My Cyber Psychosis is Task Prompt

"If you catch a break, consider it an insurance policy, but it's best if such things never happen."

Scissors raised his hand to smooth back his slicked hair.

John initially thought he was narcissistic, but now he realized—it was merely a subconscious gesture when he felt anxious.

Scissors was very concerned about his brother.

John smoked a cigarette and couldn't help but ask.

"Why won't Edward ever come to the shop? Your environment is so much more comfortable than his dump."

"It's just a clash of ideals."

"That reason sounds a bit far-fetched."

John leaned on the counter.

"I watched him use advanced algorithms to draw in real-time. Technology is just a tool, right? Is it really necessary to destroy prosthetics and eyeballs?"

Genius's famous saying applies to everyone at rock bottom.

As long as you're in the city, you have to eat, drink, and excrete, right?

"There's a difference between living and surviving, Mr. John."

During the day, the shop had few customers.

Scissors simply started talking about the past of the two brothers.

He pointed in the direction outside the window, saying that it was the most bustling City Core Square in Eden City, with Plato Company's luxury clothing brand having a direct store at the most expensive rental location.

It also offered tailored clothing, considered a showcase for the wealthy class.

The clothes inside, even if they had no practical value, would appear at high society banquets and celebrity guest appearances.

John was a mercenary born on the streets.

He shrugged, planning to be a quiet listener.

Scissors showed a bitter smile.

"Edward and I have university degrees."

"Impressive."

"We persevered until graduation in the company-sponsored academy, sticking to traditional tailoring, considering customer experiences, instead of piling up so-called trends like scoring machines..."

Scissors had a reminiscent look.

Their design philosophy was criticized during campus recruitment.

Companies all considered it a very inefficient operation model, and coupled with neither brother having background or capital, no fashion brand offered them a position in the end.

"So we started as low-level merchants, designing new styles, soaking in kitsch and entropy trends, finding well-related factories for mass production and selling to ordinary citizens."

After saving enough money, they customized clothes for street customers.

But besides the styles popular on the streets, they also harbored dreams of high society, occasionally sketching drafts that catered to the tastes of the powerful and wealthy in their spare time.

"That was just self-entertainment, you know? We were rejected by the high walls built by companies, the word 'dream' had long been buried."

Until one day.

Kafei, a senior executive from Plato Company's design department, called them.

He said he accidentally saw the brothers' street works and invited them to participate in the Plato product design competition.

"If successful, you can work at headquarters."

For Edward and Scissors, this was an opportunity to turn things around and transcend classes.

John frowned as he listened.

"And then?"

"We were deceived."

Scissors lit another cigarette.

As he spoke of these past events, his expression was blank, shaking his head with a bitter smile, as if mocking the naivety of his younger self.

"We carefully selected and polished the drafts into complete works, emailed them, but never heard back, the phone numbers and website were even deactivated."

The buried dreams were unearthed and polished for a while.

A week before Christmas.

Edward saw the toil of the brothers on the street.

Those beautiful clothes were worn by models, appeared on virtual screens dozens of meters high in the city center.

As the latest clothing series from Plato Company.

E-magazines and the brand's website wrote that the author of these clothes was named Kafei Crow, the design department executive who had commissioned them.

Edward was almost driven insane with rage.

He lost control, rushed into the store, and nearly got shot dead by security on the spot.

Scissors took a deep draw.

The flame lit a small part of the filter, and the strong, stimulating smoke mixed with nicotine filled his lungs.

Scissors crushed the cigarette butt, leaning against the store's bar.

He gazed distantly through the window at the high-rise buildings, paused for a moment, then smiled at John.

"That lineup was a hit for two years straight, breaking the brand's website sales records set after its founding, fashion magazines called it the Kafei series, and only stopped updating once that design director exhausted the drafts."

In those two years, Edward became decadent and irritable.

He started binge-drinking and doing drugs, taking bulk orders, mingling with shady and dangerous characters.

Scissors, at his limit, chose to work solo.

He ran a shop, using methods he previously scoffed at to create bulk designs, which took just minutes to "customize"—whatever technology needed was dialed up.

Workmanship, materials, weight, and details did not concern him.

"Anyway, most customers keel over in the blink of an eye, as long as rent and taxes are paid on time, all troubles are avoided, protected by local forces."

Resentment was certain.

Stability was never experienced either.

"In fact, I haven't seen Edward for several months now, not long ago, he almost died after being brutally beaten by the White Motorcycle Gang, so today I went to find him."

Scissors patched the materials on the counter.

"This stuff is rare on the black market, restricted materials, Edward hasn't done custom work for a long time, if he's willing to let you use it, he clearly wants to make one more good piece of gear while he's still in his right mind."

He smiled at John.

"Help me talk to Edward, people have got to live, right?"

"If he would listen, it wouldn't be up to me to speak."

"Haha, true."

Scissors stretched his arms and returned behind the bulletproof glass.

[Mission Objective Update]

[Get Edward to respond. (Unaccomplished)]

John returned to the cheap rental apartment.

The afternoon sun was rather scorching, the playground was devoid of the noisy kids, only the young man with spray paint reappeared upon hearing the engine sound.

