Chương 42: Chapter 39: Afflicted Yet Heartfelt

It was purely by chance, but Nolotl had managed to coincide his search for Enala with the time that she should have come to deliver him the tome containing the Second Mind ritual. Of course, because he hadn't petitioned such a book to Xanax, no enchantress came to wake him up during the night, but this meant that Enala still would remain alive no matter of how much the script had deviated this first week. So first things first, Nolotl decided to follow Xanax's advice and abuse his Empyrean powers.

After deciding to take a break from reading, Nolotl had notified one of the many librarians if they could send a message to the printing press workshop to bring Enala to his presence. Not quite the abuse of power as summoning staff of the Information Tower fell within the jurisdiction of the Information Tower's Empyrean. The actual abuse came in a form of a veiled threat about the stability of the workshop of the printing press if she failed to attend.

Whilst that clearly wasn't within his authority as an Empyrean, he could convince Xanax to close the workshop thanks to his access to the Tower Master. Not that he would ever do that.

"Uhm, did you call for me?" A rather nervous Enala Pril appeared in front of him in the hour. It was rather amusing seeing this degree of respect and vehemence when the woman in question was more than a decade older than him, but Nolotl didn't let the power get to his head. One only had the right to do so if it was obtained through effort, and this wasn't the case here. Not even he considered his Empyrean position valid. That mentality came more from his Tezlan roots rather than his religion.

He had gained through strength, yes, but his cultures valued all kinds of strength, not just the physical like common belief would lead one to think. And the diviner didn't believe he was worthy of being called the strongest gnosiamancy student.

"Yes, I did," Nolotl calmly closed the book he was reading on abjurations and pointed at the seat in front of him.

"Please, take a seat." Hesitatingly, the enchantress obeyed, keeping her hands underneath the table after she sat down.

"Is there something wrong with the workshop?"

"Well, it could be said, yes," he used the same tone scribes at the status offices or those in his father court would use. Diplomatic and knowledgeable, but without much care in the world.

"I've happened to hear that there have been some… occupational misdemeanors." He mostly improvised that excuse.

"Misdemeanors?" Enala's eyes shot wide open. By this time, her Cognition should have started to fail, but that slap straightened her up. No stuttering assaulted her.

"I assure you that's not the case! We have been careful to keep in line with the regulations of both the country, the tower, and the Guild of Enchanters! We're fully original here and have not stolen any patents!"

"Right…" Nolotl sense something fishy there, but he decided not to address it. Though he kept a mental note just in case for a future loop.

"No, the issues aren't related to any of the guilds. What I've heard is that the head of the workshop isn't in the right state of mind."

"Someone said that I was crazy?" A hint of rage flashed in her eyes, but the enchantress did keep enough presence of mind this time around to keep herself collected in front of her Empyrean.

"Ehem. This must be a defamation or hearsay."

"Another misunderstanding," the diviner corrected.

"When I was referring to the state of mind, I meant the exhaustion. As far as I'm concerned, you haven't had many breaks as of late, Miss Pril."

"We're enchanters on the brink of a breakthrough, of course we don't get breaks," Enala snorted derisively, almost as if she had been insulted. Or perhaps she had been, Nolotl was getting less sure on his ability to read people as of late.

"However it might be, this is not a behavior that can continue."

"Excuse me?" The tired enchantress finally showed her hands, though it wasn't in any violent manner as she simply crossed her arms.

"It's my workshop and I will run it as I think appropriate."

"No, you listen to me here," the Empyrean of Information said sternly.

"A workshop is a dangerous place, and one of my main focuses when I was invested was to reduce mortality. Lack of sleep is already a significant cause of mortality, but you know what's even worse? Lack of sleep in a figurehead. You lead people who respect and follow you. You're setting a precedent here. Perhaps nothing will happen to you," which definitely will, "but the same cannot be said to your underlings.

It's bound to happen that one following your sleepless wake will get unfortunate and lose their head in an accident. Will you be able to deal with that?" Enala tried to open her mouth, but already expecting some bullshit, Nolotl continued.

"And I don't mean the bureaucratic fallout, I mean the psychological one. Will you be able to carry the guilt of having led one person to death through your own incompetence?" That silenced the enchantress.

"I… cannot deny that there's truth in your words, but why would you go to the extents of setting up a meeting just to tell me this? That I should get some sleep?"

"It's not much to ask, is it now?"

"Well, it's not…" Enala meekly said.

"Then that's just it," Nolotl looked directly at her eyes.

"I simply don't want to see or hear about anyone having an accident or suffering from worse. Simple as that."

"Your… preoccupation is commendable and your words have reached me," the enchantress slowly responded at a loss of words.

