The sensation arrived before the notification.
It started as a dull ache in Su Yuan's right deltoid, a phantom cramp that shouldn't exist. He hadn't moved from his chair in three hours. His muscles were cold, atrophied from malnutrition and neglect, yet the burn was there, specific and localized. It felt like he had been swinging a hammer against a concrete wall for twenty minutes straight.
Su Yuan stared at his hand. It rested on the grimy plastic of the mousepad, pale and still.
*Twitch.*
His index finger jerked. Not a spasm. A reflex. A trigger pull without a gun.
**[ Node 001 (Li Wei) Status: High Exertion. ]**
**[ Synchronization Rate: 87%. ]**
**[ Feedback Loop: Active. ]**
The grey text floated in the stale air of the apartment, overlaying the water stain on the ceiling.
"Stop bunching your latissimus," Su Yuan whispered. His voice was raspy, unused. "You're telegraphing the swing."
He wasn't speaking to the room. He was speaking to the void, pushing the intent down the invisible data stream that tethered his soul to a kid rotting in Sector 9.
He closed his eyes. The dark room vanished.
The static of the SoulNet washed over him—a grey, buzzing noise that smelled of wet copper. Through the noise, the signal from Node 001 came through with high-definition clarity. Su Yuan didn't just see what Li Wei saw; he processed it.
Darkness. Rain. The smell of urine and burning tires. The weight of a rusted iron pipe in a hand that was shaking from adrenaline and fatigue.
Su Yuan felt the pipe. He knew its balance point. He knew the rust was flaking off against the palm.
*Swing.*
In the physical world, Su Yuan's shoulder jerked. In the shared reality, Li Wei lashed out at a stack of wooden pallets.
*CRACK.*
The vibration traveled up the pipe, through Li Wei's arm, and straight into Su Yuan's nervous system. It was a sharp, stinging jolt.
**[ Proficiency Gained: Blunt Weapon Mastery (F-). ]**
**[ Experience: +0.2% ]**
Su Yuan opened his eyes, gasping. He rubbed his shoulder. The pain was real. The fatigue was real. But so was the knowledge.
He knew how to hit now.
An hour ago, if someone had handed him a pipe, he would have held it like a baseball bat. Now, his muscles knew the torque. They knew to loosen the grip at the apex of the swing to let the kinetic energy snap.
He hadn't lifted a finger. Li Wei was doing the work. Su Yuan was reaping the harvest.
"Parasitic," he muttered. The word tasted sour.
He looked at the monitor. The stream of data from the other forum users—*Scavenger_Boy*, *RatKing*—was a messy background hum. They were clumsy, erratic. But Li Wei? Li Wei was a dedicated line.
The boy was desperate. Desperation made for clean data.
Su Yuan tapped a key, bringing up the biometric overlay. A wireframe skeleton of Li Wei appeared on the screen. Muscles glowed red where they were tearing, blue where the *Qi*—or whatever sludge passed for energy in the slums—was flowing.
The kid was destroying himself. The *Shockwave* technique, combined with the *Nutcracker Swing*, was too much torque for a malnourished frame.
"System," Su Yuan said. "Overlay the correction vector."
**[ Calculating optimal trajectory... ]**
A green line appeared on the wireframe, correcting Li Wei's stance.
"Transmit."
He sent the impulse. It wasn't a voice command. It was a subliminal suggestion, a nudge to the motor cortex. *Drop the hip. Twist the wrist later.*
On the screen, the wireframe adjusted. The red glow on the skeleton faded slightly.
Efficiency.
Su Yuan leaned back, the cheap chair groaning. This was the loop. He provided the software; Li Wei provided the hardware. Li Wei got survival. Su Yuan got power.
It was a transaction. That's what he told himself.
But as he watched the energy bar in the corner of his vision tick upward—*0.21... 0.22...*—he knew it was more than that. He was feeding.
***
Li Wei wiped the rain from his eyes. His arm felt like it was on fire, but it was a good fire. It was the heat of something being forged.
He stood in the shadow of a collapsed ventilation tower. The rain in Sector 9 was heavy tonight, slick and oily. It drummed against the rusted metal of the pipe in his hand.
He felt... different.
Every time he swung the pipe, a ghost guided his hand. A cold, logical presence in the back of his mind that corrected his mistakes before he made them.
*Lower.*
He dropped his center of gravity.
*Snap.*
He swung at the air. The pipe whistled—a sharp, cutting sound.
"Freak."
The voice came from the darkness, cutting through the sound of the rain.
Li Wei froze. He knew that voice. It sounded like gravel in a blender.
Three figures stepped out from behind the curtain of smog. They weren't the Iron Spiders. These were lower on the food chain. Scrappers. Vultures who picked the bodies the Spiders left behind.
The one in the lead was huge—a slab of meat named Korg. He didn't have fancy cybernetics. He had a salvage-rig arm, a bulky, yellow industrial prosthetic welded to his shoulder. It was designed for crushing cars, not people, but Korg used it for both.
"Talking to yourself, rat?" Korg grinned. His teeth were capped with cheap chrome. "Or praying?"
