Nick approached the three people. "Only an insane or desperate person would consider working with that," he said.
"Told you," the man with the green hair commented. "How many more are you missing?"
"Only the level five focus one," Nick said.
These words immediately gathered the interest of the other trainees in the hallway.
The level five focus Specter!
Nobody had ever seen that one!
"I wouldn't keep my hopes up," the casual man with the red hair said. "All the other ones are a bust. Chances are this one isn't any different."
The man with green hair frowned. "But we still want to know what it is, right?" he asked, looking at the red-haired man.
"Of course!" the red-haired man countered.
The black-haired girl also nodded from the side.
Nick looked at the three of them. "Is there any kind of rule that forbids me from telling you what it is?"
"Not really," the black-haired girl said. "People who speak too much about Specters get a small warning from the supervisors, but only if they talk too much. If someone finds a perfect tactic for one of the Specters, Aegis might need to replace that Specter since it can't be used to filter out people anymore. That's a hassle, and the supervisors don't really want to go through that."
"Agreed," the green-haired guy said. "Just getting to the level five of focus Specter is already nearly impossible. Any advice you can give people would be useless since they can't even fulfill the requirements to make use of it."
Nick nodded. "Then, I'm going in."
The red-haired man smiled while the other two watched with intensity as Nick entered the locker room.
The entire hallway fell silent.
They wanted to know what this last Specter was.
After Nick entered the locker room, he approached the door to the Containment Unit.
His Barrier appeared and turned green.
The next moment, the door opened, and Nick could finally see the Specter.
It was a wall filled with holes.
In the middle of the Containment Unit was the cutout of a metallic wall.
The cutout was around three meters high, two meters wide, and one meter thick.
There were several big holes all over the wall, and there was also a thin metallic platform in front of the wall.
Nick looked into one of the holes from a distance and saw a thin metallic spike at its back.
As soon as he saw the wall, Nick immediately knew what it was.
He had never seen this thing before, but this was a device that had been commonly used around 2,500 years ago.
Without the trade with the level four of discipline Specter, Nick wouldn't have known what this was.
'An execution wall,' Nick realized with furrowed brows. 'If my guess is right, I now understand why they require the trainees to have fulfilled danger level four and have high speed.'
Nick looked at the walls and saw illustrations that showed what he had to do.
'That's insane,' Nick thought. 'Just as expected.'
As the name suggested, execution walls had been used to humanely and efficiently execute criminals.
Back then, feeding people to Specters had been seen as inhuman, and since Aegis had still been somewhat new, it decided to make a statement and ban giving criminals to Specters.
So, they developed and deployed the execution walls.
These walls had spikes inside them that exploded forward with the press of a button, penetrating somebody's heart, lungs, liver, and brain.
After the criminal was executed, one could just pull the spikes back into the wall by turning a crank and letting the corpse fall to the ground.
'I could work with this one,' Nick thought.
One would think that such a Specter gained power by killing people, but that wasn't true.
Based on the illustrations, Nick was quite certain that this Specter gained power either via fear or concentration.
The illustrations showed that the trainee needed to stand in front of the wall and wait for 20 minutes.
If nothing happened, the trainee would just need to step back after 20 minutes.
However, there was also a chance that the execution wall would activate, shooting its spikes forward.
At that moment, the trainee would have to react instantly.
The spikes probably shot at absolutely insane speeds, and any loss in focus would lead to death.
Additionally, just standing in front of the wall would require an insane amount of focus.
Nick looked at an illustration that showed a crossed-out Barrier.
Working with this thing was genuinely dangerous.
Once again, only an insane person would work with this thing for 15 points.
'Although, maybe not this time,' Nick thought. 'This Specter might be different.'
'If this were simply a sanity test like all the other times, there wouldn't be such insane requirements. They would just let anyone enter.'
'Almost everyone would realize that this Specter has to be more dangerous than the last one and more draining. I don't think many people would have the confidence to try this one after going through that horrible experience.'
'Only the most idiotic and confident people would attempt this and promptly die to their hubris.'
At that moment, Nick's thoughts stopped.
'Like me right now…'
Silence.
'But is it really…?'
Nick kept evaluating the execution wall in front of him.
This could be extremely dangerous.
Or not dangerous at all.
Nick looked at the illustrations again.
'There's no illustration for that…'
Then, Nick looked at the wall again.
'Well, it doesn't say I'm not allowed to do that. So, might as well.'
Nick walked towards the execution wall, but instead of going towards the platform, he stopped beside it.
Then, he put his hand on the wall and felt it.
It was extremely robust.
Just as expected from an Elder.
But how powerful was it really?
One of Nick's blades shot out from his sleeve, and he rammed it into the wall.
CRK!
Nick's blade buried into the wall, and a piece of it broke off.
When Nick saw that, a glint appeared in his eyes. 'That's, at the very most, an Early Elder. Most likely, it's an Initial Elder, but it might even be a Peak Adult.'
'If it hits me, I will still die, but just due to its level, it can't possibly be so fast that I can't react.'
'As long as I pay attention, it won't be able to hit me.'
Nick stepped back and looked at the holes.
There were five.
One pointing at Nick's forehead, one at each of his lungs, one at his heart, and one at his liver.
'Actually, only the one pointing at my head is truly dangerous. I'm not a normal person. I can survive having a big chunk of my organs destroyed. As long as I have Zephyx, I can deal with that.'
'And since my Barrier will be deactivated, I will have enough Zephyx.'
Several plans formed in Nick's head.
In the end, he decided to take the one with the least danger.
Sadly, it was also the most painful.
Nick took a deep breath and walked onto the platform.
He stopped right in front of the wall and looked into the hole that pointed at his head.
Then, Nick put his arm into the hole and grabbed the tip of the spike.
If this were the arm of a normal person, the spike would shoot through it like it was air, but Nick was an Early Expert.
And now, it was time to wait.
Silence.
Nick just kept looking at the spike with intensity.
His arm was completely taut.
If the spike shot forward, it would just push part of his upper body away instead.
Nick would still get impaled by the other spikes, but his head would be safe.
He would survive, and while it would definitely be painful, he could deal with the pain.
The risk would be minimized, and the danger would essentially vanish.
So, Nick waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And then…
Green light.
As soon as the green light appeared, Nick jumped back.
The execution wall didn't do anything.
The illustrations said that it didn't always activate.
However, Nick still felt like it should have been activated.
This felt kind of anticlimactic.
But that's just how things went sometimes.
Nick took a couple of breaths and looked at the execution wall for a time.
Then, he turned around and left the Containment Unit.
That was it.
Nick had worked with all of the test Specters, and in the end, he had earned a total of 85 points.
20 in pain.
35 in focus.
10 in discipline.
20 in danger.
As he walked out of the locker room, everyone turned to look at him with interest.
Nick slowly walked over, and everyone became silent as they waited for him to tell them about the Specter.
Nick looked at them.
"It's an execution wall," he said. "You have to stand in front of it for 20 minutes. That's it."