Nick went a floor lower and stopped in front of the gate leading to the Containment Unit with the unknown Adversary.
BANG!
Nick punched the gate with his full power.
And sure enough, several small vibrations answered him.
"Ah, you're back? You seemed to have become stronger. Good!" the vibrations said.
Nick wasn't strong enough to make several vibrations to communicate since he still needed his ability to shake the walls just a slight bit.
If his ability could be partially activated, it would be enough, but that wouldn't work.
The senses of the Adversary were so sharp that it could pinpoint Nick's location based on the vibrations, completely deactivating his ability.
The best Nick could do was to jump left and right to reactivate his ability for every strike, but that still would require over two seconds just to spell out a single word.
Nick punched the right side of the gate before rapidly moving to the left and punching that one.
The Adversary didn't create any vibrations while Nick took two seconds just to transmit one word.
"Slow."
"Ah, too bad," the Adversary answered. "Anyway, you got some food with you? I've not eaten anything in forever!"
Nick furrowed his brows in annoyance.
Then, he very slowly punched three words.
"How bring in?" he asked.
"Embarrassed: Oh, right!" the Specter answered. "Joyful: You can't! Ha ha!"
The Adversary was still spelling out his "emotions" while talking.
It seemed like appearing charismatic was important to it.
'It's probably used to talking to humans, and it probably realized that showing some emotions, even if they are not real, makes talking to people easier,' Nick thought.
"Anyway, how have things been? Everything good?" the Adversary asked.
Once more, Nick very slowly answered.
"Unimportant. Nuclear Fusion, please."
"We getting right to the important part, eh?" the Adversary asked. "Laughing: Sure, I'm down!"
"How far along is technology in regards to nuclear fission? How big is the machine you need to make it happen?" it asked.
Nick indicated that they needed a relatively large machine.
"Helpless: then, let's just skip that part. I think I will start by talking about the principles of nuclear fusion and how you can use Zephyx to create it. How much time do you have?" it asked. RÁΝɵΒĘṤ
"Unknown. Couple years."
"Only a couple of years?" the Specter asked. "Can't you just get someone else?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Secret."
"I thought you were working for somebody, which means that they are most likely stronger than you," the Specter said. "If you could get someone I can talk to, this would be many times faster."
"No."
Two seconds of silence.
"Helpless: Well, you're the one in control. I can't exactly come out and force you to do something else. I also just wanna finally get out, you know? And even if I can't get out, I at least want some food and company."
'Food and company, sure,' Nick thought. 'I believe the food part, but I don't think it is interested in company.'
"Alright, let's start then…"
The Adversary went into a lecture about nuclear fusion while Nick sat down again.
Just like last time, the process of conveying information via vibrations was slow to a painful degree, and Nick barely needed to use 1% of his focus to keep up with the Specter.
While the Specter kept talking, Nick experimented with his Zephyx Manipulation.
Time passed, and about a year later, Nick left the pillar to check the messages on his Barrier.
There were a couple of news.
Envy was putting more pressure on the Great Triangle.
One of the strongholds had a battle with an unaffiliated Fallen, but nothing came of it.
After checking his messages, Nick left Crimson City, but he wouldn't be gone for long.
Nick traveled across the ocean and entered the secret lab for the scientists.
As he secretly entered, he saw Hirana and Michael working on the Flexinator.
The two of them were still Late Specialists, and they would probably need another ten years to become Heroes.
If the Technician got his hands on another set of Elixirs, it could be shortened to about five years.
Nick secretly entered the true lab as well and immediately noticed something surprising.
Ghosty and Ferdinand had created a generator that could harvest the energy of nuclear fission, and it was just a couple of meters wide.
"I'm back but will leave shortly. Give me a status update," Nick transmitted to Ghosty.
An expression of pleasant surprise appeared on Ghosty's face. "Oh, my friend is back," he said.
Ferdinand looked around but couldn't find Nick. "Then, go catch up," he said.
Ghosty walked to a separate room, and Nick materialized in front of him.
Without saying anything, Nick handed a book over.
