Chương 43: Chapter 40: Daughter of Nihilism

Nolotl almost cried when he saw Enala calmly breathing in the dusty and loud workshop storage. It had brought him a closure that he didn't know that he needed but he now certainly appreciated. But that brought a greater horror to his mind. If I fall out of Enantyum's graces and get erased by the inexorable coiling of the loop, Enala will continue to die by her own folly. Ad nauseam. That, in turn, made him nauseous.

He had also died many times, and judging from Enantyum's own words, he would continue to do so for infinity. And yet that didn't discomfort him as much as Enala's death. Was it because he had assimilated death to some degree by now? At least his own? Death assimilation progressed by 1%. That notification got a chuckle out of him. Alignment, do you have a sense of humor or something? Nolotl was well aware that wasn't the case as the Alignment wasn't alive, but the thought was still pretty amusing to him.

"Would you be so dear to communicate to Enala that I'm pleased with her workplace changes?" Nolotl asked the young enchantress next to him.

"Alright?" Peni expressed some confusion but nonetheless accepted.

"Will that be all?"

"Yes," the diviner nodded.

"Glad seeing that the workshop is progressing in such blazing speeds." That last comment was, of course, a formality. The progress was dull compared to the one blessed with his presence. And that was with me having no idea of any of this. Now I have a whole loop of understanding and experience under my belt. Would I be able to complete either of these printing presses with my additional knowledge? Nolotl wasn't quite sure of it, but he didn't have any reason to come back to the workshop just yet.

Perhaps if I need to assimilate Arcane or Light… and now that I think about it, it's a shame that I didn't have Lesser Alignment Assimilation just yet on that first loop. His lament, however, only lasted a single blink as he walked out of the workshop with a cordial salute, leaving all of the enchanters behind. Now that my heart's ache has been satiated, it's time to address the real deal.

Being locked in a cupboard with all of his extremities pressed against one another wasn't as claustrophobic as he would have thought. Perhaps it was due to his double avian self that had some transcendental reminiscence of what it was like to be born from an egg as he certainly didn't remember his time in his mother's womb. However it might be, Nolotl didn't desire to be locked to the cupboard for all eternity. Though for better or worse, his imprisonment would only last for one more month.

Not that he was going to let that happen. Nolotl has his real body resting on the his bed as he killed time by practicing his mastery over the Simulacrum divination. Between the Thought Projection and Cognition Connection Boons, the High Priest of Nochochenca Title, his Touched by Information Blessing, and his triple proficiency on Simulacrum, Nolotl really had an easy time controlling the fifth-tier divination.

Perhaps most of his boosts resided on cheapening the cost of spells, but it was common knowledge that cheaper spells were easier to control as there was less noise from mana—or the specifically-used resource—in the shape of interference. This was a minimal correction, but he had so many boosts from his divination focus that everything ended up compounding.

Real-Time Status, Dijkstra's Routing, and Simulacrum were all complex spells yet he could use them with the same ease as he breathed with little to no mental strain. Not quite a wish, but he desired to have many active divinations—as many as mentally possible—in the future to make his quality of life better.

I don't think the point where I can act with my real body and the Simulacrum at the same time is that far off, Nolotl meditated on the darkness of the cupboard as he performed some slight of hand to practice his coordination whilst also casting divinations remotely to ascertain the effectiveness of Simulacrum as a second caster. Perhaps in a loop or two I will be able to use it at maximum performance, though the issue of being weak enough to be dispelled by a non-mage is problematic.

The diviner remained in the claustrophillic darkness of the cupboard for another hour until he heard the noise of footsteps nearby. Finally, he mentally muttered and started knocking on the cupboard's door with weak telekinetic spells. Or would it be considered psionic ones considering all of this is literally performed with my mind? Nolotl wasn't able to continue with that school of thought as the door was opened by an annoyed-looking Beta.

