Nick walked through the door and entered the area behind it.
He had been here before.
It was a disorderly room with many small gadgets strewn around.
As Nick looked around, he noticed another door at the back of the room.
'Marvin probably left through the back,' Nick thought since he didn't find Marvin inside the room.
"Take a seat," the Technician said as he sat down behind the desk.
Nick sat down in front of the desk and looked at the Technician.
"Alright, so," the Technician started, "according to what I have heard from Marvin and the other three, you've had some good results?"
Nick nodded. "I increased the city's tribute by 25%."
"I heard," the Technician said with a slight lean back, "but I want to hear more about the things you actually care about."
Nick raised an eyebrow in uncertainty. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"You said," the Technician said, "that the powerful are only interested in lining their own pockets as they drain the blood of the people who have nothing but their blood left. You also spoke about the former Governor quite a lot."
"Aegis now receives 25% more from Crimson City, but how about the common people? What changed for them?"
"A lot," Nick answered. "The poorest people don't have to commit crimes anymore to survive."
"And how is that possible?" the Technician asked.
Over the next hour, the two of them talked about the changes Nick had implemented in Crimson City.
The Technician was especially interested in where the Zephyx for Aegis came from.
After all, a city only had a limited amount of Zephyx, and if Aegis' tribute was increased by 25%, that had to come from somewhere.
One had to differentiate between credits and Zephyx here.
The city paid fewer credits for the Zephyx since it produced more Zephyx itself, but the total amount of Zephyx shouldn't have increased since the number and power of Specters hadn't increased.
At least, that's what the Technician had thought.
"So, the Zephyx production actually increased due to the Crimson Fungus producing more?" the Technician asked.
Nick nodded and explained the new blood donation system to the Technician.
In the end, the Technician nodded with a frown. "Interesting. In normal cities, that would never work."
"The power distribution, right?" Nick asked.
"Partially," the Technician answered. "Sure, the power distribution is also not as centralized as in Crimson City since most of the cities are mainly run by the biggest Manufacturers, making this essentially impossible."
"However, the much bigger issue is that this method requires the government to support a Manufacturer."
"The Crimson Fungus belongs to a Manufacturer, and the city is using its authority to help the Manufacturer. If there were a comparable Manufacturer to the biggest one in Crimson City, they would immediately protest."
"The neutral stance of the government would be jeopardized, and the government wouldn't be viewed as trustful anymore by the Manufacturers," the Technician explained.
"That was not how Kugelblitz reacted," Nick said with a snort. "They reacted like I was siding with everyone else over them."
"Yes," the Technician answered, "because the old Blood Tax that you told me about was even worse and should have never been implemented in the first place. While, in a normal city, your policy change would have been viewed as helping Kugelblitz, in Crimson City, it would be viewed as damaging them."
"If you do anything like that in another city, problems will occur."
"Why?" Nick asked. "Aegis is the most powerful organization that exists. Aegis is mankind's shield against the Specters. Anything and anyone that refuses to bow to Aegis is mankind's enemy. Is that not correct?"
The Technician had an uncertain expression. "Well, yes, but also not really."
Nick's eyebrows shot up. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, it's true that nobody can resist Aegis, but there are things that we can't force. There are things that the people have to give willingly," the Technician explained.
"What?" Nick asked in surprise.
"Belief," the Technician answered. "The Champion of Light needs belief to stay at his current power."
"If the people start resenting and hating Aegis, that belief in Aegis' symbol will weaken and maybe even vanish."
"We could hold guns to everybody's heads and order them to believe, but that wouldn't work. The Champion requires true belief. He requires hope."
Nick furrowed his brows. "Okay, but if the life situation of more people improves, they should be more willing to believe in the Champion of Light, right? Therefore, having full authority over the people should be positive, as long as I improve their lives."
"Weeelll," the Technician slowly spoke.
Nick just looked at him in shock.
'This can't be, right? He's not about to say that this isn't true,' Nick thought.
"That's not reeaally correct," the Technician answered.
"Okay," Nick slowly answered. "Then, what is?"
The Technician slowly moved his head from side to side, as if to evaluate whether or not he should tell Nick.
"Okay, let me just tell you about the issue," the Technician said. "We are Aegis. We want to help humanity. That is true. That is a fact. Understand?"
Nick nodded.
"However, helping humanity doesn't necessarily equate to making them happy."
"Sure," Nick said. "I can see that."
"The thing is, we need two things," the Technician continued.
"First, we need Zephyx."
"With Zephyx, we can make better weapons, increase the power of our Extractors, help them comprehend Zephyx Manipulation faster, and many more things. The more Zephyx we have, the more we can do and the faster we grow in power."
Nick nodded to show that he understood.
"Second, we need enough true power to resist the most powerful Specters. That means we need Shields. Yet, the issue with that is-"
"The Maw," Nick interjected.
"Right," the Technician confirmed. "Because of the Maw, we can only have seven Shields at most. If we get another Shield, everyone will be pulled into the Maw, and only one Shield will come out."
"As soon as that happens, Death, that big Adversary camping in front of our headquarters, will destroy our headquarters, and all of humanity will essentially die. So, we are stuck with seven Shields."
"Okay, since we can't have any more Shields, the next best thing is to make the Shields we have as powerful as possible."
"But we only have a single Adversary, and working with it is extremely dangerous. Not for the Extractor personally but for humanity and Aegis as a whole. That means we can't work with it very often, which means that we can essentially only have a single Shield working with it."
"Since we only have a single space for a Shield, we are naturally going to use our strongest one, which is the Champion of Light. Due to the Champion of Light's ability, he is much more powerful than any other Extractor on his level."
"Yet, even though he worked with our only Adversary for centuries, he only managed to become a Mid Shield."
Nick's eyes widened.
The Champion of Light was only a Mid Shield?
"Usually, that wouldn't be enough to keep so many Adversaries at bay," the Technician answered. "However, thanks to all the people believing in the Champion, his power is still extraordinary. His power is so big that almost all the Adversaries prefer waiting for him to die of old age over attacking Aegis."
"Without the Champion, we will fall into a horrible war, which we will most likely lose."
"Is it clear that the Champion's Battle-Strength is of utmost importance to the survival and prosperity of humanity?" the Technician asked.
Nick nodded. "I wasn't sure about the details before, but I understand his importance now."
"Okay, good," the Technician said. "Now, who would want to see a significant change in the world more badly? A suffering person or a happy person?"
Nick frowned as he started to understand where this was going.
"A suffering person," Nick answered unwillingly.
"Right," the Technician confirmed. "So, you see, the two things are connected. In order for the Champion to remain powerful, we need humans to desire a change in the world."
Nick's mood had dropped considerably.
He had tried to improve the lives of the common people.
Yet, by the sound of things, he had actually weakened the Champion of Light by doing so.
"Up until now," the Technician continued, "we didn't put a lot of importance on the quality of life for the normal people. As long as they survived and paid their tribute to Aegis, we would protect them."
"However, I have to emphasize that Aegis does not actively try to make the lives of the people worse. The Champion of Light has never asked us to do any of that, and we try not to do it."
The Technician sighed. "But if the Champion becomes too weak, we might have to."
Nick frowned.
"At least, that's what the original plan was," the Technician added.
Nick's brows rose as he looked at the Technician. "Huh?" he uttered.
"Well, the entire thing with you changed things," the Technician said with a sigh. "Also, the Champion doesn't have much longer."
"That means we won't be able to rely on him for much longer."
"Our priorities are currently changing, which is also why we are experimenting with the Liaison position."
"If we can improve the lives of people without damaging Aegis, we would prefer that."