Boss, I'll Do Anything for You!

"No takeout?!"

Dugu Yan looked as though she had just heard the most unreasonable rule in the world.

Her grandfather was Dugu Bo, the famous Poison Douluo!

In the Heaven Dou Empire, even Emperor Xue Ye had to show her grandfather respect.

And the owner of this shabby little shop dared to refuse a spending spree from Poison Douluo's granddaughter?

"What? Thinking of trashing the place?"

Before Lin Ye could speak, Ning Rongrong, who had just finished a street gunfight, took off her helmet and poked her head over the back of her chair. She looked delighted by the prospect of a scene.

"Hey, purple hair. A word of advice: even the crown prince follows this shop's rules. Let out any of that stinking snake poison, and the boss will slap you all the way back to Heaven Dou Royal Academy!"

"Ning Rongrong! Who are you calling purple hair? I'll tear your mouth—"

Dugu Yan was ready to explode, but she remembered what had happened when she drank the Cola. The snake poison in her body, which even her grandfather could not cure, had been suppressed.

Then she glanced at Crown Prince Xue Qinghe, sitting in Computer Two with a helmet on.

Even the crown prince spent his days here. The owner had to be a hidden master...

And if I can't take that miraculous black drink away, I'll just come back for it every day!

Dugu Yan forced down her temper and pushed the Gold Soul Coins on the table toward Zhu Zhuqing.

"Fine! I won't take any away! Didn't you say something about an illusion? Give me a machine and that 298-Gold-Soul-Coin thing! I want to see what has all of you so obsessed!"

"That'll be three hundred Gold Soul Coins for one hour. Computer Four, please!"

Dugu Yan snorted, walked over to Computer Four, and put on the futuristic silver-white helmet just as the crown prince and Ning Rongrong had.

"Bzz—"

Her vision went black. Then deafening heavy-metal rock and blinding neon light slammed into her senses!

"Cough, cough... What kind of place is this?!"

Standing on a filthy street in Night City, Dugu Yan immediately covered her nose and mouth.

As someone skilled with poison, she was acutely sensitive to what was in the air.

Night City's air reeked of engine oil and industrial exhaust. Even the fine drizzle falling from the sky was highly acidic and corrosive!

What terrifying poisonous rain! Is this some enormous poison formation? How could ordinary people survive here?

Before she could finish marveling, several Maelstrom members with glowing red eyes and cheap implants set into their bodies surrounded her. They grinned viciously, gripping metal bats and Kinetic Pistols.

"Nice purple hair on this one. Let's take her back and make her the star of the boss's braindance!"

"You're dead!"

Dugu Yan's gaze turned cold.

Who on Douluo Continent dared speak to her like that?

Instinctively, she tried to channel her Soul Power and release her Jade Phosphorous Serpent Martial Soul, intending to melt these arrogant thugs into puddles with her poison.

One second.

Two seconds.

...Nothing happened.

"Where's my Soul Power?! Where's my snake poison?!" Dugu Yan's mind went blank.

Bang!

A Maelstrom thug answered by smashing her to the ground with the butt of his gun. Blood ran down her forehead.

"Snake poison? Did this chick fry her brain on drugs?" The thug roared with laughter.

Just as Dugu Yan thought she was about to die in the illusion, her hand found the beginner equipment the system had given her at her waist. Alongside the Unity Kinetic Pistol was a small metal canister marked with a green skull.

Is this... a hidden weapon?

With no time to think, Dugu Yan pulled the pin and hurled the canister into the crowd of thugs.

Hiss—!!!

Thick, sickly green gas gushed from the canister, engulfing every thug!

"Cough, cough! Shit! A Chemical Grenade!"

"Aaagh! My lungs!"

Dugu Yan watched in shock. The hulking men who had looked so vicious moments ago inhaled the green gas and began foaming at the mouth. Their skin broke out in horrific chemical burns. After a few spasms, they fell silent.

"What... what kind of poison is that?!"

Dugu Yan stared at the bodies on the ground.

Without using a shred of Soul Power, she had released a terrifying, fast-acting poison simply by throwing a little metal canister?

Its volatility and destructive power were every bit as great as her Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison!

Half an hour later, at Viktor's Clinic in Little China.

Led there by the NPC Jackie, Dugu Yan sat down before Vic the Ripperdoc, stunned and burning with curiosity.

"Hey, new V! What are you looking for? If you want better odds of surviving, I just got some new blueprints for organ implants." Vic brought up a holographic shop interface.

Dugu Yan's eyes locked onto the dazzling array of mechanical organs on the panel.

She read through them one by one, her frown deepening.

[Synthetic Lung: Increases lung capacity and filters 99% of harmful gases from the air.]

She stared at "filters 99%" and quickly ran the numbers in her head.

If it filtered out that much Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison from the air... wouldn't that mean...

She did not dare finish the thought and kept scrolling.

[Blood Pump: Accelerates blood circulation, greatly increasing burst power and endurance.]

That's no use against poison.

Faster circulation would only make the poison act faster.

She mentally crossed it off the list.

But two special implants in the corner of the panel nearly stopped Dugu Yan's breathing altogether!

[Toxin Extractor (Subdermal Armor Add-On): Grants immunity to all conventional chemical toxins and converts them into endurance.]

[Metabolic Editor (Cardiovascular System Implant): Alters the body's chemical metabolism. When toxins would damage you, your body heals itself with them instead. Poisoning becomes healing.]

Dugu Yan stared at those few simple lines describing the Metabolic Editor. Her slit-pupiled green eyes trembled, and she felt as if her mind had been struck by a hundred-thousand-year lightning tribulation!

On Douluo Continent, poison was a Soul Power attribute that filled people with dread.

The Dugu family had studied poison for generations, yet for generations, their own Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison had ravaged them.

To suppress the poison in his body, her grandfather Dugu Bo endured unimaginable pain, hiding in the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and barely clinging to life.

She had always thought it was a curse of fate, an inescapable destiny written into their blood.

But now, in this place called Night City...

These madmen who replaced flesh with steel had used things called "science" and "chemistry" to lay bare the very nature of poison!

Poison ravaging its wielder? Corroded organs?

There was no need for a peerless Immortal Herb or the vast Soul Power of a Titled Douluo to suppress it.

The solution here was brutally simple: cut out the original liver and blood vessels, then replace them with a lump of metal called a Metabolic Editor!

It could turn deadly poison into a restorative tonic!

"How... how could this be possible?"

Dugu Yan slumped in the surgical chair, tears sliding down both cheeks.

If Grandpa had a mechanical liver like that—one that could resist poison without Soul Power and even absorb it—wouldn't the nightmare that had haunted the Dugu family for centuries become one enormous joke?!

"Beep—"

"Insufficient balance! Please add funds!"

Dugu Yan's short hair was a mess and her face was streaked with tears, but her eyes blazed with a frenzy that made even the gaming addict Ning Rongrong look tame!

She rushed straight to the counter and leaned so far over it that her face nearly touched Lin Ye's.

"Boss!!!"

"How do I get that metal organ called the Metabolic Editor into the real world?! Tell me how, and you can take your pick of the Dugu family's treasures!"

"My grandfather is Poison Douluo! Bring that thing into reality and I'll make him your bodyguard! No—I'll do anything you ask!"