This new change was the hardest thing Nick had to get used to.
His goal was to redeem himself by improving the lives of as many people as possible.
For that, he needed to be powerful.
Someone without power couldn't change a lot.
Yet, to become powerful, Nick needed to make people suffer.
It was ironic.
It was almost like some all-powerful being was playing a joke on him.
"Alright, I'm done with experiments for now," the Technician said.
Nick nodded absentmindedly and walked out of the experiment room.
"You can go back to learning if you want to. I'll call you when I need you," the Technician added.
Nick nodded again and just started leaving.
While the Technician was compiling some data, Nick walked through the corridors until he arrived in front of a door.
He entered the door and found himself in an absolutely gigantic library.
This was the Great Library, and it was the greatest repository of knowledge in the world.
It was a hundred meters wide, 200 meters long, and about a hundred meters high.
Everything was covered in shelves, and there were even books sitting outside the shelves since there was no more space for them.
There were probably millions of books here.
Even more shocking, almost none of them were fiction.
Fictional stories were not deemed important enough to be stored here unless they were absolutely amazing or taught valuable things.
Nick absentmindedly walked up some stairs in the library and seemingly stopped at a random place.
Then, he grabbed a book and continued reading.
It described in detail how the pancreas created enzymes and what all of these enzymes were good for.
The book was quite heavy since every single leaf of paper was encased in glass.
This was due to the age of the book.
It was written by the Ancient Ones.
Naturally, Nick had to learn the language called English first to understand this book, but that didn't take a long time.
Sadly, just a couple of minutes into reading, Nick slowed down and felt his mind wander.
'I have to inflict suffering to grow,' he thought as he read the same sentence for the fifth time.
'How can I redeem myself like this?'
'Will my future be a balancing act between helping people and damaging them?'
Nick sighed.
'I shouldn't jump to conclusions. The Technician is still running a couple of experiments on this aspect. We don't know how exactly this works yet.'
Nick closed his eyes for a second before re-opening them with newfound focus.
Then, he actually started learning.
After about two days, he was called back in for more experiments.
This time, a Hero was sent in.
The Hero walked in with his head lowered.
"I am here to shorten my sentence," he spoke with shame.
The Hero had deep blue hair, and he seemed quite young.
He wore the outfit of a Governor, but Nick already knew what this was about.
"One hour for one year," Nick said.
Naturally, Nick had been briefed by the Technician about what he should do.
He had done this rarely, but he had still done it a couple of times. Additionally, he had also been at the end of this act several times.
"I understand," the man said as he slowly lifted his head to look at Nick.
When he saw Nick, his heart started to race.
The Hero wore a special Zephyx Suppressor that locked his Zephyx but still allowed his Zephosis to work.
Like this, the Hero couldn't hurt any Expert, but he could still survive.
Naturally, this was one of the corrupt Governors who had been sentenced to stand in front of Aegis' entrance as punishment.
Nick had no pity for such people.
Corruption was one of the things he hated the most.
Of course, when the Hero saw Nick in his weakened state, he was sent into a fight-or-flight response.
However, as a very experienced Extractor, he could deal with such a situation without doing anything stupid.
"Lay on this table," Nick said, gesturing to a cold and metallic table with straps on it.
The man took a deep breath and walked over, his fear increasing.
He was not looking forward to this.
Naturally, the obvious happened, and Nick strapped him to the table.
The guy couldn't move anymore.
"One hour," Nick repeated. "I will stop as soon as one hour passes. You have to survive for that long."
"I understand," the man said with anxiety. "Just do it."
"Alright," Nick said.
Then, Nick unsheathed his blade and put it under the nail of the man's big toe.
"One hour. Starting now."
CRRRKSH!
The man gritted his teeth as Nick's blade entered the space between the man's big toe and its nail.
Nick moved his blade around a bit until the big nail fell off.
Naturally, the blade had completely severed it.
In less than ten seconds, the nail had already regrown.
The Hero's regenerative abilities were not suppressed.
Next, Nick skinned the man's soles.
