Spiritual energy has been depleted for two hundred years, and cultivation has become a subscription service offered by financial conglomerates.
Want to build your foundation? Sign away your freedom first. Want to extend your life? Pay spiritual taxes with your life. As for ascension, that's a luxury reserved for advertisements.
Shen Ye, a prosthetics repairman in the Lower City, scrapes by fixing discarded mechanical arms. During a repair on a rainy night, he accidentally connects to the remnants of an authority left behind by the ancient Heavenly Court. He can see flaws in cultivation techniques, rewrite the spiritual meridians of prosthetics, and even make the lofty "Immortals" shut down on the spot.
From then on, the financial conglomerates put a bounty on his head, waves of demons besiege the city in the wasteland, and out-of-control electronic deities awaken in the clouds.
Everyone says cultivation is a privilege reserved for the few.
Shen Ye picks up a repair knife and looks toward the Heavenly Court at the end of the neon-lit street, the power that monopolizes ascension.
"Since you've cut off the Heavenly Dao's power..."
"I'll restart it with my own hands."
