Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 177: The Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Cores

During the walk, John had carefully outlined the procedure. He warned them about the baptism that made the cores active. He told them he would be throwing a massive amount of cores out into the encroaching fog.

They needed to wait until the lightning strikes were finished. As for where to stand, he explained that the cores themselves would clear vast areas of the fog once they activated, so they had nothing to worry about.

He intended to throw both the Wrather cores and the yellow monster cores at the same time. He didn’t know exactly how long they had until the second wave of Wrathers would hit, so he had to be fast. He waited until everyone nodded in firm agreement, then he acted.

The moment he took the magical core into his inventory, the entire world was engulfed in a thick, suffocating veil of white fog. The transition was instantaneous; the clear sanctuary they had occupied vanished, replaced by the damp, sight-stealing fog of the trial.

John wasn’t worried about his friends; they had already developed the resilience to stay in the fog for several minutes without suffering any side effects.

As for the Bulltors, he knew they could withstand the fog easily, their massive frames far more adapted to these harsh conditions than humans.

*Rumble!* *Rumble!* *Rumble!*

John began throwing handfuls of cores into the surrounding area, moving away from his initial spot with every toss, just in case the lightning decided to hit the area he was standing in.

Luckily, the lightning followed the trajectory of the cores through the fog, ignoring the human and focusing its celestial fury on the cores. In the next couple of minutes, the entire world never stopped booming with tens of lightning strikes per second!

It was a symphony of baptism. John decided to throw every single core he had gained so far. He didn’t have that many from the yellow monsters, so he planned to empty the storage devices of his friends after killing the upcoming Wrathers wave. There was no lightning baptism for the yellow cores; they simply sat in the fog, drinking it in.

Once he had emptied his reserves of the Wrather cores, and the sky finally began to quiet, John stood by and silently watched everyone racing through the fog to collect the activated trophies.

"Don’t forget," John called out, seeing how mad they acted. He couldn’t help but shake his head at the frantic competition to obtain more cores than others, reminding him of how they previously acted for the Fog Seeker cores.

"In the end, I’ll be gathering the extra cores and keeping them for the base defences upgrade. So don’t think of collecting too much for your personal stashes, ok?"

His words came like a cold bucket of water on all of their heads. John’s plan for the cores caused Elena to stumble over a pile of rubble and fall flat on her face. As she scrambled up, everyone gave John a look filled with pure frustration.

"We have lots of cannons to feed, so let’s finish this as fast as we can," he shrugged, completely unbothered by how they glared at him. As they began ingesting the newly activated Wrather cores, John reached down and picked up one of the yellow cores that had finished absorbing the fog. He brought it close to his eyes to examine.

[Ding! You have acquired 1x Activated Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Core!]

[Active Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Core: Normal Grade]

[Usage 1: Can be used to generate energy (Requires two Active Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Cores).]

[Usage 2: Can be ingested to add 1 point to a random ability (Maximum: 200 Active Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Cores).]

[Usage 3: Can be fed to weapons and gear to add 1 point to a random bonus effect (If there isn’t any random bonus effect, it’ll generate one randomly – Maximum: 20 Active Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Cores)]

John raised an eyebrow when he read the content of these notifications. The random ability point was the key. He now realised exactly why his friends had regained their lost secondary abilities so suddenly, and why their primary abilities had received such a massive enhancement.

’Luckily for them, they have one or two abilities, but for me... Tsk.’ When he recalled the many abilities he needed to feed, he couldn’t help but inwardly sigh. He expected something far less than what happened to his friends.

’Wait a minute,’ he thought, a frown forming on his face. ’They used the inactive cores back at the den. Let me check what the dormant version does!’

He recalled that his friends hadn’t waited; in their desperation to survive the tenth wave, they had used the cores right on the spot. That meant the gains they had were likely a bit weaker than what an active core would provide. When he pulled a yellow core from his inventory that hadn’t been exposed to the fog yet, he realised he was right.

[Ding! You have acquired 1x Dormant Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Core!]

[Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Core: Normal Grade]

[Description: An inert essence harvested from a Mutated Golden Fog Wrather. While dormant, it holds little power.

Moderate chance of adding 1 point to a random ability (Maximum: 200 Dormant Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Cores).

Can be fed to weapons and gear to have a moderate chance of adding 1 point to a random bonus effect (Maximum: 20 Dormant Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Cores).

Can be used to absorb the Fog, recharging it into an Active Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Core.]

"Tsk! They were too hasty!"

Reading what the dormant core did made John shake his head in genuine regret. The dormant version only offered a moderate chance to gain a point, whereas the activated core was a guaranteed upgrade. His friends had literally gambled away at least half their potential growth because they couldn’t wait. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

And yet, when he recalled the dire situation they were in, he knew the sacrifice had been worth it. They had transformed into real killers when it mattered most.

’Yet I haven’t ingested any of them so far...’ John mused. He began to collect the activated Mutated Golden Fog Wrather Cores from the ground. He found several more that hadn’t activated yet because the Fog Wrather cores had cleared the fog too fast in many spots, leaving no fog for the yellow ones to absorb.

Seeing him collect the yellow cores and begin to ingest them one by one made all of his friends stop what they were doing. A shared thought flashed through their minds: ’What would have happened if we had waited?’

They watched him, wondering if the difference in gains would be massive or negligible. Without sharing a single word, they all stood still, deciding to observe the effects on John first before continuing what they were doing.

As for the man himself, the yellow cores dissolved in his mouth till he reached his limit, then he checked his profile. He was utterly stupefied. He stood motionless for a whole minute, eyes wide and staring at thin air, without saying a single word.