Nick took a deep breath.
He had been doing that many times within the last couple of years.
For the last 15 years, he had overlooked the development of the first batch of Nightmen.
Just as expected, they very quickly showed tendencies of manipulation and volatility.
However, it was important that the volatility was not emotional.
The volatility referred to their tendency to quickly enter physical confrontations.
They weren't overcome with anger or couldn't control themselves.
They simply believed that the emotional payoff of punching a guy that annoyed them was worth the punishment that followed.
Normal people might regret their actions and believe that they shouldn't have done that.
But the Nightmen were not like that.
Punching that one guy just felt amazing.
So what if they didn't gain some resources for some time?
They had made their decision, and now they had to live with it.
'These aspects will change when they grow older and more experienced,' Nick thought. 'Right now, it seems like a good tradeoff, but when they become adults and the punishments become heavier, they will refrain from doing these things.'
'Not because they don't want to but because they don't want to suffer the consequences. They will only do it when they are sure they can get away with it.'
'Anor's death should be a good example for the others.'
Anor, one of the Nightmen, had tried to kill somebody a couple of months ago.
He believed that he could get away with it by making it look like the person died to a Specter.
Sadly, the underground city was constantly monitored, and Nick also paid special attention to all of them.
Nick had informed Aria about what was going to happen, and one of the guards had interfered shortly before Anor killed the other boy.
Killing others was forbidden, and Nick told Samar to hold a public execution.
The other Nightmen and their parents had to attend.
The parents were furious since their children were still teenagers, but funnily enough, the teenagers didn't care.
The only thing they felt was disdain.
"This idiot got caught. What, did he think that outsmarting the city is that easy? Serves him right!"
That was the general consensus amongst the other Nightmen, who were still young teenagers at that point.
Almost all of them had stepped out of line at some point, but Anor was the first one who truly went overboard.
'I need powerful and shrewd people,' Nick thought. 'If you are intelligent enough to get past the surveillance, nothing will happen to you.'
'However, that would be difficult for even me. Cameras are basically everywhere, and I don't think I can hide a death. The only feasible way for me would be to disguise as somebody else and vanish shortly after.'
'I can vanish, but they can't. Even if they disguise themselves, the cameras will see them when they remove their disguise or when they put it on.'
'And since getting past the surveillance is almost impossible, they are forced to vie for power while following the law.'
'Either be so shrewd that you can outsmart this overbearing system or follow the rules.'
'Those are the only two options.'
The attempted murder was big news.
This was the first time anyone had tried to kill anyone else in the history of the underground city.
The introduction of the Nightmen had obviously made the city worse.
But it was necessary.
This was for humanity.
'I don't think this will end in this era,' Nick thought. 'We need the Nightmen to be level nine Extractors.'
'They feed on Pure Energy, but Pure Energy also needs Zephyx.'
'The huge storage of Zephyx is useful, but it's not enough to create several level nine Extractors.'
'We need far more Zephyx.'
'We need normal Shields who can work with Adversaries to produce a ton of Zephyx.'
'Preferably, we even need normal level nine Extractors.'
'Theoretically, we can create Shields and even Initial level nine Extractors due to the Ice Maiden, but that takes too long, and it's too risky.'
'I don't want anyone to have the power to break the shell of the underground city.'
'All of this is just a test run.'
'I am just testing the Nightmen and see how they develop.'
'I need to know what I need to pay attention to in the future.'
'This era is already relatively close to its end.'
'Trying to free humanity in this era is unrealistic and would be wasting the biggest chance humanity has.'
'It has to happen in the next era.'
'While humanity will develop normally on the surface, the new underground city will grow exponentially.'
'While the humans on the surface are just starting to suppress Fallen, the underground city will already have tens of isolated Shields.'
Nick furrowed his brows.
'But I don't know when we should stop. The aliens found the Enlightened Ones before they could strike. Before we get any level nine Extractors, I need to find out how much we can grow before we get noticed.'
'For that, I need to go to the alien base and look at their technology.'
'And before I can do that, I need to become an Adversary.'
'I think it's about time to pay a visit to the last knowledge repository.'
'While the Nightmen develop, I can work on my personal power.'
'If I can't infiltrate the aliens' base, all of this is for nothing anyway.'
Nick contacted Samar and Aria and told them that he would be leaving for a couple of years.
He also told them to create more Nightmen and to watch how everything developed.
The more Nightmen they had, the more knowledge Nick would have of them, and the smoother the future would become.
Aria and Samar were not big fans of introducing more Nightmen into the underground city, but they knew that it was necessary.
This was all for humanity's future.
They needed the Nightmen.
And they needed to learn how to work with them.
Humanity needed normal people and the Nightmen to succeed.
Finding that balance would take a long time.
It would take a lot of trial and error.
Nick left all of this to Samar, and moments later, he left the underground city.
It was time to go to the last knowledge repository.
The one that concerned energy manipulation.
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