'The trial of a Formal Suit/Guardian lies in exploring the heart, uncovering the host's true essence of the soul, forging a bond between Guardian and host, and awakening the host's potential.'
'The Formal Suit/Guardian will accompany the host into the deepest layers of their inner world, touching the very depths of the soul to seek out the host's innermost, long-cherished wish, and confirm the root of what the host desires to protect.'
'Only by understanding what the host values most in the depths of their soul can the Formal Suit/Guardian form a contract with them, drawing upon the strength they wield to protect what they cherish, thereby enabling the Guardian's own evolution.'
Mr007 patted Li Pan's Formal Suit, then wrote in his notepad:
'Your Formal Suit/Guardian has been activated, but the trial seems to have failed. I don't know what it saw in your soul, but it appears to have been frightened. For now, it cannot form a contract with you or exert its full power.'
Li Pan had also noticed that the Formal Suit felt warm to the touch, brimming with life, and when Mr007 touched it, the fur on the collar stood on end. Could it really have been scared by his dream? Putting himself in its place, if a zombie reached out to touch his face, he probably wouldn't take it well either…
Wait—had he overlooked something?
Hmm… couldn't recall. Never mind, better to focus on the matter at hand.
"…So you're saying that dream was a reflection of my inner world?"
He felt his mental state was just fine. Sure, it was tinted blue enough to drip, but not that deranged.
'Would you like to try again? You'll need another silver key.'
Thinking back to that giant serpent with his own face, Li Pan shivered.
"Next time. I'll need a breather."
According to Mr007's explanation, the dream was apparently a portrayal of his soul: the black dog represented the Formal Suit/Guardian, while the serpent symbolized some sort of psychic projection—potential, desire, long-cherished wish, yearning—hence why it had his face.
But what was with the Nine Yin Manual? And why could he take it out of a dream? Why was he the only one who could see it…?
Relying on his system to translate the text online, Li Pan even paid extra to unlock an ancient Chinese dictionary just to render the Nine Yin Manual into something he could understand.
It seemed to be a kind of cultivation qigong—a martial arts manual straight out of a wuxia novel.
Of course, in this cyberpunk era, nobody read pure-text novels anymore. Everyone could easily choose a world setting and script they liked in VRMMOs or dream-sim films, and as long as you had the money, anything was possible.
As Mr007 explained, a Guardian could help its host find their deepest desires and cherished things, unlocking the potential to protect them and serving as the channel for their true power.
Could it be that, deep down, he yearned to become a martial arts master? In a cyberpunk world, practicing martial arts felt more than a little out of place…
Still, by his own guess, since he was essentially a time traveler from ancient times, his subconscious craving for strength manifested as a martial arts manual—his mind's way of expressing the wish to gain the power to protect himself in this chaotic world.
So perhaps, if he mastered the Nine Yin Manual, the Formal Suit/Guardian could finally form a contract with him.
But it was no small task. The translated manual was full of references to meridians, acupoints, breathing techniques, and internal energy circulation—so complex that one ancient Chinese dictionary wasn't nearly enough. Li Pan figured he'd need to buy Daoist canons and other old texts to fully study it.
'The head office has sent a video conference appointment. The board meeting will be held in the conference room three days from now to hear your initial report. You might want to prepare in advance—perhaps an inventory check and an annual business plan.'
Mr007 held up the notepad with the suggestion.
"Three days? Oh—the 14th… Damn! That's the day before my loan settlement! No way they're planning to fire me…"
Li Pan immediately grew alert.
It seemed martial arts training would have to wait—he needed to make a PPT first.
He figured he should start by going through the company's in-stock items and business activities, tallying up losses from when the previous staff were all wiped out.
Speaking of which…
"007, do you remember why you were all… 'deleted'?"
Mr007 wrote in the notepad:
'All past records and memories have been erased.'
Fair enough. 007 had survived only because of a paper jam, and had essentially been "brought back from the dead," so it wasn't surprising there wasn't much left.
Then Mr007 wrote again:
'But from the notepad records, most past storage breaches occurred in the Technical Department. You might want to start there.'
"Oh? The Technical Department?"
The reception hall had twelve doors, each leading directly to the General Manager's office, the conference room, the office area, Human Resources, Technical Department, Logistics, Operations, the server room, the blue-zone ambient warehouse, the yellow-zone temperature-controlled warehouse, the red-zone cold storage, and the elevator.
On the floor plan, HR, the office area, and the GM's office were all on the same floor and could have shared a single entrance, but apparently taking a shortcut through a hallway/dimensional rift to save a few steps was considered a GM perk—or so one might think.
The labels were self-explanatory. The elevator was the only connection to the outside world, and once you entered, you were offline from the public net.
The three warehouse zones corresponded to security risks—red, yellow, blue—and served as temporary storage before numbered containment measures were ready. Incidentally, Mr007 was currently living in the red-zone cold storage.
Conference rooms and the server room were special-access areas that only the GM and authorized department heads could enter.
The remaining HR, Technical, Logistics, and Operations Departments were the main divisions under the GM.
HR handled recruitment and personnel files. The company had five pay grades: temp worker, full employee, cadre, department head, and GM. Temp workers started with three-year terms; those who survived to become full employees gained the right to keep one yellow-rated item long-term—usually their first Formal Suit/Guardian.
Full employees who completed enough missions were promoted to cadre, who managed one or more numbered warehouses and led most company operations, with authority to request equipment and direct temp workers.