"So just to clarify, that's the only thing you want?"

"Well, having some more proper etiquette at the workshop would be a nice extra, but I'm satisfied myself with knowing that I don't have enchanters in the tower dealing with heavy machinery when they're exhausted."

"I see," Enala now looked more composed than before and stood up from her seat.

"I will see that your objectives are fulfilled, Empyrean." A part of his heart was crushed in that cold usage of the title, because for this Enala, Nolotl Xocoyotzin was just the Empyrean of Information and nothing more. He wasn't the diviner that had helped her concoct new strategies for the development of her automatic printing press, only a stranger. Enantyum hasn't explicitly stated this, but this kind of solitude can get oppressive.

Nolotl was used to solitude, he didn't have any real friends in the academy, after all. The closest people had gotten to him were Cillin, who he had a more occupational relationship with; Azithromycin, who was more of a bodyguard than a friend; and the empyreans, who he hadn't interacted much to begin with. But that solitude from lack of relationships wasn't the same as the one he was seeing right now as Enala nodded and walked away. It was the solitude of relationships being broken.

Calling that Enala from the first loop a friend might have been too much, but they had a warm kind of understanding as they worked on the same projects, partnership forged through tribulation and exhaustion. And now that no longer existed. Time gnaws at everything, a voice whispered in his mind, and Nolotl couldn't tell if it was his or that of the Ehecatl. I need to find a way to separate its voice from my own, Nolotl undoubtedly thought for himself this time as he stood up for a break.

The more Nolotl read about obscuramancy, the more he understood why akyromancers would like to have access to one. But dual schools of magic were difficult to access, and that was without factoring the will of the people to engage with them. For a mage to get the Title for a dual school of magic, they needed to first have 33% or more Alignment in that specific element. That was why Nolotl hadn't become an astromancer, even if he could have worked on raising his Alignment towards Light.

There were advantages and disadvantages for double-dipping in Alignments. For starters, the dual Alignment Titles were really powerful. Normal Titles were already powerful as they gave proficiencies in two schools of magic, but these ones were especially more as they contained everything that made this hybrid type itself.

There was usually some secrecy over the description of Boons and Titles—especially Blessings—as mages tended to be a rather secretive and envious kind, but it only took a single foolish or altruistic soul to share the secrets. It took Nolotl three days of independent study, but he was able to find the gnosiamancer-approved description for obscuramancers.

Though it wasn't that surprising to find one as an obscuramancer was still a former gnosiamancer, which meant that they themselves could note down the Title's contents. It read as follows: Obscuramancer: You are recognized as an Information and Void mage. Gain proficiency with the elemental schools of gnosiamancy and akyromancy and their communal casting schools of divination and abjuration.

Obscuramancers are known for their capability of protecting their mind and that of others from mental effects and the unknown and now you are able to extend Information and Void resistance Boons to others you are connected to at half the effect. Insight: Spells meant to protect the obscuramancers and company from mental effects or scrying, whether these are divinations or abjurations, obtain a 20% boost in power and get their casting difficulty lowered by the same amount.

Insight: Having lower than 33% affinity in any of the Alignments that compose this Title will result in the loss of this Title. A powerful and long—certainly long—Title but there was something that amused Nolotl and that was how it described divination and abjuration as communal schools instead of generic ones. This was, of course, the author's own preference.

The spells that gnosiamancers used to read the status of the Alignment were rather subjective in nature and man-made so when they translated the information that they got from both the Cognition and the unadulterated Alignment it was bound to be some minor discrepancies, mostly related to synonyms, however. But the actual effects of the Title…

"Hmm, either the author's Insight wasn't high enough or it isn't explained anywhere, but this doesn't go over how you need both the starter and resistance Boon on both Alignments plus the adequate percentage to gain the Title. Nor how you lose your former two Titles." What Nolotl said wasn't exactly common knowledge but not hidden either. Anyone who had bothered to investigate hybrid mages would know as much as this was one of the main limitations to becoming one.

The diviner couldn't deny that he was enthralled on the potential that obscuramancers had with their ability to protect the minds of others, but at the same time, it was outright impossible for him to become one. Not only would he need to increase his Void Alignment by 31% but also lose that which made him so valuable to Enantyum.

"Forget obscuramancy, I won't be able to get any hybrid magics," Nolotl slightly deflated upon remembering that fact. Whilst he had never thought of walking down that path, it was a horrible feeling knowing that now he would never have that chance. There was a world of difference in deciding not to look behind the doors of opportunities and not being able to even open them because someone had barred them on the other side.

