?Two years had passed since Nick became a Veteran, and he had just recently advanced to become an Early Veteran.
At this moment, Nick wore the new uniform of Dark Dream.
Since Dark Dream officially had a Veteran now, they were finally strong enough to get their own uniforms. They no longer needed to use the city uniforms.
Dark Dream's uniforms were mostly dark purple, but there were also a couple of black streaks in them.
Dark Dream's official new logo was the eye of an owl, namely the Dreamer, which was surrounded by a small black swirl, making it seem like the eye was drawing someone in.
A Newbie would have one eye.
A John had two eyes, which were side by side.
And Veterans would have one big eye with three eyelash-like protrusions coming out from its top.
The protrusions were necessary since the symbols of a Newbie and a Veteran would be too similar otherwise, which might cause confusion or an incident.
Nick's weapons had also changed.
The silver spears and blades he had received from Wyntor had long since become unusable to him.
On Nick's back were three small cylinders and three big ones.
The cylinders were only about ten centimeters long. The smaller ones were only around two centimeters wide, while the bigger ones were almost five centimeters wide.
Naturally, these cylinders would turn to spears as soon as Nick pressed a button on their side.
The three small ones were perfect for throwing them without Nick's ability being active, and the three big ones were perfect for throwing them with his ability being active.
Sadly, due to weight issues, Nick couldn't carry too many with him since the bigger spears were far heavier than the smaller ones.
The good thing was that Nick could still move without any issues with his current loadout.
As for his fist weapons, they weren't even visible.
Nick's fist weapons only looked like thick wristbands in their normal state, but after he activated them, a huge blade would shoot out of them.
A new addition to his fist weapons was that a cover for his fists would also extend outward and wrap around his fists.
Nick had specifically wanted his weapons to be like this in case his blades broke off.
His frame was still wide and muscular, and most people still felt intimidated when they saw him.
In fact, due to his new demeanor and aura, the number of people who were intimidated only increased.
Nick no longer seemed like a happy-go-lucky teenager.
He no longer seemed nice, happy, and helpful.
Over the past two years, Nick had a lot of time to come to terms with his new life and his new goal.
Naturally, this had changed him.
His smiles were rarer, and they mostly only appeared when he was trying to be friendly or polite.
During all other times, he either looked neutral, bored, serious, or annoyed.
He had been a Chief Zephyx Extractor for seven years by now, and he had become fully used to his authority, power, and role.
Yet, while strangers often felt intimidated by Nick, the same thing wasn't true for his employees.
If one got to know Nick more, they would realize that it was easy to talk to him and that he was quite helpful.
While he wasn't very talkative anymore, the things he said were often valuable and thought-through.
Of course, Nick's new goal in life was only partially responsible for this change.
Another major factor was his lessons under Julian.
Ever since he had asked Julian about teaching him, Nick had been learning from Julian almost every single day.
Julian knew that it was important for Nick to grow as a person and to learn more things if he was to be a good assistant.
Naturally, Julian would never completely trust a human, but he was confident enough in his power to teach Nick a scary number of things.
While learning something, two things were important.
Intelligence and determination.
Intelligence allowed someone to learn things quicker and to more easily understand complex concepts.
Determination allowed someone to learn more and to internalize the learned things quicker.
An intelligent person without determination would pick up things here and there, but only if they were interested in them.
A determined person with little intelligence could learn most things, but it would take a lot of effort and some time. Additionally, more complex concepts would be very difficult to learn.
In terms of intelligence, Nick was not a genius, but he also wasn't stupid or average.
One could say that he was above average.
Many people might have believed him to be dumb since he knew so little and constantly had to be taught by people, but that assumption was actually incorrect.
The reason why Nick had always appeared dumb was his lack of knowledge, not intelligence.
Knowledge was the amount of information accrued over a person's lifetime, while intelligence was the speed with which knowledge could be accrued in a focused state.
Nick hadn't been unintelligent in the past.
He had simply been uneducated.
While working as a Chief Zephyx Extractor, Nick had learned many things, which had improved his education.
During the first two years, he still seemed na?ve and dumb.
During the next two years, he had finally gotten used to his job and could actually give orders with some confidence.
By the time he was 20 years old, he had already learned quite a bit about finance, Specters, working with people, politics, laws, and a couple more things.
He had learned most of these things by working with Wyntor and by occasionally reading a book.
However, three more years had passed since that moment, and Nick was now 23 years old.
Even more, during the last two years, he had learned even more things from Julian than he had learned from Wyntor.
After all, Wyntor had been constantly busy, while Julian was basically ever-present in Dark Dream.
Additionally, Nick's determination was almost incomparable.
Whenever Julian taught Nick something, he listened carefully, repeating the new concepts several times to himself throughout the day.
"When someone is lying, they often use more words to deceive than if they were honest."
"When someone is bad at lying, they will avoid eye contact. If someone is good at lying, they will look constantly into your eyes, but that is just as unrealistic."
"Prephyx is attracted by Zephyx, and Prephyx will move to wherever Zephyx is."
"If you feel nervous around a very friendly person, that is most likely your instincts picking up on a subconscious disconnect between the person's words and their bodily language."
"When negotiating, genuinely try to find a compromise instead of trying to get as much money as possible. One repeat customer is more valuable than several new customers."
These were the kinds of concepts Nick repeated to himself to internalize them.
He knew that he had to learn many things if he ever wanted to achieve his goal of improving the lives of the people in Crimson City.
Nick wasn't an economist, lawyer, politician, salesman, or psychologist.
But, by now, he knew more about these things than the average person living in the Inner City.
Julian was an amazing teacher, and Nick was an amazing student.
All in all, one could summarize all of this in one sentence.
Nick had grown up.
