Nick looked at the fancy blue bottle on the desk before looking at Aria for confirmation.
Aria looked at Nick with a skeptical raised brow but nodded for him to take it a moment later.
Nick nodded back and took hold of the bottle.
When Aria saw Nick taking the Elixir that Kugelblitz had attained after paying a ridiculous sum of money, she could only sigh.
What had happened to Kugelblitz?
They used to be the strongest in the city, uncontested.
And now, they entrusted their fate to a mere Peak Veteran from some upstart Manufacturer.
As Aria thought about the two devastating votes from a couple of hours ago, she couldn't help but sigh again.
Kugelblitz had really gone to shit.
Aria still remembered the first time she had seen Nick.
That had been during the first big meeting of Manufacturers.
Back then, Nick was only a new John, and he seemed extremely insecure.
She had viewed Nick as an amusing child back then instead of competition.
But now, things were different.
Nick was being entrusted with Kugelblitz's safety, and he definitely didn't seem insecure anymore.
In fact, he seemed quite capable and confident while standing in the same room with two people who were much more powerful than him.
He had changed a lot.
"How do I use this?" Nick asked.
"Just drink it and focus on your Zephyx Synchronizer," Aria explained. "Then, just try to build your Barrier. It's that simple."
Nick nodded, looked at the bottle, and opened it.
A blue mist came out of the top of the bottle and vanished into the air.
Nick narrowed his eyes and drank from the bottle.
The liquid coming out of the bottle felt extremely hot, but for some reason, Nick didn't feel like he was getting injured by it.
It was like pain without the injury.
Kind of like what the Nightmare did.
Nick drank the entire bottle and closed his eyes.
Then, he focused on his Zephyx Synchronizer.
After a couple of seconds, he felt a blue wave of energy traveling from his stomach into his neck, and Nick could feel how the blue energy wrapped around his Zephyx Synchronizer.
Nick visualized a spinning rhombus as his Zephyx Synchronizer, and he almost felt like he could see inside of himself.
Above the spinning rhombus was a violently burning ball of fire.
It looked like it could explode at any moment, but it never seemed to actually happen.
That was the foreign Zephyx Simon Francium had put in Nick's body.
Nick also noticed that his surroundings were surrounded by a blue mist.
'This is the Elixir,' Nick thought as he narrowed his eyes at the mist.
Then, he opened his arms and moved them towards his Zephyx Synchronizer.
The blue mist warped and traveled closer to the spinning rhombus.
A bit of the blue mist touched the rhombus, and Nick felt like he was about to reach the Expert Stage.
'No!' Nick thought, suppressing the breakthrough.
The rhombus spat out the blue mist again and returned to normal.
Over the next couple of minutes, Nick focused on creating a barrier around his Zephyx Synchronizer.
After a while, the mist turned into a ball, but it was still hazy.
Nick willed the hazy ball to compress.
The ball slowly started to shrink, and it became cloudier and cloudier.
But about a minute later, the cloudiness seemed to vanish, replaced by transparency.
Nick pushed the inside of the ball more toward the outside while keeping the outside at its current position.
He started to feel pain radiating out from his neck, but he ignored it and kept going.
The transparent ball began to shake, but Nick just kept compressing it.
CRK!
A crack appeared in the glass, but Nick repaired it.
CRK! CRK! CRK!
More and more cracks appeared, but Nick repaired them instantly.
Sweat started to stream down Nick's face, but he remained focused and calm.
The cracks become more and more numerous.
More and more of them appeared and vanished.
Suddenly, Nick opened his eyes widely with intensity, and the glass began to shine brightly.
Nick kept focusing on the brightly shining light, and a couple of seconds later, it vanished.
A hair-thin transparent barrier had appeared around Nick's Zephyx Synchronizer.
However, it was not in the shape of a ball.
Every Shell was in the shape of a ball, but Nick's wasn't.
The reason why they were in the shape of a ball was to minimize surface area.
The smaller the Shell, the higher its density and the more Zephyx it attracted.
However, the Shell wasn't allowed to touch the Zephyx Synchronizer, or it might break.
Because of that, everyone just created a ball around it.
But Nick had done something else.
The cracks that had appeared earlier had been his Shell touching his Zephyx Synchronizer.
Usually, that little stunt would cost an Extractor weeks or months of gathering Zephyx, which was why they didn't dare to get too close.
Sure, if they knew the shape of their Zephyx Synchronizer, they could make a smaller and better Barrier, but doing it this way wouldn't help them.
After all, they could basically only create one crack every few months, and the next time they tried it again, they would have forgotten the exact spot.
It wasn't worth it.
However, the Elixir gave Nick enough Zephyx to work with, and he decided to make use of all the Zephyx it had given him.
Nick looked with intensity at the spinning rhombus in front of him.
There was no Shell.
However, the rhombus shone in a slight blue light.
Actually, there was a Shell, but it perfectly adhered to the rhombus.
The two were touching each other, but the touch was so light that neither got damaged by the other.
When Nick saw that he had succeeded, he took a deep breath.
WHOOOOM!
Then, he felt a terrifying storm of Zephyx rushing past him and entering the rhombus.
The storm continued and never stopped.
This was how much Zephyx Nick was now absorbing passively.
'That must be over 20 times faster than before!' Nick thought in shock.