Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 113: Burning Half of John’s Mental Points
As they began the long walk back toward the river and their camp, Cissel and Ricky kept debating the best methods to cut the trees.
They spoke of high-frequency vibration saws, industrial-grade plasma cutters, and specialised chemical acids. John simply listened without saying anything, trying to find a spark of inspiration in their words.
’That’s not useful,’ John thought. ’They are speaking about technology that simply isn’t present here. We can’t summon a steel factory out of thin air.’ He glanced back one last time at the silver-grey silhouettes of the trees and sighed. ’I’ll find a way one day, but for now...’
He shifted his focus inward, pulling up his system interface. The Map Section was now fully unlocked. As he navigated through the new tab, he found a mix of pleasant surprises and stinging disappointments.
The Map section opened with a vast, mostly greyed-out expanse. It looked like a fractured continent divided into smaller, irregular areas. These sectors were different in shape and size, but they were all interconnected, separated by thick, pitch-black lines that looked like borders or perhaps impassable barriers.
’These areas are all grey, and I can’t view any terrain for them,’ John observed. ’But only one area is glowing with a vibrant green colour. That must be the territory I currently control.’
His thoughts paused when he remembered the system identifying his location as Area 11. Once he focused on that specific name, the map shifted. It expanded to show a massive sector that was half greyed out, except for a detailed hub right in the centre.
When he zoomed in on this part, the map shifted again. It displayed a clear, high-definition topographic map of the terrain he had explored. He could see the river branch, the fallen cliffside where he fought the D-1000s, the den, and even the metallic trees they were coming from.
’Incredible!’ He moved the perspective using his thoughts. ’That means any place I’ve physically visited is stored and rendered within the map. The places I haven’t reached yet remain greyed out. Yet, I can still see the outlines and get clues from the shapes of the greyed-out sectors.’
He navigated back to the general view to count the total number of sectors. He found eleven distinct areas in this regional cluster—far fewer than the "51" in the magical core’s name had suggested. This was likely just one zone of a much larger world.
More importantly, he focused on the borders of his green territory. He found two areas in direct connection with Area 11.
’That means the machines got here from either one of the two...’ John tried to click on either of the two southern neighbours to see if any data leaked through, but he failed. They were completely obscured. ’One is bigger than my area, the other one looks the same. If I want to find where the machines are coming from, those are my only two choices.’
He kept checking the map, trying to get more clues. ’The area I explored so far is slightly more than one third of the entire area...’ The parts he had explored in green weren’t in a perfect geometric shape, so he had to roughly compare the size of his known territory with the vast, greyed-out expanse of the rest of the area.
’That means I’ll need to start exploring... Or perhaps that’s why I have this new ability,’ he thought, recalling the Ping Route ability he had gained upon completing the quest. It only cost him one Mental Point to use, so he decided to give it a try right here and see how it works.
The moment he activated the ability, he felt a weird, intense heat emanate from the centre of his head. He had to stop walking abruptly, clutching his forehead. His reaction was so sudden that the other two stopped their conversation mid-sentence and turned to look at him with deep worry.
"I’m fine," John managed to gasp, though he obviously didn’t look fine. The heat made him feel drowsy, his vision getting slightly blurred. He was unable to walk for a few minutes.
"What happened?" Seeing him sway as if he was about to lose consciousness, Cissel instantly stepped forward and supported his weight, her arms wrapping around him to keep him upright.
As for Ricky, he stood there amazed, a dark thought crossing his mind that perhaps karma was a real btch for what John had done to him earlier in the fog.
But to John, the experience was entirely different! The moment he activated the ability, a system notification popped up with a choice, hovering in his blurred vision.
[Ding! You activated the Ping Route ability!]
[Ding! As you own total control of Area 11, you have a choice to make!]
[Ding! You can keep burning 1 Mental Point per second and keep expanding the map!]
[Ding! You can pay half of your Mental Points and burn them at once to explore the entire map of your area in one go!]
[Ding! Do you accept? Y/N]
The heat he felt—initially like a small needle prick—was only the first of many waves of pain that followed. John didn’t even hesitate when he was presented with the choice.
The thought of manually exploring every kilometre of the fog, wasting days of effort, spending tons of his now-limited supply of cores, and risking the team’s lives, was not an option. Above all, he felt a strong hunch that he had to see the full picture of Area 11 immediately.
He chose the second option.
The burning he had anticipated was far more painful than he had initially imagined. It wasn’t just heat; it was a mental fire that felt like it was cauterising his nerves. On the surface, he grew suddenly weak. He developed a flash fever so intense that steam seemed to almost rise from his skin, and his eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible.
Seeing this, Cissel’s mind jumped to the worst possible conclusion. "H... How?!!" she stuttered, her face turning pale. She turned her head toward Ricky in a panic. "It’s the same! It’s the same symptoms you had when you were cursed by the fog!"
"Really?!" Ricky shouted, stepping back instinctively. He had heard stories about how he looked when he was cursed, but he had never imagined it looked this terrible. To see the invincible John looking so broken sent a chill down his spine about how far terrible he must have looked back then.
"Hey, come and help me carry him! We need to get him to the water!" Cissel found herself caught between a man she thought was being cursed and another who had deep, fresh trauma from that very same curse.
"I’m fine," a voice suddenly rasped.
Just as they tried to hoist him up to carry him for a few meters with Ricky’s help, John suddenly opened his eyes. The white subsided, replaced by his usual sharp gaze, and he stood firmly on his own legs.
The heat was receding, leaving behind clarity. "I just felt drowsy... Must be some side effect from the blue cattle meat we ate earlier. My body reacted weirdly to that for sure."
"Are you really okay?" Cissel came closer, inspecting his face and feeling his forehead thoroughly. When she found the fever had vanished as quickly as it had arrived, she finally let out a long, shaky sigh. "You... You scared me!"
She lowered her head, leaning it against his shoulder in a rare moment of vulnerability and relief, leaving Ricky standing to the side with a gaped mouth and wide eyes.
"I’m fine, told you before," John said, patting her shoulder as a reflex, his mind still reeling from the experience he went through.
Inside his head, the map of Area 11 was no longer a mystery. It was fully rendered, glowing in brilliant green from border to border.
"Told you before, nothing can harm me in this world," he whispered, though he knew the price he had paid in Mental Points was still paining him. So he silently activated his MP Absorption ability, recharging part of his lost Mental Points from Cissel.
