The air in Sector 9 didn't just smell; it tasted. A thick, oily residue coated the back of the throat, a blend of burning ozone, rot, and the metallic tang of recycled water that had passed through too many kidneys.
Su Yuan pulled the collar of his grease-stained jacket up over his nose. It didn't help. The stench was molecular, woven into the fabric of the slums.
He kept his head down, watching his boots splash through puddles that shimmered with iridescent chemical slicks. The neon signs above were broken here, stuttering in fits of epileptic violet and sickly green. Unlike Sector 74, where people at least pretended to have jobs, Sector 9 was where the city flushed its waste. If you were here, you were either hiding, dying, or hunting.
Su Yuan was hunting.
His headache was a dull, rhythmic throb behind his eyes—the cost of the distributed calculation he'd forced on the forum users earlier. He needed a node. Not a faceless username like *Scavenger_Boy* or *RatKing77* who could log off, die, or get traced by a Corporate algorithm. He needed a root anchor. Someone physical. Someone desperate enough to ignore the risks, but localized enough to monitor.
A shout echoed off the damp concrete walls ahead.
Su Yuan stopped. He pressed his back against the rusted corrugated metal of a noodle stall that had been shuttered for years.
"Pay the toll, maggot."
The voice was distorted, amplified by a cheap vocal modulator that buzzed with static.
Su Yuan peeked around the corner.
An alleyway, dead-ended by a pile of refuse three meters high. Three figures stood in a semicircle. They wore leather vests studded with scrap metal. The leader, a brute with a shaved head, had replaced his lower jaw with a grate of iron teeth. But the real threat was the modifications on his back. Four mechanical limbs, crude and hydraulic, sprouted from a spinal harness. They looked like spider legs welded together from rebar and excavators.
The Iron Spiders. Bottom-feeders. They didn't have the finesse of the Triads or the tech of the Corps, but they had hydraulic presses for limbs.
In the center of the semicircle, curled into a fetal ball on the wet asphalt, was a boy.
He couldn't have been more than sixteen. Skinny. His ribs were visible through the tears in his shirt, sharp ridges against pale skin. He clutched a small, dirty canvas bag to his chest.
"I don't have it," the boy wheezed. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
"You scavenged the filtration plant," the Spider-leader grated. One of the mechanical legs twitched, the servo whining high and shrill like a dentist's drill. "We saw you. Hand over the cores."
"Empty," the boy gasped. "They were empty."
The mechanical leg lashed out.
It wasn't a martial arts move. It was industrial violence. The metal piston struck the boy in the stomach.
*Whump.*
The sound was wet. The boy skidded backward, slamming into the trash pile. The canvas bag flew from his grip, skittering across the pavement.
Su Yuan flinched. His own stomach contracted, the phantom memory of his own weakness flaring up. He calculated the force. Hydraulic psi roughly three thousand. Impact trauma sufficient to rupture the spleen.
He gripped the jagged metal of the noodle stall until his palm bled.
*Intervene,* his morality whispered. It was a vestige of his old life, a ghost from a world where laws mattered.
*Calculate,* the System whispered.
**[ Threat Assessment: Iron Spider Leader. ]**
**[ Strength: E-Rank (Cybernetic augmentations). ]**
**[ Administrator Status: F- (Malnourished). ]**
**[ Outcome of confrontation: Death. Probability: 99.8%. ]**
Su Yuan stayed put. He watched.
The leader picked up the canvas bag with a pincer claw. He shook it upside down. Two burned-out filtration cores—useless ceramic cylinders—clattered onto the ground.
"Trash," the leader spat.
He stepped forward. The boy tried to scramble away, his heels scraping uselessly on the slick ground, but the Spider-leader planted a heavy boot on his chest.
"You waste my time, Li Wei. Time is fuel."
The leader raised a mechanical leg, the tip sharpening into a spike.
Su Yuan held his breath.
"Boss," one of the lackeys grunted. "Patrol drone."
A low hum vibrated the air. High above, near the smog line, the red strobe of a Sector Security drone swept across the alleyways. It wouldn't arrest them—Sector 9 was lawless—but it might tag them for a vagrancy tax or open fire for target practice.
The leader growled. He retracted the spike. He kicked the boy in the face—a casual, vicious snap of the ankle—and turned away.
"Next time I see you, I take an arm," the leader said.
The gang lumbered off, their heavy footsteps fading into the chaotic noise of the city.
Su Yuan waited. He counted to sixty.
The boy, Li Wei, didn't move. He lay in the garbage, the rain washing the blood from his chin onto his shirt.
Su Yuan stepped out from the shadows. He walked quietly, his movements efficient, burning as few calories as possible. He stopped two feet from the boy.
Li Wei's eyes fluttered open. One was swollen shut, turning a dark, angry purple. The other stared up at Su Yuan with the terrified ferocity of a trapped rat. He tried to push himself up, but his arms collapsed.
