The Mystery Reward

Earlier…

Ayden walked up to the gates of the city and immediately saw the two people who had tried to stop him before. He did not even give them a chance to speak before rushing forward and punching Earwax in the neck and then turning and kicking Redtail in his neck. In a matter of only three seconds, he had dropped both of them to respawn. He looked down at the ground and smiled as he picked up the two credits that dropped. "I should really thank these guys. They gave me half a real world credit today!"

Feeling slightly better about himself, Ayden walked into the city with a skip in his step. He walked straight to the back ally, where he saw the old man still sitting there sipping a bottle of booze. "Sergeant Jackson, I brought back the flower you requested me to get."

The old man's eyes that were dull suddenly lit up, and looked at Ayden in surprise. "Lad, you really got it!? Let me see! Let me see!"

Ayden nodded and handed over the flower. Ex-Sergeant Jackson took it and looked it over. He held it like it was a treasure among treasures, but even Ayden knew that it had no actual value. Tears began to well up in his eyes as he looked at the flower. "I hope with this she can rest peacefully."

With a satisfied nod, he kept the flower carefully in a box he pulled out of nowhere and stored it away. He then took out two items. "Lad, these two things are for you. I was also a Cybernetic Fist. The arms I gave you were only one portion of what I used to use. These here are Ballista Fists. They have a special effect that will allow the user to shoot out a digital fist for a long ranged attack. The more nano you use, the stronger the attack. It's one of the few weapons one can get with such an ability. And as a bonus, this here is my old set of armor. I hope you can make good use of it all. I will now be off. Good luck, Lad."

[Received 1000 Credits]

[Received 5000 XP]

[Level Up!]

[(Superior)(Bound) Z-735 Ballista Fists]

[Can be used in combination with cybernetic arms.]

[Class: Cybernetic Fists]

[Attack Power + 600]

[Augment]

[Strength +50]

[Agility + 25]

[Dexterity + 15]

[Special Ability: Ballistic Fist]

[Charge up an attack for 1 nano per bonus damage.]

[(Rare)(Bound)Synthetic Armor (Chest)]

[Class: Cybernetic Fists, Phase Swordmaster]

[Augment]

[Stamina + 30]

[Agility + 5]

[Dexterity + 3]

[(Rare)(Bound)Synthetic Armor (Legs)]

[Class: Cybernetic Fists, Phase Swordmaster]

[Augment]

[Stamina + 25]

[Agility + 4]

[Dexterity + 2]

[(Rare)(Bound)Synthetic Armor (Boots)]

[Class: Cybernetic Fists, Phase Swordmaster]

[Augment]

[Stamina + 10]

[Agility + 25]

[Dexterity + 10]

Seeing all the numbers was making Ayden dizzy. He never thought he would be getting such a boost on his first day. He went from level one to level 7 in a matter of three real world hours!

[Name]: Edge

[Level]: 6 → 7

[Class]: Cybernetic Fists

[Health]: 850 → 1780/1780

[Nano]: 850 → 1130/1130

[Attack Power]: 950 → 1730(2330)

[Cy Power]: 850 → 1130

[Augment Points]: 25 → 30

[Strength]: 95 → 173

[Stamina]: 85 → 178

[Agility]: 95 → 182

[Dexterity]: 88 → 146

[Intelligence]: 85 → 113

[Mind]: 85 → 113

{Cybernetics}

[(???)(Bound) Odin's Cybernetic Eye]

[(Rare)(Bound) X-248 Cybernetic Arms]

{Armor}

[(Superior)(Bound) Z-735 Ballista Fists]

[(Rare)(Bound)Synthetic Armor (Chest)]

[(Rare)(Bound)Synthetic Armor (Legs)]

[(Rare)(Bound)Synthetic Armor (Boots)]

Staring at his status screen, Ayden scratched his head in confusion. "Is this normal?"

In truth, his stats were not anywhere near normal for a person of his level, but since he had mainly all rare gear plus one superior gear, he was basically a level 13-15 at level 7. Just his items alone would get him by until level 20 easily with each level. The reason why CyPunk Online's leveling system worked in such a unique way was because of the hardness of getting cybernetics. Since the game relied on the player economy, this balanced things slightly for poor players to allow them to still be able to level up. Otherwise, no one would want to play a game that did not allow them to even get past the early game.

This, of course, did not change the hardness of the game. But it did help quite a bit. Players just needed to quickly adapt and learn their classes as best as they could. And for Ayden, because of his cybernetic eye, he was able to gain an advantage of knowing where quests were which had high reward. But these rewards also came at the cost of the quests being very hard.

Closing his status screen, Ayden looked at his inventory which had many, many items, and decided it was time to first store what he had, in case he lost it due to being player killed. He did not know if players could kill each other in the cities or not and did not wish to find out the hard way either. Nor did he wish to stick around to find out. It was something he would look up later. He had to quickly find out where the player housing was. Luckily his mini map that came as a function of his cybernetic eye allowed him to find his destination quickly.

Walking into what was called the Housing Authority building, Ayden noticed it seemed more like a government office more than anything else. He felt slightly uncomfortable because he had never had good experiences in these places, as they would always try to screw you over. But he had to register here in order to get the free player housing. Luckily the line was not long, even though there were quite a few players walking around. He walked up to the counter that had a young woman with big breasts wearing a gray dress suit. "Can I help you?"

Ayden took a deep breath before saying: "Yes, I am looking for the player housing. Is this the right place?"

"Player housing…. Yes, this is the place. Are you looking for the city's free housing? Or would you like to look at the other options?"