Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 45: Source Code Potion - Part 1
John walked towards the first spot with green special codes. These weren’t lying on the floor in a neat cluster form; instead, they were spreading over an area of a half-meter radius, shimmering like a digital moss. They pulsed with a rhythmic, emerald light, making no distinct shape in his normal vision.
He simply stretched out his hand to touch the rugged surface of the dungeon wall where the special codes resided. The moment his fingertips made contact, he received a system notification that made his heart skip a beat.
[Ding! You discovered Bug Dungeon 51 Source Code Fragment!]
[Ding! Stay put for one minute, and the system will extract the code for you!]
"Extract? Source Code Fragment?" John was startled, yet he didn’t move his hand away from the green cluster. He stood frozen, feeling a strange warmth seeping through his skin as the digital extraction began. He waited with much anticipation, his mind racing through what Source Code meant in reality.
[Ding! You acquired Bug Dungeon 51 Source Code Fragment.]
[Ding! You can use the Code Fragment to code a potion!]
[Ding! 10 Mental Points are deducted to extract the Code Fragment!]
"A potion? Now I’ll be an alchemist!" John muttered, quickly getting over the ten points deducted to focus on the weight of the system’s words. He raised an eyebrow, feeling something soft and humming fall into his palm. It was a cluster of green codes.
When he looked back at the spot these green codes had occupied, he recoiled. It was now a dark, swirling void! It felt like the system had literally ripped a piece of the dungeon’s foundational structure out, leaving a hole in the dungeon itself.
"Hmm, there are four more like this," he whispered, his eyes scanning the hall after getting the first green cluster. "What type of potion will I make using these codes? Is it just a high-level MP or HP Regeneration potion?"
[Ding! A Bug means a breakdown in the world’s structure! And that requires a lot of power. The Bug Dungeon 51 Source Code Fragment you have holds an immense amount of power, plus the intent and logic to destruct and construct!]
"Sorry, lost you halfway there," John sighed. He didn’t know when his system had become this generous in explaining things in such detail, but it was getting a bit too complicated for his current state of exhaustion. "Can you tell me something brief so I can understand?"
[Ding! It holds evolution codes!]
[Ding! The potion you’ll make will enable any normal human to unlock their attributes! To you, it’s useless, but to others, it’s priceless!]
[Ding! 1 Mental Point is deducted!]
"What the heck?!!!" John froze midway. He had been walking towards the next green-coded spot, but the information hit him like a blow. "Are you kidding me? This cluster of green codes can make the Miraculous Potion?!"
His mind immediately flashed back to the first lecture given by Nikolas. He remembered the small bottle with the blue liquid the professor had held up. Nikolas had described it as being incredibly rare, prohibitively expensive, and the only hope for the students to unlock their attributes.
John stood motionless for a long moment, trying to process the magnitude of this discovery.
"It means I can now make potions that can unlock attributes and add special abilities! I can turn a loser into a formidable force..." He paused, a dark shadow of doubt crossing his mind. "Wait, if I can make this, does it mean Ricky can also make one? Did he find these codes before?"
The thought startled him, but he quickly dismissed it with a shake of his head. "No, he didn’t even finish the dungeon in the first place! Besides, these fragments aren’t just loot or a dropped item. He doesn’t have a system that can extract source code, and he doesn’t have the abilities I have to code them into a real potion!"
As he realised he held a monopoly, his thoughts shifted toward the social and political power he now possessed. "Helping someone to unlock their attributes must come with a price. I won’t just randomly pick someone; I need to find the right person—someone who will be loyal, someone I can use to build my own faction in the future."
He knew that by holding the means to make such a potion, he held the power to change someone’s destiny. That was a heavy burden and a lethal weapon. He needed to be cautious with his generosity to ensure that whoever received this life-changing favour would remain in his debt forever.
"I already have a name in my mind," John said, his gaze hardening. He didn’t need to think further; there was one suitable person for this potion. But first, he needed to successfully brew the thing.
He moved across the hall, visiting one green-lit spot after another. He repeated the extraction process until he had gathered five Bug Dungeon 51 Source Code Fragments in total. He looked down at the five glowing green clusters in his hands, comparing them to the Iron Codes he used for his weaponry.
"The sword needed ten Iron Codes back then," he mused, his brow furrowing as he returned to his pile of loot. "Will five of these code fragments be enough to synthesise a potion?"
He had his doubts, but there was only one way to find out. He decided to give it a try first and worry later. He stood amidst the piles of fabric, iron, and potions, and centred himself.
"I’ll do it the same way I did with the Iron Codes... Shell!"
The ability’s black window appeared in front of him, but his eyes were fixated on the five green cluster codes on the ground. Like how it had happened earlier with the Iron Codes, the code fragments vanished as if sucked into a digital vacuum, only to be replaced by five distinct code lines on the Shell’s interface.
[PARAM Unlock_Limiters = False;]
[PARAM Purge_Human_Weakness = 0.2;]
[PARAM Structural_Reinforcement = 0.2;]
[PARAM Synaptic_Speed = 0.2;]
[PARAM latent_affinity = False;]