He had created that book while listening to the Adversary.
Since Nick knew that his knowledge wasn't advanced enough to discern what was important and what wasn't, he had simply transcribed everything the Adversary had said.
The only thing he had cut was some random rambling that wasn't related to the topic at all.
The Adversary tended to get distracted and sometimes talked about random things.
Ghosty opened the book, and he almost destroyed the first page when trying to turn it.
"Damn, Nick," Ghosty said in shock as he looked at the translucent page. "Couldn't you have made the page thicker?!"
"This thing has over 20,000 pages, and I got rid of a lot of rambling. I assumed it would be in our best interest to keep the volume of books at a minimum," Nick explained.
Ghosty looked with a raised brow at the page that was thinner than the thinnest hair.
"Sure," Ghosty answered. "By the way, did you see the generator?"
"I did," Nick answered.
"Impressive, huh?" Ghosty asked with a smile. "We made that thing in less than a year. Researching without any distractions is amazing! I have nothing to worry about, and there's nobody annoying me. It's literally what I always wanted."
"I would like to talk, but I gotta get back," Nick said, stopping Ghosty from swooning about his new job.
"Oh, sure," Ghosty said with a bit of disappointment. "Sorry for distracting you. I guess working with just one other guy also has its downsides. As soon as I saw you, I immediately felt the urge to talk about everything."
"Well, advantages and disadvantages, I guess."
Nick just nodded.
"We all aim for the same goal," Nick said.
Ghosty's calm and controlled demeanor returned.
"Right," he confirmed.
"I'll head back," Nick said. "See you in a year or so."
"See you," Ghosty answered.
The next moment, Nick vanished again as he returned to Crimson City.
Ghosty stepped out of the room and showed the book to Ferdinand.
"How about we take a break and read something?" he asked with a smile.
Ferdinand looked with interest at the book.
As the two of them started reading, Nick went back to the Adversary and told it that he was ready to continue.
Another year passed, and Nick caught up with the outside world.
Not much of interest had happened.
Nick once again returned to the scientists with a new book.
Hirana and Michael were still busy with the Flexinator, but Nick could already see a good chunk of different materials in the corner of the room.
Naturally, these materials had been created by the Flexinator.
The two of them were making good headway.
Meanwhile, Ghosty and Ferdinand had almost abandoned the nuclear fission reactor and were in the process of building a humongous machine.
The machine would be over twenty meters wide and high.
While its width would still fit into the room, its height wouldn't.
"I'm back," Nick transmitted to Ghosty.
"Ah, perfect!" Ghosty shouted in pleasant surprise.
"What?" Ferdinand asked.
"Oh, my friend is back," Ghosty said. "Hey, could you make the lab about 20 meters higher?"
Ferdinand looked with skepticism at Ghosty.
Ghosty had said that this friend of his had essentially created the lab, but he still couldn't imagine how he had done it.
The next moment, Ferdinand saw parts of the ceiling melting.
Nick had used a material that was resistant to almost everything except a certain frequency of Specter Zephyx.
If one used this frequency, the metal would turn to goo and become malleable.
Ferdinand watched in shock as the ceiling moved completely by itself.
First, parts of the ceiling melted.
Then, a cloud of mist appeared that turned the stone and earth above the ceiling into gas, which just mysteriously vanished.
After that, nothing happened for over an hour.
Finally, a bunch of new metal goo appeared, which was smeared over the higher ceiling.
Eventually, the goo completely turned into hard metal, and the newly expanded lab was done.
Ferdinand hadn't seen anyone during this entire process.
It was like an invisible force was building a house, which was beyond weird.
"Wanna read?" Ghosty asked with a smile as he held up a new book.
"Sure," Ferdinand answered absentmindedly as he walked over.
Meanwhile, Nick stopped above the ocean.
He took out his Space Bag and opened it.
BOOOOOOOM!
A storm of dust came out of his bag before sinking into the ocean.
After emptying his Space Bag of trash, Nick flew back to Crimson City to learn more.
tg://resolv?domain=Kill_the_Sun_fastes