Nick went deep underground and flew towards Aegis' headquarters.
The next knowledge repository was below the old city of New York.
It was risky for Nick to come anywhere close to Death, but he had no other choice.
Luckily, the ground was amazing at isolating senses, and the base was so far underground that Death probably never saw it.
Nick went deeper into the ground.
Ten kilometers.
Twenty kilometers.
Thirty kilometers.
At a depth of 100 kilometers, he stopped descending.
The surroundings were so incredibly hot and chaotic that even Nick's senses were disoriented.
However, he could still withstand it.
Even a Demon would be able to withstand the heat, but it would not be pleasant.
Due to the distorting effects on Nick's senses, it took him several hours to actually find the base.
The only reason why he could even find it was the slight decrease in temperature in the area.
Since this base had to use a similar Zephyx generator as Deep Core Base, the temperature around it had to be colder.
After a while, he entered a space that was extremely cold.
The base was close.
Eventually, he found it.
"Assistant, can you sense the base in front of me?" Nick asked.
"No connection," Assistant answered.
Nick frowned.
'So, this base is not operational.'
'But the surroundings are still cold. If the Zephyx generator didn't work, the area around it would be just as hot as the other places.'
Nick searched for the entrance and found it after a while.
He expected the entrance to be deactivated, but surprisingly, there was an active panel beside it.
'The base is actually operational?' he thought.
"Still no connection?" Nick asked.
"No connection," Assistant answered.
'The presence of this panel is already strange,' Nick thought. 'All of the Enlightened One's technology works by using a Seed as an intermediary.'
As Nick activated the panel, writing showed up.
"Welcome to Piercing Heaven Base," it read. "Are you in possession of a working Seed?"
Nick pressed the "yes" button.
"Connection established," Assistant said.
"Keep all lights deactivated. Put the base on standby and only activate a function if I tell you to," Nick ordered.
"Authority as Emperor has been established," Assistant said. "You have administrative access over Piercing Heaven Base."
"Open the gate," Nick ordered.
The next moment, a forcefield washed over Nick, pushing all the rubble away.
Then, the door opened, and Nick entered.
The entrance closed again, and all the rubble crashed into the closed entrance.
Nick's senses were no longer suppressed, and he looked through the base.
'It's much smaller,' he thought. 'From the outside, it seems to be almost two by two kilometers big, but the inside is barely a hundred meters high.'
'That means something below me is taking up a lot of space.'
'Is it the knowledge repository?'
"Activate the database and give me a summary of Piercing Heaven Base's purpose," Nick ordered.
"Piercing Heaven Base acts as a storage for Zephyx. There is no other purpose," Assistant answered.
"Zephyx? How much Zephyx is stored here?" Nick asked.
"Approximately 30 million tons."
Nick's eyes widened.
'30 million tons?!' he thought. 'How much space would that take up?!'
Then, he looked at the ground.
'That explains the big empty space beneath me.'
'How long did it take the Enlightened Ones to create that much Zephyx?!'
That was when Nick realized what was going on.
'The generator is still running, and if it is not using the Zephyx, it has to be stored somewhere.'
'So, for thousands of years, this base gathered Zephyx from the planet and stored it all?'
30 million tons…
Creating a Peak Elder took about 1.2 tons.
This meant this amount of Zephyx could create about 25 million Peak Elders.
Nick did some other calculations.
'The cities have to pay between 15 to 50 tons of Zephyx to Aegis every year. With about a thousand cities in the world, that would be between 15 to 50 thousand tons of Zephyx that Aegis receives every year.'
'This is what all cities in the world produce over the span of about a thousand years, give or take!'
"Show me the reactor's output," Nick said.
"The reactor produces about 1400 tons of Zephyx per year," Assistant answered.
Nick did some quick calculations.
'About 21,000 years. This reactor has been running continuously for about 21,000 years,' Nick thought.
Finally, he had a timeline.
This reactor was probably created quite late during the Enlightened One's era.
'The current era has been going for about five to six thousand years. The Suffering Ones existed for ten to thirty thousand years.'
'This most likely means that the Suffering Ones existed for about 15,000 years, based on this generator's output.'
'Logically, this means the Enlightened Ones had their final battle between 20 to 21 thousand years ago.'
'The Recovering Ones existed for a bit longer than the Suffering Ones. If we go with 20,000 years…'
'The Enlightened Ones also existed for about 3,000 years or so…'
'That means the Ancient Ones died about 43,000 to 46,000 years ago.'
'This Zephyx mine, referring to Earth, has been running for that long.'
'Tens of thousands of years of artificially created suffering on all of humanity.'
Finally, the timeline was clear.
Nick took a deep breath.
Then, he focused on Piercing Heaven Base again.
"Use my authority as Emperor to retrieve top-secret data," Nick said.
"One file has been found. Do you wish to integrate it?" Assistant asked.
"Yes," Nick said.
A moment later, a map of the base appeared in front of Nick, and a Containment Unit was added.
Once more, Nick had to cut through the floor to get to the Containment Unit.
Luckily, he had his Sanctuary with him, and it also contained a couple of weapons.
Without the weapons from Deep Core Base, he wouldn't have been able to cut through the floor.
Nick approached the Containment Unit and read out all information regarding the Specter.
"The Ice Maiden," Nick read. "Grows more powerful by freezing humans. It is important to note that it grows stronger by causing sensations of freezing. Killing humans does not benefit the Ice Maiden."
"Level: Peak level eight."
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