Chương 47: Chapter 44: Shining Gazes

The following weeks advanced more rapidly than Nolotl originally expected. Whilst he had gone from living in his own bedroom to Beta's personal boarding school as he squatted in one of the neighboring bedrooms, the time he had gained hadn't changed many things. He truly had undervalued the potency of Alignments.

All his life he had limited himself to the Information element with some Light-based illusions here and there—which were mostly influenced by his quetzal blood—so he hadn't felt the true effect of Alignments until now. For him, Information was the baseline and any other school of magic was working against that preconception. A 3% Alignment couldn't even begin to be compared to a 75% one, especially because most mages agreed that the line to start casting elemental magic was on the 11% affinity.

To say that akyromancy didn't come to him naturally was an understatement. But even with those, he was still progressing. Void assimilation progressed by 1%. Void assimilation progressed by 1%. He had only gotten that meagre progress in two weeks, which put him below the expected—or rather, desired—pace, even if he was still ahead of schedule with a current assimilation of Void of 15%. His current life was summarized on the very roles that Beta had assigned to him: librarian and cook.

Beta wasn't extravagant enough to have a whole kitchen in her bedroom or stored inside her Inner Abyss, but the adjacent workshop did have a faucet and a burner, which was sufficient to cook more than decent meals. The akyromancer's pseudo- Inventory stored food perfectly, so there was a legion of fresh vegetables and raw meat for him to use along with several cookbooks that he picked up whilst performing his librarian duties on the Archives.

"Apparently Void turns one's stomach into a true all-consuming void," Nolotl mouthed aloud as he worked the pan, readying the vegetables for today's dinner.

"Shut up and cook, cook-boy." There was no derision in Beta's words, only impassiveness. These weeks had let him get a better read on her, and if he detected something it was just a general annoyance at the lack of silence.

"I'm reading here, so you do your cooking."

"Will do, will do," the dark-skinned man responded amusedly whilst going back to his cooking. He couldn't consider these moments a loss of time as he did appreciate a break from the ceaseless classes. Working and studying in the same room for weeks now meant that everything started to blend together and without becoming aware of it, the classes or working sessions would go on for hours on end. Once or twice, even a whole day.

If there was something to be gained it beyond his half-acceptable assimilation speed, it was his newfound appreciation for cooking. Due to his royal status, Nolotl had never needed to cook, even if he knew the basics from beginner alchemy classes. And then on his time at the academy the canteen was included in the scholarship, so his few experience was both limited and biased.

Yet now that he actually needed to cook for himself and another person out of necessity, he had come to appreciate the artistry that went into it. And his previous comment about Beta being an all-consuming void wasn't a joke but a statement. Perhaps the Empyrean of Void looked like a haggard and pale woman that hadn't eaten in days and was suffering from scurvy, but the case was that she was quite the glutton.

Gluttony in the utmost true sense of the word because she didn't seem to mind the tastes of the food, which led Nolotl to cook the nutritional foods that he was used to, even if they weren't exactly the best-tasting ones.

"Hmm, these looks good and crispy," the terian nodded to himself and turned off the fire of the alchemical burner, carrying the colossal pan over to the workshop island that they used for a table. At the start they had been using plates and the like as Beta could casually clean them which her Selective Destruction without so much of thought, but as it became clear that Beta wanted to eat as much as possible, Nolotl just started cooking in the biggest pans available and they both used the pan as a shared plate.

Hearing the full pan clank with the cast iron pan support at the table, the akyromancer finally put the book she was reading down and also took off her hood as she sat in front of the bursting pan with all the different vegetables. Without uttering a prayer or a thanks, Beta started gobbling on the still-burning food. One of the things that Nolotl had discovered was that the woman had sacrificed any possible sense of pain with her Prune Thyself Boon.

"You're getting better," she added after consuming a quarter of the pan on her own. Nolotl had yet to touch it as he preferred not burning himself.

"Thank you," he nodded with a smile.

