After Pila and Rebecca left, Luca could only lie flat on the bed, staring at the ceiling and drowning in thought. His body ached everywhere, and the silence in the room pressed on him like a weight.
"Wow, those two jerks," he muttered to himself. "At least turn on the TV or the radio before leaving. I'm bored to death here."
Boredom wasn't the only problem—his body felt like it had been torn apart and stitched back together. Every joint, every muscle screamed with pain. He could hardly even sit up. But Luca wasn't the kind of person who would allow himself to stay in bed like a helpless invalid. He had to do something.
"Forget it. Wind Spirit Moon Shadow—activate."
A faint flicker shimmered before his eyes as the Wind Spirit Moon Shadow panel emerged. Luca resisted the urge to blindly press buttons. He only had a limited number of Survival Points, and he knew well enough that wasting them now could doom him later.
He decided to keep at least one hundred untouched as a safety net.
In his opinion, enhancing his body's raw attributes was the most important step. Carefully, he added one point to Physique, and the system deducted one Survival Point. Simple enough. But when he attempted to add another, the cost jumped to ten points.
"What the hell? Already that expensive?" Luca raised an eyebrow. "Or… maybe it's just how the system scales?"
To test his theory, he switched to Technical Ability and placed a point there. The cost? Just one point again.
He nodded slowly. "Makes sense then."
With this knowledge, Luca allocated two points each into all five major attributes. When he looked at his stats again, his five-dimensional spread was roughly equal to that of V—the protagonist of Cyberpunk 2077—at the very beginning of the game.
He chuckled bitterly. Comparisons are deadly. Some people start out strong, others need a cheat system just to reach the baseline.
"Genius. Such an elusive word. But now, I guess I count as one, right?" he murmured to himself.
Feeling reckless, he added one more point to Physique. This time the cost skyrocketed to one hundred Survival Points. Luca's smile froze. Even if attributes scaled exponentially, wasn't this too steep?
Before he could dwell on it, a strange tingling sensation coursed up his body, racing along his spine like sparks dancing on a wire. The pain melted away as if it had never existed.
"Ahhh… so good," Luca sighed, unable to hold back a groan of relief.
He pushed himself upright. No pain. No weakness. His body felt whole again. He clenched his fists, savoring the raw strength that pulsed in his muscles.
"I feel like I could beat a hundred of my old selves right now."
But he quickly shook off the thought and focused on the system again. Sure enough, alongside the attribute panel, the Perk panel appeared—familiar, but with an unexpected twist. It not only included perks from both Cyberpunk 2077 and 2078, but also some unique ones.
For example, under the Physique attribute, he spotted Strong Arms—a perk he recognized as belonging to the behavioral chip series from the Edgerunners anime.
"Interesting. Very interesting. So perks can be learned through points, but also through chips."
That revelation gave him ideas—wild, dangerous ideas. Still, Luca wasn't eager to dump points into perks right now. Survival Points were precious. If he could only gain one a day, then what kind of cheat was this? At that pace, he'd die of old age before he maxed out his stats.
More likely, learning perks or hacking the system would generate new points. If that were true, then spending Survival Points directly on perks was a wasteful shortcut.
"Better to keep my options open. Maybe I can trick the system later," he thought with a grin.
As for overpowered abilities like infinite health or god-mode combat buffs? Those could wait. No sense in burning points on luxuries when the priority was survival.
"A penny can stump a hero," Luca muttered. "Better put something into Locked Money."
He discovered that the more digits he locked in for money, the more Survival Points it consumed. The system wasn't stupid. But Luca wasn't either. After a bit of calculation, he spent 111 Survival Points to fix his money at 999.
A thin card materialized in his hand. A money chip—Night City's equivalent of a bank card.
Luca turned it over, marveling at the weight and shimmer. "You've got to be kidding me. Can I actually just… cash this out at the bank?"
He tested the system. "Exchange 900 eurodollars."
Nine stacks of crisp banknotes materialized neatly on the bed.
"Oh my god." He blinked, then laughed. "It really works."
He tried again. "Exchange another 900."
This time, only one stack appeared. Clearly, the cap was 999.
Still, Luca wasn't disappointed. He continued, steadily producing stack after stack until he had conjured a solid ten thousand eurodollars. Not bad for a day's work.
He left himself with 114 Survival Points untouched—his emergency stash. Money problems were solved, at least for now. He could finally think about stepping outside.
Before leaving, Luca went into the bathroom. He needed to check the mirror, to confirm what kind of transmigration had happened. Was this just his soul swapped into another version of himself, or had his entire body crossed worlds?
The man in the mirror was undeniably him. Same sharp features, same youthful vitality. No trace of time's passage.
That answered his question. If this had only been a soul transfer into another Luca's body, there would have been at least fifty years of aging to account for. No matter how advanced Night City's biotechnologies were, no one could cheat time so completely. This was his real body.
"So… what's my identity in this world?" he whispered.
As if in response, the mirror shimmered, and a manual network access port slid open beside the sink. Inside it was a data chip labeled with his own name.
He pulled it free and scanned it. The basic information matched him perfectly.
"Sure enough, there's another me in this world," he muttered. "So where did he go?"
What Luca didn't know was chilling. He hadn't simply transmigrated—he had swapped places with the Luca of this dimension. That poor man had been struck by a dump truck in Luca's original world and now lay comatose in a hospital bed, a vegetable with no way back.
The chip's data gave Luca a new headache. It contained dense employee records from Konrad's Night City branch, listing managers, executives, and directors. His counterpart here clearly held a prestigious, possibly dangerous, corporate position.
But much of the file was locked. His own detailed records included security clearances, financial accounts, and personal contacts, all hidden behind a password.
He tried guessing. His fiancée's birthday—no luck. His mother's birthday—wrong again.
He clenched his jaw. Important data like this would never use something so predictable. And if he triggered an alarm by guessing too many times, he'd expose himself.
"Not worth the risk," Luca decided. "I'll wait until my hacking skill is better."
With a flick of his hand, he closed the mirror interface and prepared to leave. But the glass flickered again, displaying a new message:
Usage fee: 1 euro.
Luca's eyes widened. "You motherf—unbelievable."
No wonder reflective surfaces were so rare in Night City. Most windows were frosted, most mirrors removed. You had to pay to see your own damn reflection.
It was absurd, but he couldn't refuse. If Rebecca returned and found their household mirror locked due to unpaid fees, she'd roast him alive with laughter. He swallowed his pride, connected his money chip, and transferred a euro.
Shaking his head, Luca glanced at the toilet. "Wait… don't tell me that thing charges too."
The thought clicked into place. That explained why so many people pissed in alleys and on street corners. Even taking a dump probably cost money.
"Damn," he muttered, realization dawning. "I've figured it out. This world really doesn't let you breathe for free."