Though it was hard to ascertain any annoyance in the akyromancer's face when it lacked emotions.

"If you have enough strength to knock on the door, why don't you just open it?" The Empyrean of Void inquired with a stern tone.

"Well, someone called me bad things when I went through a door the first time, so I thought it best to wait for you to open," the Empyrean of Information stated logically. It still stung a bit being called a 'rapist' for just common trespassing. A crime was a crime, but he believed that at least they should be properly addressed.

"Bah," Beta groaned dryly and straightened up, walking away from the cupboard.

"You're excused. Now get out of there, it's enervating me how comfortable you look like with your neck twisted inside there." Due to the small size of the cupboard and Nolotl's standard size for a celestial male, he hadn't fit quite right, needing to dislocate some body parts.

"I mean," he explained as his divination poured out of the cupboard, "this isn't a real body, there are no bones nor muscles, only raw data. While it remains whole and semblant in my appearance, I can contort it myself however I like."

"I've seen horrors beyond my comprehension, and they haven't unsettled me as much as gleeful you look to be trapped in a cupboard," Beta's tone was both stern and disgusted, yet a part of him couldn't help but smile.

"Was that a joke?" Nolotl asked once he had straightened up every part of the Simulacrum's body and stood in front of his fellow Empyrean.

"Why would it be?" The akyromancer said dryly. Not having expected a counter, the gnosiamancer just shrugged. She's not used to banter, noted. Out of his personal experience, all empyreans enjoyed some degree of banter, even Enantyum included, but that generalization didn't seem to apply to the herald of Void.

"Anyhow," he cleared his inexistent throat.

"Can I get those lectures?"

"Have you finished all the references I told you to read?" Beta crossed her arms and barked accusingly.

"Yes?" Nolotl titled his head to the side in a modicum of confusion.

"Oh," she moaned in surprise.

"Wait, wait!" The terian facepalmed and groaned.

"You didn't notify me nor called for my help as an assistant because you thought I hadn't read all of the material?"

"Yes?" It was now Beta's time to replicate the gesticulation.

"Why?" Nolotl portrayed the same confusion.

"Because I tasked you to read like twenty different books and some of them were thicker than, not mine, but your torso?" She stated as a matter of fact.

"Hmm, I'm beginning to understand where this misunderstanding has sprouted from," the terian caressed his chin and nodded.

"But have you forgotten that I'm a gnosiamancer? Perhaps not a bibliomancer, but I still have quite the good reading and memorization capabilities." Whilst not all of the librarians in the Archives were bibliomancers, that specific hybrid mage type was rather popular as it granted proficiency with the restoration and divination schools, two very valuable schools to work with books. Alongside the fact that the specific discipline Title did grant book-related abilities.

Nolotl was partially envious of them, but that type of magic didn't interest him as much as obscuramancy did. Though he did have some interest in all magics that used divination as their foundation.

"I will admit to that mistake," Beta composedly said and walked away from him, making a gesture with his hand to guide him somewhere else in her private workshop-laboratory.

"So how long did it took you to read them?"

"About a week, but then I spend some time going over the same temaries to review the content and I also dedicated some days to self-study."

"…you're more dedicated to this than I thought," the akyromancer hesitatingly added.

"Thanks," the gnosiamancer said with a smile.

"It was an insult rather than a compliment," Beta stated, prompting a frown from the terian's part, but he didn't persecute the issue. He couldn't understand how that could even be classified as an insult.

"However it might be, a promise it a promise. I will instruct you to the best of my ability, but I must remind you that I'm neither a teacher nor I strive to be one."

"Completely understandable and well-within my expectations…" Nolotl suddenly fell silent.

"I apologize."

"Why?" The Empyrean of Void asked in confusion, her dead dark eyes portraying no emotion.

"Because I just inferred that I had some expectations in you when you told me very explicitly the other day that you don't like that. It was crude to me to even bring it up," he explained himself. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Huh," she hummed casually.