The man's eyes bulged in pain, but he didn't shout.
This was the deal.
One hour of torture in exchange for one year of his sentence.
Obviously, something like this hadn't existed before Nick had woken up from his slumber.
This had only been created because the Technician needed somebody that he could experiment on without any moral issues.
In the Technician's mind, this experiment should give them valuable input into how exactly Nick produced Zephyx.
After warming up for a minute with some foot stuff, Nick moved up the body and started to punch the man's abdomen repeatedly.
Naturally, if Nick used all of his power, this guy's body would explode.
So, he was very careful to inflict wounds that were only fatal to normal people, not Extractors.
Inner bleedings were really bad for normal people, but Extractors would survive those rather easily.
Yet, they still hurt like hell.
Nick essentially made the guy's liver explode over and over again as his kidney's got squashed and his intestines ruptured.
After less than a minute, the guy had already started to scream in pain, but he wasn't asking Nick to stop.
Not that Nick would stop.
At this moment, Nick was producing a good amount of Zephyx.
Torturing a Hero for an hour a day would give Nick enough Zephyx for the day.
However, Nick actually didn't need Zephyx.
He could become an Initial Specialist any second if he wanted to, and as long as he didn't advance, all this Zephyx would be wasted.
But that wasn't the purpose of this torture anyway.
They wanted to find out how much Zephyx Nick could produce and how it worked exactly.
After around ten minutes of destroying the Hero's abdomen, Nick started to harvest ribs.
He tore them out, threw them to the side, waited for new ribs to grow, and repeated the process.
30 minutes into the torture, the guy started to beg that he wanted to get out.
"You're not getting out," Nick said. "I'm doing this for your sake."
"In 30 minutes, you are going to thank me."
"You don't want all of this to be for nothing, right?"
Nick spoke these words in a very cold manner, and his torture didn't stop for a bit.
Eventually, Nick got to the guy's teeth and worked on them a little.
The more pain the Hero felt, the more Zephyx Nick produced.
For the remaining minutes, Nick tortured the guy with random injuries.
And then, 60 minutes were over.
"We're done," Nick said.
The man was breathing heavily, and there was a sea of horror in his eyes.
Nick calmly opened the straps, and the man quickly sat up.
"So?" Nick asked. "Would you have wanted me to stop? 30 minutes for nothing or 60 minutes for a full year of your sentence?"
The man didn't answer for a while.
"I'm not," Nick answered coldly. "The Technician is watching us right now. He wouldn't let a Specter roam around freely."
Then, he looked at Nick with furrowed brows.
"You created Zephyx," he said. "You're a Specter?"
"I'm not," Nick answered coldly. "The Technician is watching us right now. He wouldn't let a Specter roam around freely."
The man frowned.
Sure, Nick felt like a Specter to him, but the way Nick acted was definitely human.
"But you produced Zephyx. I'm sure of that," the man said.
"Do you think it wise to ask these questions?" Nick asked evenly.
The man's heart shook.
"Forget I said anything," the man said.
Then, the man stood up and took a deep breath.
"You're right," he said, looking at Nick with some relief. "It was worth the 60 minutes. Yes, these 60 minutes were horrible, but it saved me an entire year."
"Thank you," he said.
"You can leave," Nick said as he gestured to the door. "Keep in mind that all of this is confidential."
"I understand," the man said.
Then, he left.
After the man left, Nick looked at the door.
His eyes had regained their conviction.
"Those were some good results, eh?" the Technician's voice appeared in Nick's mind.
Nick nodded.
Nick had produced a lot of Zephyx while the man was suffering, but even though Nick had done something that the man actually wanted and even thanked him for, none of the Zephyx vanished.
This proved that it was much easier for Nick to produce Zephyx than anticipated.
Helping people did not cancel out the suffering created.
If Nick made one person suffer and helped one person, the Zephyx produced would be the same as if he made one person suffer and helped a thousand people.
Only the amount of suffering was important for Zephyx production.
At least, that was the prime hypothesis right now.
A bit more testing would be required.