Renegade Crow

No levels. No tech. No Guild. Do you roll over for the System elites, or take a chance to save your friend and outwit your enemies? On a frontier planet in the polluted sprawl of a backwater mining city, Thorn Farmer is a nobody, a 'glitch' operating a janky delivery truck when everyone else relies on powerful, integrated Systems.  Work hard and level up your System; that’s the promise the Guilds make. But for Thorn, it’s a broken promise. No amount of hard work will level up his frozen System. Even so he hustles, he makes friends and contacts and gathers his “quints” and cores. But when Thorn begins to glimpse a promising future on the horizon, a few of his stubborn decisions catch up to him, and he must choose between playing it safe or embarking on a suicidal mission to save his best friend. His path leads him to a cryptic, blue-eyed crow, a subterranean world of bio-engineered horror, and conflict with the most powerful mercenary Guild on the planet.  What to expect:  Slow burn, weak to OP MC (eventually) Sci-fi universe without a single, unified System (...yet) Light cultivation elements with beasts and beast cores A gritty, “realistic” setting with dark humor but no murder-hobos. If you want to read about a psychotic MC who kills everyone who slights him, this ain't it Em-dashes when an AI character talks, no em-dashes otherwise, you sensitive armchair System-glitches No harem. Some sexual innuendo for laughs, sure. The faint sparks of an enemies-to-lovers romantic interest, maybe. Large bosoms, swaying hips, and/or quivering lips? Lemme check my notes... nope, not seeing it Release schedule: One chapter every third day. I consistently write a thousand words a day and most chapters are a bit long at ~3k+ More chapters are on Patreon Sensitive content includes infrequent references to addiction and substance abuse.