"How… curious."

"What is it?" The Empyrean of Information asked after his peer didn't seem to be offended.

"Whilst you said it's true, I cannot say that it affects me," Beta sat on a stool and put on her robe's hood.

"Any kind of expectation is usually oppressive, a feeling that tears me apart from the inside, but I didn't get any of that from your words. Were they just common courtesy or do you simply have no expectations whatsoever?"

"Uhm…" Nolotl himself struggled to answer.

"A mixture of both? I am being polite because you're going to be a tutor figure for me."

"Oh, well," the pale akyromancer let the subject drop and sighed.

"Let's focus on the matter on hand. Though… I do appreciate your politeness."

"You're welcome," the cyan gnosiamancer replied with a soft smile. Perhaps it was the ordeal with Enala's survival, but he was in a good mood. Beta extended her arms and out of nowhere a massive blackboard appeared. Nolotl's eyes just shot wide open at the ludicrous materialization. No, this hasn't been a transmutation of any kind. The lingering pitch-dark particles that hung on the air and defied the reign of the Physicality told him as much. Whatever it had been, it was related to the Void.

"Can I ask what was that?" The terian pointed at the blackboard that nearly occupied the whole wall." Inner Abyss," he was surprised to receive an answer.

"Both a Void Boon and spell, though it's a Boon in my case. It's not that dissimilar to the topomancer's eponymous Inventory Boon and spell." If there was one Boon that everyone knew that wasn't a starter or resistance one, it was the topomancer's Inventory. It was a Boon so famous and legendary that it transcended the low presence of the Alignment. Many enchantments had tried to recreated the mythical Boon, but all had failed.

The best the enchanters from Arcane had managed were the bags of holding that only amplified existing volume, not creating any from nowhere.

"Is it as good?" Nolotl inquired with renewed interest. This type of Boon and Alignment discussion excited him far more than any possible lecture.

"Better," he thought he had almost seen Beta smile. Though at the same time, calling a tremble of the lips as a smile was a dubious denomination." Inner Abyss isn't limited to the topomancer's levels and mastery in the case of Inventory and instead uses the whole Void as its pantry. Though that has the weakness of using the Void as a personal pantry." Whilst the diviner didn't know everything there was to know about the Void, that description alone raised lots of alarms.

It definitely didn't sound as good as Inventory to him, but he could understand why it would be far better than such limited Boon to an akyromancer.

"It must be a high-level Boon to get, is it not?" Nolotl pressed his luck for more information. It was hard to get any wisdom on Boons of any kind due to the innate secrecy and envy of mages. The fact that half of the divination school of magic was antidivinations said as much. Xanax's claim that Information was its own opposite reigned ever-supreme.

"Level 4," Beta answered casually as she willed into existence a stick of chalk on her hand.

"Now, about the lessons—""Wait, wait, wait!" The Simulacrum screamed in a panic and choked with a nasty cough even though it didn't have and required of no respiratory system.

"What in the previous earth are you talking about? How can this be an unbalanced level 4 Boon?" In this instance, unbalanced wasn't just a curse, but an adequate descriptor.

"Void Boons tend to be stronger than the rest due to the sacrificial nature of the Alignment," the akyromancer stated as a matter of fact, her tone only illustrating why she hadn't hesitated to share the information of the Boon. It simply was a low-level and inconsequential one.

"You should already know this," she added accusatorily.

"Yes, but this…" He was at a loss of words.

"This is a bit too much."

"If anything, this is one of the few things that the Alignment is truly truthful on its same. Everything is balanced, for my kind is willing to commit true sacrifices, not like the others." The derision in her voice was palpable. Beta "Daughter of Nihilism" Methasome perhaps hadn't sacrificed all of her emotions. She may have sufficed with only the positive ones. The Empyrean of Void's callsign had seemed abusive to him—all of them were, his own included—but now he saw the truth.

