Nick sat in the middle of the Technician's big room.
Several complicated machines were around him.
He knew what all the machines did, but he only knew how some of them worked.
Many of these machines were designed by the Technician, and when he didn't need anyone else to manufacture them, they tended to be created with his personal style in mind.
That meant that their circuits and Zephyx Manipulations were very chaotic and disorganized.
Due to the Technician's elite understanding and his personal power, he essentially created many technologies that hadn't passed the Envious Researcher's ordeal.
That was also a convenient excuse for not designing the machines in a way that other humans could understand.
Ghosty was also present, but he only operated the normal machines.
"Is it happening?" the Technician asked.
"No," Nick answered.
The Technician had asked that question many times over the last few days.
Nick had never advanced as a Specter before, and they couldn't be sure that he would get a warning when it happened.
Because of that, they just waited while being prepared to start recording the advancement at any second.
"Maybe you should extend the sentence of another guard," the Technician said.
"I don't think that will change anything," Nick answered.
"If you say so…"
Nick just kept waiting.
And waiting.
"Is it starting?"
"No."
And waiting.
"Is it starting?"
\x3C!--sse-->\x3C!--/sse-->
"Yes."
The Technician did a double-take.
"Yes?"
"YES!" Nick shouted as he suddenly felt vertigo.
The Technician and Ghosty immediately fired up their machines.
Meanwhile, Nick gritted his teeth.
Some seconds ago, he felt the world starting to change.
It was like everything around him was getting hazy.
His perception was moving all over the place, and he felt like he was working with the Foul Senses again.
If Nick had a stomach, he was sure he would feel insane nausea right now.
The world became dark just before it lit up again.
Through the haze, Nick could see Ghosty and the Technician tinkering with their machines.
Slowly, figures started to appear around Nick.
They were human.
They had different ages, genders, social standings, powers, and so on.
Among them, Nick also saw a couple of familiar faces, the most prominent of which was Markus Julius.
All of them seemed to feel emotions of pain, suppression, fear, and so on.
In essence, all of them were suffering.
Finally, the machines, Ghosty, and the Technician, completely vanished.
Everything around Nick was swallowed by darkness, and the silhouettes of the many people became clearer.
The haze clouding Nick's mind lifted, and he felt like he had regained control over his body, which was strange since he had never lost control of it in the first place.
Nick stood up and looked around.
\x3C!--sse-->\x3C!--/sse-->
He found himself on top of a white plane just a couple of meters wide.
All the suffering humans around him were writhing in agony.
A moment later, Nick noticed that the Sun was present.
Earlier, Nick had been in the Technician's room, and the Sun was nowhere to be seen.
But now, it was back, and it shone on his white plane.
Nick stood there for several seconds, but nothing happened.
He didn't feel any different, and he also didn't feel like he was growing stronger.
A moment later, he had the urge to move in a certain direction.
Nick decided to follow his urge and approached the edge of his white plane.
At that moment, several of the silhouettes turned into white dust.
Their figures vanished, and the white dust gathered on the ground in front of Nick, creating a small path.
Nick advanced onto that path, and more people turned into white dust to extend the path.
After a couple of meters of advancing, Nick noticed that the silhouettes around him that hadn't turned into white dust started to change.
Nick saw terrifying horrors appearing around the people.
These horrors were torturing the people with physical and emotional pain.
'I can't do that,' Nick realized. 'While I can somewhat control the Nightmare's influence, I can not create these tortures on my own.'
At that moment, Nick realized what was happening.
'I am currently in the process of choosing my new ability, and if I'm right, the direction that I choose represents the ability I will attain.'
Nick looked around.
'Judging by the horrors, if I keep advancing in this direction, I will gain some kind of ability that inflicts torture on people. It seems like some kind of power that creates illusions.'
Nick narrowed his eyes.
'That would probably be the ability that would cause the most suffering to humans.'
\x3C!--sse-->\x3C!--/sse-->
Immediately, Nick started to push back against the urge that led him down this path.
'It is a Specter's instinct and goal to cause suffering to humanity. Therefore, following my instinct will give me an ability that can cause tremendous suffering.'