That took a hit on his morale, but the Empyrean of Information continued going on his personal investigation. Both to wait to get some proactive summon from Beta and also to wait for a certain event to happen.

"Hmm, this is interesting," the terian softly bit his knuckles as he continued reading on obscuramancy." Resistance to the Eldritch, what an interesting name for a Boon…" The book unfortunately didn't give the actual description of the Boon, but it mentioned how it was a hybrid resistance that obscuramancers had access to, and most importantly, picking it didn't only mean that the caster would get access to a new resistance Boon, but it would also combine the scaling of the other resistances.

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This effect of hybrid resistances wasn't as well known and it caught him partially by surprise, but he was aware that resistances only scaled with their own Alignment and progression level, which meant that combining the scaling rate of resistance resulted in exponential growth.

"Let's assume a level 8 obscuramancer with 33% Alignment in both elements. Without the Resistance to the Eldritch that means a factor of 16 resistance to both cognitive harm and oblivion. But if combined in their scaling that becomes… 31. 55… Pulsars." His current factor of resistance against cognitive harm was that 23, meaning that he had a 2400% more resistance against such effects compared to a non-gnosiamancer, and that was without factoring his base resistance that the Boon was amplifying.

This put him in a better position than the hypothetical level 8 obscuramancer without the third resistance Boon, but he wasn't splitting his focus and that hypothetical mage still could overcome him if they were to take this new resistance Boon.

"I mean, at level 8 I will get far more resistance to cognitive harm myself, but any hybrid mage can get three of them, and beyond level 10 the numbers get so high that we might be speaking in immunities altogether." They wouldn't be actual immunities like Enantyum's Boon, but overcoming a 5000% of mental resistance was still a massive hurdle.

Gnosiamancy attacks were so weak by virtue of the only people who could be on the receiving end of mental attacks were other gnosiamancers, but considering that any Information mage that had reached that level was bound to have high Alignment and a resistance factor of 50 at minimum meant that all of this reduced furthermore the offensive capabilities of gnosiamancy.

That's why it was usually treated like support Alignment in the likes of Light and Life, no matter if all of them had a plethora of other applications.

"But what's more important here is what 'eldritch' entails in this situation. It's adjacent to cognitive harm and oblivion, but not the same…" A speculation blossomed in Nolotl's mind.

"Will it help me defend against the Ehecatl?" It was a long shot. No, even long shot fell short. What he was thinking was utter insanity.

"I mean, I cannot get that resistance naturally without losing my Interlooper privileges, but no one said that I should get it naturally… Enchantments recreating resistance Boons have proven elusive, but I have a lot of time in the future, and perhaps Enantyum himself knows something about it if he has lived only a fraction of what he's entailing. After all, the Boons that most enchanters wish to recreate are the starter and resistance ones."

Nolotl didn't want to get ahead of himself, but that school of thought looked both hopeful and lucrative. Void assimilation progressed by 1%.

"Regardless of the outcome, it's a venture well-worth pursuing." Being tired of documenting himself in the basic knowledge that he mostly knew, the terian got up and left the Archives. He knew it was a fool's errand before he even started, but he nonetheless tried to divine Enantyum's position. Unlike all the times at the start of the loop, this time he was unable to get a concrete divination.

"He definitely is using protections against divinations, and probably also mental effects." Perhaps the Regressor had his status revised by a third party each loop, but lacking a strong connection with the Cognition and Alignment didn't mean he was incapable of casting several of the generic schools of magic at high tiers.

"There's only spot I can search for." The Empyrean of Information headed to the Time Tower, which unlike the Void one, didn't have doors blocking the passage and the sky-bridges were seamless connections. The Time Tower shared more similarities with the mundane towers of Information and the Central one than the more esoteric ones of Life and Void.

Whilst all together had something here and there that you could call magic—this one having a massive sand cascade that extended from the upper floors all the way down to the bottom in a ceaseless and inexorable manner—the Time Tower was mostly normal. No massive trees and vines growing everywhere under the gaze of a trapped sun nor a space overtaken by a fraction of the cosmos, just a normal tower that had enough oddities to be called a mage's one.

All towers had a bit of a color palette, and in that sense the Time Tower was no different. Nolotl's own tower had a lot of glass and red carpets, and alongside with all the wood from the bookshelves and the leather that encased its inhabitants, the palette ended up being that one of the ideal version of a book: beige parchment pages, brown leather cover, and a red silk bookmark. As for the cyan that composed gnosiamancy…

well, that was visible for all the gnosiamancers in the Cognition, even if the casual passerby wouldn't think the Information had much of its characteristic cyan beyond the glass panes that led outside. In that sense, the Time Tower was a bit more gaudy and proactive with its coloration. It possessed as many wooden decorations and furniture as the Information one, but these were usually inlaid with brass, the color that presided over Time.

