Nick sat down and closed his eyes.
This would be his first advancement, and he wanted to make sure that nothing went wrong.
Nick imagined himself pulling something out from deep inside of him.
Almost immediately, Nick felt himself becoming hotter, and he started to break out in sweat.
All the Zephyx that his body had prepared for the breakthrough was being accessed and burned.
Nick's muscles began to shake, and he felt like his heart was beating in his ear.
His face turned red, and he started to grimace with strain.
His breathing deepened.
The next moment, Nick felt like something new appeared inside his body.
It was a strange sensation.
It was like something blue and calm was expanding inside of him.
As the blue force expanded throughout Nick's torso, he felt like he was bathing in the Recovery Bath again.
It was so relaxing.
But at the same time, Nick felt like his confidence was shooting through the roof, and he felt like he had the ability to tear reality apart.
Nick took a very deep breath, and the blue force exploded.
It encompassed his entire body.
Nick kept breathing in without end.
It was almost like all the air he was breathing in was vanishing!
He just kept inhaling and inhaling, but his chest almost didn't expand.
The more he inhaled, the more he wanted to jump around and punch something.
He was so full of energy!
Half a minute later, Nick stopped inhaling.
Nick's muscles flexed on their own, and he felt like he could punch a house into dust.
At that point, the strange things happening to his body stopped.
Naturally, Nick knew what that meant.
'I advanced!'
'I'm a level two Zephyx Extractor now!'
'Finally, I'm a John!'
Nick jumped onto his feet with ease, even though he still carried his weapons on his body.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Immediately after, Nick started to rapidly punch and kick the air around him again.
This time, the dark afterimage of his real surroundings appeared more frequently and clearer.
But the next moment, the afterimages changed.
Several corpses were looking at Nick through the gaps in the Fog.
It was like Nick was surrounded by corpses that just kept looking at him.
'That's troublesome,' Nick thought with furrowed brows.
'I think I know where I am.'
Nick was quite certain that the corpses looking at him were not real.
They were just illusions.
Created by the Nightmare.
At this moment, Nick was sure that he was surrounded by the Fog, which was surrounded by darkness.
Specters didn't suffer from the effects of the Nightmare, which was why it could simply be there.
Additionally, it seemed to have the ability to isolate Nick from the Nightmare's influence.
Yet, as soon as Nick managed to create small gaps in the Fog, the Nightmare's influence could enter, which was what produced these images of the corpses watching him.
'Either I'm in some kind of room, or I'm in the sewers. I can't be entirely sure,' Nick thought.
All of Nick's hunger and exhaustion vanished after he turned into a John, and he took advantage of that and started to launch an assault on his surroundings.
Due to Nick's impressive body, his base strength was probably already on the level of an average Early John or maybe even Mid John.
He didn't know at what exact level the Fog was, which was why he was trying to break through the Fog right now.
Nick was very disciplined and athletic, which allowed him to launch a perfect barrage of brutal attacks for an extended period of time.
If he managed to exhaust the Fog completely, it was probably only an Initial Adolescent or an Early Adolescent.
But if it kept resisting, it was probably a Mid, Late, or Peak Adolescent.
Over the next hours, Nick managed to create many gaps through which he could see images that seemed to come from hell.
Yet, the Fog kept returning to its old form again and again.
It didn't matter how much Nick punched and kicked.
It seemed to have no use.
Even when Nick created a gap and pushed his arm through, the fog just closed in front of Nick's arm again.
While Nick was doing all of this, he kept an eye on the locator.
The red light was sometimes getting weaker, but it always stayed red.
That meant that the amount of foreign Zephyx isolating the signal was sometimes reducing but never really vanishing.
Eventually, Nick stopped and sat down again.
'No use,' he thought with a sigh.
'I'm sure I've attacked it for over an hour, and it doesn't behave any differently from the beginning.'
'It can probably withstand my attacks forever.'
Nick gulped as his nervousness increased.
He had been prepared for this eventuality, but he still felt nervous.
His survival now depended on the ability he had acquired.
If Nick's mutated ability could activate the effect of the Null's ability, he would be able to escape.
But if it didn't, Nick's chances of survival would be slim.
Dark Dream knew that Nick was captured by the Fog somewhere, and they were searching for him.
Yet, the chances of Dark Dream finding him without the locator were slim.
After all, not even Nick managed to find the Fog after days of searching for it.
Nick closed his eyes and willed fog to appear from within him.
The moment of truth had arrived.
What kind of ability had Nick unlocked?
Would Nick be able to create fog around him?
Could Nick create fog somewhere else?
Did Nick's attacks attain some kind of steam effect?
Could Nick manipulate water?
Many different kinds of mutations could have appeared within Nick's ability, and he didn't know which one he had received.
What would his ability be?
Would it be useful?
Would it help him in this scenario?
As Nick willed the fog to appear, he noticed the blue force inside of him again.
Apparently, it hadn't vanished after his breakthrough.
But now, the blue force was reducing rapidly.
Within less than a second, all of the blue force vanished.
And Nick's mutated ability activated.