WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
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◈ Cyberpunk Chivalry ◈
Chapter 3: Neuro-Mind Art
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Ash was nearing completion.
An old torso and a left leg.
Then a right arm.
A few days ago, even a right leg.
Now only the left arm remained.
That didn't mean he could move around freely.
Cables were connected all over his body to supply power and check his systems. In Akina's words, Ash was undergoing “optimization.”
He still couldn't leave the support frame, but things were clearly different from before.
He now had something he could call a body.
In this world where everything was confusing, he finally had a physical form he could call his own.
And so, Ash found himself considering a question.
'Could internal energy exist in this mechanical body?'
His steel body had been patched together from old parts, but his mind belonged to a martial artist. Longing for powerful internal energy was, in a way, only natural.
There was no one to answer his question.
Then he would simply have to try it himself.
He drew on everything he had, from his memories of the past to the underworld's data, searching for a method. None of it helped much.
It moved like his own body, but at its core, it was only a machine. A cold mass of machinery whose parts could be replaced at any time.
There was no reason for something so mechanical to hold the subtle, profound power of internal energy.
It was an obvious yet bitter conclusion.
But Ash didn't give up. Hadn't destroying the Demonic Cult seemed impossible when he first swore to do it?
Recalling the formulas of every mind art and divine art he knew, he attempted to condense qi.
The Three Powers Mind Art (三才心法).
The Lesser Clarity Divine Art (小淸神功).
The Jade Clarity Tempering Art (玉淸鍛鍊功).
The Great Clarity Divine Art (太淸神功).
And finally, even the Dragon-Slaying Divine Art (屠龍神功) and the Upper Clarity Supreme Divine Art (上淸無上神功), secret techniques of the Kunlun Sect!
But none of them worked.
No.
To be precise, he couldn't even attempt them.
The reason was absurdly simple.
He had no respiratory organs to begin with.
Every mind art and divine art he knew was based on breathing, drawing in pure energy and breathing out impure energy.
But his mechanical body had no need to breathe at all. Never mind following the formulas, he couldn't even perform basic qi circulation and breathing.
They were utterly useless.
Ash felt a deep sense of loss. It was as though the very foundation of martial arts, which had once been his everything, had been denied.
Yet he didn't despair.
He had discovered something new.
A few days earlier, Ash had spoken briefly with Akina while she connected his right leg.
“Miss A, might I ask you a question?”
“What's gotten into you? You've never asked me anything before. What is it?”
“How do I move?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“I mean, what is the source of the power that moves this body?”
Akina had answered as though it were obvious.
“Electricity, of course!”
“Electricity? What is electricity?”
“Uh... You don't know what electricity is?”
“My lack of learning is a source of shame.”
“No, that's not what I meant! Ugh, damn it. How do I explain this? So... Oh! You know lightning, right? The kind that strikes from the sky? Just think of that flowing through your body, mister.”
“Oh! You mean you make use of lightning from the heavens? And it flows within my body? This truly is the underworld!”
From that moment on, Ash's mind had focused on one thing.
'How can I use electricity like internal energy?'
If he couldn't build internal energy, he would replace it with something else.
That was the conclusion Ash had reached.
There was just one problem.
Internal energy and electricity were completely different in nature.
Internal energy was like flowing water.
It flowed gently and became refined according to the practitioner's will, gathering in one place to be used as desired.
Electricity was different.
It spread or scattered as it pleased, seeming to be there one moment and gone the next, much like mist. It was subtle, incomparably fast, and unpredictable.
A power of an entirely different nature.
Even so, he had once tried to force it to condense. Into the battery pack attached to his torso, no less.
He had done so with the dantian in mind.
The result had been disastrous.
The temperature had soared amid loud warning messages. The electricity he had forcibly gathered surged unstably before scattering out of control, and his artificial neural network screamed.
The battery pack couldn't serve as a dantian.
It was merely a container for electricity.
Electricity wasn't something he could refine, condense, and store like internal energy.
A complete failure.
'But I did gain something.'
He had failed to store the energy, but succeeded in controlling it.
The electricity had clearly followed Ash's will into the battery pack. He had managed to direct it and make it move as he wished.
Now, Ash prepared to try something else.
First, he sat down.
He couldn't leave the support frame, but he could manage that much.
Then he crossed his legs into the lotus position.
Crossing two mismatched mechanical legs felt quite awkward, but it would do.
Circulating qi had failed. So had storing it.
Then what about a Heavenly Circuit?
He had learned how to control electricity, and he had an artificial neural network matrix, the Neuro Matrix, which reminded him of the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
It seemed possible in theory.
Only in theory.
Ash steadied his mind and shut off his optical sensors. Then he sank into deep meditation.
This time, he didn't try to gather electricity in any particular spot.
Instead, he guided its flow along what appeared to be the thickest and most important main stream of the neural network matrix spread throughout his body, much as he would perform a Lesser Heavenly Circuit.
As expected, it wasn't easy at first.
The unruly electricity seemed to mock his will, leaking into the wrong circuits or causing tiny discharges.
Each time, the orange-red lights illuminating the workshop flickered.
There were dangerous moments, too.
The flow of electricity would accelerate in an instant, shaking his neural network with violent shocks.
Without thinking, Ash began to recite a Taoist chant.
“If one can remain forever clear and still, all of heaven and earth shall return...”
If a person could always remain clear and calm, everything in heaven and earth would return to them.
As if displeased by the chant, the lightning surged in voltage and struck Ash's main core.
His body shook in a violent spasm, but Ash refused to stop.
“Celestial Worthy of Universal Transformation through Thunder, Responding to the Primordial in the Nine Heavens...”