Some liked to say it was yellow actually as together with the other colors of the neutral Alignments of Information and Space—cyan and magenta respectively—it was possible to recreate most of the colors in the spectrum. But as far as Nolotl was concerned, no one could say that Time's color was a plain yellow after peering into the eyes of Enantyum Dei, those who carried the undistilled essence of the passage of time.

However it might be, this meant that Time Tower's palette was indeed a bit yellowy as it also boasted several banners at all the floors. These banners had more of an ochre palette, but still was recognizable as that of the chronomancers. Most of these had drawings of the Time Tower's symbol—just like how the Information Tower's symbol was an open book with floating runes—but as it would seem not all of these banners had been updated even though Enantyum had been an Empyrean for a handful of years already.

The symbol of the Time Tower was that of a clock—both the old and the new version were—of modern characteristics: a pocket watch. These complex gadgets weren't common due to their insane mechanical complexity, but had indeed cemented themselves as representation of Time itself, perhaps due to their own rarity as not that many people were born with a respectable Time Alignment to jump straight into the school of magic.

The old symbol of the tower was a more typical hourglass, but it didn't surprise Nolotl that Enantyum had changed it for the more innovative timepiece after he was invested. All empyreans had that right, after all. Not that many empyreans chose to change it, however.

Perfect Recollection told him that only Enantyum, Alvedon, and Clonazepam had changed their tower's symbol upon being invested as their new empyreans, but Nolotl could be wrong as not that many people wore the insignia of their towers and he hadn't gone inside into all of them. Curiously enough, during the time loop the only people he had seen with the insignia were Cillin and Enala.

Of course, the librarians at the Archives wore them, but Perfect Recollection couldn't work with something he hadn't paid attention to. All of this was to say that Nolotl had waited a whole hour in front of the Time Tower Master's office. The diviner had waited for run divinations beyond his favorite Dijkstra's Routing for that whole hour but he hadn't been able to locate Enantyum nor the man did offer him to enter the room if he was even inside.

"Should I make myself in…?" He pondered for the umpteenth time.

"No, that feels like a good way to be obliterated," Nolotl sighed in defeat.

"I will just wait for the start of the next loop to ask these questions…" As much as a waste of time that this outing had been, it was true that he needed to confirm if Enantyum could be spotted out of the very defined points on the script.

"Well, I don't know how defined those points on the script might be if he himself has said that he might skip a gathering or two…" He sighed, making his way back to the Information Tower.

"Like, the whole ordeal with Mio and Nina can't be that bad, right?" Nolotl sighed and returned to his studies. As much as he hated wasting time when he had a massive sword hanging above him from a single thread in the form of a chronomancer with rather absolute control of time, he wanted still to wait a bit longer before pressing Beta for the instruction he had requested. But for that he needed to wait a couple of days still. Void assimilation progressed by 1%.

The Real-Time Status notification snapped Nolotl out of his studies. He was now teetering the 10% progress mark, which was really solid for only a couple weeks of involvement. Though he had to admit that he was rather burned by now. This amount of effort couldn't be recreated easily as he had spent sixteen hours a day on the Archives for the last two weeks. Because he also hadn't changed seats and decided to always go to the same chair and table, a cognitive apparition had started forming where he sat.

These apparitions were harmless—in these cases at least—and only happened because the Cognition in the Information Tower was highly malleable due to the ludicrous concentration of gnosiamancers, but it was worrying that he had spent so much time that his presence had started to create an imprint in another plane of existence. He also felt that he was garnering far more gazes than usual as people typically ignored him even if he was their Empyrean.

"Don't get over yourself," he told himself, his anxiety made manifest.

"They're probably ogling over the whole bleeding ordeal of the start of the loop, not because I've become some sort of landmark on the Archives." Though it was true that he could feel deference in some gazes, even if most were just curious ones. It didn't matter much to him as they were only gazes, no matter if the observation of a gnosiamancer carried far much more power than any other type of person.

One of the first lessons on divination a gnosiamancer got was that even the unintrusive act of observing something could change the outcome. The observer effect, it was called.

"Ah…" Nolotl sighed as the gazes become a bit too heavy and stood up.

"I was about done anyway," he muttered under his breath. He closed the spellbook on abjuration cantrips he was reading and left it by the desk of the floor's librarian. Normally he would have the decency of leaving them where he had gotten them, but after doing that for a handful dozen books in the last week, he had reached the limit of his decency.

