Chapter 10 – Everything Prepared

Inside the house, the two of them returned to talking.

Wyntor and Nick talked about Nick's duties and the plans of development for their Zephyx Manufacturing Company.

Wyntor also told Nick about the two remaining categories of Specters since they had gotten sidetracked earlier.

The first one was a Force Specter, which represented a Specter in the form of something untouchable. The Fog had been used as an example. 

The second kind of Specter was a Physical Specter. As the name suggested, a Physical Specter had a physical body. The body could be an animal, a human, a plant, an item, and so on.

For example, the Crimson Fungus was a Physical Specter. It could be touched, and it could be injured by a strong physical force, while something like The Fog couldn't be injured by a physical force, even though The Fog was vastly inferior to the Crimson Fungus.

Lastly, there were Possession Specters. These were Specters that did not have their own bodies. Instead, they took control over a living or non-living entity. 

For example, Ghosty's Lab had once essentially won the lottery by finding The Glasses, which was a Possession Specter.

The Glasses was a level two Specter, and it simply looked like a pair of glasses. If anyone put on the glasses, their reality would slightly warp in very inconspicuous ways. Over a long-enough period of time, the wearer would become insane.

But that was it.

As long as one knew what was going on, it wouldn't be a big issue, and to top it all off, The Glasses produced Zephyx as long as someone wore them. 

It didn't endanger anyone.

It didn't attempt to escape.

It was easy to get Zephyx from it.

It was the perfect Specter for Zephyx Manufacturers.

Naturally, Wyntor and Nick wanted to get a Possession Specter for their business, but finding one depended on luck and resources.

The two of them wouldn't even be able to do anything against a Force Specter since they didn't have any Zephyx Equipment yet. Without equipment made of Zephyx, it was impossible to interact with Force Specters.

Even worse, Force Specters were notorious for being hard to contain since most of them could just pass through walls.

Containing a Force Specter needed a highly advanced containment unit made of many different materials made of Zephyx.

In the end, they were left with going after a Physical Specter, but that came with its own challenges.

First, even a level one Specter was something that every Zephyx Manufacturer wanted. Even the really big ones.

Specters were very rare, and all the big Zephyx Manufacturers had people dedicated to finding clues about possible Specters.

Then, Nick also had to contain them, and lastly, he could only attempt to get a level one Specter.

A level two Specter was too powerful for a new Zephyx Extractor like Nick.

The rat that had tried to convince Nick to kill himself had once said that Nick had met two Specters.

Yet, Nick hadn't been able to see the Specters.

To Nick, it had been like he had never seen any Specters, which meant that the Specters had been either invisible or mixed among the crowd of people.

Surprisingly, Nick didn't doubt the rat's words. After all, he knew who the rat was.

In fact, everyone knew about the rats.

The rats were the minions of a very powerful Specter called The Parasite.

The Parasite was located somewhere in the wilderness, and nobody had seen it before.

In order to get human corpses, The Parasite took control of a huge swarm of rats and sent them into the city. Through its minions, it could interact with and sense the entire city.

And when someone was suicidal or depressed, one of the rats would walk out and try to convince that person to kill themselves.

While The Parasite was very powerful, its rats weren't very powerful, and forcefully attacking someone with a swarm of rats had proven to be very inefficient. Because of that, The Parasite tried to convince people to kill themselves without uttering The Sentence.

Despite everything, Nurse Alice wasn't the biggest fan of having the corpses of her clients defiled, which was why The Parasite didn't dare to consume the corpse of someone that had uttered The Sentence.

Nevertheless, The Parasite was very powerful, and it could probably find all kinds of Specters in the city.

Sadly, it was impossible to work with The Parasite. Otherwise, it would already be working with one of the bigger Zephyx Manufacturers.

Eventually, Wyntor and Nick ironed out all the details, and their working relationship was set in stone.

Wyntor was the owner, CEO, clerk, recruiter, and administrator of the company. Essentially, he was dealing with everything that wasn't related to interacting with Specters.

Nick was the Chief Zephyx Extractor, information gatherer, and security officer.

In short, Wyntor was the brains, and Nick was the muscles.

Wyntor also showed Nick the place he had bought for their company.

In the western edge of the Dregs, just a little bit before the actual city, Wyntor had bought a big warehouse. 

In comparison to all the buildings in the Dregs, the warehouse actually wasn't made of rusty metal. Instead, it just looked plain.

Inside, the warehouse had been completely emptied except for one thing.

In the center of the warehouse was a steel cuboid, 5x5x3 meters big.

This was one of the cheapest containment units available, but it already cost a ridiculous sum to get one.

According to Wyntor, this Containment Unit had cost him over 200,000 credits.

It was made of extremely hard steel, and the walls were over 30 centimeters thick.

Nick even wanted to try and see if he could escape from it, but the walls were so hard that even he was helpless.

This kind of cheap Containment Unit could safely contain a level one Physical and Possession Specter, but it wouldn't work against Force Specters.

Even more, level two Physical Specters would have enough power to slowly chip away at the containment unit until it broke.

When Nick heard that, he realized how powerful a level two Specter actually was.

A level two Specter could break through this insanely solid room of metal?!

Eventually, everything had been prepared.

They had a Containment Unit.

They had an administrator.

They had a Zephyx Extractor.

Now, they were only missing the last piece.

A Specter.

As Nick walked back onto the streets, he just awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"I have no idea where I can find one."