Not only was it self-descriptive, but it had that bittersweet irony of all the Empyrean callsigns with Beta's being the longest one when she embodied nothingness. His own callsign was a mockery, an embarrassing taunt and event taken shape in the epithet of "Quickfingers", but Beta's felt as much as an insult as Nina's "Chained Queen" was. Is this academy inherently misogynistic? Nolotl scowled in the sanctity of his mind, if it could even be called that due to the Ehecatl's constant reminder of its presence.

Callsigns had made him angry before he had become and Empyrean, but after getting his own callsign, he actively loathed them. Cillin wouldn't have survived getting one. … Though I guess there's also the chance she wouldn't care in the slightest, unlike me. For better or worse—though definitely for worse—Nolotl remained a highly passionate person, as much as he tried to strive for the stoicism that his school of magic both demanded and thought. There was a reason she used as many emotion-numbing cantrips as he did.

"Are you there?" Beta asked impassively and threw the piece of chalk at his face. It went right through the Simulacrum and crashed against the ground, making a small white cloud and snapping in two. The projected gnosiamancer waited a second for his divination to reconstruct after its face had become a cyan mist before talking.

"You could have asked that without throwing the chalk or at least thrown the stick and then asked," Nolotl admonished his peer with crossed arms. The akyromancer then proceeded to summon another piece of chalk from her Inner Abyss, which prompted a stern scowl from the twiceborn terian. Whilst he hadn't intended to get so animalistic about something that hadn't hurt him, his displeasure had been enough to shut down Beta's antics before she could get them into practice.

"Are you there?" The Empyrean of Void asked without any remorse.

"Are we just going to do like nothing happened?" The Empyrean of Information asked and he got neither a response nor a reaction.

"Well, I guess we are," he sighed.

"Yes, I'm there. I was just pondering over the ramifications of the power of Void Boons." Though that, of course, had only been half of it. Most of his worry had gone over the tangent in his mind about his peer's callsign. Nina didn't hide the nature of her own, even if I have the feeling that wasn't the whole explanation, but something tells me that Beta won't be open to that kind of divulgation.

I have the strong feeling that she only told me about the Inner Abyss Boon because of her role as a teacher, I don't believe she will divulgate personal things. Though maybe if I do get to know her better… The Interlooper left that thought for later.

"You can continue with what you were originally going to say when you summoned the blackboard," Nolotl told the akyromancer. Beta nodded.

"As I was saying, about the lessons, I do need some more tangible information before starting. You've mentioned wanting to learn about Void and something about a Boon, but the focus might be different if you want to be an obscuramancer."

"I don't, Beta," the Simulacrum sighed.

"I've documented myself a whole lot more on what they are and their role for akyromancers, and whilst this 'psychic tank' archetype certainly is a powerful supportive role, I really cannot afford to lower my Information Alignment anymore."

Considering I'm tethering on 75% Alignment and that all the second looper stuff is both and unknown for Enantyum and me, I must assume that 75% and upwards is the lowest threshold possible, Nolotl was briefly reminded of the Regressor's glee when he found out about the diviner's capability to level up through loops. I might conserve my memories even if get lower, but nothing guarantees me that I won't lose the levels that I already have. Though if I do… wouldn't that be a Boon reset?

I'm not deep enough into the loop and considering gnosiamancers can just level with knowledge, I could power through the levels I have already obtained… Without even trying, he had found something interesting to tinker, or at least, think about. I'll just make a mental note for the time being.

"A shame," the Empyrean of Void said with her usual lack of emotion. Her fellow couldn't feel that shame that she was talking about in the slightest.

"Can you talk me about this Boon a bit more?" Nolotl thought for a second if to mention the Boon to her, but considering the loop was a thing and she had already shared the information of one Boon already, he dismissed that voice in his head that preached for secrecy." Lesser Alignment Assimilation is a Boon series that allows me to get proficiency with all generic school of casting, though this first Boon only gives me proficiency with a single spell. An abjuration in Void's case."

