Athanasia: My Hacker System

"This plan is exponentially risky," Ricky sighed, rubbing his temples.

"Do you honestly think the other Paragons will just stand idle when they hear about a new threat in their backyard? All the Paragons know each other; they’ve been a closed circle for a very long time.

A new Paragon appearing out of nowhere screams imposter’ This isn’t the first time greedy, strong people have tried to fake being Paragons to attract followers and benefits."

"But I’m not a fake," John shrugged, his voice devoid of ego. "I am strong enough to hold the title, and I have the backing to prove it. In this world, personal might makes the title, not the other way around."

"It isn’t that simple," Cissel said. She hated siding with Ricky, but she knew his assessment was valid.

"The moment the established factions hear about a rising Paragon within the academy’s jurisdiction, they won’t send diplomats. They will send relentless, endless waves of attacks to crush us before we can take root.

Even if we forcibly take over the academy and fortify it to the teeth, we won’t stand a chance against the combined, mobilised forces of the Paragons."

"Not to mention there is a lot of Paragon-affiliated masters and students in the academy," Luke added, his brow furrowed with the nightmare of maintaining secrecy in a place crawling with spies.

"And there are lots of Paragons backing the academy. Did you forget our contest? There were dozens of supporters and Paragon-affiliated family representatives in the audience.

They even tried to rope us into their side before we even left the competition tent," Elena joined the other three, exposing another valid reason for their collective hesitation and doubts.

"Who said anything about announcing our presence in the academy?!"

Even as they all argued and united together against his plan, and even as they provided seemingly irrefutable reasons, John wasn’t baffled or fazed. He simply retorted by saying, "We will never announce our presence in the academy."

"..."

John had already thought this through. He knew the Paragons would flood his place once he announced a formal base of his. So he decided to simply use deceit, picking a fake front, while the true base remained hidden in the academy. Yet to fully plan this move, he needed to know something first.

"Didn’t you say the entire world is divided into Paragon factions?" he asked, pacing the floor. "Doesn’t this mean our academy is already sitting in a territory that belongs to a specific Paragon?"

They had spoken at length about the Paragons and their sprawling factions. One of the most important points John had distilled from their talk was the geographical distribution of power.

The world was distributed among the Paragons like pieces on a go board, and their forces were constantly grinding against one another to expand their borders.

"Well... In fact, the big academies aren’t," Luke said, looking at the other three for confirmation. They nodded in unison. "There are lots of neutral zones left between the different Paragon territories. They act as a buffer and separation zone between the allied Paragons."

"Buffer zones?!"

The term was new to John, but as he pressed for details, he soon learned the intricate rules of Athanasia’s geopolitics.

Paragons seemed to operate under a strict, ancient set of rules to prevent total collapse. The Paragons within the same faction, for instance, the Architects, were required to maintain at least one buffer zone between their personal territories and their neighbours from the same faction.

The different factions utilised these buffer zones to prevent internal friction. And it was in one of these designated neutral zones that the Azure Academy was situated, like many other top academies in the world.

Furthermore, if two Paragons decided to cooperate and be allies, they had to place a huge buffer zone between their respective lands.

In the former situation, Paragons in the same faction were allowed to fight on different fronts, but they were strictly prohibited from exhausting their powers on the buffer zone. This ensured they remained focused on attacking the members of the other two factions rather than squabbling over domestic borders.

As for the latter situation, being allied meant there was zero chance of attacking one another. To maintain that peace, each allied Paragon surrounded its connected borders with a vast neutral zone.

In the case of the great academies, the most prestigious institutions were intentionally stationed in these buffer zones. This placement ensured they wouldn’t fall under the direct control or ideological influence of a single Paragon.

It allowed them to receive support from multiple Paragons and to accept students belonging to different families, even those affiliated with hostile factions. It was a demilitarised zone of education and power-brokering.

"Buffer zones... That can be our base to the world," John entertained the thought for quite some time, his mind meddling with the possibilities. "Yet we can’t do it in our academy’s zone, nor in any adjacent zone."

"Then..." Cissel was startled and confused, her mind trying to track his erratic logic. "If we moved our base far away into a different zone, how could we possibly move between it and the academy? We are still students; we can’t just disappear into the wilderness for months."

"Oh, it’s not the real base," John slowly explained, realising they had fundamentally misunderstood his vision. He didn’t intend to place the real base, the heart of his future faction, anywhere else but the academy itself. The academy was the perfect hiding spot because it was the last place anyone would look for a new rising power.

However, he would claim a distant, strategic buffer zone as his fake front Paragon territory later in the future. That public spot would serve as a rallying point for his affiliated forces, the visible tip of the iceberg. It would be the location he would expand from to invade other territories and crush other Paragons.

"So, we’ll have a secret base at the academy, where we’ll look for talented people and let them join us in the shadows after ensuring their loyalty," Ricky said, summing up the plan as he began to see the brilliance of the layered deception.

"Then, when we are strong enough, we’ll pick a spot in a neutral zone as our public base and accept different families and forces. That’s not bad... But it’ll take a long time to build that kind of reputation."