Chapter 577 – Karma

Chapter 577 – Karma

Within minutes, Nick and Cynthia started talking.

Naturally, Nick was most interested in Cynthia's knowledge since she knew a lot about fields that Nick didn't know a lot about.

Sadly, Mendor and Steve didn't have a lot to offer to Nick, but they could help each other pretty well.

They were not the biggest fans of each other, but that didn't matter.

They were here to improve each other's scores.

For many hours, the group kept exchanging knowledge.

Cynthia told Nick about basic mathematic formulas while he told her about Spectology.

Several times, others asked to join, but Cynthia sent them away.

That was until Nick stopped her.

"Sure, you can sit to the side and listen, but only interject if you are certain that one of us is wrong."

Cynthia furrowed her brows.

Naturally, since she had been here for a couple of years already, she knew about the hidden purpose of the first level.

She knew that the trainees were being tested on their ideology and personality. They were supposed to help others.

But help was also based on reciprocity.

It was important that the other person could somewhat repay part of the help.

Yet, Nick just invited them to join.

Cynthia found this to be a bit unfair.

She was contributing.

Nick was contributing.

The onlookers were not contributing.

Yet, they were benefiting from them.

She was essentially just giving her knowledge away for free, which didn't feel good.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked Nick with a bit of annoyance as the sixth person sat down beside them.

"Because they are humans," Nick answered.

Cynthia furrowed her brows.

So?

She didn't see the point of stating that.

She knew that they were humans.

"They are humans," Nick repeated. "They are part of Aegis. The more powerful they become, the more powerful Aegis becomes."

Cynthia looked at Nick with a skeptical expression.

That sounded way too naïve and idealistic.

That was something that a small child would believe.

Sure, humanity and the Specters were enemies, but humans were often even more dangerous to humans than Specters.

Why should she give random people valuable knowledge without getting anything in return?

Yet, she decided against speaking out.

Nick's knowledge was too valuable, and she didn't know him well enough to gauge his reaction if she were to disagree.

So, even though she really disliked it, she kept sharing her knowledge for free.

Mendor and Steve kept talking to each other on their own, but more and more people kept gathering around Nick and Cynthia.

After a couple of hours, almost 15 people sat around them, listening intently.

Their thoughts were very different from each other.

Some of them felt like Nick was an idiot to give them such valuable bits of knowledge for free.

Karma was something general and dealt with probabilities.

It was actually pretty easy. A stranger would be nice to one with a higher likelihood if one had been nice to them first.

Greeting someone with a smile and a compliment would elicit a nice greeting in return with a higher likelihood than greeting someone with an aggressive insult.

That was karma.

On average, others would be nicer to one if one was nicer to them.

Had Nick known that someone would return his act of kindness?

No.

But the chances of that happening were higher than if he hadn't.

In this environment, strengthening other humans did not hurt Nick.

In a competition, this would obviously be bad, but this wasn't a competition.

Nick only needed to increase his own points.

If Nick didn't share his knowledge, he would not receive any new knowledge, which meant he would not gain any additional points.

If he shared his knowledge, somebody else might gain ten more points, while Nick would only gain one.

Yet, one was still more than zero.

In this case, being nice and helpful was the best way forward.

This was not always the case, but here, it was like this.

Cynthia still wasn't the biggest fan of that, but she couldn't deny that she had benefited from Nick's generosity.

Also...

"Now, you're the one that's wrong," Cynthia said to the brown-haired man. "I might not know as much about Zephology as you, but I know my way around math, and I can tell you that you can shorten that calculation by a lot."

The brown-haired man listened to Cynthia for a minute.

And by the end...

"You know what? You're actually right," he said. "Thanks."

Cynthia nodded with a serious expression.

Yet, deep inside, she felt proud of herself.

"Are you having a party here?" Mendor asked as he walked over, looking at all of the people. "Why are there so many of you here?"

"Oh, we're just listening," the brown-haired man said with a smile. "You want to join us?"

Mendor raised a skeptical eyebrow as he looked at Cynthia before looking at Nick.

"Sure?" Mendor asked with uncertainty before sitting down.

Steve joined them after a bit, and the conversation resumed.

The brown-haired man and Cynthia started to talk about math and Zephology.

The discussion got quite heated, but it never turned into an argument.

Cynthia seemed to want to compete with the man, while the man was just interested in the things Cynthia said.

"Why?" a new person suddenly asked. "Why would you use that?"

Cynthia glared at the new person while the brown-haired man looked over with interest.

"What? The recluse algorithm?" he asked.

"Yes, that's outdated," the newest person said. "Our city came up with a better version."

And so, the conversation continued.

Within two days, over ten different experienced Zephyx Engineers were talking in a circle, and almost 300 people were listening in.

Everyone was benefiting immensely.

The average scores of the Zephology tests would soar in the future.

And how did all of this happen?

All of this happened because Nick was willing to share some of his knowledge for free.