Nick approached the big pillar in the center of the underground ruins.
The pillar was about as wide as the megastructure, which meant that it was massive.
It was like a solid wall of metal.
Although not entirely.
Would the original town of the Ancient Ones have a kilometer-wide pillar of concrete and steel just randomly standing in the middle of the town?
Of course not.
Nick could see many thick walls of concrete on the bottom layer of the pillar, but they were definitely not uniform, and they were not supposed to be a single building.
Instead, they were only parts of the pillar.
The remainder was filled with metal made by the Enlightened Ones.
The entire pillar thing was made by the Enlightened Ones.
'Speaking of,' Nick thought, 'why would they even do that? There's no point in creating a huge pillar if there's nothing to support.'
'Could this just be a gigantic building?' Nick thought. 'Possible, but I'm sure that the pillar has been investigated thoroughly already. If there were an entrance, the researchers would have already found it.'
'Also, I think Ghosty would have told me if there was something interesting inside the pillar of Crimson City. He has been the lead researcher of Crimson City for decades, if not over a century. If anyone would have known about an entrance, it would have been him.'
Nick blinked once as he thought of something.
The next moment, Nick looked for an isolated space in the underground.
Nobody was supposed to show up here anyway, but Nick wanted to make sure.
Then, he conjured a Greater Relay and contacted the Technician again.
"That was a quick callback," the Technician said as soon as the connection was established.
"Hey, do you know anything about the big pillar in the middle of Crimson City?" Nick asked.
The Technician scratched the back of his head as he shrugged. "No. Isn't that why you're there?"
"Can you put Ghosty on the line?" Nick asked.
The Technician scratched his head.
Could he add someone to the call?
Was that even possible?
He could connect to Nick via the Greater Relay, but that worked over an equal two-way communication.
This was different from how the Corruptors talked to their servants.
In their cases, they were the ones keeping the connection going, which meant that they had all of the control over how the communication between parties worked. Ř
It was different here since the two devices worked on an equal basis and couldn't just change how they worked.
However, the Technician was the best researcher in the world, and he very quickly found a solution.
He simply hooked his Barrier to his senses and used it as another relay to forward the Greater Relay's messages to Ghosty's Barrier.
"Hey Nick, what do you need?" Ghosty's voice said through the Greater Relay.
"Hey, I'm currently below Crimson City. That big pillar was made by the Enlightened Ones, right?" Nick asked.
"Most likely," Ghosty answered.
"What's its purpose?" Nick asked.
"It's been a while since we looked into the pillar," Ghosty answered. "I was relatively young when we went to the ruins to make a city, and I remember that Markus looked at it."
"I didn't really get a good opportunity to look at the pillar. Plumbing was the least of our worries back then, and we had a big hole below us. So, you know," Ghosty said, trailing off.
"But to get back to the topic, I think Markus said that it was a big storage facility."
Nick furrowed his brows. "Do you know how he managed to get inside?"
Ghosty thought about that question for a bit.
"No, he never said how. He just gave an offhanded remark when we talked about the topic. Looking at it with the benefit of hindsight, he might have lied. I just never questioned it since there were tens of more relevant problems to worry about."
"Okay, thanks," Nick said.
"I'm going to enter the pillar, no matter if there is an entrance or not."
"Tell me what you find, okay? You piqued my interest," Ghosty answered.
"Wait a second," Nick said. "I got a question."
"Yes?" Ghosty asked.
"Do you know about a technology that creates vibrations to scare Specters?" Nick asked.
"No, you can do that?" Ghosty asked with interest. "How?"
"Better you don't ask and don't try to find out. At least, not yet."
Ghosty got a dark feeling in his stomach.
"Nick," the Technician said, entering the call again. "What are you doing?"
"Not standing by as about 2,000 people are working themselves to death and simultaneously supporting Envy," Nick answered.
Ghosty and the Technician looked at each other.
Naturally, this sounded very extreme and risky.
