It was done.
The day had arrived and passed.
Ever since Nick became a Specter, he knew this day would come.
Aegis would never trust a Specter.
And he was fine with that.
In their shoes, he would have done the same thing.
It was just sad that the Technician had to die for Nick to escape.
'I will not disappoint you,' Nick thought as he swam further into the ocean. 'I will free humanity, no matter what I need to do.'
'If necessary, I will sacrifice my life just like you sacrificed yours.'
Wyntor. Dead.
Julian. Dead.
Simon Francium. Dead.
The old Champion of Light. Dead.
Aria. Alive.
Ghosty. Alive.
The Technician. Dead.
The Knife. Dead.
The Left Arm. Dead.
Aria and Ghosty were the only two left.
They were the only two people left who could call Nick a friend.
But Nick knew that this also wouldn't last forever.
Ghosty was already old, and Heroes could only live for about 500 years.
Ghosty had already been old when Nick was born, and while becoming a Hero had increased his longevity by about 200 years, Nick was already about 245 years old.
Ghosty couldn't become a Protector.
In about 50 years or so, he would also die.
Aria still had 500 to 600 years left.
But that would also pass at some point.
While Aria had the potential to become a Shield, she couldn't become one due to the Maw.
If she became a Shield, the Maw would take every Shield, and Aria would need to fight all of them.
That would devastate humanity, and even more, she would have no chance of winning against the Champion.
Her lifespan was limited.
In due time, she would also leave Nick.
However, they all chased the same goal.
Humanity's freedom.
While they would leave this world, they gave everything they owned and achieved to Nick so that he could realize their dream.
Eventually, Nick went back to the underground city and told Aria and Samar about what happened.
It was over.
They had to survive without Aegis' "help".
"Aegis will still help us," Nick answered. "They just won't know that they are helping us."
Aria sighed. "What now?"
"I will continue transcribing the engineering knowledge. You may ask me for anything during that time," Nick answered.
"How will you advance?" Aria asked.
"That won't be a problem," Nick answered.
After telling Samar and Aria everything, Nick went back to transcribing knowledge.
Over the next decades, he needed to gather many resources for the underground city.
People were starting to advance rapidly.
It took Nick 25 additional years to finish transcribing the knowledge.
Right now, Nick was about 270 years old, and the underground city had already existed for several decades.
The children Nick had seen many years ago had already become adults.
Almost all of them had become Veterans already, and a few of them also managed to become Experts.
Almost every single adult living in the underground city was a Veteran, which was unimaginable for any other city.
This city literally had several thousand Veterans.
The city with the most Veterans on the surface maybe had a couple hundred.
While the advancements in biology had some play in that fact, the biggest reason for this insane amount of Veterans was Nick.
He gave them an endless supply of Specters.
By now, the city had over 2,000 Adults.
Everyone could work with a Specter.
Of course, since the city didn't need to pay any tribute to Aegis, the city's Zephyx production was unreasonably high.
While Aria had asked Nick to capture Specters many times over the past decades, she hadn't asked for any Zephyx.
By now, the city had also had a couple of decades to work on its engineering, and that had also had a significant effect.
The researchers could produce Star Energy generators that easily fit on wrists, and they had more than ten times the output the old generators had.
The Pure Energy generators had also advanced a lot.
Right now, the city was not lacking any Star Energy or Zephyx.
They could experiment with it without needing to look at the resources.
The only thing they were missing was Pure Energy, but as more time passed, the amount of Pure Energy would also increase.
Another change was the addition of a few Protectors.
Some of the first group of researchers had managed to become Protectors.
In terms of raw power, this city would eclipse every other one.
However, compared to Aegis, it was still worth nothing.
Aegis almost had a hundred Protectors, while the underground city had less than five.
But that wasn't important.
Aegis was not their enemy but their secret ally.
'It's time to visit the next knowledge repository,' Nick thought. 'I wanted to finish transcribing this first so that the researchers have enough to research. It also helped me double-check all the knowledge I have gathered.'
'Now, I should visit the biology knowledge repository.'
'Humanity needs to find a way to advance with Star Energy and Pure Energy, and we also need to find an alternative to the Consumption.'
'I can barely keep up with the demand of Elders for the Consumption.'
'If we can find a way to increase an Expert's Zephyx generation manifold without having to sacrifice Elders, we can get rid of the bottleneck for powerful Extractors.'
'Becoming a Specialist won't be difficult then, and becoming a Hero just requires a lot of studying regarding Zephyx Manipulation.'
'The biggest issue will be becoming a Protector then since that isn't easy at all.'
'But if we have tens of thousands of Heroes, our speed of advancement will only increase.'
'Heroes have such a fast mind that normal people can't even comprehend its sheer speed.'
'Any Hero has the mental capacity to become a top researcher just based on their level. Of course, there are still much better ones, but 10,000 casual researchers will find and comprehend things faster than a team of ten top researchers.'
After creating his plan, Nick left the underground city.
For all of this to work, he needed intricate knowledge of biology.
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