[Ding! You are successfully synchronised with Room 189252!]
[Ding! As your system synchronisation level is low, you will need to pay Mental Points to maintain a stable connection to the room!]
[Ding! Security Assessment for Room 189252: Level Low. Consumption rate adjusted.]
[Ding! You will consume 1 Mental Point per 10 minutes of synchronisation!]
[Ding! Congratulations on discovering how to sync with external coded structures! Your Mental Power cap has been increased by 10 points!]
[Ding! Bonus reward added to the ongoing Quest!]
"At last!" John shouted, his voice echoing in the spacious hall. He felt a literal weight lift off his chest as the series of golden notifications washed over him. He had finally cracked the code of the world—literally.
The first thing he did was pull up his profile to see the damage—and the gains.
[Mental Power (MP): 16/26]
"Now that is what I call a real asset, hahaha!" The suffocating pressure of his low Mental Points vanished. With a cap of twenty-six, he finally felt like he had enough breathing room to move from a defensive, carefully calculating mindset into an active and provocative one.
Armed with this sudden gush of more Mental Points, he started to boldly test the limits of his breakthrough.
He stood before the glowing wall, his fingers trailing over the pulsing white lines where his blood had made the handshake. He tried to mentally "command" the codes to change, but they remained stubbornly in place.
He tried to physically push them, rearrange them with his fingers, or even flick them like icons on a screen, but everything remained rigid.
"Even if I have access, they are still dead and cold codes in the end," he sighed, the initial rush of triumph cooling into frustration. "Access isn't enough. I need something extra. How should I hack the code then? Shall I use my Shell ability?"
The moment the thought solidified, the black-and-white command window popped up in front of him. He paid the activation cost without any worries, eager to see if the synchronisation provided a local bridge.
He initiated the command sequences he had used during his arrival—the raw syntax he'd utilised to rewrite his "deletion" script. He executed a 'view_source' command, and suddenly, the Shell window didn't look black and white anymore; it became a scrolling nightmare.
Tens of thousands of white lines of code and hexadecimal values flooded his vision, representing everything from the structural integrity of the floor to the oxygen levels in the air. This was the coding structure of the room, in addition to any form of data it had!
"This... This is going to take a lot longer than I expected," John muttered. He began to scroll through the endless looking code lines, looking for the "logic" of the furniture or the basic functions presented in the room, like delivering food on regular intervals.
But as he was in the middle of navigating the ocean of data, ten minutes vanished.
[Ding! You have lost your synchronisation with Room 189252!]
[Ding! Source Code view privilege revoked!]
[Ding! Please regain synchronisation to continue viewing the code!]
"Hmm, this is not good!" John groaned, rubbing his temples as a sharp headache began to bloom.
"Viewing the code of a simple dormitory room with virtually no complex data within it took more than ten minutes just to scratch the surface! If I try this on a high-security office, I'll empty my Mental Point reservoir without gaining anything in return."
He didn't hurry to re-sync with the room. He needed to rethink his approach. This room was a local sandbox; it didn't have a database or secret files.
But the administrative office he intended to infiltrate would be overflowing with data—student registries, family backgrounds, historical performance, and perhaps even the records of past students and disciplinary actions.
Just imagining the sheer volume of code in that office was enough to make him visualise his own failure. He looked at his Mental Points again.
Even with his newly increased cap, even if he had tenfold that amount, a mission to the admin office would be a losing gamble. He would be depending entirely on luck to find the right file before his points ran out.
"And then there's this problem," he recalled something, his eyes narrowing as he thought back to the system's warning. "I'm paying one point for every ten minutes here because the security is 'Low.' I'd bet my life that the office holding student files has way higher security measures than my room. The cost might be one point per minute... Or more."
The realisation hit him hard. The cost of synchronisation would be astronomical, severely limiting his options and crushing his chances of success.
"I can't depend on luck," he said, shaking his head and dismissing the useless, depressive thoughts.
"I need something reliable. I need a tool that can shorten the search time. I can't read every line of code by hand... I need something to navigate for me… Like a search engine."
His mind froze the moment the words left his lips.