Seated in the lotus position with cables plugged into his entire body, the humanoid continued to chant in a voice mixed with electronic tones.
How much time had passed?
After a long struggle of pushing and pulling, signs of change finally appeared.
The electrical energy circulating through his neural network matrix began to form a stable flow.
Like a wild horse entering a racetrack, it began to accelerate fiercely along the route Ash intended.
Yet as the circulation continued, something strange happened.
He felt as though the quality of the electrical energy flowing through his body was changing slightly.
At first, he thought he was imagining it. But with every cycle, that feeling grew into certainty.
It was hot.
And intense.
One by one, alerts burst from the data pads scattered around Ash.
[SYSTEM STABILITY: NOMINAL]
[ENERGY FLOW: HARMONIZED]
[CYBERWARE SYNC: 100%]
[. . .]
[SYSTEM INTEGRATION: ABSOLUTE]
[EFFICIENCY: MAX+]
A short while later, the many monitors surrounding Ash turned green, announcing that optimization was complete.
Scrap parts made in different generations, even by different corporations, had become one under Ash's focused will.
He felt a perfect unity unlike anything before. It was enough to make him think he had returned to his original body.
His once-creaking joints moved so smoothly that he could no longer feel a trace of their former stiffness, and the slight lag caused by weak signals had vanished completely.
Ash emerged from his deep meditation and returned to reality. Reconnecting his optical sensors, he raised his hand and spread all five fingers.
Bzzzzzt!!
Above his steel palm, blue lightning flared like an electrical arc, then vanished in a flash.
An unknown force similar to electricity, transformed into something else by Ash's will.
“...A new path has opened.”
And with it came the unique mind art that made this possible.
The Neuro Mind Art.
It was still weak.
But it also held the potential for a new form of martial arts.
Ash uncrossed his legs and stood up. To keep that brief moment of insight from slipping away, he reviewed what he had just experienced.
Stable energy circulation.
Perfect synchronization with his body.
Blue lightning brought forth by his will.
He was trying to understand the principles of his new power and find a way to develop it further when it happened.
Bang!
A gunshot rang out.
Very close by.
* * *
Late that night.
“Guh...!”
Akina tumbled into a dark, damp corner between piles of waste. She had thrown herself out of a bullet's path without checking the ground beneath her.
“Hey! Over here! This way!”
Shadows fell over her. They belonged to the men in crude leather jackets who had been herding her like a rabbit.
Every one of them looked shabby and worn, but they shared one feature.
A yellow badge tied near the shoulder.
It bore an emblem of three interlocking gears, with a single line beneath it.
[R.E.S.T.]
They were the city's hyenas, hiding behind a “resource recovery permit certified by the Sanctum Administration” as they looted and murdered without hesitation.
“Yahoo!”
The one who seemed to be their leader came running down the mound of waste and kicked Akina.
“Urgh!”
Akina collapsed without even managing a proper scream.
Apparently pleased, the man grinned.
His teeth were so discolored that they had gone beyond yellow to black.
“Hello there, young lady. What brings you to our turf this late at night?”
Gasping for breath, Akina barely managed to answer.
“N-nothing... I just came to pick up some scrap... Gah!”
But he had no intention of listening.
Before she could finish, he kicked her in the side again.
“Hahaha! Hey. You think I'm asking because I don't know? You're that little rat, aren't you? I've seen the back of your head twice already, you bitch!”
“I-it wasn't me...”
“Like hell it wasn't!”
The man reached out with a rough hand, grabbed Akina by the collar, and hauled her up. At the same time, the bundle she had been clutching fell to the ground.
It was a mechanical arm, old but still quite usable.
“What's this?”
The man flung Akina aside as he was lifting her.
Then he picked up the fallen cyberware.
“No! It belongs to him!”
The girl, who had been cowering until then, lunged at him. Another kick sent her sprawling.
“Him, my ass.”
The man whistled as he examined the cyberware.
“You say you came to pick up scrap, but you're carrying something worth more? Where'd you get this? Huh? Well, doesn't matter now. It's mine.”
The REST-MANs had gathered around, and murmurs rose among them.
“Isn't that Apex Arms?”
“Looks like it. Where'd she get something like that?”
“Whoa. How much is that worth?”
“Shut up, all of you! It's mine!”
The yellow-toothed man gave Akina a sinister smile, then roughly seized the girl's chin.
“And of course, this bitch is mine, too.”
Greed, lust, and violence writhed together in his gleaming eyes. Akina glared at him through her tears, then spat in his face.
“You fucking bitch...!”
The REST-MAN raised one hand.
Akina squeezed her eyes shut in fear.
But the pain she expected never came.
When she cautiously opened her eyes, the man holding her by the hair was staring at something as though entranced.
He wasn't the only one.
Every REST-MAN who had been threatening her was doing the same. Akina turned her head to follow their gaze.
A hill of waste lay beneath the heavy, sinister darkness.
And on top of it, something in human form stood tall, like a ghost wandering through the dim night.
It was watching them.
Shining with a fierce turquoise light.
“What the hell is that...?”
“Uh... Looks like a humanoid?”
The REST-MANs muttered at the sudden appearance.
Really, a single humanoid showing up shouldn't have been enough to make them react like this. But something about the one before them felt wrong.
Something sinister and unpleasant... Yes.
It felt as though they had encountered a monster.
Then the humanoid spoke.
“Miss A, you seemed to be taking some time, so I came to meet you.”
The electronic voice was laced with static, yet strangely old-fashioned and formal.
Footnotes:
Ash's chant about remaining clear and still comes from the Taoist Scripture of Clarity and Stillness. His next invocation addresses a Taoist deity associated with thunder.
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