Kill the Sun

Nick walked into the Containment Unit.

Luckily, the Specter in here wasn't nearly as bad as the Dark Room.

In fact, it wasn't even as bad as the Grey Room.

This Specter was one that Extractors could work with.

Nick looked at the middle of the Containment Unit.

There, he saw a pristine white tub.

It was about a meter high and seemed to be just big enough for a person to lie in.

However, while the tub was a pristine white, its contents were bloodred.

After all, it was filled with blood.

The tub was filled to the brim with blood, and just by the looks of things, it seemed to almost spill over.

Just a bit more, and the blood would spill towards the ground.

Nick slowly approached the tub and inspected it.

This was the Red Tub, and it was a Late Adolescent Possession Specter.

'It doesn't smell of blood,' Nick thought as he stood beside it.

'Well, no reason to wait. According to the documentation, I should be able to…'

Nick stretched his right arm forward and submerged it in the tub.

Surprisingly, the blood in the tub didn't move at all.

It was almost like the blood didn't interact with the physical world.

Nevertheless, Nick's arm completely submerged in the tub and seemingly vanished.

Nick furrowed his brows.

'It tingles,' he thought.

He didn't move for a couple of seconds.

'Now, it itches.'

A couple of seconds later.

'And now, it hurts.'

Nick took a deep breath and forced himself to wait.

Suddenly, the blood inside the Red Tub expanded and spilled over the sides.

A red curtain of flowing blood surrounded the white exterior of the Red Tub.

Yet, before the blood could reach the ground, it vanished!

It just became more and more transparent as it fell until it finally completely vanished.

Nick's heart rate increased, and he felt quite nervous.

After a couple more seconds, he finally pulled his arm out.

When he saw his arm again, he felt a cold shiver run down his spine.

There were red tubes coming out of his arm, and they were leading back into the Red Tub.

The red tubes looked exactly like blood vessels, and Nick could see his blood draining from his body and traveling down the tubes.

Nick grabbed the red tubes with his other hand and pulled.

SCRTCH!

The tubes tore out of his arm, but not even a single drop of blood was spilled.

In fact, the place where the tubes had been attached to Nick's arm didn't even have any holes.

There was just skin.

Nick let go of the red tubes, and they slowly pulled back into the Red Tub until they were completely gone.

At the same time, the red curtain of blood had also disappeared, and everything returned to how it had been before Nick had entered.

This was how one worked with the Red Tub.

The Red Tub grew more powerful by absorbing blood.

Yes, exactly like the Crimson Fungus.

Sadly, the Red Tub was nowhere near the level of the Crimson Fungus.

The Crimson Fungus was an Early Demon, and it also wasn't a Possession Specter.

Usually, a Specter like the Red Tub would be viewed quite favorably by Manufacturers.

After all, blood was a renewable resource, and it could also be purchased from normal people.

Yet, this city just so happened to have the Crimson Fungus in it, a Demon that also needed blood.

Naturally, the Crimson Fungus produced far more Zephyx per liter of blood than the Red Tub.

And since the price of blood had already been attuned to the Crimson Fungus' Zephyx output, purchasing blood for the Red Tub would not result in a profit.

Because of that, the Red Tub's real moneymaking potential remained untapped.

'But it's still good enough for the Extractors,' Nick thought. 'It hurts, but it's not nearly as bad as the Blaze.'

'Working with it is also pretty quick, and the only limiting factor is the amount of blood available.'

'We can probably get quite a bit of Zephyx out of this one.'

Nick looked at the motionless tub for a while longer.

There was a strange beauty to it.

Nevertheless, a couple of seconds later, Nick walked out of the Containment Unit.

After leaving, he checked the Zephyx container.

'Seven grams. A bit less than expected, but I also didn't get anywhere close to becoming anemic,' Nick thought. 'If 20 Johns give this thing about a liter of blood per day, we should be able to get something like a hundred grams of Zephyx out of this one.'

Of course, a normal person would die within a few days if they gave a liter of their blood away every day.

Luckily, Extractors could regenerate far faster.

Naturally, when Nick thought of the word regeneration, his mind immediately went to the ability of the Blood Specters, Hyper Regeneration.

Wouldn't that ability, in conjunction with the Red Tub, be a great way to make money?

And for once, that would actually work.

Sadly, just like the Blood Specters, the healing ability of Hyper Regeneration would be used up after a couple of uses and needed to recover.

Someone with Hyper Regeneration could probably give over 15 liters of blood to the Red Tub per day, but they would need to work with it several times per day, and they wouldn't be able to work with it the next day since their ability wouldn't have recovered yet.

Nevertheless, maybe it made sense to hire two or three new employees and give them the Hyper Regeneration ability just so that they could work with the Red Tub in the future.

'I'll think about it later,' Nick thought. 'For now, I should check out the last new Adolescent.'

Nick walked away from the Containment Unit and went into the Extractor shaft.

He jumped from the fourth floor to the fifth floor and exited.

On the fifth floor, Nick looked towards the two western Containment Units and approached the southern one.

'I wonder if this one truly is as dumb as it seems on the documentation.'