Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 60: The Start of System Evolution Trial, and Unexpected Little Surprise

Chapter 60: The Start of System Evolution Trial, and Unexpected Little Surprise

His shouts threatened the calm of the night, likely waking half the floor. Yet John didn’t care about social etiquette or academy rules. He had already activated Frame Recognition, and through the door, he could see the glowing white special codes of a person standing just inside.

"John? What the hell went into you, man?!" Ricky’s surprised, slightly annoyed voice came from behind the door.

"Open the goddamn door right now! Do you hear me?!"

John didn’t have time to find a plausible excuse. He couldn’t explain that he was suffering from a 2026 adrenaline-induced MP overflow caused by a ghost-AI. At this moment, his life was in grave danger. He had to handle this disaster first and worry about the aftermath—and Ricky’s ego—later. He had roughly twenty minutes left, then... Kaboom!

"Man, if you are this light-headed, you shouldn’t have drunk anything at all!"

Ricky’s voice carried through the door, thick with annoyance. He completely mistook John’s intentions, assuming the Class President had simply overindulged at the party and stumbled to his room to cause an unneeded scene. "Go back, man! I’m not opening the door for a drunk."

"Suit yourself then," John muttered. He wasn’t in the mindset to tolerate Ricky’s arrogance and pride. With the countdown in his head ticking toward his own destruction, he simply acted.

’Logic Bomb!’ He placed his palm flat against the cold door. In his specialised vision, he saw a purple cluster of code slip from his hand, burrowing directly into the door’s structural green codes. ’Detonate in ten seconds!’

He gave the mental command and stepped back just far enough to avoid the worst of the concussive force. Exactly ten seconds later, the door didn’t just open—it disintegrated.

The explosion was violent, a thunderous crack that took down half of the surrounding doorframe and sent a cloud of pulverised drywall into the hall. As the dust began to settle, three shocked faces appeared from the ends of the corridors.

"Man! Are you nuts?!"

Ricky appeared in the wreckage, standing in the middle of the debris with his face and hair covered in white dust. He looked like a ghost that had been dragged through a rock crusher. "You destroyed my room! Are you completely out of your mind?!"

"Fight me!"

Just before Ricky could continue his disgruntled complaints, John roared. "Fight me using your special ability—the second one—right now!"

John didn’t hold himself back anymore. He lunged at Ricky as if he had just spotted his deadliest enemy.

"You... How do you know that?!!"

Ricky’s eyes widened. Before he could even absorb the shock of John’s awareness of his secret dual abilities, John’s fist collided with his face. It was deliberately a weak punch, aimed more at wounding Ricky’s pride than shattering his jaw, and it served its purpose perfectly.

"Dammit! Forget it then!" Ricky roared in pure, unadulterated rage, his instincts taking over. "I’ll punch some logic and sense back into your drunken skull, and you’ll owe me a hell of an apology next!"

Ricky unleashed his filaments. They lashed out and touched John’s body, but weirdly enough, they didn’t leave a single wound. The excess Mental Points in John’s body were so immense that they simply overflooded Ricky’s filaments.

"You... What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Sensing the terrifying, volcanic Mental Points churning inside John’s body, Ricky tried to break free. He tried to retreat, realising he was touching something far more dangerous than a drunk student, but John grabbed him by the collar with a grip of iron.

"Let me go, you freaking drunken maniac!" Ricky screamed.

"Not a chance!" John could tell Ricky finally sensed the overload. Through the contact, the Mental Points began to bleed over, "You’ll suck everything dry out of me, right now!"

"Let me go!" Ricky felt his own body begin to ache and throb under the immense power he was inadvertently sucking from John. "Help! Help!"

He felt that if he continued to absorb this torrent, his own body would end up exploding. Like a drowning man, he shouted for help. In a heartbeat, three silhouettes flashed into the room and grabbed John forcibly.

"Wake up, John!"

Luke’s voice was thick with bitterness and sadness, heartbroken to see his friend acting in such an erratic, violent way. He was pulling at John with all the strength his new, enhanced body could provide, flanked by a worried Elena and a confused Cissel.

"Cissel! It’s you!"

Seeing Cissel wasn’t surprising to him, as the thought of her stalking Ricky flashed in his mind, and it looked normal. And that meant his luck was so good!

John ignored the others, looking at Cissel as if he had just spotted a mountain of gold. "Come! Use your second power on me! Suck me dry, baby!"

"Fck off!" Cissel hissed.

John didn’t stop there. He threw himself toward Cissel with the same desperate attitude he had shown Ricky. With one hand, he maintained his grip on Ricky’s neck, and with the other, he clamped down on Cissel’s arm.

Reflexively, Cissel launched her own special ability in self-defence, her vampiric nature kicking in. She began sucking Mental Points from him at an accelerated rate.

"You... What happened to you?!!"

