The underground fight organizers sent over the coordinates for tonight's black-market cage match.
But since it was still broad daylight, Li Pan drove back to the company. At his office desk he filed his daily report, typing up a short essay about how he had heroically beaten the hell out of cherry blossom trees last night and saved a temp worker. He also submitted his investigation report on the Wakizashi.
While he was at it, he pulled up his old notes on the Ghost Tower monsters, updated them with information about the strange door and couplets, and logged it all for further review.
Not that Li Pan was any kind of workaholic. The point was, now that he'd unlocked the handkerchief's use, the Silver Key was basically like a Superman trial card—one-click omnipotence. Naturally, the more of these cheat items, the better.
Besides, he figured that if he wanted to hit his "small goal," farming monsters was faster than hustling in gang wars or cage fights. Like the Monster Company always said: three years with no revenue, then one payday big enough to last three years.
Sure enough, the fax machine buzzed with HQ commendations, praising Manager 0791 for his stellar performance and rewarding him with a Silver Key.
Shame that this time no off-world manager called to express interest in the Wakizashi.
In hindsight, it made sense. It wasn't that those otherworld managers had no taste for disembowelments or tree-women; rather, the known commodity of Taisui was simply more attractive than the unknowns like Handkerchief or Wakizashi.
After all, Taisui was already being researched by the Tech Department, with proven applications and monetization. The newer anomalies, like the Handkerchief and Wakizashi, were mysteries with no clear use cases. Outsiders weren't about to risk their necks beta-testing samples, which meant no solid offers, either.
Li Pan decided he needed to clear out the Tech Department quickly. Otherwise, just shuttling samples back and forth wasted a month at customs. Rama and A-Qi had even taken the space elevator just to process paperwork at the orbital station. If delays kept stacking up, how could he possibly hit his financial target?
So he picked up the phone, had a chat with Deskphone, and asked about the Tech Department's layout.
Much like Logistics and Warehousing, Tech was divided into Red, Yellow, and Blue Zones.
Blue Zone didn't involve direct contact with monsters. It relied on instruments—like SEMOEM observation devices—to study derivatives, images, and environmental samples. They performed microscopic analysis, material composition tests, basic physical property checks, and assorted lab experiments.
Yellow Zone was like a warehouse. They stored monsters and conducted limited observation, sometimes tossing in cyborgs, chimeras, or clones for live-interaction tests—seeing if monsters would react, display special effects, or trigger mutations.
Red Zone was the hardcore area: temps in direct physical contact with monsters, using experimental equipment to conduct high-risk technical trials.
All Red Zone data was strictly confidential. Only HQ Tech had authority to pull the original archives. Even as a general manager, Li Pan would have to submit a task application and a stack of investigation files to HQ before being permitted access to unredacted reports. Otherwise, all he'd see were "deleted" photocopies—guesswork fodder.
Originally Li Pan had planned to bring along a squad, mooch Tech Department assignments, and let everyone slack together. But looking at his crew—Kotarō, Shiranui, all those so-called demon ninjas and god-chosen warriors—they were nothing but dead weight or outright moles. Why drag ballast? He'd be better off handling Tech himself.
So after confirming Blue Zone's layout with No.18, Li Pan armed himself—gun in one hand, sword in the other—and took the elevator down to solo the Tech Department.
According to No.18's earlier recon with the Spider Drone, Blue Zone's main hazards were rogue security drones, android guards, and bioengineered watchdogs. Fortunately, most had already reached the end of their genetic lifespans and died off.
To avoid damaging company property, these security bots were equipped with non-lethal riot gear—sleep gas, impact rounds, minimal injury potential. Last time, No.18 had infiltrated under the guise of Tech assets, never even triggering combat.
Li Pan wasn't about to take chances. He swept the area with his Black Kite—bang, bang, bang—clearing the chamber whether or not the robots were actually malfunctioning. Better to blow them apart and let the company buy replacements. Old equipment was due for scrapping anyway.
And honestly, after so much melee lately, he'd almost forgotten that he'd specced into sharpshooter talent. A little refresher was in order. With the Black Kite blazing, he shredded the guards smoothly.
With a body plated in bulletproof armor and armor-piercing rounds exploding on impact, frontal infiltration wasn't all that hard.
Inside the Blue Zone labs, expensive instruments filled every corner. Each doorway was blocked by glowing blue walls projected from lamp-post-like emitters. Bullets, shrapnel, shockwaves—all stopped cold. Li Pan fired a few shots—bang bang bang—and watched the rounds freeze mid-air as if pressed against glass, then drop slowly under gravity. Humans, however, could walk through with just mild resistance.
