Nick left the research and development area, wearing his mask again.
One had to remember that Nick only showed himself without his mask to Ghosty and the Shields.
Everyone else only saw him with the mask and sometimes with the black Barrier.
Although, it wasn't always easy to notice that this was actually a black Barrier.
The issue wasn't the color but the shape.
Only cheap Barriers had the shape of spheres. Expensive Barriers had adjustable shapes.
In Nick's case, it looked like a black film appeared over his skin and clothing whenever his Barrier activated, and while he could see displays hovering in the air in front of him, nobody else saw anything.
Usually, while Aegis' Barriers were considered white in color, they only gave off white outlines. Everything else was transparent.
When Nick's Barrier activated, it wasn't transparent.
The black color coding of the Barriers would only become public if more Specters decided to work for Aegis.
Nick walked through the hallways and left through Aegis' main entrance halfway up the building.
"We wish you a good journey!" the two guards spoke politely and with respect.
Nick paused and looked at them for a moment through his mask.
The next moment, the two guards received a notification that their sentence had been increased by a year.
It was so difficult not to explode in anger.
Nick felt his Zephyx production increase by a bit, but that was actually not really the reason why he increased their sentences.
He just really, really, really hated corrupt people.
All of these guards had once been corrupt Governors, and Nick would never allow them to recover from that.
How many lives had these "poor guards" ended without giving the slightest shit?
Then, Nick turned away and walked to the end of the terrace.
A moment later, Nick jumped and flew into the sky.
Although technically speaking, Nick wasn't flying.
Sadly, despite his power, Nick couldn't use the same method Heroes used to fly.
The natural ability to fly as a Hero was related to the density of Zephyx of one's being in relation to their conversion of Zephyx into physical force, and despite being that powerful, the density of Nick's Zephyx was not different from any other Peak Fanatic.
But there were ways around this.
Nick was fast and strong enough to kick off the air to keep jumping through the sky.
It was not technically flying, but it was practically flying.
As Nick flew through the sky, his ability still hadn't reactivated.
The cause of that was obvious.
Death still looked at Aegis' headquarters and its surroundings.
Luckily, after a couple hundred kilometers, Nick's ability reactivated.
Death wouldn't just continue following some random guy.
If Death had known that Nick was a secret Specter who was working for Aegis and responsible for Pride's death, it might have done things differently, but it didn't.
That was also an important reason why Nick had to keep his identity secret at all times.
As soon as Nick's ability reactivated, he activated his Barrier and changed a couple of settings.
The Technician had added a couple of new things just for his new job as an archaeologist.
A moment later, Nick's Barrier activated and changed shape.
The black was dense enough that it was impossible to look through the Barrier, and the Barrier expanded by quite a bit.
A moment later, the Barrier had assumed the outline of a two-meter-tall person who looked a bit like a stick figure.
Then, the Barrier changed a bit more to smooth out the outline, essentially mimicking a real human body and clothing.
Now, Nick looked like someone made a photo of a tall person and completely blacked it out, just leaving the outline.
Nick could look through the Barrier without issues, but nobody could look in.
Then, Nick pressed another button,and two yellow lights appeared above each of his outline's shoulders.
Naturally, these yellow lines represented the yellow stripes on Aegis' uniforms, which signified rank.
In Nick's case, his Barrier indicated the rank of Agent.
Since he was no longer a Liaison, there was no more point in giving him a special rank. Additionally, giving someone a special rank would elicit too many questions.
Despite Nick's very strange appearance with his new Barrier, it still wouldn't be as suspicious as having a special rank.
There were many Agents, and many of them had strange identifiers due to their powers.
Some of them traveled around with marionettes hanging from their bodies.
Some of them were constantly on fire.
The main reason was that most Agents just wanted to be constantly ready for battle since they traveled through the world on the daily.
Summoning marionettes or setting oneself on fire took up valuable time in case a battle started.
People would still look at Nick strangely, but as long as Nick could prove that he was an Agent, they wouldn't ask Aegis about his specifics or send out an alarm.
A moment after the stripes appeared, Aegis' symbol appeared on the outline's chest and its face.
Aegis' symbol was the outline of a shield with seven stars in it.
Finally, Nick's Barrier was done changing shape.
This would be the appearance Nick would have whenever he needed to follow his duties as an archeologist.
Luckily, his Barrier also had a stealth mode, which made the Barrier cling to his body and deactivate any signifiers, but Nick would only activate that setting when he needed to be stealthy.
For now, Nick was openly flying through the world as an Agent on his way to his next mission.
When Nick reached the middle of the ocean between the Great Triangle and the Grand Continent, he changed directions and flew towards the south.
He didn't want his masked persona to be linked to his black-outline persona.
Yes,the two personae were similar, but as long as there was no direct link, it would just be like two similarly looking people.
Just because one person looked similar to another person didn't mean that they were the same person.
When Nick reached the land bridge between the Great Triangle and the Long Continent, he passed through it and flew towards the west.
Just as Nick reached the land bridge, his ability deactivated.
Then, a display popped up in front of him that told him that an Agent was nearby.
Whenever two Agents were close, their Barriers told each other that there was another Agent nearby unless that function was deliberately deactivated.
The point of this function was to prevent fighting due to misunderstandings.
Nick's Barrier told him the rough location of the other Agent and vice versa.
"Hey," a voice transmission arrived and spoke through the Barrier.
"Hey," Nick returned.
And then, he just continued flying, and the display indicating the presence of another Agent vanished again.
They just exchanged some greetings.
After all, they were working for the same organization and had similar jobs.
Nick soon entered the gigantic ocean west of the Great Triangle and flew towards the southwest.
By now, Nick had traveled so much through the world that he essentially knew exactly where he was at all times unless he randomly got teleported somewhere.
Just a bit later, Nick saw land.
However, before he saw the land, he noticed that his ability deactivated, but he had expected that already.
The island Crimson City was on belonged to the Shark Mother's territory.
The Shark Mother was one of the Adversaries, and it created thousands of powerful sharks that ate humans.
While there was a certain danger that Nick might get attacked by the sharks, that danger was not very high.
The Shark Mother's most powerful attribute was its patience.
It didn't want to sacrifice any of its sharks,and randomly attacking an Agent might result in the death of many sharks.
Additionally, there might be a Shield nearby that just used that Agent as bait to track the Shark Mother.
Because of that, the Shark Mother struck supremely rarely.
It struck so rarely that sacrificing the random Agent or Protector cost less than always assuring that there were powerful escorts around.
On average, the Shark Mother killed one Agent every 30 years, while it killed a Protector every 300 years.
Of course, that number only counted for humans who didn't enter the ocean.
Humans who, for some stupid reason, entered the ocean generally didn't survive for long.
Although, the Shark Mother needed to fight the Salt Trident for the prey.
Nick left the airspace of the ocean and flew over Crimson City's island.
Quickly, Nick's ability activated again, and just a few seconds later, he could see it.
The megastructure in the middle of the city.
The Outer City, which had become even bigger by now.
And the messy and dilapidated buildings filled with starving and dirty humans around the city…
Nick narrowed his eyes.
That last one was new.
'Seems like some things have changed.'