"Did... did they send you back?" Li Wei rasped. He spat a tooth onto the pavement.
Su Yuan looked down. He saw the biology of the kid through the lens of the SoulNet.
**[ Potential Node Detected. ]**
**[ Name: Li Wei. ]**
**[ Spirit Root: Dormant (Metal/Wind affinity). ]**
**[ Current Status: Critical Injury. Willpower: High. ]**
"No," Su Yuan said. His voice was flat, distorted slightly by the cheap medical mask he wore. "I'm not with them."
"Looting, then?" Li Wei managed a bitter, bloody sneer. "Nothing left. Check the bag."
"I don't want your trash."
Su Yuan crouched. The movement made his knees pop. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, rectangular object. It was a data chip, salvaged from a dead hard drive and scrubbed clean.
He held it out.
Li Wei looked at the chip, then at Su Yuan. "What is this?"
"Software," Su Yuan said.
"I don't have a deck. I can't run sims."
"It's not a sim. It's a patch." Su Yuan leaned closer. The smell of the kid's blood was sharp, mixing with the trash. "For you. For your bio-OS."
Li Wei frowned, confusion warring with pain. "I don't have credits. Whatever you're selling..."
"It's a beta test," Su Yuan interrupted. He spun the lie effortlessly. "I'm a developer. Independent. I need data. You look like you need an upgrade."
"Why me?"
"Because you're weak," Su Yuan said brutally. "Because you just let a pile of scrap metal kick your teeth in. And because people like you are hungry."
The boy flinched, but he didn't look away. The anger in his good eye burned hotter.
"What does it do?"
"It evens the odds." Su Yuan pressed the chip into the boy's bloody hand. It was warm. "Slot it into your neuro-port. Follow the instructions. Breathe exactly as it says."
Li Wei looked at the chip. It was scratched, the casing cracked. It looked like garbage.
"And the price?" Li Wei asked. "Nothing is free in Sector 9."
Su Yuan stood up. The rain was getting heavier, soaking through his jacket.
"The price is the data," Su Yuan said. "You use it, I get the telemetry. If you die, the test fails. If you live..." He shrugged. "Maybe you break the spider's legs next time."
He turned and walked away.
"Wait!" Li Wei called out.
Su Yuan didn't stop. He didn't look back. He vanished into the steam rising from the vents, a ghost in a shell of cheap clothing.
***
The return trip was a blur of paranoia.
Every shadow looked like an Azure Dragon enforcer. Every drone buzz sounded like an execution order. Su Yuan kept his head down, navigating the labyrinth of rusted catwalks and dripping stairwells until he reached the heavy blast door of his apartment block.
He climbed the four flights of stairs—the elevator had been broken since the war—and collapsed into his room.
The lock clicked shut.
Safety. Or as close as it got.
Su Yuan stripped off his wet jacket and threw it in the corner. He sat at his desk, the ancient chair groaning. The computer monitor blinked, the only light in the suffocating darkness.
He brought up the SoulNet interface.
**[ Administrator: Su Yuan ]**
**[ Energy: 0.04 Units ]**
**[ Active Nodes: 14 (Fluctuating) ]**
The numbers were erratic. The forum users were dropping off. Some were sleeping, some had given up because of the pain, some were likely dead. *Scavenger_Boy* was offline. *IronOx* was gone forever.
He needed stability.
He stared at the black map of the network. A void.
"Come on," Su Yuan whispered. He tapped his fingers on the desk. "Plug it in."
Minutes dragged. The rain hammered the roof, a relentless, deafening drumbeat.
Maybe the kid died. Maybe the internal bleeding was too severe. Maybe he pawned the chip for a hit of painkiller.
Su Yuan closed his eyes. The hunger in the back of his skull—the System's hunger—was growing. It scratched at his cortex, demanding input.
*Ping.*
It wasn't a sound. It was a drop of water landing in a still pool inside his mind.
Su Yuan's eyes snapped open.
On the interface, a new light blinked. It wasn't the pale, wavering grey of the forum users.
It was a sharp, piercing white.
**[ New Node Connected. ]**
**[ ID: Node 001 (Li Wei). ]**
**[ Synchronization Rate: 82%. ]**
Eighty-two percent.
The forum users averaged twenty. They treated the technique like a game, a curiosity. Li Wei was treating it like a lifeline.
Su Yuan felt it instantly.
It started as a trickle, then a stream. A sensation of cold clarity flowed into the base of his neck. It wasn't just raw energy; it was computing power.
He could feel the boy's desperation. He could feel the jagged rhythm of Li Wei's breathing as he slotted the chip and began the *Primary Shockwave* cycle.
*Inhale. Agony in the ribs. Hold. The taste of blood. Compress.*
The boy was forcing it. He was pushing the technique through a broken body.
