You’re standing in a dusty corner of a shop in Night City, staring at a shard that looks like every other piece of junk in your inventory. But it’s not. It’s the Cyberpunk 2077 Book of Spells, a legendary data shard that’s caused more headaches for players than a botched braindance. Nix wants it. R3n0 wants your eddies. And you? You just want the loot without breaking the quest.
Honestly, the name is a bit of a tease. It’s not a grimoire for a wizard. It's a high-grade military deck used by Rache Bartmoss, the guy who basically nuked the old net. If you’re looking for fireballs, you’re in the wrong genre. But if you want some of the best Quickhacks in the game, this slab of silicon is your ticket.
Why the Book of Spells Cyberpunk Quest is So Easy to Mess Up
The mission "Spellbound" kicks off after you deal with Rogue at the Afterlife. Nix, the resident netrunner who hangs out in that dark little room behind the bar, sends you a text. He’s looking for Bartmoss’s old deck. Simple, right? Not really.
Most people trip up immediately when meeting R3n0. She’s the dealer. You meet her in a bar in Charter Hill. You have choices here, and your lifepath actually matters. If you’re a Corporate, you can haggle. If you’re not, you’re looking at a 7,300 eddy price tag. Don't try to kill her immediately; it's messy and sometimes bugs the quest trigger. Just pay the lady or use your silver tongue.
Once you have the coordinates, you head to a briefcase stashed behind a vending machine. This is where the Cyberpunk 2077 Book of Spells is actually located. It’s a shard.
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But wait.
The biggest mistake is just turning it in. If you do that, you lose the real prize. You have to open your menu, go to your shards, find it at the very bottom under "Cracked," and actually perform the manual hack.
Cracking the Code: The Real Reward
The interface for hacking the book is the standard Breach Protocol. If you fail this, you’re stuck with a basic quest item and a disappointed Nix. If you succeed? You unlock the blueprints for legendary Quickhacks. We’re talking System Collapse, Cyberpsychosis, and Suicide. These are the tools that turn V into a god-tier urban ghost.
I’ve seen people complain that the hacking window is too tight. It’s not. It’s just about planning the path. Look for the sequences that overlap. You want to hit the highest tier possible to get the crafting specs. If your Intelligence stat is low—specifically below 9—you might have a harder time getting the full benefit, though the game has patched the requirements a few times since the 2.0 and 2.1 updates.
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What Nix Doesn't Tell You
Nix is a bit of a shark. When you take the cracked Cyberpunk 2077 Book of Spells back to him, he’ll try to lowball you. If you have a high enough Intelligence or Technical Ability, you can call him out on how much that data is actually worth. You can double your reward.
It’s funny, really. Night City is built on these little exchanges where everyone is trying to screw everyone else over. Nix is a friend, sure, but he’s still a businessman. He wants that Bartmoss data for his own projects. Giving it to him doesn't remove the specs you already downloaded, so it's a win-win.
The Bartmoss Connection
You can't talk about the book without talking about Rache Bartmoss. For the uninitiated, he's the reason the Net is a shattered, walled-off wasteland of rogue AIs and Blackwall nightmares. Finding his "Book of Spells" is a piece of digital archaeology.
In the lore, this deck was a customized piece of hardware that shouldn't even exist anymore. That’s why the quest feels different from a standard "go here, kill that" gig. It’s a tether to the history of the setting. It’s also a precursor to the "Kold Mirage" quest, which is another rabbit hole involving a refrigerator and a dead legend.
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Common Bugs and How to Avoid Them
The 2.0 update fixed a lot of the script-breaking issues, but some ghosts remain in the machine. Sometimes R3n0 won't talk. Sometimes the briefcase is empty.
If R3n0 is being difficult, try skipping time by 24 hours. The game's cell-loading can be finicky in Charter Hill. If the briefcase is empty, it usually means you've already picked it up without realizing it. Check your "Encrypted" shard category. It's often buried under a dozen "Archived Conversations" you picked up off scavengers.
Actionable Steps for the Best Outcome
To get the most out of this encounter, follow this specific flow. Don't deviate if you want the legendary loot.
- Check your Eddies: Have at least 8,000 on hand before talking to Nix. It saves time.
- Save before R3n0: If you mess up the dialogue and she turns hostile, you might lose the chance to buy the location peacefully, which is the "cleanest" way to finish.
- The Intelligence Check: Try to have your Intelligence at 10 or higher. This unlocks the dialogue options to squeeze Nix for more money and makes the actual hacking sequence for the shard much more forgiving.
- Crack it BEFORE the Afterlife: Do not walk into the Afterlife to see Nix until the shard is decrypted in your inventory. Once you hand it over, the "interactive" part of the item is gone.
- Check your Crafting Menu: After the quest, look at your Quickhack crafting tab. You should see new, high-tier options. If you don't have the components to build them yet, don't worry—they'll stay there forever.
The Cyberpunk 2077 Book of Spells is more than a quest item; it's the bridge between being a merc who shoots guns and a netrunner who deletes memories. Don't rush it. Take the data, squeeze the client, and keep your chrome updated.
Get your Intelligence stat to at least 12 before finishing this quest to maximize the "extra" dialogue rewards from Nix. Immediately after the quest, head to a Netrunner shop—like the one in Pacifica or the one in Kabuki—to buy the Tier 4 or Tier 5 components you’ll need to actually build the "spells" you just stole from Bartmoss's ghost.