Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 24: The Generous Quest Rewards!

"That was... quite weird!"

John finally returned to the peace of his dorm. He took in a deep breath, and couldn’t help but heave a deep, shuddering sigh of relief. The silence of the room was a jarring contrast to the chaotic air of the sparring hall he had just departed.

After the class had ended with his unexpected coronation as Class President, Nikolas hadn’t let him leave immediately. The teacher had been vibrating with a restless, frantic excitement. He had pulled John aside, speaking with him for far longer than John would have liked, outlining the weight of the crown John hadn’t even asked for.

Nikolas was more than just excited about John’s victory; he seemed to view John as a personal project, a diamond he had successfully pressurised into form. He had wasted no time in detailing John’s very first assignments as the Class President, and each one sounded more like a shackle than an honour.

"Starting from tomorrow, you will be responsible for helping teachers in enforcing order in different classes," Nikolas had said, his eyes gleaming. "You’ll need to be early at every class to see who is dedicated to the academy routine and who is a troublemaker. You’ll be my eyes and ears, boy. You’ll write down a report once a month and give it to me directly. I want names, behaviour assessment, and weaknesses in personalities..."

This, John, realised with a sinking heart, was just the tip of the iceberg. Nikolas had kept speaking, rattling off a long list of different tasks that sounded more like administrative purgatory than military leadership. The most troublesome duties, however, were related to the upcoming competition.

"...The rules and system of the competition this year will be announced in three days, so come and find me then," Nikolas had instructed, slapping John on the shoulder with enough force to bruise.

"During this time, start putting your eyes on the right candidates to be in your team. I expect a strong roster. And don’t forget, you’ll need to pick someone to be your Vice—it’s best to be one of the two you just fought against!"

John shook his head violently as if he could physically dislodge that memory. Nikolas had stressed the importance of picking a strong and dependable fellow to be his vice-president, arguing that the position must be filled by someone the other students already feared and respected. To Nikolas, the logic was simple: power respected power. To John, that logic was a recipe for a knife in the back.

"Picking one of the two? No way! I’ll be inviting disaster if I ever did that," John muttered, pacing the small confines of his room. "Ricky wants my head on a platter, and Cissel... I don’t even know what she wants, but she certainly doesn’t want to be my friend, least subordinate. But who else can be in their stead?"

His thoughts drifted across the faces of his classmates, scrolling through them slowly. Ricky’s gang deserved a loud, resounding no. Most of them were sycophants who only followed strength because they lacked their own.

If he had to pick from that lot, it was actually better to pick Ricky himself and lure in the entire gang alongside their boss, but the trust gap was too wide.

"At least Ricky has what it takes to back up his arrogance and attitude," John conceded, stopping by his small window. "He’s a monster, sure, but he isn’t like those other losers who were born with silver spoons in their mouths and think the world owes them something."

He ditched that thought and passed through more random faces—names he barely remembered, students who had faded into the background during his week of intense training. None of them left any good impression on him until his mind stopped at the very last name on his list.

"Luke... But he is so impulsive, and he has those massive inferiority issues right now," John groaned, rubbing his temples. The weight of his new title was already pressing down on him. "Agh, I knew being the Class President would bring me more headaches than peace!"

He gritted his teeth, finally circling back to the original two Nikolas had recommended. It was a choice between two poisons.

"It seems I’ll have to go with you this time," he whispered, making up his mind by mentally selecting the one he felt he could handle more effectively. "But for now, enough of the useless stuff. It’s time to check my rewards!"

The system’s messages had been popping up in a frantic cascade the moment the fight had concluded, but thanks to Nikolas’s long-winded lecture and the lingering stares of his classmates, he hadn’t been able to properly analyse the haul. He called up the interface, his eyes widening as the gold text filled his vision.

[Ding! You have completed the Serialised Quest: Dig Deeper!]

[Ding! You gained +3 to ALL primary stats!]

[Ding! Your Mental Point cap has increased by 30 points!]

[Ding! Your System Synchronisation has increased by 1%!]

[Ding! Your ’Wireframe Sight’, ’MP Absorption’, and ’Object Lockdown’ abilities have been enhanced!]

[Ding! Milestone Reached: Your Intelligence (Int) stat has crossed the 20 mark!]

[Ding! New Ability Unlocked: MP Enforcement!]

John felt a surge of vitality, lightness, and power as the stat points integrated into his frame. The dull ache from the fight and the headache from selecting the Class President vanished, replaced by a crystalline clarity. He quickly pulled up his profile to see the new parameters of his powers.

[Wireframe Sight (Basic - Active - Enhanced)]

[Description: Allows the user to perceive the environment as a digital grid. Effectively exposes hidden enemies, identifies traps, and provides a structural analysis of buildings and complex layouts.]

[Range: 30 metres!]

[Cost: 1 Mental Point per activation.]

[Duration: 20 Minutes.]

[Requirement: Intelligence (Int) = 15.]

[MP Absorption Ability: (Basic – Active - Enhanced)]

[Description: Actively absorbs Mental Power during combat, or extracts it from defeated or deceased foes, converting it into usable Mental Points for the user.]

[Cost: 1 Mental Point per activation.]

[Conditions: Requires physical contact with the target. The rate of absorption is directly proportional to the duration of contact.]

[Duration: 2 Minutes.]

[Requirements: Intelligence = 14, Strength = 11, Defense = 10.]

