Athanasia: My Hacker System

"Let’s wait a little bit on that move," John said, pausing to let the weight of Nikolas family history settle. He spoke in a serious tone that demanded total attention.

"My plan involves spreading portals across the world in a well-planned manner. I will eventually open a direct line to your family’s estate. But before we take that step, a lot of preparation must be handled."

John began to outline the details of his vision to Nikolas. Winning a pocket trial wasn’t an impossible feat for a coordinated group, but it required specific knowledge and preparation that the current world lacked.

He promised to provide Nikolas with detailed information, tactical manuals on monster weaknesses, terrain explanation, and lots of tricks, to give to his selected family members.

He also made a staggering promise: he would supply them with enough advanced weaponry to wage wars comfortably against the alien races of the Source Code World.

"I aim to recruit enough neutral families first to serve as our core foundation," John explained, his eyes glowing with the intensity of a grandmaster strategist.

"They will receive my full support, weapons, intel, and logistics, to lead other humans through the pocket trials. They will be the ones to lead the masses to victory and become the rulers of the new zones.

In this way, we ensure the majority of trials are won by our people. Every new zone they conquer becomes another node in our network, another territory added to the human resistance."

John paused for a second, his gaze sweeping over his friends. "Your family, Luke’s family, and Elena’s family will serve as the cornerstone for this plan. But three families aren’t enough.

I know the machines are watching, and they will try to infiltrate every trial with their own cyborg agents. We need enough trusted people to cover as many trials as possible, enough to stand against the machines and other races and win."

"I see..." Nikolas murmured, looking at the five youths with a new sense of awe. He was now certain that they hadn’t just survived; they had spent a hellish amount of time meticulously engineering this grand strategy.

"Let me know when the time is right to initiate contact. In the meantime, once we leave this building tonight, shall we meet regularly, or do we maintain distance?"

"We’ll act as normally as possible in front of others," Luke said, his usual playfulness replaced by a sharp focus. "Once we’ve established the hidden base we discussed, we’ll meet there. That’s where the real work begins, putting the grand plan into motion."

"Until then," Ricky added, "our focus is intelligence. We’ll spend our time filtering every individual in the Military Department. We need to know who is a threat and who is a potential asset. Then we strike to recruit more to our side."

"As a gesture of goodwill for joining us, take these," John said.

He waved his hand, and lots of items started to fill the hall. He began to pull out a large amount of equipment: cannons, lots of purple and yellow grenades.

He refrained from taking out the walls or the heavy defensive towers; their sheer size would have likely caused the floors of the guest building to collapse under the weight, or crush through the ceilings thanks to their heights.

Watching the sheer volume of different gear John continued to manifest made Nikolas’s breath hitch. He had originally assumed John had a limited, hard-won supply of these weapons, perhaps enough to equip a squad.

But as John provided ten times the amount of firepower he had displayed earlier, the teacher realised he wasn’t just dealing with a few lucky students. He was dealing with a mobile armoury.

"This..." Seeing the mountain of exotic, lethal cannons transferring into his own storage device made Nikolas unable to decide if he should heavily sigh in relief or laugh loudly at the absurdity of it all. "This is enough to let me wage a small-scale war on my own."

"This is just a teaser," John smirked, his eyes glinting with the pride of a dealer who knew his product was unrivalled. "Wait until you see what we are really capable of once we start to win more pocket trials."

As he was taking the loot into his storage device, Nikolas picked up two different glowing orbs, holding a few yellow cores and purple cores close together to examine their crystalline structures under the hall’s lanterns. The next instant, everyone, John included, jumped forward simultaneously, firmly grasping his hands and stopping him.

"Don’t ever bring those cores together unless you intend to kill someone!" Elena lowly roared, her voice sharp with a panic that wasn’t feigned. She pushed Nikolas’ hands apart, forcing a safe distance between the two different cores.

"They are ferocious and precious grenades, not toys. We have other types of grenades, much more volatile ones, but these are the first ones we acquired from the pocket trial."

