Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 112: The Totem Scale

"This isn’t... Fruit! And here I thought I’ll add another grenade to my fruit weapon list, tsk!"

Cissel stood in front of the towering trees they had arrived at minutes ago, sighing and shaking her head in profound disappointment. The soft, juicy fruit everyone had envisioned—the kind that might ignite into a blast in the fog—was nowhere to be found. Instead, the branches were laden with weirdly shaped, multi-layered conical objects that clung to the silver branches like metallic barnacles.

*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*

That wasn’t the only surprise. The silver-grey trunk rang with a muffled, metallic resonance when Ricky knocked on it with his sword. The sound wasn’t the dull thud of wood, but the high-density ring of solid ore. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"This is amazing!" Ricky turned to John and Cissel, his eyes wide with wonder. "These trees are made entirely out of metal! It’s like a forest of living, towering statues."

"That’s... Incredible indeed!" In John’s eyes, the world was a different story. He saw two distinct types of code clusters, intricately entangled and forming the gigantic body of each tree.

One cluster was a deep, matte grey; the other was a brilliant, shimmering silver. Despite his Frame Recognition ability, he hadn’t been able to determine that the trees were metallic until Ricky’s test.

"This isn’t cool, it’s frustrating!" Cissel pouted her lips, refusing to accept the absence of the fruit grenades she wanted. "How come a tree is made out of metal and produces these weirdly shaped things instead of real fruit? It’s a waste!"

"Perhaps they can do the same trick as the blue fruit," John casually remarked.

His words acted like a trigger. Cissel jumped at once, showing off her agility as she scaled several branches in a blur of movement. She reached for one of the conical things, trying to wrench it free, but she failed. The object was fused to the branch as if it had been welded there by a master craftsman.

"John, use your explosive trick, please!" she pleaded from her high spot, looking down at him with an expectant gaze that made John inwardly sigh.

After the end of the recent battles, John was acutely aware that he was in a world that didn’t naturally replenish his Mental Points. He had to be extra careful with his consumption. And he wasn’t prepared yet to expose his MP Pulse item, as he had no way to explain how or when he got it!

’I’ll just absorb a few points from you later,’ he thought. He wasn’t entirely powerless. Yesterday, when he used his Logic Bomb ability on the blue Serpentile trees, he had made up for the consumption by subtly using his MP Absorption ability on his friends while they slept or rested. He intended to do the same later.

*Boom!*

John triggered a Logic Bomb on one of the weird conical things. He had initially worried it might be overkill, so he had aimed to simply sever the branch so they could examine the interior structure together on the ground. Yet, the result was completely unexpected.

"This..." Cissel stood by his side a moment later, staring at the single, conical-shaped silver mass that had finally fallen to the ground. "The explosion that tore apart D-1000 armour did absolutely nothing to that branch?!"

She moved her eyes from the item on the ground toward the branch that had held it. The wood—or rather, the metal—looked completely fine. There wasn’t even a scorch mark. It was as if the explosion hadn’t even happened.

"Weird indeed," Ricky said, turning his eyes toward John. "This is what I call good material to build a wall. If it can withstand your bombs, it can withstand a laser shot."

"Yet we need to get it chopped first!" Cissel rolled her eyes, pointing at the branch. Her gesture clearly communicated that if John’s ability failed to leave a scratch, their swords and daggers had no chance.

John ignored the bickering and leaned over with pure interest to examine the fallen object. It felt heavy—denser than lead—and the layers were arranged like the scales of a dragon. Yet, the moment his fingers brushed the surface, the notification he received left him more puzzled than before.

[Ding! You gained The Totem Scale!]

[Ding! A precursor to something nice!]

’What? What do you mean?!’ John thought, demanding clarification from the system. He expected a breakdown of its properties or a crafting recipe. Instead, he got the same annoying, cryptic response.

[Ding! You need to work your brain a little bit to find the answer!]

[Ding! 1 Mental Point is deducted!]

’...’ John didn’t know how to respond to such a shameless attitude from the system. This time, he truly didn’t have a clue, and unlike the seeds, this wasn’t something where the result would be obvious just by trying to plant them.

"I feel like holding a piece of metal in my hands," Ricky said, picking up the Totem Scale from John. He turned it over, the silver surface catching the light. "Any clue?" Despite his usual competitive nature and not liking to admit John’s edge, he looked to him for an answer. John simply shook his head.

"I’d say we try throwing it in the fog," John said, his eyes drifting to the distant wall of white mist. He wondered if fog’s mysterious nature would trigger a reaction similar to the blue fruits.

"It’s just a waste," Ricky countered, looking up at the forest. Each tree was at least double the size of the Blue Serpentile trees, towering like metallic skyscrapers over the grass. There were hundreds of them. "Such sturdy metal can be used perfectly to form strong walls! If we could harvest this, we wouldn’t have to worry about lasers ever again."

John and Cissel knew Ricky had a point, but without any means to cut or mould these trees, such fortifications remained mere dreams.

"Let’s go back," John finally said, resigning himself to the current reality after a few more failed attempts to cut the branches. ’At least I collected five of these scales. I’ll test them inside the fog later and see if they have a reaction.’