[Object Lockdown Ability: (Basic – Active - Enhanced)]

[Description: Allows you to freeze any target you touch. Affected targets cannot be moved, cannot be used, and cannot be destroyed.]

[Cost: 1 Mental Point per activation.]

[Duration: 2 Minutes.]

[Requirements: Intelligence = 10, Strength = 5, Defense = 7.]

"So, the duration in each got doubled with the same cost, but their requirements increased... And the range of my close combat ability got increased as well..." John mused, scanning the glowing golden windows.

"Even Object Lockdown has requirements now." He chuckled, a sound of pure excitement. "But it’s not a problem thanks to my high stats! I’m outgrowing the baseline faster than the system can throttle me."

He turned his gaze to check his system level, synchronisation level, Mental Points, and his updated stats. The numbers were breathtaking compared to where he had started.

[The Hacker System: V.0.8]

[System synchronisation: 8%]

[Mental Point (MP): 164/165]

[Primary stats:] 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

INT: 21

HP: 16

Strength: 13

Defense: 14

Speed: 11]

"I feel so close now than ever to completing the system level to V2," his eyes gleamed with expectation. He could almost feel the phantom weight of a major upgrade lurking just behind the next milestone. "Perhaps two, or even one big quest, and it’ll be over. V2... What kind of new abilities will that give me?"

He then shifted his focus to the new ability he had gained as a reward for breaking the 20 Intelligence barrier—the MP Enforcement ability.

[MP Enforcement Ability: (Basic – Passive)]

[Description: In an environment that lacks Mental Points, you can enforce your logic and force the extraction of Mental Points from it!]

[Cost: When being in such an environment, you’ll be charged 1 Mental Point per day.]

"Oh, my first passive ability since Hacker Mind and Spoofing," John paused, scratching the back of his head in confusion. He reread the description three times.

"Still... I don’t fully get what it means. An environment that lacks Mental Points? Is there even such a place in a world built on code?" He shrugged it off for now. "Anyway, it’s a passive, and it won’t cost me anything as long as I’m in the game world where Mental Points flow like water."

John moved his eyes over his notifications with growing excitement. The generosity of the rewards this time was staggering. He suspected the system was rewarding not just the victory, but the method of his victory—the sheer dominance he had displayed. "Why does it feel like you wanted to give me a quest to fight the two together and I beat you to it?" he asked the empty air.

The system didn’t respond; its silence almost felt like a sullen admission. John just smiled and shifted his attention towards a deeper realisation. "I always thought my abilities and Mental Points were the most important thing, but thanks to the last fight, I now realise the importance of my stats!"

It was a hard-learned lesson. He could easily tell the reason behind Cissel’s short-range acceleration and Ricky’s stone-like body, which had shrugged off his attacks without much hurt. It wasn’t just magic; it was thanks to their higher stats than his in those specific areas.

"The issue is... I know how to raise my Mental Points through my absorption and Burnout State, but my abilities and stats are all related to the quests the system gives me. Is there any way for me to overcome this? To grind them manually?"

[Ding! There are other means to raise your stats and the proficiency of your abilities, but not with this low level of system synchronisation!]

[Ding! 1 Mental Point is deducted!]

"Thanks for nothing," John teased the system, unfazed by the minor deduction. And yet, the low synchronisation excuse was starting to become a recurring theme, like a locked door he hadn’t found the key for.

"That reminds me, how come there are two dual-special-ability students in one class? Is that common? I feel like the odds of that are astronomical."

[Ding! The incidence of opening two special abilities after unlocking attributes at such a young age is close to zero!]

"Wow! Then..." John’s smile faded. He felt something was a little off. If the odds were almost zero, then Cissel and Ricky weren’t just talented students; they were anomalies.

[Ding! Any human opening their attributes in this game world will get special powers. Humans can pick different paths, including opening more than one special ability instead of increasing the strength of the unlocked one. But their condition is quite special and weird!]

"In what way?" John pressed, leaning forward.

[Ding! The most common special powers are related to the highest attributes themselves. Like Strength, Defence, High Int, or High Speed. For example, Cissel has her speed augmented; Ricky has his defence increased. But that doesn’t explain the special ability of sucking mental powers or stealing stats. It’s like...]

"They have some sort of a system for them," John said, linking the dots. It made sense.

Yet the system seemed to bristle at the comparison, acting stubborn about his old answer on that point.

[Ding! There is no previous system like yours, not even close! There is something fundamentally different about them!]

"Like what?"

[Ding! Your system synchronisation level is low!]

"Screw that low synchronisation level!" John shouted, punching the air in mock frustration. "One day, I swear, I’ll make your synchronisation level so high that you will stop saying those words to me! I’ll reach 100 %, and you’ll have to tell me the secrets of the world!"

[Ding! Fingers crossed!]

John blinked. The system’s sass was getting more refined. "Yet... I can still ask someone," John suddenly thought of Luke. Luke was a member of a fallen Guardian family. He had the heritage and the background that John lacked.

"He must know something about dual-ability users appearing at a young age. He might know if Ricky and Cissel are normal by this world’s standards or not, and he may even have a clue about why they are anomalies."

Thinking this far made him feel the weight of the day’s events finally settling in. His mind was weary. He decided to rest and sleep for the rest of the day. He also planned for the next day—speaking with Luke after he was discharged from the infirmary, starting his first day as the Class President, and picking his Vice.