Another year passed.
For the past year, Nick had been researching with Ghosty and the Technician.
The Technician was focusing on researching the conjuring of materials and Zephology, while Ghosty was focusing on Zephyx Manipulation.
Nick had recently become 70 years old, which gave him a short feeling of disconnect from reality.
He felt like he had been a Liaison just one or two years ago.
Even more, his time in Crimson City felt even shorter since he had lost so many memories of his time there.
Nick remembered seeing the other Extractors in Kugelblitz's meeting room.
70 had seemed so old back then.
But now, he was 70, and he was even considered extremely young for his level.
Specialists, if they managed to survive until old age, didn't die before the age of 300.
The average age at which people became Initial Specialists was 130, and most of them never managed to become Peak Specialists in their lives.
The ones that had the potential to eventually become Heroes generally became Peak Specialists at around 200 years of age, and only if they managed to consume an Early Elder in their Consumption.
People who managed to consume a Mid Elder had the talent to become Protectors and became Peak Specialists at the age of 170, on average.
Nothing much was known about the very few people who managed to consume a Late Elder, but they were considered to have the talent to become Shields.
However, people weren't sure if all of the Shields had managed to absorb a Late Elder or if there were also a couple of them that "only" absorbed Mid Elders.
Based on math, they probably became Peak Specialists at the age of 140 or something like that, on average.
Meanwhile, Nick was just half that age.
And yet, he was also already very old for a normal person.
The older Nick became, the more distant normal humans seemed.
Most humans never reached their 50s.Wealthy people occasionally reached their 60s, but most of them died in their 50s.
However, wealthy people were naturally the vast minority.
Normal people almost never reached their 50s.
Most of them died in their early 40s due to their unhealthy environment.
For example, people in the Outer City in Crimson City often died from being too close to unsafe materials their entire lives, which created many small scars all over their organs.
They often breathed rust and toxic chemicals from industries. Additionally, there was Zephyx waste that some Manufacturers produced with some of their Specters, which also wasn't great for normal people.
Poor people often died in their late 20s or early 30s.
A lifetime of lacking water, nutrition, clean air, rest, and so on were the culprits.
Meanwhile, Nick was 70.
He had reached an almost impossible age for even quite wealthy people.
This made the many deaths of young people almost meaningless in Nick's eyes.
However, Nick could see when these thoughts crept into his mind, and he always vehemently fought against them.
'If I stop caring about the normal people, I will have become the very thing I hated all my life.'
This was what Nick kept telling himself.
'Their lives might be short, but their lives are bright! They deserve a good life just as much as Extractors that live for much longer!'
Nick had already noticed that it was much harder to feel empathy for normal people.
While his mind kept highlighting and simulating feelings of empathy, his heart wasn't automatically conjuring these feelings as often anymore.
The Technician and Nick assumed that this was the effect of constantly having Specter Zephyx dictating Nick's thoughts.
Nick's mind and soul were no longer inside his brain but in his Specter Core.
This find had confirmed a new theory Ghosty had come up with.
Ghosty was the one who managed to prove that Specters grew more powerful by causing suffering for humanity.
But why?Why did they grow more powerful by torturing humans, and why was it only humanity?
Yes, there were Specters that only targeted animals and plants, but a couple of experiments had shown some interesting things.
There were many Specters that consumed plants which were inedible by humans.
However, these plants were always only one level of abstraction away from being consumable by humans.
This meant that, as long as something else could eat these plants that was, in turn, consumable by humans, the Specter still produced Zephyx.
Yet, when there was an additional layer of abstraction, that stopped being the case.
Naturally, such plants barely existed in nature, which was why they had to have been artificially created for these experiments.
And the more time passed, the more conclusive the evidence became.
A plant that had to be overtaken by another plant, which had to be consumed by a poisonous insect, which could finally be consumed by a specific mammal, did not lead to any Zephyx production when fed to any Specter.
Not even the Eternal Hunger seemed to produce any Zephyx with it.
Yet, this plant was just as alive as all the other ones.
The only difference was that it was very difficult for humans to benefit from this plant.
The results were chilling.
Specters seemed to only exist to cause suffering specifically to humanity.
But why?
Why suffering?
And why, specifically humanity?
Answering these questions was what Ghosty aimed to accomplish with his newest theory.
This theory involved Prephyx.
Humans didn't know how exactly it happened, but they knew that Specters basically just randomly started existing when Prephyx fused together.
They knew that it happened, but they didn't know anything about the how or why.
Ghosty's newest theory tried to explain that by assigning the Specters' reason for existence to Prephyx itself.
If Specters were just Prephyx, and Specters existed to cause humanity suffering,wasn't it possible that Prephyx also only existed to cause humanity suffering?
Sadly, while the thought seemed to be logical, there were still too many points of contention.
Why was Prephyx everywhere?
Where did it come from?
Why did Prephyx never run out?
And, most importantly, if Prephyx only existed to make humanity suffer, why could humans become much more powerful by using it?
Sadly, Ghosty didn't have an answer to that yet.
However, assuming his theory was true, it would help to explain why Nick's feeling of empathy had weakened so much.
Specters didn't feel empathy, and if Prephyx itself was humanity's enemy, it would explain why being in contact with Specter Zephyx all the time would cultivate a feeling of apathy towards humanity.
The Technician, Ghosty, and Nick were very careful about Nick's mental development.
They very often took notes on his mental state and reminded him of his original goals and what he felt in the past.
Nick was born a human, but he was now a Specter.
It was important that he didn't truly become a Specter in mind and soul as well.
If that ever happened, he would just become another Specter.
At some point in the future, Night might forget what it felt like to be human.
The last feeling of empathy might have vanished decades or centuries ago.
Yet, as long as his ideology, logic, and his self stayed on track, his personality would still be human.
He might turn into a human who couldn't feel empathy for others, but he would still be a human.
There were humans that didn't have the capacity to feel empathy ever since they were born but still were nice to others.
They didn't feel the need to be a decent human being, but they still wanted to be one.
Nick agreed with that philosophy.
Even if he was a Specter, he still wanted to remain a human in mind.
His entire talk about eternity in front of the Champion of Light was bullshit.
Nick didn't want to die, but he also didn't care about eternity.He just wanted to be a decent human being.
Sure, he also still tried to redeem himself, but by the looks of things, he would be able to achieve that goal relatively soon.
But what about after he had helped a million people?
He remembered how helpless and angry he had felt when he had lived in the Dregs and had seen a rich person casually buying something more valuable than Nick's entire life.
He remembered looking around the Dregs and feeling helpless.
The powerful people could change things but refused to change things!
Back then, he had sworn that he would not become like them.
And Nick still remembered his oath.
He might forget how to feel empathy.
He might forget how to feel happiness.
He might forget how companionship feels like.
But he would never forget his oath and what it meant to be a decent human being!
Yet, he was still scared of the future.
He was scared that his mind would change.
He was scared that, despite his best efforts, he would turn into a true Specter.
Sadly, the only thing he could do was to keep remembering his past and his true self.
Everything else had to wait.
The most important thing Nick was currently focusing on was his ability to camouflage himself.
And just a couple of months after becoming a Peak Fanatic, Nick finally managed to create an ability that could fool almost all Extractors into believing that he was human.
Sure, he could already move around, but people still got a Specter vibe from him.
The only reason why they didn't immediately apprehend him was because there were a couple of humans that gave off Specter vibes due to special abilities.
However, that was only true for Aegis' headquarters and strongholds.
Any average city would immediately try to contain him.
'I can camouflage myself, and I have a Barrier now,' Nick thought.
'Finally, I can be useful to Aegis again!'