Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 32: Ding! You Have Discovered a Bug Dungeon!

John remained rooted to his spot, pressing his back against the cool stone of the pillar. He waited with patience, watching until the two silhouettes had presumably returned to their respective rooms.

He gave them a full half-hour of lead time to ensure they were settled before he dared to make his move.

’I won’t gain anything by following the two of them back to their rooms now,’ he reasoned, his mind already pivoting to a more valuable objective. ’If I catch them in the halls, I risk a confrontation I won’t gain anything out of it.

It’s better to start scanning the garden. During the daytime, this place is too overcrowded for me to check anything without looking suspicious. Now is my chance to see what Ricky was doing there.’

He knew that Ricky had just returned from a specific point deep within that garden. He must have done something there. John was confident that with Wireframe Sight, the garden would hold no secrets.

He descended the stairs with cat-like silence and headed toward the garden’s entrance.

The garden wasn’t a simple decorative patch; it was a sprawling, engineered green system that stretched for miles in every direction. It was a labyrinth of trees, bushes, various plants, and winding paths designed for meditation and study.

John began his search at the main entrance, moving deeper into the silence of the garden, while meticulously memorising his path, building a mental map of the terrain.

One hour passed. Then two.

The garden felt like it was expanding, a procedural nightmare that refused to end. Every tree looked like the last, and the dense canopy was starting to interfere with his line of sight in some places.

’It would have been easier if there were high spots to oversee the entire garden from... Wait, I’m an idiot. I can climb the big trees!’

The realisation hit him with a blow. Instantly, he approached the closest massive tree, its bark rough and sturdy. He scaled it with care, reaching a high branch near the canopy.

From this elevated vantage point, the digital grid of a large space in the garden opened up beneath him.

’Not here... Nothing there...’

He began to exclude large sectors of the garden with efficient sweeps of his vision, while moving from one tree to another. In mere ten minutes, he covered a distance that would have taken him an hour to scan on foot. Realising the efficiency of this method, his hope surged.

’There!’

After another half-hour of scanning from different treetops, he finally spotted an anomaly. The area he had focused on looked like every other part of the garden to the naked eye. Amidst the standard green code structure of the world, there was a localised cluster of codes shining with a brilliant, piercing white light.

John dropped from the tree, landing softly on the grass, and sprinted toward the spot he marked.

As he approached, the area seemed normal—a thick, natural wall of trees lining a spacious clearing intended for student study groups. It was a standard design feature of the garden, meant to provide privacy and calmness. But in John’s eyes, that garden wall wasn’t normal at all.

When he stood in front of it, he could easily spot the shimmering white codes that were occupying an area of five meters in radius, pulsating right in the middle of the normal green codes. It was an anomaly that defied the natural logic of the world.

The first thing he did was reflexively stretch out a hand and touch those codes. He had done this many times already, and usually, nothing would react to this simple and primitive yet humane move.

This time, though, things were fundamentally different. The moment his fingertips brushed the glowing white lattice, a notification popped in front of his eyes!

[Ding! You have discovered a bug in the coding structure of the garden!]

[Ding! The bug is massive! You can gain access to it as it currently has zero security measures!]

’A bug?!’ His hand froze while his mind processed what he had just heard. ’Are you saying there is a bug in the code structure, and it’s way bigger than this?’

John felt a surge of curiosity at every single word the system provided him in the latest two notifications. As a hacker, a bug wasn’t just an error; it was a doorway. It was a failure in the logic of the world that could be exploited.

[Ding! This bug is human-made!]

[Ding! There are even larger bug codes hidden beneath the surface! You can gain access to it like you normally do in your hacking attempts!]

[Ding! 1 Mental Point is deducted!]

John didn’t mind the deducted point. He focused entirely on the white codes dancing in front of him. He knew what the system implied, and he didn’t hesitate. He needed to start the handshake process, using his blood to bridge the gap between his system and this bug to hack it.

He looked for something to make a cut on his fingers; however, he was currently under the effect of Wireframe Sight, which rendered the world in digital vectors, making it hard to judge physical sharpness.

He waited till the ability flickered, then grabbed a fallen branch from a nearby tree. He bit down on it with his teeth, snapping the wood until a sharp end appeared.

John pressed the pointed tip of the branch into his thumb, watching a small, rough wound appear. He didn’t flinch as the red bead of blood formed.

’Let’s see what you are hiding... Wireframe Sight!’

Re-activating his ability, he watched the blood take on a digital green-coded structure. He touched the white codes with his thumb. He was about to call for his Shell ability window to begin the hack when something entirely different hit him out of the blue!

It wasn’t the system announcing the success of the handshake process... It was a weird, sudden, and violent suction force. It hit his entire body from behind out of nowhere, without any sign or warning.

He hadn’t noticed any change in the coding structure around until the force impacted his spine. When it did, it felt like he had been snagged by a high-speed plane in mid-flight, getting slammed by a fierce and howling wind directly in the face!

The coding structure of the garden vanished! The world around him blurred and blended into hazy, elongated lines. His ears picked up loud, rhythmic bangs that sounded like thunder clashing against metal.

The sensation of being stretched through a straw lasted for only a few seconds, and as abruptly as it had appeared, it vanished. The centrifugal force evaporated, leaving his body to fall heavily onto a cold, stony ground.

*Thud!*

He first heard the muffled noise of his knees slamming against the hard surface, the pain radiating up his shins. Then, before he even regained clarity of his mind and senses fully, the familiar chime of the system rang in his ears, sounding more urgent than ever.

[Ding! You have discovered a Bug Dungeon!]

[Ding! You have gained access to: Azure Academy Bug Dungeon 51]

[Ding! Warning: You cannot exit until you reach the end of the dungeon!]

[Ding! A quest is being generated!] 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

[Ding! Quest: Defeat Azure Academy Bug Dungeon 51!]

[Conditions: You must clear the dungeon and reach the end to exit!]

[Rewards: +1 to all primary stats / Unlocking Inventory / Mental Point Cap +10]