The Game's Top Mage

In July 2088, Nebula Technologies announced 1,000 slots for the closed beta of its first full-dive game, Lost City.

Then one rule set the registration site ablaze:

When closed-beta players log out, they can exchange their in-game currency for real cash with no conditions, at a rate of 1:1!

- -

Chao Zhao wasn't sure whether to call herself unlucky or lucky.

She had wished upon the money tree at home for 100,000 yuan in 30 days, after which she would promptly quit the game and leave.

But the moment she started, her account already contained a whopping 200,000 yuan. Then, within 24 hours, she was fired and lost her secure job, and her savings were wiped out in compensation. The smart concierge at her high-end employee apartment ordered her to pack up and leave immediately. While looking for a place to stay on the street, she ran into a cyberpsycho throwing blades everywhere and killing people as easily as slicing melons...

"Bang!"

She calmly opened her navigation app and searched for a cheap clinic nearby, looking at her disposable plastic gun, shattered to bits, and her right hand, now missing a thumb.

But what she got at this run-down little clinic was far more than a new, skin-like prosthetic right hand...

[Your neural tolerance test result: S rank, top-tier rarity]

[You have obtained the revolutionary Zero Boundary, a hacker chip secretly developed by the Blackrock Group's laboratory]

From then on, her brain became a weapon. She could make her enemies go blind, suffer severed nerves, have their hearts stop, or become paralyzed on one side of their bodies, all from a distance...

Put more vividly, she'd become a hard-core technomage who could kill her enemies with nothing but the power of her mind.

And...

She touched the back of her neck. The Zero Boundary chip there was warming slightly, and there was only one like it in the entire city.

- -

The night she took her first job, a torrential rain began to fall.

On the balcony of a dilapidated inn, Chao Zhao showed no mercy as she pressed the muzzle firmly against the man's jaw, forcing him to shut up.

"You have maliciously attacked player Guan Nan," an electronic prompt announced.

The man beneath her gun held both hands above his head, every part of him radiating obedience. The smile hadn't faded from his lips as he tried to talk her down. "Let's talk this out."

- -

After completing her last job, she had far more money in her account than expected.

The day before she planned to quit the game, a cruise ticket arrived in her personal inbox: The luxury liner Boken would set sail from the pier in five days. You are cordially invited.

"Congratulations! You are one of the 343 players still alive."

Once she boarded the ship, the secrets of the game's closed beta unfolded before her.

It turned out that all the strange things that had happened before had been revealing the truth of this secret to her.

Reader's guide:

1. Not hard-core cyberpunk. It focuses on everyday life in a cyberpunk world, introducing the setting through everyday details. Even if you're not a cyberpunk fan, feel free to give it a try.

2. Romance and plot are in a 1:1 ratio, and the male lead plays an important role.

3. Inspired by, among other things, cyberpunk works such as Cyberpunk 2077, Neuromancer, and Edgerunners.

Theme: All living beings are equal