"They have a work for something," he softly said as he walked away, feeling like absolute human garbage.

"Is this the abuse of power Xanax was talking about?" Absolutely not. Nolotl couldn't fathom what the Archmagi referred to with that, but the ancient mage would probably suffer an aneurysm after hearing about such pitiful abuse of power. Whilst it was time to confront Beta about her lack of lectures, Nolotl first had one stop to do do. Just a short one.

Manually going down several dozens of floors with his own legs as his aversion of elevators still overpowered his desire to save time and energy, Nolotl went all the way down to the bottom floors with one workshop in mind. Truth was, he could have technically come two days earlier, but he wanted to see the results of his actions not on the date of the fateful day but on the day when he had heard the news. The printing press workshop was loud as always as the prototypes were heavy machines with many moving parts.

He recognized everyone present even if he couldn't put names on every face. Though he could see the Finil twins—who he had unapologetically brutalized some two weeks ago—and little Peni working on their 'printer'. Their progress on their light-based printing press was way slower than the first loop, not only because their progress had been reset as everything else, but because Nolotl wasn't helping them.

Perhaps he wasn't a great engineer or enchanter, but his basic knowledge of Light and new point of view had helped the group of true enchanters progress faster than what he was seeing now. Of course, no one recognized him now. At least in a personal manner. He could feel some degree of recognition, but only because he was their Empyrean. Most people ignored him even if they had spotted him, with the sole exception of a young redhead.

Peni Cilina, the young enchantress-in-training, rushed toward him after having whispered with one of the twins.

"You're the bookworm Empyrean, right?" She asked giddily with glowing cyan eyes and little hops. That's… a bit different from our first interaction. Peni was indeed a girl that oscillated between meek and gleeful with the ease of a metronome, but the first time he had met her bordered hostile. Yet that doesn't seem to be the case now…

"Yup, that would be me," Nolotl put on a welcoming smile, one he had learned to do after years of working in the status offices.

"Oh!" The young enchantress was one step away from bursting from excitement.

"Is it true that you spend whole days without resting reading in the Archives?"

"That's a bit of an exaggeration," the diviner awkwardly chuckled.

"I do spend the vast majority of the day, but I do take breaks to eat and sleep. Perhaps my constitution is more resilient than most, but I'm far from the level of a biomancer."

"Oh," Peni deflated a bit, but Nolotl couldn't deny that it brought a natural smile to his face seeing the girl actually act like the fourteen-year-old that she really was. If there was any caveat in his first loop, it was that he had treated the girl like a normal student.

"But why would you read so much without a break anyway?"

"Well, I no longer need to attend classes, so I'm the one that marks my own growth and study schedule," he spoke slowly yet thoughtfully to her.

"Can I tell you a secret?"

"Yes!" She affirmed giddily and got even closer to him.

"I actually intend to become an Archmagi before I have to abandon the mantle of Empyrean," the gnosiamancer coyly said aloud for several of the enchanters present to hear. After all, if the time loop was as good as it sounded and Enantyum let him live, then it wasn't an unattainable goal by any means. Even if he had absolutely no idea how to get that prestigious Title. Mages were too secretive to spill the beans on that one.

"Really?" Peni's visage exploded in surprise and she started hoping on the place at a far accelerated pace.

"Really, really," Nolotl gleefully smiled at her. All of this non-stop study had gnawed at his mind, body, and soul, but he at least found one of those recovering after seeing such genuine and innocent interest. Perhaps it was the loop and all the times he had died, but that innocence seemed to shine even purer than ever. Through the corner of his eye, however, Nolotl saw the Finil twins whisper among themselves. Is Enala dead and the loop is progressing as usual or is this common hearsay?

There was only one way to find out.

"Excuse me," he patted Peni and calmed her down.

"Do you know were the head of the workshop is?"

"Of course! Follow me, Empyrean!" As of late he had heard that Title used almost like an insult, but from Peni's mouth it was truly the compliment that it should always be. Nolotl followed an excited Peni to an adjacent room to the main workshop that was filled to the brim with materials with the sole exception of a mattress that had way less dust covering it than the rest of things. Though it was still a bit rather dusty. But most importantly, a certain woman lay prone on top of it, knocked out cold.

For a moment the terian thought that she was dead, but the slow raise of her chest calmed him down.

"Do you need me to wake her up?" Peni offered.

"No, that won't be necessary," Nolotl slowly said, a weird emotion brewing in his heart. Perhaps he had died thrice already, but as he saw that he had managed to help one person from dying with measly actions and scant words, a certain expression blossomed in his visage.

"I only wanted to check that she was fine." It was an afflicted yet heartfelt smile.