Interesting tech. If only the units weren't so big—and if the lasers didn't require nukes to recharge—he'd mount a pair on his car for bulletproofing.
Speaking of which, now that he had money, it was about time to get the Emperor-620 upgraded with some armor plating at Martin's. Maybe he could ask about the Ghost Tower while he was at it.
For now, Li Pan cleared out one layer of the Identification Lab. He didn't reset the whole Tech Department, wary of causing lower-level labs to lose control. But with a competent technician or grad student, they could easily start generating basic test reports.
Glancing at the time, he decided to stop there. He hauled a few of the barrier posts back to the Logistics warehouse for later use, then headed out toward the commuter district for the cage fight.
Underground cage fights these days were true no-rules brawls—fight to the death. Only nukes were banned, since nobody wanted to vaporize refs and spectators. Otherwise? Anything went.
Cyborg augments, genetic mutations, psychics, supers—whatever freak show you could imagine, all welcome. Companies even tossed in prototype weapons or test subjects to see how they held up in live combat. The only rule: disclose your abilities beforehand. Surprise your opponent? Fine. Surprise the gamblers? Absolutely not.
For example, if you claimed to be a temple monk, trained in Buddhist Iron Palm, and then whipped out a depleted-uranium rocket punch mid-match—that was match-fixing. If you'd smuggled in a Gatling gun but hadn't declared it? Not allowed.
Because bettors were dropping hundreds of thousands in black money. If they thought they'd been cheated, they'd happily kill your entire family—five-star augments or not.
Of course, match-fixing still happened. Sometimes bookies or gamblers jumped in themselves—winner takes all.
Messier than bomb-ball, cage fights were bloody, chaotic, often collapsing into mass brawls of fighters, referees, bookies, and bettors. Too violent for the NCPA to clean up daily, so they went underground.
Tonight's event was hosted by the Tianlong Gang. Focus on martial-arts-style fights: no alien beasts, no shotguns or RPGs. The fighters were "Traditional Culture Enthusiasts," though each was at least Level-4 augmented. Their side gigs included Red Flower twin-rod thugs, pro assassins, ex-soldier kings, parking-lot guards, and professional maids. Brutal enough.
The venue: the rooftop playground of an elementary school in the commuter district. After class, the rooftop became a cage-fight ring. Twenty stories up—fall off, you lose. Pigeon-coop apartment blocks walled in the space. Tianlong set up cameras on the surrounding rooftops to stream. Only bettors with a million down could attend, escorted to high-rise windows across the street—far enough to stop them from storming the ring and beating refs.
By the time Li Pan arrived, a match was already underway.
One old man with eight cyber-eyes and four prosthetic arms was fighting with Wing Chun White Crane style. His four cybernetic arms were preprogrammed with routines—outer arms whipping and chopping, inner arms jabbing and pummeling. Like fighting two people at once, footwork fluid, movements ghostly. Clearly an old-school master, though judging by the scars, he'd lost both real arms and eyes long ago—now reduced to a half-machine bruiser scrapping for money.
His opponent was a young man armored in lobster-like plating, fighting street-style Muay Thai—knees, elbows, brutal kicks. He used his shell for defense and lashed out with surprise whips and sweeps. Classic Night City tough kid—familiar with rings, prisons, and morgues.
At first, they traded cautious blows. Crane flurries versus snapping kicks—mantis against stick bug. Comical to watch, maybe, but every fighter in this ring was a killer. Equipment was cheap, bodies cobbled together, but desperation made them lethal.
Cage rules: win, and you get instant cash. You also get your opponent's corpse to harvest for parts. No wonder these fighters were all borderline cyberpsychos.
Li Pan had once thought that if he ever went bankrupt in Night City, he could cobble together some junkyard augments and fight here to scrape by. Watching now, he even felt a weird kinship—like coming home.
He drifted for a moment. Then suddenly the fight ended.
The old man unleashed a flurry, but this time he didn't retreat from the kick. He leapt—boosted by dual thrusters mounted under his ass. White Crane Soars to Heaven—extended airtime, dodging the sweep, diving in with chopping hands. He was about to shred the Muay Thai kid into ribbons.
But the kid had springs in his knees. He rocketed backward two meters, then snapped into a spinning lobster-leg roundhouse, nearly kicking the old man's guts out.
The old man shrieked, dodged, then ignited both thrusters for a wild charge. But one sputtered out, and he spun like a tornado, veering off course.