Li Wei gripped the pipe. His heart hammered against his ribs—*thump-thump-thump*.
Usually, this was the part where he ran. Usually, he would drop his bag, curl into a ball, and hope they got bored before they broke something important.
But the chip in his neck burned. The rhythm of his breath shifted, involuntary and precise.
*Inhale. Compress. Hold.*
The fear didn't vanish, but it crystallized. It became fuel.
"Leave me alone, Korg," Li Wei said. His voice didn't shake. That surprised him more than Korg.
Korg laughed. It was a wet, hacking sound. "He's got a spine now. Look at that, boys. The rat grew a spine."
He stepped forward, the servos in his yellow arm whining. *WREEEE-CHUNK.* The heavy claw snapped open and shut.
"I need credits, Wei. The Spiders raised the rent on the turf. You got anything in your pockets? Or do I strip you for parts?"
Li Wei stepped back, his heel hitting a puddle.
**[ Alert: Hostile Intent Detected. ]**
The words flashed in Li Wei's mind. They weren't his thoughts.
**[ Analysis: Industrial Servo-Arm (Model: CAT-44). Torque: High. Speed: Low. ]**
**[ Weakness: Joint Hydraulics. Unshielded. ]**
Li Wei blinked. He saw the arm differently now. He didn't see a weapon. He saw a schematic. A faint red reticle pulsed over the elbow joint of the yellow arm.
*Hit it there.*
Korg lunged.
***
In Sector 74, Su Yuan sat up straight.
The sensory feed spiked. The adrenaline hit his system like a shot of amphetamine. His heart rate synchronized with Li Wei's, thundering in his ears.
He saw the fist coming.
It was slow. To Su Yuan's processed perception, heavily overclocked by the SoulNet, Korg moved through molasses. But Li Wei was slow too. He was weak.
"Don't block," Su Yuan hissed, his fingers gripping the edge of the desk until his knuckles turned white. "You block that, your arm shatters."
*Dodge.*
He projected the impulse.
On the screen, Li Wei's wireframe dipped.
***
Li Wei ducked.
The yellow claw swiped through the space where his head had been a fraction of a second ago. The wind of the passage stung his cheek.
He was inside the guard.
The smell of Korg was overwhelming—rancid sweat, cheap alcohol, and machine grease.
*Now.*
The command was absolute.
Li Wei didn't think. He didn't weigh the moral consequences of violence. He swung.
He used the *Nutcracker* technique. He didn't swing with his arm; he swung with his lungs. He exhaled a sharp, pressurized burst of air that vibrated through his core, down his shoulder, into the pipe.
The iron pipe struck the elbow joint of the cybernetic arm.
*CLANG.*
It wasn't a dull thud. It was a bell ringing in a crypt.
The vibration didn't stop at the surface. The *Shockwave* protocol was designed to bypass armor, to find the resonant frequency of the material and amplify it.
The pipe hit the casing. The force traveled inward.
Inside the yellow arm, a hydraulic seal fluttered. The fluid, compressed by the sudden vibrational spike, cavitated.
*POP.*
A jet of black hydraulic fluid sprayed out from the joint like arterial blood.
Korg howled.
The massive yellow arm seized up. The servos screamed—a high-pitched shriek of dying metal—and the claw locked in an open position. The limb went dead, hanging from his shoulder like a lead anchor.
Korg stumbled back, clutching the dead metal. "My rig! You broke the seal!"
He looked at Li Wei with pure, unadulterated shock. A rat had just bitten a wolf.
The two lackeys behind him hesitated. They looked at the leaking fluid, then at the pipe in the skinny kid's hand.
Li Wei stood there, panting. The pipe vibrated in his grip.
He felt... powerful.
For the first time in his life, he wasn't the prey.
"Get him!" Korg screamed, his face twisting from shock to rage. "Kill him!"
The lackeys drew knives.
Li Wei raised the pipe. He didn't retreat.
*Bring it.*
***
Su Yuan watched the data stream. It was beautiful.
The numbers were cascading down the screen faster than he could read them.
**[ Combat Data Acquired. ]**
**[ Theory Verified: Resonant Impact causes catastrophic failure in Class-E Hydraulics. ]**
**[ Soul Force Input: +0.8 Units (Spike). ]**
**[ Emotion Harvest: Fear (Target), Aggression (Host). ]**
The energy bar filled up. The "Critical" warning that had been flashing in Su Yuan's vision for two days finally vanished, replaced by a stable amber glow.
But there was something else.
As Li Wei engaged the other two thugs, swinging the pipe with a frantic, lethal precision, Su Yuan felt a strange sensation in the interface.
The System was... excited.
It wasn't just recording the fight. It was learning from it.
Every time Li Wei landed a hit, the algorithm adjusted. It saw that the *Nutcracker Swing* wasted energy on the follow-through. It saw that Li Wei's footwork on the wet pavement was slippery.
**[ Optimization Opportunity Detected. ]**
A new menu unfolded on the screen. It wasn't the grey of the basic interface. It was a deep, pulsating violet.
