From this day forth, Nick remained inside the office of the CZE of the Priesthood inside Cross Mark City.
Naturally, if he had a choice, Nick wouldn't choose to be here.
He would much rather go back to Aegis.
However, going back to Aegis wasn't easy anymore since Nick would be hunted by Wrath and some of its servants if he decided to run away.
Additionally, it wasn't like Nick was wasting his time here.
He was actually learning things that no human had ever learned before.
Things that one could only learn from powerful Specters.
Every day, the CZE returned to her office to stare at the wall.
Yes, most of the time, she just stared at the wall.
Whenever she didn't need to go out to advance the great plan, she just looked at the wall and waited.
This was the first time that Nick had been able to watch a Specter in its natural habitat like this.
Julian had not been a normal Specter, which was why he couldn't really be counted.
'It actually makes sense,' Nick thought while he acted like he wasn't paying attention to the CZE. 'What's there to do when you don't have emotions? You only have to work on your power, and if you can't work on that anymore, you wait until you can work on your power again.'
'I'm not sure why she's not trying to advance right now. I mean, she doesn't look like she's even trying.'
'So, she just waits… all day… every day…'
'What a strange creature.'
The way Nick saw it, there was almost no difference between a free Specter and one contained in a Containment Unit.
In both cases, they would work on their power and then just look at the wall for hours on end.
Several months passed in which Nick just kept working on his ability to create a Major Relay.
During these months, the CZE had not started even a single conversation with him.
She always acted like Nick didn't exist, and Nick did the same thing to her.
Nick felt a bit awkward since they were inside her office, but he knew that the CZE didn't have these kinds of feelings.
Even after a full year of staying here, Nick didn't know her name.
According to the timetable, Nick was supposed to take another nine years or so to learn how to create a Major Relay.
However, Nick had already succeeded half a year ago.
His prior experience in dealing with his fake Specter Core had trained him very well, and his vast repository of theoretical knowledge had made it much easier to internalize the complex procedure.
But Nick wouldn't tell her that he could already finish the Major Relay.
The main reason was that Nick didn't want to appear too outstanding or surprising to Wrath.
If Nick learned these things too quickly, Wrath might suspect that Nick was some kind of spy for another member of the Seven Corruptors and that he already knew how to create the Major Relay.
Additionally, Nick could use this time to experiment more with this newfound ability to conjure materials.
Nick had been analyzing the uniform he had stolen from that one Expert, and he had been attempting to recreate it.
The uniform was quite tenacious and couldn't be easily torn, but at the same time, it was very flexible and could even be stretched quite a bit.
The materials comprising the uniform were quite advanced.
After an additional year of experimenting, Nick managed to copy the main material of the uniform, but that was just a part of the uniform.
If a human grabbed a random pair of their shirt, would the material they had in their hand be the same material all of their clothing was made of?
Did a shirt feel the same as some pants?
Did the strings or buttons fastening the pants feel the same as the fabric of the pants?
Obviously not.
But it was something, at least.
Nick looked at the growing piece of advanced fabric in his hand.
He grabbed it and stretched it a bit.
After stretching it enough, Nick saw the individual strings and the gaps between them.
That had been the hardest thing to create.
Nick had been able to create this kind of material for quite a while, but it had been a singular sheet.
Even if one stretched it, one wouldn't see the strings and the gaps between them.
It was like a type of skin.
It was like it had been molten into shape instead of stitched together.
'While the attributes are the same, the subtle things are what's truly important,' Nick thought.
'In order to truly recreate reality, I need to make perfect copies. That includes all of the negative aspects of the material.'
'I am still learning about all of this, and the harder something is to create, the more experience I gain.'
'While the material itself might suffer since I am getting rid of part of its potential, I will benefit in the long term.'
'I am still learning about all of this, and the harder something is to create, the more experience I gain.'
Ssssss!
The next moment, the fabric in Nick's hand vanished into thin air.
It just broke apart into particles of dust, which then turned into nothing.
However, nothing ever truly became nothing.
Nick had simply turned the fabric into Prephyx again.
Sadly, Nick couldn't turn the fabric into Zephyx, but that was to be expected.
Zephyx was in a high-energy state, and it used up its stored energy whenever it did something.
Increasing power, turning into something, exploding, whatever.
In order to turn something like fabric into Zephyx, one needed to add energy, which was basically the same as what Nick did in the first place as a Specter.
There was barely any advantage to turning matter into Zephyx over turning Prephyx into Zephyx.
The next moment, the door opened, and the CZE stepped inside.
Nick immediately turned towards his half-finished Major Relay and continued working on it.
Then, half an hour later, the CZE looked away from the wall and stared at one of the stones in Nick's Major Relay.
She could tell that this stone had been completed, which meant that Nick had managed to get past the hardest part.
The fact that he managed to do that within two years was insane.
Over the next hours, Nick finished the other stones, leaving only the big one.
Without asking for it, Nick received all the information he needed to deal with the big stone.
Naturally, the big stone was the most complex of all of the stones but finishing it wouldn't be as hard as finishing the smaller ones.
The reason was that Nick already knew the basics, and he just needed to become a bit better at the things he already knew how to do instead of learning something completely new.
With Nick's current experience, he could deal with the big stone in a couple of hours.
However, he decided to wait another couple of weeks before finishing with that one.
When he was done with the big stone, he turned towards the CZE, who looked at the Major Relay.
"Activate it," she said in a neutral voice.
Nick turned to his Major Relay and did just that.
The big stone in front of him shook and morphed into the muscular and angry figure of Wrath, who glared at Nick with absolute hatred.
"What?" it asked in annoyance.
"I made this Major Relay," Nick said. "What now?"
Wrath narrowed his eyes before looking at the CZE.
The CZE nodded.
It was difficult for Wrath to believe that Nick had never done anything like this before.
He was terrifyingly fast at learning how to conjure items and create manipulation lines.
However, Wrath had seen many Specters in its life, and there were Specters out there with terrifying talents in strange fields.
It had even met a Specter once that could "estimate" a majority of what happened to a human in their life just by taking a look at how they moved and talked.
That hadn't even been its ability.
It had just been that good at reading people.
"Good," Wrath said, looking back at Nick. "You are good at assassinating humans, right?"
Nick nodded. "My specialty is remaining hidden and killing humans and Specters."
"You are good at killing Specters?" Wrath asked. "Do you gain power from killing Specters?"
"I don't benefit from killing Specters," Nick said. "I am just good at it because humans and Specters have the same weaknesses."
Wrath remained silent for a bit as it seemingly seethed in hatred.
By now, Nick could tell that Wrath wasn't angry at him.
Wrath was just… very angry.
As a baseline.
"I want you to deal with other Specters," it said after a while.
"The others are closing in on Lord War's territory."
"There is a city that has recently become home to one of Gluttony's servants."
"At this moment, it is trying to take control of the city."
"I want you to go there, find it, and kill it," Wrath said.
"Find it?" Nick asked. "You don't know where it is?"
"I know that one of Gluttony's servants is in the city. The signs are unmistakable, but I can't find out who it is."
"It must be amongst the powerful Extractors of the city."
"The city must survive. We need it to wage war."
"But Gluttony's servant must die."
"Go there and deal with it!"