"I see," Beta tapped her palm deep in thought with the new stick of chalk, though the white power was basically invisible in her pale skin.

"So what you actually want are masterclasses in abjuration?"

"Not quite, though I admit I will appreciate them." Lots of my issues in the ambush would be solved if I could power through specific types of damage. Abjuration was the school of magic that protected things and nullified effects, appropriate for the generic school of Void.

"As such, what I need to understand and assimilate is Void, even if my reward for the time being will be a proficiency in a single abjuration. So for the time being, my desire is to understand the Void in a more intimate manner." Beta frowned and titled her head.

"Are you flirting with me?" The question took Nolotl by surprise, especially because she said it with no interest whatsoever, curiosity at most. Unlike Cillin, the akyromancer seemed to have zero opinions on romantic or carnal topics.

"No…?" The diviner responded dubitatively.

"Why would you think that?"

"Because you thought that you wanted to know Void intimately and I'm its spiritual embodiment in this academy," she stated as a matter of fact.

"Ah," the Simulacrum mouthed, his visage slightly reddening, which resulted in some curious imagery as his whole body was cyan. The pale mage, however, remained impassive as always.

"I understand how you could have thought that, but no. It was purely a figure of speech. Any attraction I might have is solely directed toward academic subjects, therefore my floral language."

"I thought you were a rather innocuous man for an Empyrean, but as it would seem, you're mentally worse off than most of them," Beta said. Nolotl frowned at those words.

"What does that even mean? Is that an insult?"

"Yes," she replied without a kernel of shame.

"First time I've seen someone have sexual infatuation with knowledge, but I don't judge. It's just… weird. Good for you, I guess?" The terian curled his hands into fists and his projected body practically vibrated with gathering rage, but he managed to relax himself before he did something he shouldn't do. Don't bother to address it, Nolotl. I'm sure that this is related to her awful sense of humor. That or she might not be as cognitively typical as most. Both options are equally valid.

His body fell limp as he sighed and his fists fell open to the sides of his torso.

"You can think whatever you please," he added weakly. I still need it, and this humiliation will only last one month. I can cope with it.

"But can we get to the actual subject at hand?"

"Of course," Beta nodded and started writing some diagrams on the blackboard. Visual guidance more than any real information.

"From my understanding, you need to understand Void, so we must have first try different approaches to see how you 'assimilate' it. Did your two weeks of studies bear fruit?"

"Not much in the sense of assimilation," Nolotl explained.

"But I do have a more solid grasp on the Void, especially in obscuramancy just because I was interested in it, even if I don't intend to take that mantle."

"Hmm," the akyromancer hummed in thought and materialized another item from her Inner Abyss. A spellbook.

"I'm not quite versed in that Boon or in teaching, but from my point of view, if studying didn't help then you will need practice. The first step for you will be to cast an akyromancy."

"I think that's a bit of a leap considering that specific schools are way harder to cast without proficiency than generic ones," he expressed his doubt.

"Don't worry, you will have a proficiency with the spell I have in mind," Beta extended her arm to hand him the book. Unconsciously, Nolotl went to grab it and she let it go, but they both then noticed at the same time what a moronic decision that had been when the spellbook plummeted to the ground and took Nolotl's cyan hand with it.

"Right, I forget that you aren't here. How ironic." Whilst the akyromancer hadn't smiled, the gnosiamancer felt some amusement in her voice but it was hard to say when it was completely monotone.

"Truly," he added. After all, the one that worked with the lack of presence and existence was her.

"Here," Beta picked up the book and placed it on top of a workbench, opened on the page she wanted to show him as she pointed at the specific spot with her pale fingers with fingernails devoid of color with their darkness. Though they kept their glossiness. The Simulacrum walked towards her and the open spellbook and was instantly baffled by what he read.

"You want me to cast music magic?"