Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 69: If You Want to Grow Stronger; Eat the Cores!

’Ten minutes? You never miss a chance to make things harder for me, do you?’ John thought, shaking his head in annoyance.

He felt a strange, tingling pressure against his skin, like thousands of microscopic needles trying to find a way in. Thanks to his Hacker Mind passive ability, the hallucinating horror of the fog slid off his consciousness like water off a duck’s back.

However, as he looked back at his friends, his expression darkened. He was safe for now, but he knew the story would be very different for them.

The discovery of the cores had provided a glimmer of hope, but the reality of the fog’s toxicity weighed heavily on John’s mind. As he stood at the edge of the area, he reread the system warning one more time.

[Warning: Your Hacker Mind negated all mental hallucinations from the fog!]

The implication was chilling. ’Hallucinations?’ he thought, a cold knot forming in his stomach. In a fierce world such as this, losing one’s sanity was a one-way ticket to a messy end. If his friends stepped into that fog without protection, they wouldn’t just be fighting monsters; they would be fighting their own minds. He inwardly sighed.

He focused on the core in his hand. Exactly sixty seconds had passed since he held it within the black veil. Suddenly, the orb pulsed with a blinding crimson intensity, glowing far brighter than it had moments before.

[Ding! Dormant Fog Seeker Core has been recharged into an Active Fog Seeker Core!]

As the light flared, a strange phenomenon occurred. The thick black fog in front of John began to retreat, as if the light were a physical force pushing back the gloom. A small pocket of the fog was suddenly visible and clear.

Behind him, his friends gasped. They had been watching his every move, and they immediately misinterpreted the purpose of his actions.

"Wow! Can we push away this damned black fog? That’s incredible!" Ricky exclaimed. He looked toward the others, seeing the same shocked, hopeful expressions mirrored on their faces, slowly dimming.

"If we can clear the fog, we can lay down more barricades using these monsters’ bodies. We’ll have more room to move, a better field of vision... It’s brilliant!"

Despite the optimism of his words, Ricky’s tone lacked any real heat. John could hear the underlying disappointment. Ricky was a warrior; he didn’t want a flashlight or a fog-clearer—he wanted his strength back. He thought John was going to provide a miraculous solution to their pathetic attributes, and seeing a utility tool instead felt like a letdown.

"The magic only starts from here," John said, ignoring Ricky’s disgruntled tone.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the brilliantly glowing core into the air. It spun, tracing a red arc straight toward Ricky. "Eat it up!"

"What?!!!"

Ricky reacted as if John had just lobbed a live grenade at his chest. He scrambled backwards, his arms flailing, evading it. Before the core could hit the dirt, Luke stepped in. With the calm grip, Luke reached out and caught the pulsing orb in one hand.

"Shall I eat it?" Luke asked. His voice was steady, but his eyes were searching John’s for any sign of a joke or danger. He looked at the active core in his right hand, then at the dimmer, dormant one he still held in his left. He glanced at the dead monster at his feet, and finally at the small patch of black fog John had just reclaimed.

In response, John gave a slow, deliberate nod.

Seeing his most trusted friend confirm the action, Luke didn’t hesitate for a single second. He popped the core into his mouth and swallowed.

The group reacted instantly, taking several hasty steps away from Luke as if he was a ticking bomb. They braced for an explosion, a transformation, or a collapse. Only Elena remained close, her hands hovering near her storage device as if ready to provide medical aid. For several long, agonising seconds, the area was silent. Nothing happened.

"I... I feel a slight wave of heat inside me," Luke whispered, touching his chest. He looked dazed, staring at his hands. "But nothing else. No pain. No gain."

John nodded in satisfaction. He couldn’t see Luke’s internal attributes, but he knew the core effect had been activated. "You just gained a permanent increase to your attributes," John explained, his voice projecting a confidence he hoped would be infectious.

"If you want to grow stronger—if you want to stop feeling like shadows of your former selves—do exactly what I did. Recharge these cores in the fog, and then eat them."

"How can you be sure of that?!" Cissel burst out, her frustration finally boiling over. She hated being kept in the dark, and John’s cryptic instructions were pushing her to the limit.

John simply shrugged, his expression unreadable. "I just felt it," he lied smoothly. He paused, feigning a struggle to find the right words to describe a feeling he didn’t actually have.

"When I touched that monster’s corpse earlier, I felt something burning under my skin. A resonance. When I grabbed the core, I just... I just had a feeling this was what it was for."

He was intentionally mimicking the way Cissel had described her own mysterious third ability earlier. He knew it was the kind of logic she would respect—or at least, the kind she couldn’t argue with.

"Look, I’m not forcing anyone," John added, his voice turning hard and serious. "I have no proof yet. If you want to trust me, do as I say. If not, stay behind. But don’t come complaining to me later when everyone else is growing stronger and you’re left behind, weaker than the monsters we’re fighting."

The harshness of his words worked like a charm. For Ricky and Cissel, the fear of being useless was far greater than the fear of eating a glowing monster organ. The two of them immediately lunged toward the remaining corpses, their blades out as they began digging for more cores. Seeing their enthusiasm, Luke and Elena joined in. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

’I don’t need to do it right now,’ John thought, watching them work. ’They are my Achilles’ heel. I need to solve their power deficit first before I can go and deal with those noisy devices.’

The high-pitched sounds were still regularly and relentlessly echoing through the black fog, like a siren calling more predators to the feast. Just as John turned his attention back to the perimeter, the Frame Recognition flickered and died.

’This fast?’ he thought with a frown. At least it hadn’t vanished in the middle of a strike.

Without hesitation, he reactivated the ability. His vision shifted back into the wireframe world of codes, looking for any movement in the black fog. He saw them instantly: twenty distinct grey shadows moving through the fog at high speed.

"Get ready," John barked, drawing his sword. "There are twenty monsters this time."

The escalation was clear. The noise devices were working overtime, and the fog world was responding in kind. But instead of fear, John felt a grim sense of opportunity. Twenty monsters meant twenty more cores.

"I’ll leave five for you to handle this time," he told the team. "The rest are mine. Get ready!"

His friends didn’t have time to process or consume their newly harvested cores, so they hurriedly stored them away in their storage devices. The prospect of twenty more attribute unlocking cores waiting for them lifted their morale to a fever pitch.

The four stood shoulder-to-shoulder, a wall of renewed fighting intent. Luke, in particular, gripped his weapon tighter, eager to see if the heat he felt inside would translate to more destructive power at this battle or not.

*Roar!*

The first Roar shattered the silence, and the hunt began.