Get his Shell by today?
How would that even be possible?!
A Shell was the very thing that turned Veterans into Experts.
After a Veteran became a Peak Veteran, they needed to reach the top of their level first.
That usually took a couple of years.
Naturally, Nick had already accomplished that.
But then came the difficult part.
Just like when Johns became Veterans, when Veterans became Experts, they also needed to achieve something special.
For becoming a Veteran, it was Zephosis.
For becoming an Expert, it was condensing one's Shell.
What was a Shell?
A Shell was a barrier or energy field made of a special kind of Zephyx.
The Shell would surround a person's Zephyx Synchronizer, and it would speed up the recovery of Zephyx by over ten times.
Without that, Experts would have trouble gathering enough Zephyx to battle.
It was still fine for Initial Experts, but Early Experts would need days to recover their Zephyx since they barely recovered more than what they were using by just sitting around.
As for Mid Experts, even that became impossible.
Just like a Veteran without Zephosis, a Mid Expert without a Shell would essentially starve, no matter what they did.
While condensing the Shell after becoming an Expert was technically possible, the decreased speed of recovery would make the process over four times longer.
How long did it take to create a Shell?
If a Peak Veteran could fill their body with all the Zephyx they could absorb every single day without missing a single one, it would take about ten years.
That was the fastest speed humanly possible.
It was impossible to get any faster than this.
Of course, even though Nick essentially had control over all of Dark Dream, he could only work with the Tragedy, and working with the Tragedy took him out of commission for 24 hours.
Sure, that technically meant that he could fill his body with Zephyx once per day, but that represented not being able to do anything else.
If Nick did that, Dark Dream would lose its Chief Zephyx Extractor.
Dark Dream might actually collapse if Nick just stopped working.
However, there was another source of Zephyx.
Julian.
Julian was constantly wagering with people, which meant that he was growing more powerful, which meant that he was creating Zephyx.
His presence in Dark Dream gave everyone inside it quite a boost in how fast they grew, and he was also a big reason why Dark Dream's Extractors were growing this quickly.
Nick received quite a bit of that Zephyx.
But in the end, he still wasn't growing at optimal speeds.
All in all, Nick estimated that he would need twelve to fifteen years to condense his Shell.
Sadly, there was no way to get past that.
The special Zephyx the Shell was made out of was personalized for every Extractor.
This meant that using outside Zephyx did not work.
The body had to create this kind of Zephyx on its own over a long period and by absorbing a crazy amount of Zephyx.
So, while the bottleneck to reach the Veteran Stage was willpower, the bottleneck to reach the Expert Stage was time and money.
Most Veterans only reached that Stage in their late thirties or forties, and they reached the Peak Veteran Stage in their early or late fifties.
Then, as long as they were not prioritized by their Manufacturer for ten entire years, they would need 30 to 40 years to condense their Shell, which meant that they would become Experts in their eighties or nineties.
While Veterans could live a couple decades longer than normal people, ninety was still old for them.
Ninety for a Veteran was comparable to sixty for a normal person.
By then, many Veterans had already died on duty, retired, or switched jobs.
Or maybe they had stopped caring about their power and just worked for five days a week instead of seven, slowing down the creation of their Shell even more.
In the end, the decision of who became an Expert was not really up to the Extractors but the Manufacturers.
The Manufacturers were the ones that assigned the Specters to the Extractors.
If they wanted a Veteran to advance, they would advance in ten years.
If they didn't care, the Veteran would need several decades, or they would never advance at all.
But no matter what decision the Manufacturer made, it couldn't just create an Expert instantaneously.
Or could they?
"Are you suggesting that there is a way?" Nick asked with a raised brow.
At that moment, the mouths on the walls were chuckling.
"If he's offering you the Elixir, he must really believe he's going to die," the mouths said with mirth.
Naturally, Vernon didn't hear them.
Nick didn't show any outward reactions, but he was surprised deep inside.
'The Elixir? So, there is a way!' Nick thought.
Vernon took a deep breath and nodded.
"Aegis uses the cities as factories for Zephyx," he explained, "and they secure the loyalty of their strongest followers with valuable treasures."
"One of these treasures is the Elixir and Aegis only exchanges it for several tons of Zephyx."
"Tons?!" Nick blurted out in shock.
Vernon nodded. "Several tons," he repeated.
One ton was around a billion credits!
And Vernon said that Aegis wanted several for this Elixir?!
"And what can this Elixir do?" Nick asked.
"It can create a Shell within minutes," Vernon said.
Nick took a deep breath.
"And you are offering that to me?" Nick asked.
"Only if you are willing to enter a death pact in exchange," Vernon said.
"Hahahahaha," the mouths on the wall laughed.
"A death pact?" Nick asked.
"It's a contract that can't be avoided or broken, only fulfilled," Vernon said.
"And what would this death pact state?" Nick asked.
"That you will do your best to stop Anatomy and that you won't stop until you are either dead or Anatomy has received so much damage that Kugelblitz can at least evenly fight it."
"If you don't accept the death pact, I will not give you the Elixir," Vernon said.
Nick furrowed his brows.