Nick tried to come to terms with this new space.
No friction.
No air.
No gravity.
This didn't make any sense!
There was no material that could isolate gravity!
Gravity could only be equalized by other forces of gravity!
And there was no shot that anything around him was generating enough gravity to counteract Earth's gravity.
If there were something like that, the sands from the surrounding hundreds of kilometers would flow to this place and build a huge pile.
That was when Nick realized something.
'How can I be running low on Zephyx? I've not been using much of it ever since entering this hole.'
Nick focused on his Zephyx and realized something.
It wasn't regenerating!
He was using it at a steady rate, but he was not regenerating anything!
Even more, his connection to the suffering guards around the Aegis strongholds had also been cut.
He was not generating new Zephyx, and he was not recovering any of it.
However, his body was working normally.
'This can only mean one thing.'
'There's no Prephyx here!'
Nick tried to sense the Prephyx, but it just wasn't there.
'If I don't get out of here, I will die!'
'What the fuck is this place?!'
He couldn't move, and there was no way to escape from this place.
'No friction, no gravity, no air, no Prephyx, no way to move, encasement by indestructible and unknown materials,' Nick summarized.
He was starting to realize what was going on.
'Is this a Specter trap?' Nick thought.
'The holes are so small that only small insects and Force Specters could enter, and after entering, there's no way to get out again.'
Nick saw the image of a spider inside a smooth glass in front of his mental eye.
His Zephyx would continue to lower until he turned into nothing but bits of Zephyx.
'I have to find a way out of this!' Nick thought.
The first thing he tried was to expand his body as much as possible.
But… it didn't.
At least, that was what Nick sensed.
In Nick's senses, he did not expand, and he was still surrounded by the green walls.
Yet, in truth, he must have expanded since he had lost a good chunk of Zephyx.
He just wasn't able to sense the outer rims of his body.
'This means that I am not truly surrounded by the green walls and that there is just a force that fools my perception,' Nick realized.
'At least I can tell that nobody is looking at me right now since my ability is still active.'
'There must be a front and back to this place.'
Next, Nick deliberately gave off some of his Zephyx and quickly tried to reabsorb it after it left his perception.
Sadly, he didn't get any of it back.
It was like, as soon as it left his range of perception, the Zephyx stopped existing.
'Based on my body expanding, I can tell that I am not really stuck in place. Yet, I can't retrieve my Zephyx from any side, which makes it seem like I am actually stuck in place.'
'Naturally, both of these statements can't be true at the same time.'
'I think any Zephyx not owned by a Specter is being absorbed by the walls.'
'I already made the association of a filtration system earlier, and it wouldn't be too far-fetched that the walls can filter neutral Zephyx out.'
Nick's Zephology mind became more and more active as he came up with a logical way to create such a Specter trap for Force Specters.
How would he design one?
'Well, due to the small holes, it means that I am only targeting Force Specters or very small Specters.'
'However, the Physical Specters would need to be ridiculously small since they can't change the sizes of their Specter Cores. Force Specters can do that, but they can't.'
Nick wasn't sure if this included the Robe, though.
The Robe looked like a two-dimensional object moving through a three-dimensional space with how thin it was.
There might be a way that the Robe turned into a long string before entering.
'But that would mean that it's in the same predicament as me right now,' Nick thought.
'The only difference is that it has much more Zephyx and that it can survive for much longer.'
'Anyway, this trap is mainly targeting Force Specters.'
'Force Specters are all made of Zephyx.'
'There has to be a point to a trap, which means that something has to be gained from killing the Force Specter.'
'Most likely, this trap is harvesting Zephyx, which means that it can absorb Zephyx.'
'So, how would I design it?'
'First, I would design an entrance for the Specter, and after stepping onto the entrance, I would build a mechanism to catch it.'
'The entrance are the holes of the wall, and to get a Force Specter to enter these holes…'
That was when Nick realized something else.
'There is no incentive, actually.'
'It looked like a smooth surface, and it was difficult to sense it. If I hadn't tried to run into the smooth surface, I would have never even found the holes, and after that, I even had to focus quite a
bit to actually enter one of them.'
'It was like the maker of this trap didn't want any Specter to enter. Yet, there is still a trap here that's unmistakably designed to kill Specters.'
'The point of this trap is not to harvest Specters but to stop them from entering a different place!'
'This really is like a filter! It is filtering Specters out!'
But that created even more questions.
'Why kill them, then?'
'Whoever built this is obviously advanced enough to capture the Specters alive as well. No human with such power would kill a Specter if they could easily capture it alive unless there were a political reason.'
'It seems like a huge waste to kill a captured Specter for no reason.'
'This material is also one I have never seen before, and I know quite a lot about all of the five big civilizations.'
'So, who made this?'
As Nick kept thinking, the logistics of this filter became more and more logical.
'My perception is useless in this space, and I can't refill my Zephyx. I am supposed to move in circles until I am exhausted.'
In Nick's mind, a dark labyrinth made of glass appeared.
If he put a blind rat without a sense of smell into such a labyrinth, where would he put the exit?
'I would create one big room and a couple of hallways.'
'Finally, I would put the exit on the ceiling of one of these hallways at an angle that would make it difficult for the rat to sense with its sense of touch.'
'In order to find it, the rat would need to randomly turn around when there is no point in turning around.'
'I might even use some kind of door that would close if the rat approached from one of the directions.'
'Now, I just have to translate this concept into a form that could capture something that can float around without issues.'
Nick imagined a small opening in the middle of a big room, leading into a small pipe leading outside.
The floating thing would continue to float around the big room and around the edges of the room, when, in truth, the exit was in the middle of the room.
'Now, how would I be able to escape from such a space without being able to sense anything?'
Nick thought for a while.
Then, Nick got an idea.
'I would just use water or colored gas to search for the exit. I would find the exit by looking at where things are not instead of where they are.'
'However, Force Specters are actually already water or gas, and I can't sense my body anymore when I expand it. I can also not turn back into my physical body since this space is so small.'
That was when Nick realized something.
'This trap is made for Specters, which are made of Zephyx! Force Specters might be like gas and water, but they are not truly gas and water!'
The next moment, Nick conjured a piece of paper and pushed it away.
The piece of paper entered the walls around him.
Then, Nick pulled the piece of paper back.
It was crumpled in a couple of places, but all of it came back.
When Nick saw that, he grew excited.
'Yes! It can absorb Zephyx, but it can't absorb normal matter!'
WHOOOOOM!
Suddenly, Nick summoned a huge chunk of paper around him.
Paper was the easiest object to conjure for Nick since it lacked power in basically everything.
Finally, Nick could see where he could actually move to!
Nick pushed and pulled on the paper as he kept moving forward, testing how difficult it was to move it.
Sometimes, when he pushed the paper in front of him, he felt something push onto his back, which meant that this direction would just lead to the same place where he was.
After around 30 seconds, Nick found a direction in which he could shove infinite paper.
Nick followed that direction, and a couple of seconds later, he could feel his Zephyx recovering!
The Prephyx had returned!
But then, Nick noticed something.
His paper had crinkled in a strange place.
There was a place that was not as smooth as the other places.
Nick inspected it and noticed something.
This was an even tinier hole, but this one wasn't even a millimeter wide!
He would have never noticed this one without the paper!
And even more shocking was the fact that the density of Prephyx was even higher there!
Nick wanted to know where he was.