Given the company was often understaffed and the temp worker mortality rate was high, survivors were usually elite enough to be promoted quickly. Cadres and full employees alike were often seconded to multiple departments, handling all kinds of jobs.
When GM and department head posts became vacant, they were filled by the most senior, experienced, and oldest cadres.
However, promotions to the four department head positions required strict board approval due to the high level of access granted—unlike GMs, who could sometimes be chosen almost at random.
These department heads had significant autonomy and could report directly to the board, sometimes even taking part in cross-world joint operations—perhaps as a way to keep the GM in check, or perhaps simply because a GM genuinely needed strong lieutenants to prevent catastrophic, world-ending safety incidents.
Right now, Li Pan rather hoped head office would parachute in a few off-world department heads to share the workload. Though Mr007 could remind him of things and he could make phone calls, Mr007 was still a temp worker with red-level "dead thrall" classification—barred from most areas—and sometimes the phone line had no answers at all. So Li Pan had to make the rounds in person.
Of the four departments, HR and Logistics were the safest. Logistics, while nominally responsible for monster storage, mostly handled tax inspections, routine transactions, and warehouse monitoring, as the actual monsters were kept in numbered external warehouses.
The Technical Department, however, was risky—responsible for studying and identifying monster traits, it often generated safety hazards. The Operations Department handled fieldwork, and some employees stashed weapons or tools, or "borrowed" functional monsters like the "Pen/High-Intensity Banishment" for personal purposes—all potential hazards.
Thus Li Pan spent the whole morning going through the office area, HR, and Logistics, but still had the big ones—Technical and Operations—left.
"This is a pain! Don't you people have some kind of beep to instantly scan for monsters?"
The desk phone replied,
"We do."
Li Pan was dumbfounded. "And you didn't say so earlier?"
"You didn't ask."
"@#￥￥**&XX!"
"Please don't swear."
The ambient warehouse was a blue-rated safe zone, holding basic office supplies and monsters too weak to be more dangerous than a handgun, as well as items safe to store in a non-secure zone.
Some long-familiar monsters, or those useful enough to be borrowed often, had been moved there to avoid the paperwork of storing them in the yellow zone.
After a brief argument with the desk phone, Li Pan got the directions and headed to the ambient warehouse. From the hallway, he entered a blue-lit elevator.
The elevator had eight buttons: the reception hall at F0, and F43 to F49 above it.
These matched the numbering of the 42 external warehouses, and even blue-rated items were stored one per floor.
Li Pan went to F48. The entire floor was a white, empty office space, with a single desk holding a thick ledger and a desk phone.
Signing in, he saw entries from deleted employees showing times for borrowing and returning F48's item. The dates were clear, but the names unreadable, as though in an unfamiliar script his brain refused to process.
Unbothered, he filled out his info, and the desk phone rang.
"Application accepted."
Inside the drawer were a brass-cased pocket watch with a chain, and a rubber-strapped digital watch. Even in the 21st century, both would have been antiques.
No, this wasn't some "river god asking if you dropped this Casio or this Patek" scene.
Holding the phone between his neck and shoulder, Li Pan strapped on the digital watch to keep time, while picking up the pocket watch.
"Pocket Watch/Appraisal.
Appraisal: yellow, controllable.
The Pocket Watch/Appraisal can appraise monsters within an area.
When removed from storage, it begins counting time.
If a monster is within range, the hands move faster.
The closer the monster, the faster the hands move.
The more monsters present, the faster the hands move.
The greater the risk level, the faster the hands move.
If the minute hand moves visibly fast, the monster can be considered red-rated.
Note: The Pocket Watch/Appraisal accelerates the user's aging, reducing their maximum lifespan in proportion to its use. This cannot be reset."
Li Pan glanced at it—the second hand was already ticking faster than the digital watch. No surprise; he was wearing his Formal Suit/Guardian.
Losing lifespan? Who cared—cheap food additives and preservatives did that too, and a stray bullet could wipe it out in one go.
Clipping the watch to his suit, he took the elevator to the Operations Department.
The department was large, spanning three floors with cubicles, private offices for cadres, and personal lockers for weapons and gear. Every door could hide a rogue monster, but with the two watches, he didn't need to clear rooms like a CQB team—he just stood at each door for a minute and slapped on a blue, yellow, or red sticker.
Unarmed, he wasn't about to try handling them, and even blue rooms could have booby traps like grenades on the door handle.
This way, he quickly mapped the department, identifying six yellow-rated monsters and logging them.
That left the Technical Department.
It was trickier—responsible for applying monster traits, researching them, and storing technical data, it also had gear for simulating extreme environments and cloned human test subjects.
Yes, cloned humans. Company records stated the Monster Company illegally bred clones for testing—though in truth, most corporations used clones as targets. These were genetically tuned, hormone-pumped, and lived only three to five days from birth to death—a slab of meat, really.
The Science Ethics Committee had, of course, banned this, with heavy tax bureau fines for violators—though whether the law was about ethics or revenue was debatable.
Li Pan wasn't even sure if cloning was truly "evil." After all, if you didn't use clones for monster research, you'd use temp workers instead—either way, someone had to be the subject.
What? Lab mice? Considering the cost of animal testing licenses, quarantine certifications, and the monopolization of biomedical research, temp workers were still cheaper.
.
.
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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."
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