"Wait a minute! Search engines are programs in the end! If I can't browse the whole library on my own, I can build a digital librarian. I can write a simple script—something specifically designed to look for Ricky's file, grab it for me, and only display that specific data cluster!"
His excitement was off the roof! He stood up and paced his room, his heart thumping strongly.
It was such a simple, feasible solution that he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it the moment he opened the Shell interface and secured a handshake with his room. This was what he did best: creating tools to navigate chaos, filter the useless and find the valuable.
Running such a program was a piece of cake for him, especially when the target was a single file. He briefly regretted not knowing the girl's name, but he quickly dismissed the thought. He'd just ask Luke about her first thing in the morning. For now, he had a beta to build.
His thoughts wildly raced, inputting syntax into the black Shell window. He felt like his old self again, weaving logic out of thin air. However, all his excitement died down the moment he gave the command: Enter, to run the script for a trial run on his room's data.
[Ding! Your System Synchronisation level is too low! You must pay additional Mental Points to execute custom external programs!]
[Ding! 1 Mental Point will be deducted to run the program for a duration of 5 minutes. This is a recurring cost for every execution!]
[Ding! As this is an unofficial, non-academy program, it requires the Spoofing ability to remain hidden!]
[Ding! 1 Mental Point will be deducted to spoof this program for 5 minutes. This is a recurring cost!]
[Ding! Security Assessment for Room 189252: Low. Mental Point consumption adjusted.]
[Ding! Running the program will cost: 1 Mental Point per 10 minutes.]
[Ding! Critical Warning: There is currently no local storage space for extracted data, nor for the program you coded. All information extracted will be lost the moment the Shell ability is deactivated! You'll need to rewrite the program every time your handshake ends!]
"You damn Mental Point addict! Come on! Give me a break!" John cursed and shouted at the empty room, yet nothing changed on the system side. He felt like he was being extorted by his own brain!
[Ding! These are the rules of the game. Take it or leave it!]
"Fck you!" John spat, knowing he wouldn't get any mercy from this stingy system. He did the math, and the numbers were grim. Even with his search engine in motion, he hadn't lowered the Mental Point consumption by much—he'd just changed where the points were leaking.
To perform a single hack, he had to pay 1 point for the initial Room Handshake, 1 point for Frame Recognition to see the coding structure in the first place, 1 point for the Shell to host the script, and 1 point to run the Search Engine.
Just to start the process, he was looking at five Mental Points minimum. "And it'll be even worse when I hit that office. The security will be higher, the costs will double... Tsk!"
He expected to pay at least eight to ten points in just one attempt at the administration building. If the search took longer than ten minutes, or he targeted the wrong office, he would have to pay the fees all over again.
"And I have to rewrite the program every single time since I can't save it... What a headache!"
John realised he was playing a high-stakes game of resource management. He couldn't afford a single mistake. He had to be at full charge before even attempting the mission.
Despite his frustration, he decided to continue the test run to see if his code actually worked. He started by actually searching for Ricky—he knew that file wasn't in his dorm's codes, and he wanted to make sure the program didn't fake results.
Then, he walked into the dining room and adjusted his search parameters for the furniture. He queried for "food plates," "forks," "knives," and "spoons."
The program hummed to life. Within the Shell, lines of scrolling text appeared, highlighting the specific data clusters for the kitchenware.
Compared to the tens of thousands of lines he got on his first attempt, having a couple of hundred lines was a great win! And for his first attempt to look for Ricky, he got nothing but emptiness and silence.
Yet when he considered the pressing danger of running low on his Mental Points, he knew even this result wasn't that great!
"So I'll still need to do the work and look for the valuable info in this shitload of useless code..." he muttered to himself. He tried to refine the script, attempting to add more filters to bring the most valuable data only.
But as he began to type the new parameters, a series of red flashing boxes exploded across his vision, accompanied by a piercing alarm sound in his mind.
[Ding! WARNING! Your Mental Points are hitting rock bottom!]
[WARNING! Immediate cessation of all Mental Points consuming abilities is RECOMMENDED!]
[WARNING! You must stop ASAP and sleep to replenish your Mental Points. Failure to comply will result in a Mental Burnout State!]