The Muay Thai kid wasn't ready. In a blink, the old man slipped a knife-hand into his guard—crack! Neck snapped, half his skull sheared clean, blood soaking the playground.
But momentum carried the old man off the rooftop. Duang! He slammed into the opposite building, skull bursting, torso snapping, body tumbling down, leaving a bloody smear.
Both fighters dead. A draw—bets halved.
Li Pan scanned the prep fighters below, looking for Leticia's Hound. No luck. But he did spot a familiar face: Juan, the kid he'd seen at Big Bear's funeral—Big Bear's wife's relative.
Hadn't Juan said he'd quit cage fights to help his mom run the bar?
Li Pan snapped a pic, sent a ping. Juan looked up, recognized him, and waved.
"Hey, Amigo! What a coincidence!"
"You trying to get yourself killed?"
Not an insult—just fact.
Juan was just a beefy human, all gym muscle. At best, a Level-3 athlete. No way he belonged here. Li Pan had been a one-man army back in military school, yet even he wouldn't risk cage fights unless desperate. This was a rich man's blood sport.
Juan sighed. "A buddy of mine got stabbed, can't move. If he misses this fight, he'll default, go bankrupt, and his whole family suffers. I'm just covering one match for him. Worst case, I take a beating. I'm tough."
"You idiot. You just got to Night City—where'd you even find a 'buddy'? They're using you."
"Que será, será. Fate decides. Cheer for me, Amigo!"
He wouldn't be dissuaded. Soon his turn came. Mask on, he stepped into the ring.
His opponent: a small old man, no augments, but Li Pan could feel the qi. Strong—about equal to his own.
No handshakes here. The old man launched straight into Baji stance, crashing down with a Mountain-Splitting Palm, forcing Juan back.
Then he followed with a lunging bow-step punch. Three moves in, BANG!—a face smash sent Juan flying two meters, crashing down, barely conscious.
A Baji master. Juan's wrestling didn't even compare. Probably just gym sparring, cosplay-level.
At least the master didn't finish him. Not out of mercy—Li Pan noticed his bent spine, his ragged breath. His back had been broken once, his lungs damaged. His power was halved. Otherwise, that punch would've killed Juan outright.
Still, one hit was enough to show Juan was no threat. No need to waste effort.
Juan lay bleeding from the nose, playing dead for ten seconds until the cleanup drone dragged him away.
Li Pan exhaled in relief. Close call.
But he noticed something: Tianlong had plenty of fighters like that—seasoned killers, scarred veterans, capable of Level-5 augment strength. Yet many were crippled, half-machine, restricted by cheap prosthetics.
Strange. Why did the Tianlong Gang have so many martial artists? Weren't they fighting East Castle Society for turf? Why let their masters rot in cage fights, while East Castle kitted their trash with full Muramasa sets? Tianlong had money. Why so stingy?
He checked the NCPA bounty system. Sure enough—most of these were once Tianlong's prime killers, with rap sheets full of blood. But in recent years, they'd gone quiet, almost retired. Other than cage matches, they stayed out of gang business.
Come to think of it—Old Wu, owner of the Peace Hotel, had also "retired" from gangs after taking a bullet to the knee. Maybe there was more to the story.
Li Pan couldn't resist asking Old Wu about his leg.
Silence, then a curse:
"Broom-head, getting cocky? Digging at my scars? None of your damn business!"
"Aw, Uncle Wu, don't be like that. If you hadn't kicked me out of the underworld back then, I'd never be where I am today. You're half a mentor. I won't pry, but as a junior, I'd love to hear the tale."
Wu snorted.
"Fine. You want a joke? Here's one.
"About ten years ago, some lunatic slipped into Night City with the immigrant snakes. Gang business, you know—kidneys for sale. He got cornered, snapped, and turned out to be a martial maniac. Killed or crippled over two hundred of our brothers before escaping. Still never caught.
"My leg? He broke it. All of us martial artists got humiliated. No face left. Couldn't show ourselves in the underworld anymore. That's why I run a hotel now. Satisfied?"
"What the fuck? One man? Flattened Tianlong?!"
Li Pan was stunned.
"What was his name?"
"Don't know. An illegal. Fake papers, tore them up. But from his style—he was Wudang."
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⚠️ 30 CHAPTERS AHEAD — I'm Not a Cyberpsycho ⚠️
The system says: Kill.
Mercs obey. Corporates obey. Monsters obey.
One man didn't.
🧠💀 "I'm not a cyberpsycho. I just think... differently."
💥 High-voltage cyberpunk. Urban warfare. AI paranoia.
Read 30 chapters ahead, only on Patreon.
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