The Ice Maiden talked about Pure Energy next, and Nick's guesses were proven to be true.
Pure Energy was crazy.
It could strengthen organic and inorganic matter without any downsides.
It just put more energy into the matter.
It did not alter the matter in any way.
Iron stayed flexible.
Diamonds stayed tough.
Cells stayed malleable but became more resistant.
However, Nick knew all of that already.
What he didn't know was that Pure Energy could also be transformed into heat and movement.
He had assumed that it was possible, but the Ice Maiden confirmed his guess.
Apparently, the apocalyptic weapons the Ancient Ones used were based on Pure Energy.
The first milestone in human's capability of destruction was dynamite, which could decimate houses.
The next milestone was turning nuclear fission into energy, which could level an entire town.
Then came nuclear fusion, which could destroy an entire city and even endanger the biosphere of the planet, assuming the payload was big enough.
But that wasn't the end.
The next thing the Ancient Ones made were antimatter bombs.
The antimatter fused with matter, turning all the matter into energy.
With these weapons, the Ancient Ones could destroy hundreds of kilometers of land.
Something like that was already powerful enough to kill a Shield.
But they still weren't done.
Antimatter bombs were difficult to get to the target, which was why they made antimatter lasers.
One swing of the laser from orbit could create antimatter bomb explosions in a line going across a continent.
One of these explosions was as powerful as an antimatter bomb, but they could create hundreds of explosions within a second.
At that point, the Ancient Ones had already created weaponry that could destroy entire planets.
Theoretically, if they just kept pointing at one spot with the laser, it would dig into the core of the planet and destroy it.
Of course, using these weapons was unreasonably expensive and dangerous.
And yet, they still weren't done.
Humans wanted more power.
More destruction.
That was when they focused on Pure Energy.
The most powerful weapon the Ancient Ones had went back to the basics.
Missiles.
Nuclear fusion missiles that could fly at unreasonably fast speeds.
They burned Pure Energy to become faster, and the Pure Energy also increased the power of the explosion.
The Ancient Ones tested that weapon once.
They fired it at Pluto.
It took a while for the missile to get there, but as soon as it arrived, it completely enveloped Pluto in its explosion.
Humanity had done it.
Humanity had created a weapon that could even kill a theoretical level ten Extractor.
But humanity still wasn't done!
They wanted to go even further!
Their next project was improving their antimatter laser with Pure Energy.
That would have truly been a universe-ending weapon.
But before they could make significant headway on their research, they met the aliens.
While they were desperately working on their antimatter laser backed by Pure Energy, the aliens closed in.
The Pure Energy Fusion Missiles killed many of the alien's strongest warriors.
But then, the aliens used the Prephyx to mess with the targeting systems.
One of the aliens' most powerful warriors managed to reach Earth, and then, it was over.
Sure, the humans could fire more missiles at them, but what then?
They had seen what the missile had done to Pluto.
This would completely destroy Earth.
If one of these missiles detonated on Earth, it would be like a horse taking a huge bite out of an apple.
Earth would turn into a crescent.
If the humans had managed to finish their Pure Energy Antimatter Laser, they would have definitely won the war.
In the end, it all came to different applications of Pure Energy.
Humanity used it in technology, while the aliens used it in biology.
External power versus internal power.
Computers versus organisms.
In the end, the organisms won, but it had been extremely close.
The Ice Maiden went into detail on how Pure Energy worked and how one could transform it into different things.
Surprisingly, it only took Nick five years of listening to understand everything.
That was quite a bit faster than previously.
The reason was that these were all fundamentals.
This was all theoretical.
It was just physics.
This was just how the world worked.
It didn't go into detail on how to apply these things since that had already been covered by the engineering and biology knowledge repositories.
After Nick had understood the fundamentals of the energies, he finally understood how all of the machines and biological alterations worked.
Now, he could truly recreate all the technology of the Enlightened Ones.
There were no more unknowns in how the machines worked.
Nick deactivated the listening device and stood up.
"I hope you succeed," the Ice Maiden said with a sigh. "I would like to go out again in the future."
"I waited so long for this, and now that we have another shot, I am getting antsy."
Nick threw a glance at her.
The Ice Maiden's mentality was complex and contradictory at times.
As a Specter, she didn't feel things.
She even said so herself.
And yet, she acted like she felt things, and compared to other Specters, she even believed these things herself.
It was like she was believing her own lies.
She believed that the mask she was wearing was her true face.
In that case, did she have emotions or not?
Did she have desires aside from growing stronger and surviving?
Nick didn't think a lot about this.
These things entered the realm of philosophy, and the thing Nick hated the most about philosophy was its abstract nature.
Whenever anything entered the realm of philosophy, it was basically impossible to come to a concrete answer.
It always boiled down to uncertain possibilities.
'There's no right answer,' Nick thought. 'It all just depends on someone's beliefs.'
'There's no point in thinking about this.'
'I've got more important things to do.'
"I will do my best," Nick said.
The Ice Maiden sighed.
"That's all I can ask for."
tg://resolv?domain=Kill_the_Sun_fastes
The author's patreon. If he gets more than 1000€ per month, he will increase the number of words in the chapter.