Nick had the power of Zephyx, Star Energy, and Pure Energy in his hands now.
He could produce Zephyx himself, but he needed the advanced generators to produce the other two.
Nevertheless, the energy issues had been resolved for him.
He would never lack any of them anymore.
After getting the resources necessary to produce essentially everything he could possibly think of, his mind immediately turned to weaponry and armor.
Humans of the current era didn't need armor since they were using their Barriers.
However, the Enlightened Ones used armor.
Instead of using Zephyx for defense, they used Pure Energy to create impossibly powerful armor, leaving the Zephyx for offensive capabilities.
Naturally, Nick planned to do the same thing.
'The more complex machines are made of materials treated with Pure Energy. I can't create these materials on my own.'
'Some of these machines need a long time to create powerful materials, and I can't speed up that process.'
The blueprint for the sword in the room above the Jolly Cannibal shot through Nick's mind.
Nick knew how he could make a copy of the sword, but he didn't know how the machine that created the sword worked exactly.
He knew the process, but he didn't know why the Pure Energy and Star Energy worked in such a way.
'Without the knowledge of Energies, I can't properly build the machines. There are parts of the machine that I do not understand. I can build the machine, but I don't know how it works exactly.'
This could be compared to running an electric current through a spool of copper wires.
That would create a magnetic field, but how exactly did that work?
How did moving electrons through a curled wire manipulate magnetic objects some distance away?
In this example, Nick knew how to make the wire,but he didn't understand how the magnetic field was produced.
He knew that it worked, but not why it worked.
Because of that, constructing one of these advanced machines was still difficult.
Additionally, while Nick's mind was unimaginably advanced, he couldn't be sure that he didn't confuse a thing or two.
Theory could replace practice to a certain extent, but it could never replace it fully.
Something like a ring-sized Pure Energy generator was relatively simple.
The Enlightened Ones had created these generators almost a thousand years before they created the machines that made their most powerful weaponry.
Comparing the Pure Energy generator to these machines was like comparing a hydroelectric generator to a machine that could produce hydrogen bombs.
'I'm not going to enter any fights for a while. First, I will share all of this knowledge with the underground city. They will deal with all of the creation of the machines.'
The next moment, Nick left the Rising Star Base and went through several cities.
He retrieved the bodies of about a hundred criminals and delivered them to the Jolly Cannibal.
Many of these criminals were Extractors, and their bodies would produce enough energy for about 30 more years of operation.
Luckily, Earth didn't lack heinous criminals.
Finally, Nick went back to the underground city.
He had been gone for about ten years, and the city had developed quite a bit.
The layout obviously hadn't changed since nobody in the city had the capability to destroy the old walls.
However, there were over 300 new additions to the underground city.
Children.
The first children in the new underground civilization had been born.
How could these children live here?
Of course, Nick had thought about that while creating the city.
20% of the city used light generated by Zephyx.
This part of the city was completely cut off from the remainder of the city,and only the most powerful and high-ranking members of the dark side could travel to the light side.
The only people who lived on the light side were parents and their children.
However, these parents were not involved in any research.
This was a mandatory safety measure since none of the technology could be exposed to the light.
A researcher was not allowed to have any children until there was a way for them to be born into darkness.
Sadly, humanity didn't have that technology yet.
While humanity's achievements in technology were already quite advanced, their medical and biological knowledge could still be considered primitive.
'Despite its lies, the Sun was actually right in one thing,' Nick thought. 'Humanity's achievements in personal power and biology are lacking.'
'We can create Pure Energy, but we can't create a medication that deals with various viruses.'
'We can move electrons from one atom to the other. We can split and fuse nuclei.'
'And yet, many viruses are still an issue for the normal people.'
Nick looked at the children.
The oldest were nine years old, while the youngest were just a couple of days old.
A Zephyx Synchronizer only stabilized at an age of about nine to eleven years.
Before then, even if the children were exposed to a Specter's presence, they wouldn't attain the Specter's ability.
According to Nick's plan, the eleven-year-olds would be led to the Nightmare once a year.
Of course, almost no child would survive such a journey under normal circumstances.
However, the Nightmare was not sentient.
It was a machine.
It acted according to a set pattern without randomness.
Its effect could perfectly be predicted.
And there were ways to alleviate its effects. At least for a limited time.
Enough time for the children to survive the couple of seconds in pure darkness inside the Fiend of Darkness.
But that was in the future.
For now,they would use Extractors who attained the ability to isolate the Nightmare's influence from others.
Naturally, some of the Extractors had unlocked that ability after they worked with the Nightmare, and they would use that for now.
Then, when the children synchronized with the Nightmare, they would enter the dark side.
They would go to advanced school there, and after some years, they would be allowed to choose their path.
Extractor, worker, researcher, administrator, and so on.
Depending on their choice, they would be assigned to the light side or the dark side for the remainder of their lives.
It was not the prettiest way to run a society, but it was necessary.
The dangers were just too great.
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