Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 238: The Mother of All Eggs!

The mysterious structure in the heart of the den was massive, towering high into the dark sky and ending in a perfectly smooth, dome-shaped top. John couldn’t make head or tail of any of it.

Driven by a mixture of habit, curiosity and survival instinct, he stretched out a hand and touched the surface of the structure to see what the system would reveal.

[Ding! You have come in contact with something very advanced, very sophisticated!]

[Ding! You have come in contact with the Mother of All Eggs!]

[Ding! Your current System Synchronisation and Cyborg Synchronisation levels are insufficient to view any details about this object!]

[Ding! You cannot hack, cannot store, and cannot obtain this item!]

"What the fuck?!!" John exclaimed in genuine shock, his eyebrows shooting up. "How am I supposed to stop the ongoing Wrathers tide then? By praying?!!"

[Ding! There is a way to do that!]

[Ding! Start the handshaking process, and submit to the evaluation of the lingering spirit inside the Mother of All Eggs!]

[Ding! 10 Mental Points have been deducted!]

"..."

John was speechless for a long minute. He couldn’t grasp anything concrete from the system’s cryptic answer, other than the implication that he needed to initiate a connection, undergo some sort of assessment. "Are you telling me there is a literal spirit inside this thing?" he asked, trying to leverage the Mental Points he had just paid to extract more information.

The response he received was the worst possible answer.

[Ding! Your System Synchronisation and Cyborg Synchronisation levels are insufficient to get an answer!]

John growled, though he wasn’t entirely dejected. He shifted his tactics. "Then what is this test? What exactly will I be assessed for?"

[Ding! The Mother of All Eggs only cares about your deeds within the pocket trial!]

[Ding! The assessment will take into consideration everything you have done since you stepped into this world, the obstacles you have faced, and the origin of your race!]

"Interesting," John muttered. He didn’t fully grasp the weight of what the system was suggesting, but his curiosity was piqued. He wondered if his unconventional methods would be viewed as a merit or a flaw.

"The only assessment I’ve had since coming to this world was that big fat zero back at the academy entrance test. I doubt anything worse than that can happen, right?"

He didn’t hesitate further. Using the edge of his blade, he made a quick, clean cut across his finger. He pressed his bloodied hand firmly against the cold, multicoloured surface of the Mother of All Eggs.

The moment his skin made contact, he felt a strange, chilling sensation. His blood didn’t smear across the surface; it was actively pulled, sucked deep into the deep layers of the structure.

Through his special vision, John watched as a long trail of his crimson blood moved with the velocity of a bullet, threading deep into the colossal, pulsating neural network of the grand structure until it vanished.

The suction sensation was intense, pulling at his very essence, but it didn’t last more than a minute before it stopped entirely. Then, silence took over. Nothing happened for nearly ten minutes.

"Is that it? Shall I move my hand now?" After waiting for fifteen minutes, John’s patience finally began to fray. He was a man of action, not a monk meant for meditation.

Yet, the moment the words left his lips, a soft whispering drifted through the air, a delicate female voice that sounded like the sweetest melody in the world, vibrating not in his ears, but directly within his mind.

’A tinge of spatial powers, fate lingering around your soul... A human travelling from the past to the future, using powers that shouldn’t exist in your race... You are truly a fascinating companion, hehehe!’

John instantly spun around, his face a mask of cold vigilance. His instincts screamed "threat," but when he tried to reach for the hilt of his sword, he found his hand was fused to the structure. He couldn’t budge an inch.

’Hehehe, you are really funny! Don’t worry, I’m not your enemy. In fact, I’m going to be one of your greatest weapons in the future! I believe going with you will be much more fun than staying with those idiots.

Take me with you... Take me and make sure to feed my hibernating spirit the fragments of different races you defeat, and I promise you... Hehehe, I promise you that you’ll be totally surprised!’

By this point, John was certain of the source of that sound. He turned his head sharply to glare at the multicoloured brain-like structure. As he did, a violent transformation began.

The grand structure started to shine with a blinding radiance, a dark purple-hot light so piercing it forced him to squeeze his eyes shut. He could feel the air pressure shifting, a massive displacement of energy occurring just inches from his face.

What he didn’t see was that the structure began to shrink, compressing its massive code clusters and towering height, growing smaller and smaller with a harmonic whine. Finally, the pressure vanished, and something small and smooth rested in the palm of his hand.

"This..." John slowly opened his eyes once the spots from the bright light faded.

In his hand sat a small egg. It was beautiful and terrifying all at once, formed of the same chaotic, dense weave of multicoloured codes he had seen in the giant structure. Tiny pulses of light flashed constantly and chaotically inside its shell, like a heartbeat made of pure electrical pulses.

"Are you still in there?" John whispered.

He waited for a few more minutes, even raising the egg to his ear, wondering if the owner of that melodic voice would whisper again. But there was nothing but silence.

"What exactly did I get this time?" He shook his head, frustrated by the lack of clarity. He waited for the familiar chime of the system, but he quickly recognised an anomaly. The system didn’t issue a detailed, descriptive notification about the item like usual. "Aren’t you supposed to explain to me what this is, at least?"

[Ding! Your System Synchronisation and Cyborg Synchronisation levels are insufficient to view any details regarding this item!]