**[ Alert: Node 001 vital signs unstable. ]**
"Don't die on me," Su Yuan hissed.
He focused on the connection. He didn't just draw power; he pushed back. He acted as the server, optimizing the client's request.
*Adjust,* Su Yuan thought, projecting the intent down the invisible wire. *Too much tension in the diaphragm. Shallow out the breath. Use the pain.*
He didn't know if the boy could hear him—it wasn't telepathy, not really—but the data shifted.
The rhythm smoothed out. The erratic spikes in Li Wei's bio-feedback leveled into a steady, dangerous hum.
**[ Optimization Successful. ]**
**[ Soul Force Input: +0.05 Units/minute. ]**
Su Yuan exhaled, sinking back into his chair.
0.05. It was five times the output of a normal user. The kid had potential. He had a Spirit Root that wasn't just trash.
Su Yuan watched the energy bar creep up.
*0.09... 0.14...*
His headache began to recede. The cobwebs in his mind cleared. The world seemed to sharpen, the resolution increasing.
He looked at the screen. The code for the *Primary Shockwave* was visible there, but now, with the extra processing power, he saw the flaws he had missed before.
He saw the jagged edges of the algorithm.
"I can do more," Su Yuan murmured.
He wasn't alone in the dark anymore. He had a satellite.
He reached out to the keyboard, his fingers flying. He wasn't just coding a fighting style now. He was building a backend. A database.
If Li Wei was going to fight the Iron Spiders, he would need more than just a punch. He would need a weapon.
**[ Query: Analyze Node 001 environment. ]**
The System responded, borrowing Li Wei's sensory data.
**[ Input: Smell of rust. Sound of rain. Tactile: Cold metal in hand. ]**
**[ Object Detected: Metal pipe (Scrap). ]**
"Deduce," Su Yuan commanded. "Weapon art. Blunt instrument. Low complexity. High lethality."
The grey fog of the interface swirled, thicker this time, fueled by the fresh tithe of soul power.
**[ Calculating... ]**
**[ Source material: Fedora Federation Riot Control Manual vs. Underground Pit Fighting v.4. ]**
**[ Deduction Complete. ]**
**[ Skill Created: The Nutcracker Swing (F- Rank). ]**
**[ Description: Uses centrifugal force and vibration to shatter rigid structures (Bone/Iron). ]**
Su Yuan smirked. It was crude. It was nasty. It was perfect.
He packaged the data.
"Upload to Node 001," he whispered.
***
Miles away, in a hole beneath a collapsed overpass, Li Wei gasped.
The pain in his ribs was gone, replaced by a strange, humming heat. The chip in his neck burned.
Suddenly, knowledge flooded his brain. It wasn't a memory of learning; it was a memory of *doing*. He looked at the rusted pipe in his hand.
It didn't feel like a piece of trash anymore. It felt like an extension of his arm. He knew exactly where the center of mass was. He knew exactly how to twist his wrist to maximize the impact.
Li Wei stood up. He wiped the blood from his mouth.
He looked out at the rain, at the dark alley where the Iron Spiders had left him.
"Beta test," he whispered, testing the words.
He swung the pipe.
The air whistled. The pipe struck the concrete wall of the underpass.
*CRACK.*
It wasn't a dull thud. The vibration traveled into the concrete, blowing out a chunk of masonry the size of a fist. Dust rained down on his hair.
Li Wei stared at the wall. Then he stared at the dark sky.
Somewhere, out there, the Developer was watching.
***
Su Yuan closed the connection, leaving the passive monitoring sub-routine running.
He felt drained, but it was a good drain. The kind that came after a workout, not an illness.
He checked his bank balance. Still 12 credits. He was still broke. He was still scheduled to die or be evicted in 48 hours.
But the fear was gone.
He had the network. He had the first true Node.
And deep in the code of the System, a new notification scrolled past, almost too fast to see.
**[ Genesis Protocol Update: First Disciple Acknowledged. ]**
**[ Reality Anchor Established. ]**
**[ Unlocking Feature: The Soul Store. ]**
Su Yuan froze.
"Store?"
He clicked the prompt.
A menu opened. It wasn't empty. There were items listed there. Blueprints. Formulas. Things that didn't exist in this world's technology tree.
And the currency wasn't Credits.
**[ Currency: Soul Points. ]**
**[ Current Balance: 0.19 ]**
The first item on the list was grayed out, costing 100 points.
**[ Blueprint: Bio-Synthetic Nano-Forge (Grade E). ]**
Su Yuan leaned back, the blue light reflecting in his dark pupils.
"So that's the game," he whispered.
The Corporations wanted money. The Cultivators wanted Qi.
The Genesis Protocol wanted Souls.
And Su Yuan was going to harvest them all.