Nick looked through the base.
When he opened one of the doors, he had to take a deep breath.
'An armory!' he thought.
This room was filled with the most advanced weapons the Enlightened Ones could produce.
There were over ten copies of the sword Nick had found in Rising Star Base.
In total, there were over a hundred weapons that could be used by level eight and level nine Extractors!
'They didn't store this stuff in Rising Star Base since it was not as secure as the other ones.'
Nick also looked at the suits of armor.
They were so strong that he couldn't even damage them.
Even if a Peak Shield wore them, they would be slowed down quite a bit.
'If we ever manage to produce a bunch of Shields, we won't need to equip them. There is more than enough for them here.'
'Are all of the other bases like this one, or is this one special?'
'Biology…'
'Biology can represent life, and humans are alive. It's possible that this base represents the ultimate resistance.'
'If this represents humanity's ultimate resistance, this means that a Sanctuary could be here as well.'
Nick looked around. 'Sadly, it is impossible to find it.'
'Chances are that the Sanctuary is also not in the database. This thing is too dangerous to the aliens since it can even fool the Sun and the Null.'
Nick left the armory and went to the other rooms.
'Alteration machines,' he thought when he saw one room filled with machines. 'By using them, we can create humans that are identical to the Enlightened Ones. That would theoretically solve the issue with the Consumption.'
'Sadly, we can't use them. The Sun has fought the Enlightened Ones, and it knows how they work. It's very likely that it has a failsafe if these kinds of humans appear again.'
'We have to create our own humans.'
As he looked through more rooms, Nick saw more and more machines.
Each one was more advanced than the other.
Nick also found the Primary Drone that was on standby.
Finally, Nick reached the Zephyx generator.
It looked almost identical to the one he had found in the first ruin he had visited.
Back then, Nick had had no idea how one could produce Zephyx without a Specter.
Now, he knew how to build a generator like this.
"Where's the knowledge repository?" Nick asked.
"No information found," Assistant answered.
"Use my authority as Emperor to search again."
"Emperor, one top-secret file was found. I can only open it if you give the command," Assistant answered.
"Open it," Nick answered.
"The search has produced a result," Assistant said.
The next moment, a grid of Deep Core Base appeared in front of Nick, and a new room was added.
The room was completely isolated, and there was no way to get to it.
Without hesitating, Nick went back to the armory.
He grabbed one of the heaviest swords.
It was so heavy that he could barely lift it, even with his primary ability active.
Nick walked to a seemingly random room and carefully lowered the sword to the ground.
CRRRRRR!
The floor was incredibly hard.
It was so hard that it could resist the assault of a Peak Fallen forever.
However, Nick had the power of an Early Adversary with his ability, and the sword was meant to be used by a Mid or Late level nine Extractor.
Nick had to push the sword down with a lot of force, but eventually, he managed to carve a hole.
Over the next few minutes, he slowly cut a square out of the ground.
BANG!
The square hit the ground, revealing a new room below the one Nick was in.
Nick put the sword back into the armory and entered the new room.
Sure enough, there was a Containment Unit in front of him.
He went to the console and realized that the Containment Unit had no power.
Nick opened one of the panels and used his Pure Energy and Star Energy generators to refill the energy storage.
A moment later, the Containment Unit reactivated.
Its own Star Energy and Pure Energy reactors sprung to life and produced their own energy.
Finally, Nick looked at the Zephyx storage.
'Full to the brim,' he thought.
Several tons of Zephyx were stored inside the storage.
That was more than enough to keep the Containment Unit running for decades, as long as the Specter inside didn't keep attacking the walls.
However, even if it did do that, it wouldn't make a difference.
The walls themselves were powerful enough to even contain an Eternal.
The Specter would just force the Containment Unit to cancel out the vibrations.
When Nick went back to the console, he looked at the Specter's information.
"The Pure One," Nick read.
When Nick saw the other information, his eyes widened.
'The Enlightened Ones managed to do that?!' he thought in shock.
Despite knowing everything about engineering that the Enlightened Ones knew, Nick had no idea that the Enlightened Ones could even do that!
The Pure One.
Abilities: None.
It had no abilities.
Not even a single one.
Level: Peak Adversary.
Power source: Zephyx.
Yes, the Pure One grew stronger by just consuming Zephyx.
Grants abilities: None.
Zephyx creation: Zero.
'It is an artificial Specter!' Nick thought.
'The Enlightened Ones created a Specter of their own!'
'But instead of making a normal Specter, they turned the entire process upside down.'
'Instead of turning Prephyx into Zephyx, this Specter is turning Zephyx into Prephyx.'
'It is not producing Zephyx in any way. It just consumes Zephyx.'
Of course, under normal circumstances, this made no sense.
It didn't grant abilities, and it didn't produce any Zephyx.
Keeping it contained would produce nothing, and making it stronger would just cost Zephyx without any return.
It was literally just a bottomless hole that one could throw money in.
And yet, there was one reason to create something like this.
Research or just to see if one could actually create something like that.
Well, there was also one other reason.
'For the aliens, this is most likely an abomination,' Nick thought. 'If the Sun ever sees this Specter, it will kill it.'
'That means the Specter has no choice but to help humanity.'
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