If anyone else said something like that, they would protest.
However, hadn't Nick fixed several cities by now?
When they heard about Nick's methods and means, they thought of them as outrageous and too simple to work.
Yet, the results Nick delivered were always great.
Ghosty just shrugged as he looked at the Technician. "If it looks stupid but works, it's not stupid."
The Technician sighed.
He had considered that something like this might happen.
This part of Nick's character that didn't allow him to ignore some suffering in favor of the greater good was his biggest weakness and strength at the same time.
Sometimes, the Technician hated it, but other times, he was glad that Nick was like this.
It was an unnecessary risk, but it also showed that Nick truly cared about humanity.
"I just don't want the city to be destroyed. The tribute should also not be affected by too much. Okay?" the Technician asked.
"Understood," Nick answered.
"Alright, let me just confirm with the Left Arm… she says it's my responsibility to keep you in line. So, yeah, as I've just said," the Technician added.
"Thanks," Nick said.
"Good. Keep me posted on the progress," the Technician said.
"I will," Nick answered.
Then, Nick cut the connection.
Finally, Nick turned to the central pillar.
'Let's see if we can find an entrance.'
For the next several minutes, Nick inspected the pillar.
The pillar was not completely uniform.
Nick saw walls and edges on the pillar, which were filled with materials from the Suffering Ones.
There used to be a big building in the place where the pillar was, but it wasn't designed to be an actual pillar.
It was more like someone put the big building in the middle of a big and round form and then poured liquid metal into the form until it was round.
'The Suffering Ones probably used the top of the big building as a big plaza. They just filled out the gaps.'
Nick looked at the pillar starting from the upper level of the ruins.
The part of the pillar above the ruins of the Enlightened Ones was made by the current era as a foundation for the megastructure.
'I don't think the Enlightened Ones would make an entrance to that building on the roof. They were a bit too careful of the Sun to do that.'
Nick had already circled the entire pillar, but he hadn't found an entrance.
'Either there is an extremely secret entrance or the actual entrance is behind the metal added by the Suffering Ones.'
Nick's ability hadn't deactivated even once while being down here, which meant he didn't need to be extremely careful.
He transformed into his mist form and approached the metal added by the Suffering Ones.
It wasn't easy, but Nick could seep into the metal.
One had to remember that Nick was essentially a Force Specter, and those were notoriously difficult to contain.
While he couldn't get through the metal made by the Enlightened Ones, the metal made by the Suffering Ones wasn't very resilient against Force Specters.
Nick's mist body clung to the stronger metal and expanded like smoke over it.
The more Nick expanded, the more Zephyx it cost, but since Nick wasn't in a hurry, he could take his time.
After expanding to a width of about 50 meters, Nick had reached an equilibrium.
He was using and regenerating about the same amount of Zephyx while traveling through the weaker metal with this size.
Nick was essentially acting as a searchlight.
For many minutes, he circled around the pillar.
And then, finally, he found something that looked like a door.
The door was partially open, and the weaker metal had spilled in, covering about the first meter of the hallway behind it.
Nick could see electronics and Zephyx conductors in the door.
'This door used to have a Barrier that kept everything isolated, but the power source has vanished, leaving tiny gaps.'
'The liquid metal pushed through, opened the doors a bit, and solidified, isolating everything.'
As Nick looked at the entrance, he could tell one thing.
Nobody had been through this door after the Enlightened Ones had vanished.
'Unless there's a second entrance on the roof, Markus was never in here.'
'He probably just said that so that Aegis would allow him to build on top of it.'
'He wasn't interested in looking through some dusty ruins to find some documents that Aegis would just take away. He just wanted his city and his money.'
'He never found an entrance, and he didn't want to compromise the integrity of the ruins so that he could build his megastructure.'
'Well, at least I'm here now.'
Nick seeped through the entrance and materialized inside the dark hallway.
'Let's see what's in here.'