John walked to the stairway, looked down sideways.

The little kid squatted nearby, seemingly trying to remember more details.

RCH's exterior design had stood the test of the market, capturing the attention of young people as expected.

The apartment's sliding door was opened.

All the lights in the room turned on, and the scattered items on the floor were packed into a large garbage bag.

Edward was surprisingly in a good state.

He appeared bright-eyed and sharp as usual, sitting by the workbench, busy, with equipment strapped to his head, using six different sets of eyepieces with mechanical arms swapping them in and out.

His condition seemed like a last burst of energy before a collapse.

John concluded he must have taken some sort of stimulant or the like.

Edward wiped his hands and looked over.

"We haven't discussed the price of the equipment yet, have we?"

"Name a number."

"No rush, let me clarify some things for you first."

The most technologically advanced part of the functional outfit designed by Edward was the Sianweistan cooling strip at the back.

He signaled John to take off his leather jacket.

Pointing to the magnetic components on the back, he explained they were B4 cooling patches produced in bulk by Raqi Industry, and also detailed the barcode and feature points on the core to John.

In theory, the B4 model should be more than adequate.

John's Sianweistan power was beyond imagination, especially the heat released during extra activation, which directly exceeded the cooling limit of the fourth-generation equipment.

"New clothes definitely need something better."

Edward shifted his tone.

"I just know where there are sixth-generation patches. If you're not afraid of trouble, go get them, and I'll install them for you."

"Address."

John didn't even hesitate.

Edward said it was in a garment factory on the outskirts of the city, but it was already controlled by the White Motorcycle Gang.

John raised his eyebrows at the name.

"You're not planning on using me to get revenge, are you?"

"Looks like Scissors really did tell you everything."

Edward didn't deny it when he realized things were exposed.

The White Motorcycle Gang had rapidly expanded on the streets recently, with whispers that Nocturne Bar wanted to stabilize the situation during the gang wars.

Eden City saw many new faces.

Many street kids in the East District chose to join as well.

With the surge in numbers, custom clothes featuring personal elements were needed to be distributed to the management and small leaders.

This also included a small amount of customized equipment.

Edward was invited over to solve some technical problems, but the gang leader broke his promise, withholding the final payment and even confiscating the tools he brought.

The verbal conflict escalated into violence.

Edward almost lost his life.

He knew the specific situation of the factory, where materials were hidden, and what nice things were in the inventory.

[Mission Objective Updated]

[Acquire B6 cooling patch. (Not Achieved)]

The low-rent community was adjacent to the industrial area.

The buildings on the outskirts of the city were not all low. From the East District towards the wastelands, there were entire skyscrapers.

They were three-dimensional factories, with throughput that was terrifying.

Old buildings squeezed by for survival in the city's shadows, steeped in exhaust fumes and dust. Occasionally, yellow sand would blow across the street, appearing slightly gray even on sunny days.

John parked under the bridge of the ring road.

Cement poured columns, and giant pipes intertwined among them, almost connecting the entire industrial area, extending underground into the deep wilderness.

Old buildings needed old methods.

John started scanning, following the pipelines to find surveillance nodes.

His movements were very light, almost silent in the alley filled with industrial waste.

The scanning filter marked the coverage area of each surveillance.

John crept along the wall into the shadows, tiptoed to climb the wall, and with force, he reached a collapsed plane.

He jumped into the interior of the factory.

His knees felt a slight rebound. The ankle joints cushioned the sound, landing silently like a wildcat.

The iron net and railings were already rusted.

John slowed his pace up the stairs, feeling the operation of the new limbs. Every step up and down seemed assisted and dampened.

Every step was solid, yet silent.

John reached the control room at the factory's perimeter, gripping the doorknob and lifting it forcefully before slowly pushing it open, a submachine gun clenched in his right palm — the magazine had enough rounds for a room of this scale.

Outside the control room was an iron staircase.

Directly opposite was a three-dimensional factory.

The door opening did not change the brightness inside the room.

John moved very lightly.

Inside, intermittent breathing could be heard.

There was only a brawny man sitting on a folding chair, several monitors displaying over twenty images.

He wore VR glasses that trembled slightly.

John turned his head to see his bare white thighs, and denim jeans draped over his ankle joints.

This job was indeed too idle.

[Chip: Naked Wire Assassination]

His arm strength was now very strong, and his assassination moves were more nimble than before.

The brawny man with VR glasses didn't make a sound; his muscles briefly tensed, and he collapsed without even straightening his legs.

John disdainfully rubbed his hands as if covered in dust, then pulled out the data cable and plugged it into the equipment.

[Garment Factory Surveillance System. (Hacked)]

He marked the positions of the other thugs through the cameras, reviewing the overall layout and general condition of the building.

Upon initial investigation:

A large number of chemical consumables were piled in the workshop, flammable materials alongside vast quantities of dry cloth.

The entire place was filled with metal structures.

If a gunfight broke out, a bullet spark could easily turn the factory into an incinerator.

[Control the factory area through assassination. (Optional)]

A new prompt flashed before John's eyes.