<h4>Chapter 397 Chapter 397 – Perception </h4>


    Time continued to pass.


    Julian kept teaching Nick about a couple of things, but the number of their lessons had lowered by quite a bit.


    By now, many of the things that Julian was teaching Nick were very advanced and only useful in certain scenarios.


    For example, how material could be influenced with Zephyx.


    It was nice to know, but how would that knowledge help Nick?


    It wasn''t like Dark Dream was trying to enter the market for these kinds of materials.


    Important things like how to negotiate, how to treat employees, how to read others, how to handle money, and many other things had already been covered.


    While Nick wasn''t experienced enough to be as good of a negotiator as someone like Vernon or Zarren Harrow, he was already better than most business owners in the loweryer of the Inner City.


    So, there wasn''t much more that Julian could teach Nick.


    Also, there were not as many opportunities anymore.


    That was due to the location of their new building.


    Since the building was in the middle of the loweryer of the Inner City, powerful people asionally walked by.


    While that wasn''t an issue for Experts and weaker, Julian had to be careful about the Specialists and the asional Hero.


    A level five Extractor''s senses were terrifyingly sharp.


    For example, a Specialist about a hundred meters away from the building could hear the slight vibration of the ceiling on Dark Dream''s first floor, and with their terrifying senses and speed of thinking, they could detect the location, speed, and weight of the person walking on Dark Dream''s second floor.


    Because of that, Julian couldn''t just cover all of Dark Dream with his mouths anymore.


    To be sure, Julian didn''t extend his mouths to the third floor or lower.


    The senses of a Hero were even more terrifying, but their senses couldn''t stretch further into Dark Dream due to the extremely thick walls.


    As long as the Hero didn''t stand immediately in front of the building, they wouldn''t be able to sense anything above the third floor.


    But if they stood in front of it, they could even sense everything on the sixth floor and higher.


    Julian had to be careful while being in the Inner City.


    Luckily, since Julian was also a "Specialist", he could basically sense the entire building, even though his actual body was on the eighth floor most of the time.


    Speaking of, due to the absurd defenses of the building, Julian didn''t need to stay inside the building all the time.


    In Dark Dream''s old building, any Veteran or Expert could have silently cut through one of the walls and entered.


    But here, things were not that easy.


    A powerful Expert could get through the walls, but it would take a long time, and it would be insanely loud.


    This meant that the Expert would need to go through Dark Dream''s entrance.


    All of this meant that Julian could leave the building and stay outside as long as he could still sense Dark Dream''s entrance.


    This made things a lot easier since he could now also meet other business owners and negotiate with them in person.


    Another positive aspect of that was that Nick didn''t need to talk to Julian as often anymore.


    Sure, Julian could sense Nick, but he couldn''t just shout across floors.


    And Nick was thankful for that.


    He was not interested in talking with anyone whatsoever right now.


    Every single day, Nick went to work with the Talker for eight hours.


    It was ridiculously exhausting, and a ton of work would always pile up during his absence.


    The first couple of days had been extremely exhausting for him, but after a couple of weeks, he finally got used to working with the Talker.


    The good thing about the Talker was that it apparently didn''t remember conversations that happened a while ago.


    It even kept asking Nick about his name whenever they met again.


    It was like the Talker couldn''t retain new information in the long term.


    It seemingly only had short-term memory.


    This made working with the Talker way easier since, as long as Nick kept answering in the same ways, the conversations always yed out the same way.


    This put Nick into a certain rhythm of repetition, which made it far less exhausting.


    The Talker also seemingly never learned new ways to attack Nick.


    Every single time, it unveiled its des and tried to cut into Nick''s arms, trying to keep him pinned down.


    Nick just parried the two strikes and kicked the Talker, throwing it against the far wall.


    After several weeks, Nick also found an even better way.


    As long as he kept casually talking while walking away, the Talker wouldn''t stop him.


    Nick then just opened the door while talking, stepped through, closed the door, and stopped talking.


    The Talker would only be aggressive as soon as it lost sight of Nick, but before it could reach him, the door was already closed.


    Pulling off this tactic took a lot of practice and experience with the Talker, but it made things even easier.


    Nick always worked with the Talker from four p.m. to twelve a.m., and after that, the first thing he always did was to collect all the Zephyx from all the different Containment Units.


    Naturally, he started with the Talker, which was the biggest source of Zephyx most of the time.


    It was only most of the time instead of always since another Specter sometimes gave more in a day.


    Nick walked towards the side of the wall and removed a te.


    After putting in the code, a small door opened, and Nick could see three containers for Zephyx.


    The left one was the only one with Zephyx inside of it.


    Nick looked at the disy on top of the Zephyx container.


    "237 grams," Nick said before taking the container out together with the disy since it was attached to the container.


    Nick had bought these containers since he didn''t want to always write down how many grams each container had.


    Next, Nick pulled out a box from the side and put the container in one of the padded holes.


    He closed the box and carried it away.