For the remainder of the day, Nick focused on training and planning his future.
Strength, money, status.
Nick needed all of these things if he ever wanted to repay a little of the things he owed Horua.
The more time passed, the more Nick realized how much time he actually had to dedicate to whatever he wanted.
Horua had eaten so much of Nick's time and focus that, without him, Nick felt like there was nothing else to do.
For the first time in forever, Nick actually felt exhausted after working out.
Nick had run around the Outer City several times.
The citizens were not very surprised by a Zephyx Extractor running around. After all, there were quite a few level one Extractors in the Outer City, and they also needed to keep their fitness up.
From time to time, there were Extractors that kept jogging and running throughout the city.
Naturally, Nick sped up and slowed down constantly.
Since Nick was always putting in the same amount of effort, his speed kept changing due to his ability activating and deactivating.
And the best part was that Nick didn't even need to try to keep his ability a secret.
After all, if anyone saw him, it would deactivate on its own, keeping it a secret.
In a way, Nick was forced to keep his ability a secret since he couldn't even show it to anyone.
When Nick was exhausted from running around, he went to grab his weapons and trained with them.
The heavy weight of the weapons made it extremely difficult and strenuous to move around, but that was what Nick wanted.
Training was supposed to be exhausting.
When it was evening, Nick even bought quite expensive food.
Meat that didn't come from rats or insects.
Apparently, there were some kind of indoor farms where small but fat flightless birds, called chickens, were being held.
According to the person in the expensive-looking shop, the meat of these chickens was extremely rich in protein and almost had zero fat.
While Nick didn't exactly care about the fat content, he cared a lot about the protein.
So, Nick bought two entire cooked chickens and ate them.
After one chicken, Nick already felt like he was quite full, but he forced the second one down as well.
One had to remember that Nick managed to build quite an impressive body while living in the Dregs on his own.
If he didn't know how to build such a body, he wouldn't have had one.
'150 credits,' Nick thought. '150 credits for one meal, even though it was a lot.'
'If I were to eat normally, it would still be 75 credits. That's almost a month of tax.'
Nick had never eaten a meal this expensive.
However, the taste was absolutely amazing, and the contents of the meat were important.
When Nick was eating it, he almost felt like his body was screaming in euphoria.
Sadly, the euphoria was dampened by the black void in Nick's chest.
Nick had done a lot today and had eaten amazing food, but the void in his chest barely seemed weaker than in the morning.
The guilt, regret, worthlessness, self-hatred, and pointlessness were as present as ever.
Nick knew very well that all these things he was doing were just distractions from his emotions.
But that was the only thing he could do.
There was no way for Nick to deal with his emotions.
He would need to get rid of the guilt, but he could only get rid of the guilt by repaying Horua, which was impossible.
There was no way to fix this.
Which meant he had to live with this.
He wasn't courageous enough to kill himself.
He wouldn't mind dying the next moment, but he also wouldn't actively search for his death.
It was kind of a limbo.
'If I can make the lives of the people in the Dregs better, I might be able to live with myself, and if I die along the way, it's also not a loss.'
'It's a win-win either way,' Nick thought as he put his weapons to the side.
Eventually, it was time for Nick to go to bed.
It was difficult.
With nothing to distract him, Nick's mind was constantly drawn to things he had done.
Luckily, the strong exhaustion of Nick's battered body made him drift off to sleep relatively quickly.
Nick slept for over ten hours, which was far more than normal.
'But it makes sense,' Nick thought. 'I went through a lot yesterday, and I also trained more than I ever did before.'
'I never had the luxury of safety, which always stopped me from completely exhausting my body. Additionally, food was also always an issue.'
Nick felt a bit of weakness coming from his body, but it wasn't as strong as he had expected.
Obviously, Nick had trained a lot in his life, and he was very familiar with his body.
The way Nick was feeling was like how he used to feel after having muscle soreness.
'I became quite a bit stronger since I last trained,' Nick thought. 'The last time I properly trained was before I joined Dark Dream. Ever since then, I advanced several levels.'
'As a Late level one Extractor, my body is converting Prephyx into Zephyx that can't be harvested, which is then used as fuel for my movements.'
'It wouldn't be strange to think that the Zephyx also has a healing effect on my body,' Nick thought as he moved his arm around to test its strength.
'Including today, I still have two more days of rest.'
'I should use them.'
Nick quickly left his bed, bought a heavy breakfast, and started to run around again.
This time, Nick decided to wear his four cuffs while running.
That made it many times more difficult, but he kept at it.
Whenever Nick felt like he was losing strength, he started to tell himself that he wasn't doing all of this for himself but for Horua.
Nick didn't allow himself to become complacent.
He had to repay Horua!