The moment the ability worked, Cissel realised exactly what Ricky had. An immense, staggering amount of energy began gushing into her body. However, since there were now two attacking and draining him simultaneously, the pressure on their individual bodies was manageable.

"John, wake up, man, wake up!"

As he held onto the two of them, and the two continued to drain him in a desperate attempt to neutralise him, Luke and Elena did their best to break the trio apart.

Luke had just finished taking the Evolution Potion; he had unlocked his attributes and gained a strength-based special ability that should have made him an elite. Yet, as he strained against John’s arm, he felt like he had returned to square zero. Against monstrous stats, Luke felt like a child trying to move a mountain.

Elena had been elated when she ran into Luke. He had been on his way to see John to thank him again and showcase the incredible surge of power from his new ability, and Elena, caught up in the excitement, decided on a whim to accompany him. Luke hadn’t minded; he was proud and eager for an extra audience to his first display of new power.

Yet, he had never imagined his first display would end up being used against his own friend and benefactor in such an embarrassing and heartbreaking moment.

In the middle of the chaos, more students woke up. Doors creaked open down the long corridor as peers watched the most bizarre scene play out.

The Year One hero, the champion who had brought victory almost singlehandedly to the freshmen just hours ago, appeared to be so drunk that he was causing a massive ruckus, destroying property, and physically attacking his own teammates.

The onlookers didn’t interfere. Instead, they watched with a mixture of shock and great amusement. This was a moment of profound shame befalling the very students who had been the centre of glory for the entire Military Department that afternoon. To see the elites brawling like common thugs in a dust-filled hallway was the ultimate entertainment.

The struggle continued for several agonising minutes, until he finally saw the notification he had been craving.

[Ding! The excess energy is being sucked fast!] [Ding! Current Mental Points: 600 / 532]

[Ding! You can start the trial now if you want!]

"Just... Do... It!"

John screamed the words out one by one, his voice a guttural rasp. He was literally resisting the combined force of four of his teammates—the strongest students in his class—all at the same time.

[Ding! The trial is starting in five... four... three... two... one...]

[Buckle up for the ride, as we are going to another world in a second!]

Feeling the same terrifying force he had experienced back in his dorm after Mark’s escape, John’s body was suddenly slammed into a world of spinning, shining, bright golden light.

The sensation of being stretched and compressed simultaneously lasted for an unknown duration. Amidst the roar of the transition, John heaved a deep sigh of relief.

"I... barely made it!"

He couldn’t help but wipe the thick beads of sweat from his forehead just as the force vanished. His body slammed hard against a cold, alien ground.

[Ding! Congratulations! You successfully started the System Evolution Trial!]

[Ding! Welcome to the Source Code World!]

[Ding! Trial objective: Survive by any means possible for one month!]

[Ding! Unlocking Cyborg Synchronisation meter!]

[Ding! Your system synchronisation is at 10%, so your stats are 10% of what they initially were!]

[Ding! Your system synchronisation is at 10%, so your Mental Points are 10% of what they initially were!]

[Ding! Your system synchronisation is at 10%, so your abilities consumption rate is 10% of what they initially were!]

[Ding! You are inside a world void of Mental Points. Triggering MP Enforcement Ability!]

[Ding! Main Evolution Trial objective: Survive with all the members of your team, find your way back to Athanasia!]

"Members of my team?!!!"

These words forced him to stop reading. His eyes snapped open, scanning the environment. The world was a weird piece of land, a small stretch of land, surrounded by a void of pitch-black fog. But the scenery wasn’t the issue—the four bodies groaning on the ground next to him were!

"Ouch! What just happened?!"

Elena was the first to stand up, clutching her head. She looked around, her face pale as she took in the impossible horizon for the first time. "Fck me! What the heck is that?! Where the hell are we?!!!"

"Damn!" John sucked in a cold breath of air. His mind spun as fast as it ever had, desperately trying to construct a plausible excuse. He had accidentally dragged the entire core of the freshman team into his evolution trial.

"No way!" Ricky stood up slowly, his body trembling with a fear John had never seen in him. "This... Are we in the rumoured Source Code World?!!!"

"..."

Before John could offer even the most basic lie, his mind froze at Ricky’s words. He wasn’t the only one who recognised this place. Then came Cissel, her voice a low, terrified whisper.

"Limited area of light... Surrounded by a dense layer of black death fog... It’s the cursed land, it’s the Source Code World without a doubt!!!"

Her words left John unable to think for a brief moment. He looked at them with widened eyes, then at the black fog rolling at the edges of their small island of light.

"Hey, what the hell are you two speaking about?!!" It was John’s turn to scream at them in immense shock.

The four of them turned to him simultaneously. Their expressions weren’t just confused; they were the looks of people who had been told a ghost story their entire lives, only to find themselves living in it.