**[ Sub-Routine Unlocked: Live-Fire Evolution. ]**
**[ The SoulNet learns through conflict. Peace offers no data. ]**
**[ Do you wish to burn 0.5 Soul Points to evolve the skill *Nutcracker Swing*? ]**
Su Yuan stared at the prompt.
Li Wei was fighting for his life. Su Yuan could see the kid's vitals spiking. Heart rate 180. Cortisol levels critical. One of the thugs had slashed Li Wei's forearm; a red gash was weeping blood into the rain.
If Su Yuan evolved the skill, Li Wei would get stronger instantly. He would win.
But the cost. *0.5 Soul Points.*
That was energy Su Yuan needed to survive. That was his rent money. That was his food.
"He's an investment," Su Yuan whispered. The cold logic of the engineer took over. "You protect your assets."
He clicked **[ YES ]**.
***
Li Wei was losing.
The adrenaline was fading, replaced by the heavy, dragging weight of exhaustion. The cut on his arm burned. The two scrappers were quick, circling him, darting in with their knives.
He swung the pipe, but it was slow. One of the thugs ducked and slashed at his leg.
Li Wei stumbled. He fell to one knee.
"Done playing," the thug sneered, raising his knife.
Suddenly, the chip in Li Wei's neck grew hot. Searing hot.
It felt like someone had poured molten lead into his brain. He gasped, his back arching.
The world slowed down.
The rain droplets seemed to hang in the air.
New information flooded his mind. The *Nutcracker Swing* dismantled itself in his memory and reassembled into something sharper.
*Don't swing wide. Thrust.*
*Use the pipe like a spear. Vibration point: Tip.*
The knowledge wasn't his, but his body obeyed it.
From his knees, Li Wei didn't swing. He lunged. He drove the end of the pipe straight forward, aiming for the thug's sternum.
*Impact.*
The pipe hit.
The *Shockwave* didn't disperse. It focused. A concentrated pulse of kinetic energy shot from the tip of the pipe into the thug's chest.
There was no crack of bone. There was a dull, wet *thump*.
The thug's eyes went wide. He dropped the knife. He clutched his chest, gasping for air that wouldn't come. The impact had stopped his diaphragm cold.
He collapsed, foaming at the mouth.
The second thug stopped. He looked at Korg, who was still struggling with his dead arm. He looked at his partner twitching on the ground.
He looked at Li Wei, who was rising from the mud, eyes glowing with a faint, unnatural blue light.
The thug turned and ran.
"Wait!" Korg yelled. "You coward!"
Li Wei turned to Korg. He stepped over the body of the fallen scrapper. He dragged the pipe along the ground. *Scrape. Scrape.*
"Fuel," Li Wei whispered. The word bubbled up from his subconscious, an echo of the Administrator.
Korg backed away, tripping over a pile of trash. "Stay back. The Spiders... they'll kill you."
"The Spiders aren't here," Li Wei said.
He raised the pipe.
***
Su Yuan closed the connection.
He couldn't watch the end. He didn't need to. The data stream told him everything.
**[ Conflict Resolved. ]**
**[ Node 001 Victory. ]**
**[ Soul Force Harvested: +1.2 Units. ]**
**[ Bonus: Martial Intent (Grim). ]**
Su Yuan sat in the silence of his room. The rain tapped against his window, a polite, rhythmic counterpoint to the violence he had just orchestrated.
He checked his balance.
*1.24 Soul Points.*
He was rich. In the economy of souls, he had just made a fortune.
He could pay the rent. He could buy food. He could live for another week.
He looked at his hands. They were steady now. The tremors were gone. The headache was gone. He felt strong.
But he also felt cold. Colder than the room.
He had turned a scared kid into a killer. He had gamified survival.
"It was him or them," Su Yuan said to the empty room. Justifying. Rationalizing.
**[ Correction. ]**
The text appeared unbidden, bold and black.
**[ It was for the Network. ]**
**[ The Genesis Protocol is pleased. ]**
Su Yuan froze.
"Pleased?" he asked. "You're a program. You don't get pleased."
**[ Observation: The Host believes he is the user. ]**
**[ Reality: The Host is the conduit. ]**
**[ New Blueprint Unlocked in Soul Store: "Kinetic Damping Field (Personal)." ]**
**[ Cost: 1.0 Soul Points. ]**
The carrot.
The System ignored his moral qualms and offered him a toy. A shield. The very thing the Azure Dragon Enforcer had used to kill *IronOx*.
Su Yuan stared at the blueprint. 1.0 points. Almost everything he had just earned.
If he bought it, he would be safe from physical harm. But he would be broke again. He would need more points.
He would need more fights.
He would need more Li Weis.
Su Yuan laughed. It was a dry, broken sound that died in his throat.
He understood the feedback loop now.
Li Wei trained to survive the slums.
Su Yuan harvested Li Wei to survive the system.
The System consumed the violence to grow.
It wasn't a loop. It was a spiral. And it only went down.
He moved the cursor to the **[ PURCHASE ]** button.
"Let's see how deep it goes," Su Yuan whispered.
He clicked.
Outside, the thunder finally rolled, shaking the foundations of Sector 74, drowning out the sound of a man selling his soul one click at a time.