Seeing how they all reacted made Nikolas’ scalp go numb. They hadn’t flinched when John summoned a few dozen heavy cannons, and those were undeniably deadly.

He looked at the harmless-looking, almost pretty cores in his hands and inwardly wondered what could be so special about these beautiful gems that they would strike such fear into his students, especially John.

"This one is called the yellow grenade," Cissel said, picking up one of the yellow cores with a delicate grip as if she were handling a live cobra. Seeing the confusion on Nikolas’s face, she began to explain the volatile nature of the two cores.

She warned him that bringing two identical cores into contact would spark a fierce, uncontrollable reaction.

It would result in either a long-lasting, ten metres radius circle of searing yellow fire or a short-lived but utterly deadly thick pillar of purple fire. Nikolas listened intently, his expression shifting from curiosity to profound respect as he carefully isolated the cores within his storage device, intending to put these to the test later when he would be alone.

"Thanks," he said genuinely. He felt like a student again, learning a new branch of physics that the rest of Athanasia hadn’t. Yet, John’s wide smile didn’t fade; it grew broader, making Nikolas wonder what this kid was still planning to spring on him.

"You don’t need to thank me for the gear," John said, his smile stretching wider as he stepped closer. "But you’ll definitely thank me after I do this to you. Take these, and swallow them."

Just before Nikolas could grasp what John meant, the latter manifested three distinct, pulsating cores in the palm of his hand. There was the swirling grey of the Fog Seekers, the purple of the Wrathers, and a brilliant, pure yellow core.

They were all glowing with a soft hum, activated and ready for usage. "Swallow them one by one. Then we’ll do a little upgrade to your gear and weapons once your body can handle the throughput."

"You... You want me to consume these?!!" Nikolas’s eyes bulged. These were the same scary cores everyone had just warned him would blow him to shreds if they touched. Now, John was asking him to put them in his mouth. The hair on the back of the teacher’s neck stood to no end.

"Trust him," Ricky said slowly, a broad, knowing smile appearing on his face as he remembered his own transformation. "This is how we managed to bypass the trial limitations and grow so fast in the first place. This isn’t just grenades, Teacher; it’s evolutionary cores. Just give it a try, and you’ll understand immediately."

Seeing everyone in the team smile in the same encouraging way left Nikolas puzzled and deeply curious. He looked at the cores, then at John’s steady eyes. Finally, he decided to trust the student who had already broken every rule of reality tonight.

He took the first core and put it into his mouth. It didn’t crunch; it dissolved instantly into a liquid-gold heat that surged down his throat. The next thing he knew, a wave of raw power exploded from his stomach, radiating to the rest of his body.

He felt stronger than a second ago. He slowly stood up, clenching both fists and feeling the air hum around his skin. His eyes sparkled with a mixture of shock and exhilaration.

"This... This is remarkable!" he whispered, examining his own hands as if seeing them for the first time. He turned his eyes toward the remaining cores John held. "Will these give me the same boost in power? Can I take more?"

"Some will boost your raw attributes," John paused, letting out a sudden, triumphant laugh, "and some will enhance your existing abilities, or even add a completely new one to your repertoire if you are lucky."

"I got my attributes unlocked thanks to these," Elena added, with a cheerful look on her face. "But I was the only one in the group to experience that. It all depends on your luck."

"That’s... That’s insane!!!" Nikolas’s voice cracked. Hearing those words was like witnessing a divine miracle. Without another moment of hesitation, he lunged at the remaining cores John offered, putting one after another into his mouth without a single pause, his hunger for power finally ignited.

Seeing this made John’s smile wider than ever. He had been worried that the benefits of the cores were limited to the Source Code World and wouldn’t function back in Athanasia.

Luckily, that wasn’t the case. He now had a trump card that could turn any neutral teacher into a powerhouse overnight, a card that would play a great role in the dangerous steps he was about to take.