheap goods, costing just a few thousand euros.

For the guy currently on the operating table... he’d have to work two months without eating or drinking to afford one.

Not to mention that some rich folks even fit their pets with prosthetics— though he didn’t see the point, but prosthetics on pets were generally much more expensive than these inferior ones.

"Sometimes, people are even worse off than dogs... but you deserve it."

The kid in front of him wasn’t dead yet, once a person died, the prosthetics would lock up, completely unmanipulable.

So he couldn’t die yet, Lille needed to dismantle their prosthetics to apply what he learned today in practice.

Besides, he had also downloaded a Magic Doll programming tutorial from a hacker website, planning to write a few commonly used Magic Dolls based on the heat patterns of the prosthetics.

Such as prosthetic failures, prosthetic eye reboots.

The Six Street Gang punk looked terrified—Lille had removed his voice system and severed his central nervous system, but hadn’t killed him!

He could only feel his body being sliced open inch by inch, then bizarre Magic Dolls were implanted, activated, and reassembled!

His prosthetic eye would shut down and then reboot, and his body always filled with a nauseating urge to vomit...

It was a double torture, both physically and mentally!

Soon, the brainwave monitor by Lille’s side started beeping—this meant that the subject’s mind had slipped into chaos!

He had become a cyberpsycho!

Prosthetics raged all over, yet... to no avail.

Cyberpsychosis, after all, was essentially a disease, and it didn’t mean every psycho could wreak havoc.

"Alright, I’ll make it quick for you..." Lille picked up a Jade Ring next to him and dealt with the guy.

"Next, wow, you’re that mission target, I can tell you’re quite the boss, self-made hand implants...

Nice, quite miraculous."

Pulite fell into despair—this madman couldn’t even remember his name!

...

[First successful completion of a functional Magic Doll: Prosthetics malfunction script]

[First successful completion of a functional Magic Doll: Prosthetic Eye reboot script]

[First execution of prosthetic disassembly surgery]

[First execution of prosthetic implant surgery]

[You have mastered practical technology: Prosthetic Technology (Proficient)]

[Note: You have learned to functionally rewrite common prosthetic programs, but you are still a beginner]

[You have mastered practical technology: Network Hacking Technology (Proficient)]

[Note: You have learned to upload Magic Dolls proficiently, and try writing some simple ones]

[Points +700]

[Current Points: 2365]

A night of hard work paid off, and that was the largest Point income during this period.

The new prosthetics Lille had changed included lungs and synthetic lobes totaling 1700g, and a secondary heart weighing 125g.

Network access pods and smart links on his palms added up to 60g.

Besides, to avoid always wearing thick clothes, Lille had Old Wei install a concealment skin prosthetic "Like Skin" for him.

This thing was almost the same as skin in appearance, feel, and even heat conductivity, used to cover up the appearance of prosthetics.

Originally, it was invented at the beginning of the prosthetics wave to reduce the reluctance of implanters.

However, today, Cyberpunk freaks even flaunt big cannons outside their trousers, so there’s no reluctance anymore.

The artificial skin mainly covered the spine, hiding the exposed Si Anweisitan, and weighed 100g.

Converted to Points, that was a total of 1985 Points, which Lille chose to transfer to his other self in another world, just to avoid sudden death.

[Prosthetic implant cross-dimensional binding completed, Points -1985]

[Current Points: 350]

Lille checked the time, 6 a.m., still early.

The few murderers in front of him were now separated from their machines: the washed prosthetics could be sold to black market medics and still be useful, while on the other side were the corpses.

Elsewhere, dealing with corpses could be tricky, but this was Night City, and Night City’s garbage disposal personnel had rich experience handling such cases.

After all, these three men had bounties on them in the NCPD database.

Lille stuffed the three guys into black plastic bags and threw them into the garbage pile, all very natural and normal, and no one asked him why the black garbage bags looked kind of red?

Could it be a serial killer?

Such strange questions.

Living in Night City meant learning not to look for trouble, otherwise any random mentally ill person relieving themselves next to you might just pull a gun and blow you away...

Lille lay in bed, quietly waiting for progress in the other world.

[Note: Detailed responsible thinking and communication tasks require deduction of Points for on-the-ground communication]

[10 Points per hour, charged as a full hour if less than one hour.]

Lille thought it stingy, but there was no choice. Without understanding how far Conners’ research had progressed, there was no talking about the next steps.

[The car stopped in front of Empire University, and the students passing by brimmed with youthful energy]

[This is the best university in New York City, and most likely the place to cure your condition]

[Do you choose to communicate on the ground?]

[Ground communication channel opened, Points -10]

Lille chose to communicate on the ground, sat down at the computer, and prepared to access information from this side.