Within minutes, Nick and Cynthia started talking.
Naturally, Nick was most interested in Cynthia's knowledge since she knew a lot about fields that Nick didn't know a lot about.
Sadly, Mendor and Steve didn't have a lot to offer to Nick, but they could help each other pretty well.
They were not the biggest fans of each other, but that didn't matter.
They were here to improve each other's scores.
For many hours, the group kept exchanging knowledge.
Cynthia told Nick about basic mathematic formulas while he told her about Spectology.
Several times, others asked to join, but Cynthia sent them away.
That was until Nick stopped her.
"Sure, you can sit to the side and listen, but only interject if you are certain that one of us is wrong."
Cynthia furrowed her brows.
Naturally, since she had been here for a couple of years already, she knew about the hidden purpose of the first level.
She knew that the trainees were being tested on their ideology and personality. They were supposed to help others.
But help was also based on reciprocity.
It was important that the other person could somewhat repay part of the help.
Yet, Nick just invited them to join.
Cynthia found this to be a bit unfair.
She was contributing.
Nick was contributing.
The onlookers were not contributing.
Yet, they were benefiting from them.
She was essentially just giving her knowledge away for free, which didn't feel good.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked Nick with a bit of annoyance as the sixth person sat down beside them.
"Because they are humans," Nick answered.
Cynthia furrowed her brows.
So?
She didn't see the point of stating that.
She knew that they were humans.
"They are humans," Nick repeated. "They are part of Aegis. The more powerful they become, the more powerful Aegis becomes."
Cynthia looked at Nick with a skeptical expression.
That sounded way too naïve and idealistic.
That was something that a small child would believe.
Sure, humanity and the Specters were enemies, but humans were often even more dangerous to humans than Specters.
Why should she give random people valuable knowledge without getting anything in return?
Yet, she decided against speaking out.
Nick's knowledge was too valuable, and she didn't know him well enough to gauge his reaction if she were to disagree.
So, even though she really disliked it, she kept sharing her knowledge for free.
Mendor and Steve kept talking to each other on their own, but more and more people kept gathering around Nick and Cynthia.
After a couple of hours, almost 15 people sat around them, listening intently.
Their thoughts were very different from each other.
Some of them felt like Nick was an idiot to give them such valuable bits of knowledge for free.
Some of them were simply interested and didn't think a lot about the implications.
Some of them were thankful.
Naturally, many of these people would never reciprocate the kindness they had received, but some of them would.
And most interesting of all, in the future, this moment of receiving kindness would make them extend kindness to someone else.
Nick would not benefit from these acts of kindness.
But humanity, as a whole, would.
Even if it was just a tiny bit.
The discussion continued.
"That's actually not correct."
Cynthia stopped and furrowed her brows as someone interrupted her.
She looked over and saw a young man with brown hair looking at her.
She remembered seeing this guy from time to time, but he had never appeared outstanding or interesting in any way.
He was just one of those background characters who lived in one's general vicinity.
"Explain," Cynthia demanded.
"The Bicolor formula is outdated," the guy said. "It's no longer used nowadays since it becomes inaccurate with very small numbers. Advanced Zephyx Engineers use the Hulburry formula instead for increased accuracy. It's a bit longer and more complicated, but it is perfectly accurate with any number."
Cynthia furrowed her brows. "That's news to me," she said with annoyance. "We always used the Bicolor formula."
"Have you ever produced an Expert-level weapon?" the guy asked.
"How's me not producing a weapon related to math?" Cynthia asked with annoyance.
"It is," the guy said. "Academia is a good thing that gives you a good overview, but when it comes to applying your knowledge, you will realize that there is much more to it."
"Uh huh," Cynthia uttered without being impressed. "And you know that how?"
"My father is the Lead Zephyx Engineer of my city. He's producing all the Specialist weapons and Barriers, and I learned under him for the last 20 years."
"I have over 60% in the level three Zephology test."
Everyone's eyes widened.
This was a guy who could produce weapons that would be useful to the trainees.
"Can you explain this formula to me?" Nick asked.
The guy turned to Nick. "Sure, why not? You've taught me quite a bit about Specters."
Over the next minute, the guy talked about Zephology.
This was not the original topic of the conversation, but the parts of Zephology the man talked about were all intrinsically related to math.
He was less talking about formulas and more about how the mathematical formulas came to be and how they were applied to Zephyx Engineering.
In essence, the guy was sharing experience instead of knowledge, which was much more valuable.
In the beginning, Cynthia was annoyed since this random guy was essentially stealing her thunder, but as more time passed, she realized that this was actually a good thing.
She was learning something about her own specialties.
Learning the basics of other fields was easy.
Learning extremely advanced knowledge of a field was difficult.
And now, she was receiving this knowledge for free.
That was when she realized something.
Earlier, she had complained that the others were benefiting for free.
But now, wasn't she the one benefiting for free?
How did that happen?
'Is this because of Nick?' she thought as she looked at Nick with furrowed brows.
The thing that had just happened was something everyone knew as karma.
Karma wasn't something supernatural or spiritual.
Karma did not mean that doing one good deed would return one good deed.
Karma was something general and dealt with probabilities.
It was actually pretty easy. A stranger would be nice to one with a higher likelihood if one had been nice to them first.
Greeting someone with a smile and a compliment would elicit a nice greeting in return with a higher likelihood than greeting someone with an aggressive insult.
That was karma.
On average, others would be nicer to one if one was nicer to them.
Had Nick known that someone would return his act of kindness?
No.
But the chances of that happening were higher than if he hadn't.
In this environment, strengthening other humans did not hurt Nick.
In a competition, this would obviously be bad, but this wasn't a competition.
Nick only needed to increase his own points.
If Nick didn't share his knowledge, he would not receive any new knowledge, which meant he would not gain any additional points.
If he shared his knowledge, somebody else might gain ten more points, while Nick would only gain one.
Yet, one was still more than zero.
In this case, being nice and helpful was the best way forward.
This was not always the case, but here, it was like this.
Cynthia still wasn't the biggest fan of that, but she couldn't deny that she had benefited from Nick's generosity.
Also…
"Now, you're the one that's wrong," Cynthia said to the brown-haired man. "I might not know as much about Zephology as you, but I know my way around math, and I can tell you that you can shorten that calculation by a lot."
The brown-haired man listened to Cynthia for a minute.
And by the end…
"You know what? You're actually right," he said. "Thanks."
Cynthia nodded with a serious expression.
Yet, deep inside, she felt proud of herself.
"Are you having a party here?" Mendor asked as he walked over, looking at all of the people. "Why are there so many of you here?"
"Oh, we're just listening," the brown-haired man said with a smile. "You want to join us?"
Mendor raised a skeptical eyebrow as he looked at Cynthia before looking at Nick.
"Sure?" Mendor asked with uncertainty before sitting down.
Steve joined them after a bit, and the conversation resumed.
The brown-haired man and Cynthia started to talk about math and Zephology.
The discussion got quite heated, but it never turned into an argument.
Cynthia seemed to want to compete with the man, while the man was just interested in the things Cynthia said.
"Why?" a new person suddenly asked. "Why would you use that?"
Cynthia glared at the new person while the brown-haired man looked over with interest.
"What? The recluse algorithm?" he asked.
"Yes, that's outdated," the newest person said. "Our city came up with a better version."
And so, the conversation continued.
Within two days, over ten different experienced Zephyx Engineers were talking in a circle, and almost 300 people were listening in.
Everyone was benefiting immensely.
The average scores of the Zephology tests would soar in the future.
And how did all of this happen?
All of this happened because Nick was willing to share some of his knowledge for free.