'Specters without any intelligence would follow the path chosen for them by their instincts.'
Nick looked at the Sun above him.
'Is it my inherent existence as a Specter that sends me down this path, or is it the Sun?'
'The Sun's appearance in this dream world can't be a coincidence.'
A thought appeared in Nick's head.
'Is the Sun giving the Specters their abilities?'
'If all Specters come from the Sun, it would make sense.'
'Specters are an artificial creation by the Sun, which is an artificial creation by the aliens. The Sun is most likely the very machine that allows Specters to exist and to grow.'
'A Specter doesn't actually gain a new ability. It receives its new ability from the Sun.'
Nick looked at the small path he had created.
'However, the Sun probably doesn't force a Specter down a specific path.'
'The fact that I can easily resist the urge to go down that path is proof of that. Additionally, several Specters said that they could choose their path.'
'It makes sense.'
'As far as I know, the Sun is not sentient. It is just a machine allowing Specters to exist.'
'Meanwhile, there are Specters with intelligence.'
'Would I ask a single-celled organism without reasoning capabilities to assign an appropriate job to a human?'
'No.'
'Because of that, the Sun leaves Specters which have enough intelligence to reason the freedom to choose their direction.'
Nick stepped back onto the original plane, and the path in front of him vanished.
It turned into white dust again before transforming back into suffering silhouettes.
\x3C!--sse-->\x3C!--/sse-->
At the same time, the horrors vanished.
Everything had returned to how it was at the beginning.
This time, Nick chose a different direction.
White dust appeared to create a path, and Nick could see the silhouettes changing again.
This time, they were all writhing in agony as some black smoke came out of their wounds.
'Poison, most likely,' Nick thought as he stepped back to his plane.
He chose a slightly different direction.
This time, he saw horrors that made people physically ill.
Nick chose several more directions, and eventually, something appeared that didn't change the silhouettes around him.
Instead, it was Nick's body that changed.
Nick gained several long, shadowy arms with terrifying claws.
'The appearance of Specters can also significantly change after an advancement,' Nick remembered.
When he walked in a different direction, he noticed that he automatically turned into mist.
Several silhouettes appeared on his path, and when his mist touched them, they turned to goo.
This was not an ability Nick was interested in.
He was not completely sure what he wanted, but he knew that he wasn't interested in any of the abilities that had been shown to him yet.
After twenty more times, something new appeared.
Nick walked down a path that didn't change him or the silhouettes at all.
He decided to continue down that path for a bit.
As he continued down the path, Nick started to rapidly understand the logic with which the paths were arranged, which led to understanding what this path meant.
'Intelligence,' Nick realized.
Nick remembered the Big Brain Slug.
\x3C!--sse-->\x3C!--/sse-->
The Big Brain Slug had been terrifyingly intelligent.
Nick did some calculations and realized that complex calculations seemed much easier.
This was the first path that genuinely interested him.
The ability to increase intelligence was terrifying.
He could do many things with it.
However, thanks to his increased intelligence, he realized a hard truth.
'Intelligence is important to society, but as difficult as it is to accept, in combat, intelligence only allows you to unlock new ways to deal with an enemy and makes these ways more efficient.'
'It only has a limited effect on your actual power output.'
'If I were in a fight, I would rather have a muscular man on my side instead of a weak but intelligent one.'
'There's only so much a weak but intelligent man can do against an approaching bear.'
'While higher intelligence is definitely interesting, ironically, my currently heightened intelligence tells me that my heightened intelligence is not the most useful aspect.'
'An intelligent man knows how to avoid a situation that's unfavorable to him.'
'The best way to survive is to never fight.'
Nick returned to his plane, and he returned to his normal self.
Without hesitation, he walked down a path.
The ability at the end of this path was not useful in combat.
It didn't increase his power in any way.
However, it would make everything much easier and would unlock many things he couldn't do now.
Eventually, all the silhouettes turned into white dust, and Nick's path came to an end.
Finally, Nick stepped into the darkness around him.
And the next moment, he woke up.
He had gained his new ability.