It was not expected for every Extractor to go through the process of achieving Zephosis due to how brutal the experience was.
That was also the reason why only a third to a fourth of all Johns managed to become Veterans.
However, as a team leader, it was expected that Jenny would undergo Zephosis.
With so many Adolescents and Adults now, Dark Dream expected to gain many more Veterans, and it wouldn't be appropriate for a John to be a team leader.
Jenny said that she would give Nick her answer within seven days.
And seven days later, her answer arrived.
Yes, she would do it.
In the past, Jenny used to have a partner, but things didn't work out very well, and they broke up about two or so years ago.
Her partner had not been an Extractor, and she had been the main reason why Jenny wasn't willing to put all of her power into her job.
But ever since they broke up, Jenny had been in a bit of a limbo.
She was interested in getting a new partner, but it wasn't easy for someone like her to get one.
It wasn't that there were not enough suitors. Far from it! As a beautiful young woman with a lot of money, she had many suitors.
The issue was that she just didn't click with anyone.
After working with Specters for nearly a decade now, Jenny had changed quite a bit.
Her outlook was very different, and she easily got bored by the interests of normal people.
And well, romance between Extractors of different Manufacturers was a no-go due to a conflict of interest.
Romance with one of her employees was also a no-no due to the power imbalance.
Sure, Taren and Irwin could fit, but those two just weren't to Jenny's taste.
In the last seven days, Jenny had thought a lot about her life, and in the end, she decided that she wanted to put more into her work.
That was why she decided to go through with it.
Five months later, ten years after joining Dark Dream, Jenny did it.
It was brutal, but she had a lot of willpower and managed to do it.
Three days without sleep, water, or food.
She had achieved Zephosis.
Shortly after she had achieved Zephosis, she had also undergone her ability advancement and became a Veteran.
Another year later, Taren also became a Veteran.
According to him, achieving Zephosis was easier than expected.
11 years after being established, Dark Dream now had four Veterans.
During this time, Nick also advanced a level and finally became a Late Veteran.
His speed of advancement was unprecedented.
A Late Veteran at the age of 27 was crazy.
Jenny and Taren had both become Veterans in their early 30s, which was also fast, but that wasn't even close to Nick's speed.
Dark Dream's growth had also skyrocketed.
Even with Jenny and Taren having advanced, Dark Dream still had ten Peak Johns and twelve more Johns of different levels.
Sure, these numbers were not very crazy, considering that two entire years had passed, but things changed when one looked at the Newbies.
Nine Peak Newbies.
Nine Late Newbies.
Nine Mid, nine Early, and nine Initial Newbies.
45 Newbies.
A number of 45 Newbies was very impressive, even for other Manufacturers.
The number of Newbies a Manufacturer had showed how great they were at creating new Extractors.
And for once, Dark Dream wasn't the worst in that department.
Even if one ignored Kugelblitz and Anatomy, who barely had any Newbies since they simply pulled experienced Extractors from smaller Manufacturers, Dark Dream still didn't have the lowest number of Newbies.
In fact, Solace had the lowest number, at only about 20.
Gemini, a Manufacturer that partially specialized in making Newbies, also only had 50, just a couple more than Dark Dream.
Only Ghosty's Lab with 80 Newbies had a lot more.
When it came to creating new Extractors, Dark Dream was in third place and almost rivaled second place.
Sadly, they only had 22 Johns for now, putting them in the last spot as long as one ignored Kugelblitz.
After all, Kugelblitz didn't need weak Extractors.
When the Newbies of Dark Dream walked around outside, they were no longer being constantly looked at by Newbies from other Manufacturers.
In the past, since Dark Dream had been so much smaller than all the other Manufacturers, Newbies from Dark Dream had been singled out.
Not anymore!
Now, it was normal to see the occasional Newbie from Dark Dream walking around.
Within these two years, Dark Dream had also acquired a new Specter.
It was called the Black Knife, and it was a Hatchling Possession Specter.
If it cut someone, they would receive a dangerous disease that hijacked the nervous system to send signals to all muscles, creating powerful spasms that could tear someone apart.
The Black Knife had killed many humans outside, and Dark Dream had chanced upon it.
Luckily, Newbies could survive the disease.
The severity of the disease varied based on the victim's power, of course.
A normal human would die within three days.
An Initial Newbie had a high chance of dying within seven days. Luckily, Recovery Liquid could get rid of it.
An Early Newbie would survive the disease, but they would be in agony for a week.
A Mid Newbie would feel pretty bad for three days.
A Late Newbie would feel bad for one day.
A Peak Newbie would feel a bit bad for a couple of hours.
Taren decided to only let Late Newbies and Peak Newbies work with it, but he would prioritize Peak Newbies.
Of course, since the first layer of the fourth floor had already been filled, a second layer was created, and the Black Knife officially became the first Specter of the second layer of the fourth floor.
While the Specters had not increased by a lot in these two years, the number of Extractors had more than doubled.
However, Dark Dream was nowhere near done growing.