After leaving the fourth floor, Nick went to the fifth floor, the floor that held all the Specters used to train new Extractors.
One of the new Early Adolescents was very useful for training.
Although, it wasn't for Newbies, and it also wasn't necessarily for increasing an Extractor's level.
After reaching the fifth floor, Nick went to one of the eastern Containment Units.
He put his hand on the door and waited for a moment.
Nick rapidly opened the door, entered, and quickly closed it.
Then, Nick stepped to the side as a bloodred shadow shot past him, hitting the entrance.
Nick had expected that to happen, and he wasn't worried.
The red Specter immediately attacked Nick again, but Nick just quickly sidestepped.
It wasn't very difficult to avoid an Early Adolescent.
After all, Nick was a Mid Veteran.
As he kept evading, he looked at the new Specter.
It was a skinless cat.
It wasn't very big. At most, it was 30 centimeters high.
However, even though it wasn't very big, it was still quite dangerous.
That was due to its extreme speed.
It was definitely faster than a normal Early Adolescent.
Nick would put the cat's speed between Mid Adolescent and Late Adolescent.
This was the Blood Cat, another one of the Blood Ancestor's progenies.
Just like the Blood Hawk and the Blood Horse, the Blood Cat was not really sapient and just attacked whatever it saw.
It was impossible to reason with it or make it do anything that wasn't attacking the closest human.
Nick kicked the Blood Cat, and its head exploded off its body.
The head hit the wall and turned into meat paste.
However, the body didn't stop moving and kept attacking Nick.
But without a head, the body couldn't really sense Nick, and it just blindly attacked.
About five seconds later, the Blood Cat's severed head started to vanish as a new head appeared on its body, allowing it to sense Nick again.
Just like the other Blood Specters, the Blood Cat could give the ability of Hyper Regeneration, and it itself also had the same ability.
Working with it wasn't different from working with the Blood Horse or Blood Hawk.
The Extractor just needed to beat the Blood Cat up a couple of times and leave the Containment Unit.
However, compared to the Blood Hawk and Blood Horse, there was one additional thing that one had to look out for when working with the Blood Cat.
Its speed was not normal.
Well, Blood Specters, just like any other Specter, gained new abilities when they advanced.
As Hatchlings, the Blood Hawk and Blood Horse only had Hyper Regeneration, and that was it. Everything else was normal.
But since the Blood Cat was an Early Adolescent, it had an additional ability.
Luckily, the evolved abilities of Blood Specters were very simple, and they were always related to their physical powers.
Increased physical strength.
Increased defensive power.
A Blood Specter would receive one of these three things when advancing.
As far as Nick knew, there was no Blood Specter, except for the Blood Ancestor, that had gained any other ability.
Naturally, the Blood Cat had the increased speed ability.
Nick kicked the Blood Cat, and its body hit the wall.
Many bones broke all over its body, and huge parts of its exposed muscles tore apart.
As he watched the Blood Cat recover, Nick thought that he liked it quite a bit.
It was very simple to work with it, and it also gave Extractors practical experience in fighting.
In the cases of a Specter breaking out or an Extractor attacking, having practical experience in battle could save someone's life.
The Blood Hawk was a good introduction for Extractors since its physical body wasn't overwhelmingly powerful, and it also attacked in a very straight pattern.
The Blood Horse was a good intermediate opponent since it was physically stronger than the Extractors fighting it but wasn't very intelligent.
The Blood Cat was a great opponent for experienced Extractors since it was quite a bit faster than them and relentless in its attacks and pursuit.
If one wasn't prepared for the Blood Cat's brutal assault, one would quickly find their Barrier broken and their Zephyx depleted.
Of course, the tradeoff was that the Blood Cat was very dangerous as well.
If there was nobody inside the Containment Unit that could intervene if things turned horrible, Dark Dream might lose an Extractor.
But that was to be expected.
It was normal for Manufacturers to have dangerous Specters that required supervision.
Nick beat the Blood Cat up a couple more times, and when its regeneration slowed down considerably, he walked out of the Containment Unit.
'About seven fatal wounds,' Nick thought after leaving.
Then, he checked the Zephyx container.
'About 30 grams,' Nick thought with a sigh.
That was a pitiful amount of Zephyx, but he had expected something like that.
After all, working with the Blood Specters was different from working with other Specters since the Extractor was abusing the Blood Specter's regeneration ability to harvest Zephyx instead of making the Specter more powerful.
Naturally, a lot less Zephyx was produced this way.
'It's for the new Extractors,' Nick thought. 'Although, for now, it's also for the experienced Extractors. They haven't yet had a good opponent. Maybe it makes sense to send the Late Johns in alone, the Mid Johns in pairs, and the Early Johns in teams of four.'
'I'll tell Jenny later.'
'Or maybe it makes sense to transfer the weaker Johns into Taren's team. I mean, he is in charge of the training team.'
Nick scratched his chin.
'But that would unbalance the teams quite strongly, and Taren would need to take care of around two-thirds of all Extractors.'
Nick closed the small door leading to the Zephyx container again and turned to the stairs.
'I'll talk with them later. For now, I should take a look at our last new Specter.'