As soon as Nick accepted the trade, he felt his body becoming weaker.
It was like he was rapidly running through the stages of starvation.
Around 30 seconds later, Nick felt extremely weak, and for the first time in many years, he had the desire to sleep.
Finally, Nick collapsed to the floor, and the feeling of weakness stopped becoming stronger.
The book started to shine for a moment before returning back to normal.
And then…
Nothing.
That was it.
Nick breathed heavily for a while before standing up.
'What now?' Nick thought as he looked at the book. 'Shouldn't I receive a lot of knowledge?'
The next moment, a red light appeared inside the Containment Unit, and Nick furrowed his brows.
'I didn't notice it before, but this is actually a Containment Unit designed with the Manderville theorem in mind.'
Nick raised an eyebrow. 'Wait, didn't notice, or did I not know that before?'
'Have I already received the knowledge?'
'I don't know.'
It was difficult to remember if one didn't know something at a certain point if they didn't remember specifically learning about that something.
Did Nick know about the Manderville theorem before coming into this Containment Unit or not?
'What did I come here for? What was it that I wanted to know? I wanted to know about Aegis,' Nick thought.
'Aegis was created over 3,000 years ago by a group of powerful Extractors from the Great Triangle. They decided to create Aegis after seeing how horrible life was for almost all citizens all over the world…'
Aegis' entire history shot through Nick's mind in nearly an instant.
Nick would be surprised about the things he was learning about, but he kind of already knew all of this.
Because of that, he couldn't really be surprised.
It was a strange feeling.
A moment later, Nick's mind was pulled to Aegis' future.
'The next 80 years will be a time of great upheavals,' Nick realized with furrowed brows.
'The False Prophet is the very reason why Aegis can fight the Trio of Destruction and Death in the first place, but working with it puts all of Aegis at risk every time.'
For the first time, Nick could actually paint a picture of humanity's future for himself.
And it wasn't a happy one.
Humanity needed another Late Shield to have a chance against Death, but to achieve that, humanity needed to work with the False Prophet, the only Adversary humanity had access to.
Nick shook his head.
'I can't change things anyway. I'm too weak,' he thought as he put humanity's bleak future out of his mind.
Instead, Nick focused on his future as Liaison.
He remembered many cases in which cities turned unprofitable due to seemingly smart reforms.
Nick wasn't sure if he had known these things before, but he could tell that knowing the past of these cities would help him tremendously.
4,500 years.
That was the approximate length of this current era, based on the oldest records ever found.
It was possible that the era had existed for longer, but it couldn't have been more than another couple hundred years.
At most, this era had been going on for 5,000 years.
During these years, the concept of what constituted a city had undergone many changes, and Nick remembered the history of the most noteworthy cities of this era.
Nick also remembered his old plans for his job as Liaison and realized that there were much better ways to accomplish his goal.
'This was worth it!' Nick realized while restructuring his plans for the future with his newfound knowledge of history.
Nick turned to look at the exit of the Containment Unit. 'Aegis has a history of producing new Agents who seem to come out of nowhere. These people must come from this place.'
'It seems like this training camp is very effective.'
'I should continue. There are only two Specters left.'
Nick walked out of the Containment Unit and looked at the gathered trainees.
The trainees had heard that Nick would soon go towards the focus level five Specter, a Specter nobody had ever seen.
Naturally, they wanted to be here for this occasion.
"You accepted the knowledge exchange?" the black-haired girl asked with furrowed brows.
Nick nodded. "History," he answered.
This elicited several furrowed brows from the trainees.
History? Really?
Why not economics? With that, he could become rich and powerful in any city.
Alternatively, psychology would make it far easier to manipulate people while avoiding falling for other people's schemes.
Why not Zephology? That would give him the power to create his own weapons.
Or warfare.
Instead, he went with history?
That was such a strange choice.
"I'm going to take a look at the last danger Specter," Nick said as he walked over to its Containment Unit.
The three powerful trainees just nodded.
The green-haired man knew what that Specter was, and he was certain that Nick wouldn't attempt to work with it.
Working with it was ridiculously risky for minimal benefit.
As Nick entered the locker room, he saw several illustrations explaining the Specter.
'Why?' was the only thing Nick thought. 'Why would they even offer such a Specter? What's the point? Who would possibly decide to work with something like that?'
The illustration showed a slot machine and an Extractor pulling its lever.
In one illustration, the slot machine fell onto three Zephyx symbols, and the Extractor seemed to become more powerful.
In another illustration, the slot machine fell onto three skulls, and the Extractor died.
This was ridiculous.
This was literally just chance.
This had nothing to do with danger.
This was simply stupidity or desperation.
Nick shook his head and left the locker room again.
Sure enough, he wouldn't be working with this Specter.
Once again, Nick wouldn't receive all possible points in a category.
He hadn't gone to the Revulsion.
While he had denied the level five discipline trade, he had accepted the level four discipline trade, making him drop to ten points in that category.
And now, he had refused to work with the danger level five Specter.
'These level five Specters are crazy. But maybe that's exactly what they are supposed to be,' Nick thought. 'Maybe the good trainees are not supposed to use the level five Specters.'
'These Specters probably exist as some sort of personality test instead of a test of talent and dedication.'
That was when Nick was reminded of the academic portion.
'Now that I think about it, there was also an option to declare that you only know an answer because another trainee taught you.'
'Most people would probably believe this to be a bad thing.'
'In that case, they would probably lie and not admit that they learned these things from anybody, and Aegis will most likely find out. That would expose them to be untrustworthy, which is one of the attributes that Aegis hates the most.'
'Alternatively, they would just never ask anyone and try to get enough points on their own via trial and error. However, that would make it extremely difficult to get a total of 50 points. The academic portion gives the most points, and people need that.'
'That means people who refuse to help others or refuse to accept the help of others are also filtered out.'
'Now, we have these level five Specters that no sane person would work with.'
'I guess they exist to filter out people who are "lucky".'
'People who have personalities that are broken in just such a way that they can clear one of these categories.'
'Someone that likes being absolutely abused and ruined to an extremely unhealthy degree could get through level four of pain and then go do the level five of pain.'
'Someone that doesn't care about their life and just chases the thrill of risking their lives might do the level five of danger Specter.'
'I see,' Nick thought, finally realizing the true purpose of the trainee camp.
'This is not actually about testing our talents. This is about testing our personalities and if we are a good fit for Aegis.'
'The key to surviving here is not being outstanding but being social.'
'At first glance, the other trainees seem like our competitors, but that is not actually true.'
'What kind of disadvantage does a trainee gain if every other trainee suddenly gains five more points in the academic portion?'
'The spots are not limited.'
'There are also more than enough Specters. In fact, if everyone had more points, people could choose more Specters, making it even easier for everyone else to advance in level.'
'It's only important how many points I gain. It's not important how many points I gain in relation to others.'
'This is not a competition.'
'We are working together.'
'And that's why so many people are failing this part.'
'Everyone tries to stand out in the crowd, but that's not what Aegis is searching for.'
'They want team players.'
'They want people that can work together.'
Nick looked at the three people in front of him.
'Why not?'
'If I'm going to be here for a while, I might as well make some allies.'