Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 146: The Ogolith Core Problem

By the time they reached the final ten percent of the wall, nearly seven hours had passed, way faster than Cissel and Lanmar even imagined.

During the long hours of cooperative labour, Cissel had finally managed to push past her earlier embarrassment. She returned to looking at John normally, her work focus acting as a bridge over the awkwardness of the morning.

Back at the heart of the base, the rest of the team had finished their internal wiring tasks much earlier. After checking on the lake—which was now more than half-filled and shimmering under the fading light—their attention was captured by the long metallic line that had suddenly appeared at the edge of their base, covering the horizon.

"Let’s go and check it out!" Elena shouted, her excitement infectious.

The group ran toward the distance, their boots thumping against the dry earth. They reached the base of the fortifications and began examining the walls in awe. To them, it seemed as if a mountain range of steel had been conjured out of thin air in a single afternoon.

Later, everyone gathered back at the heart of their territory for a lunch break. The base looked safer and more formidable than ever before—a true bastion in a world of chaos. However, the mood shifted when Ricky spoke up, voicing a concern that had been gnawing at him.

"Wait a second," Ricky started, looking up at the high ramparts. "Won’t all this be covered in thick fog if the magical core finishes consuming the cores it already ate? We already have a finite number of cores, and we burned a lot of them during the weird changes of the fog earlier. What will happen if we run out of fuel? The fog will just roll right back over us, right?"

John looked at Ricky, considering the point. It was the Achilles’ heel of their entire operation. "If that happened," John paused, his mind running through many scenarios, "then it might actually be a benefit. The enemies would be struggling to navigate inside the fog while trying to find our walls. It would slow their advance." He turned to Lanmar. "How do they handle the fog? Are they as blind as we are?"

Lanmar didn’t hesitate. He was currently tearing into a massive, steaming piece of Terakos meat that Elena had expertly cooked over the fire. "They can’t see much of anything inside that fog," he grunted between bites.

"It’s a nightmare. So, sure, it could work in our favour. But there’s a catch—will the sensors on your cannons and towers work properly in the fog? Can they see what we can’t?"

"Damn!" Cissel cursed, the realisation hitting her like a blow. "John, you said it yourself before—the machines are effectively blind in the fog. Their sensors get malfunctioned by the fog for sure. If the fog rolls in, our cannon defensive plan becomes useless!"

The reminder hit John hard. "Then we have no choice," he decided firmly. "We will have to use the magical core to push the fog even further back when the battle begins. We need clear lines of sight for the pulse cannons.

The only problem is that our reserves of these cores are low. We only have what we’ve scavenged, and once they’re gone, we’re back to being blind."

Lanmar stopped mid-chew, looking at John with a puzzled expression. "Who told you they were finite?"

"What do you mean by that?!" It wasn’t just John; Elena, Ricky, and Cissel all asked the question in the same breath, leaning in toward the Bulltor.

"Those Fog Seekers," Lanmar said casually, gesturing with a greasy rib bone. "Once you take down their den, another one will always appear in the same general area a couple of weeks later. It’s the nature of the pocket trials, always putting us under constant tests and challenges. It’s a cycle."

He took another large, messy bite of meat before asking, "How long has it been since you destroyed the last den?"

"It’s been slightly over two weeks now," John said, looking around at the others. They all shrugged; between the constant building, editing, and planning, no one had been keeping a strict follow of the time passing.

"Then a new den should have appeared by now," Lanmar said, his chewing slowing down as a frown creased his forehead. "That’s weird. It shouldn’t be empty for this long." He paused, a thought occurring to him. "Wait... After you killed the Ogolith, didn’t you claim its core?"

"We did," John replied instantly. "But our base’s magical core absorbed it immediately to fuel the initial fog-clearing. Why? Does that change things?" 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"Ah, that’s the reason then," Lanmar said, a look of sudden realisation flashing across his face. He let out a low whistle, dropping the bone back into his bowl.

"Damn! That’s something I’ve never heard of before, but it makes sense. You see, the trial pocket laws are clear. As long as you hold an Ogolith’s core in your storage device or in the open, the pocket trial would notice its inactivity, and another Ogolith will eventually manifest with a new den to replace the lost one.

Destroying the second den gives you a second core. Gathering three cores is the essential requirement to clear the fog entirely and permanently inside your territory."

Lanmar leaned forward, his voice dropping to a serious tone. "But because your magical core consumed it, the cycle is broken. If you don’t have the first Ogolith, a second den won’t appear. And that means you’ll never be able to gather the three cores needed to push the fog away for good."

"What?!!" John and his friends exclaimed in shock, while Lanmar sighed.

"I never heard of anything like it. And it can’t be something good. See, without the Ogolith core, you’ll have fog always inside your territory, which is considered a threat in itself. Yet above that, you won’t be able to clear the fog from the entire pocket trial, in case you managed to overtake it! On top of all that..."

Lanmar paused, for a long moment this time, while his face showed a troubled expression, "Nature is always in favour of balance! So if a cycle is broken, there is no guarantee that the pocket trial would leave things as they are! I expect something big to happen, to balance the broken cycle and bring it back to order!"

And with his last words, everyone fell into long silence, with lots of thoughts flashing into their minds without anyone saying a single word.