"I guess that after burning myself for five weeks with all the studying, these culinary breaks have sparked a lot of interest. I'm just having… fun with them." He enjoyed looking at the impassive woman eat, though a throbbing negativity started to grow on his heart. Or rather, it had been for a long time, but now that this calm day-to-day life was coming to a close it was harder to ignore. At least I was somewhat acquainted with Beta unlike Enala, but all of this will just… disappear in a week.

Truth be told, Beta Methasome wasn't the best company. Her comments were few and far between, and if he made so much of a whisper of noise, she would get broody. But still, it was a type of company Nolotl could appreciate as he was also that type of person. All the copious smiles he performed were just that: performances. He was well aware that people liked to see them, even if he wasn't wholly feeling them.

And yet, precisely because Beta didn't seem to find enjoyment in them, he found himself even smiling more than before with her. Though perhaps it's just because it's nice seeing someone eat your food with so much gusto… though perhaps that isn't the correct term either. The akyromancer failed to degust any of the food, but he had learned that she seemed to prefer bitter and acid food, waiting at least a bit before shoving those kinds down her throat.

This specific sauté was spiced with so many citric juices that he was hesitant to eat it himself, his bites few and uncommon even after the vegetables had cooled down. Perhaps I've made this meal a bit too healthy. I should flavor it for me a bit more considering she just doesn't care.

"Do you think I'll be able to cast Ode to Silence before the total celestial alignment?" He tried to make some light conversation.

"No," and she answered dryly. Nolotl sighed, pushing around the vegetables with his fork.

"I expected as much."

"Not before," Beta corrected and he looked up to her.

"I believe the total celestial alignment should give you the sufficient push to get a cast in." So I can learn one new spell every six weeks? That's an awfully slow progression, the Interlooper kept those thoughts to himself.

"Well, at least it's better than nothing." Beta softly nodded, putting her fork down after eating 80% of the whole sauté pan.

"Though I must admit I'm a bit curious about how such spell will interact with the total celestial alignment."

"How come?"" Ode to Silence is an akyromancy, yes, but also a sonomancy. That's three Alignments, and that's without even taking into account the divination aspect of the spell," she explained.

"So I wonder how spells of such multitudinous characteristics will interact with the astral boons of the alignment?"

"Good question…" Nolotl mouthed softly with a hand on his chin. He tried to remember if the Second Mind ritual had received some kind of double enhancement as its secondary school was enchantment, but he couldn't recall such a boost occurring. If it did, I wouldn't have this serpent on my head, the gnosiamancer thought bitterly.

"I'm quite certain that it won't be the case for any generic schools of casting, but considering that Ode to Silence does have that sonomancy addendum, the answer is… perhaps?"

"Well, we will know when the time comes," Beta stood up after having had her fill and sat herself in a comfortable armchair.

"I'm nearing the end of this book, so I will be needing more references. Tower Master Dol mentioned a certain treatise called On the Inexistence of That Which Can Be Perceived. Could you search that for me?"

"Can do," Nolotl stood up himself though he didn't bother cleaning up the table, Beta could handle that. Not in the 'I've cooked so she tidies up' sense but rather in the sense that she could absorb all of that into her Inner Abyss and then cast Selective Destruction inside of it as there was less resistance in that realm. Which was just scary to think about. The terian instead sat on the cold ground with his legs crossed and focused on the link that he had with the enchanted wooden board.

He was already dreading needing to enchant it again in a week, but for now he simply cast Simulacrum at a distance, creating a faux copy of himself all the way back at the Information Tower. His cyan self opened the bedroom's door with a telekinetic cantrip that he was becoming oddly proficient with as of late. As such they didn't have an element keyed to them, but both Information and Arcane could work as proxies for telekinesis.

So between his last two level ups and overall mastery, he was infinitely better than he had once been, now being able to use such wasteful cantrips at a somewhat decent level. When his Simulacrum reached the Archives, no one was surprised to see a half-naked cyan man walking around. At least not anymore. The first times had been a bit surprising for everyone involved, even himself as he had to carefully use his telekinesis to handle the books, but now most gnosiamancers were used seeing the Simulacrum around.

Especially because his mind didn't need to rest as much as his body, so his projected divination had remained in the Archives for extended periods of time for everyone to see as Nolotl had the occasional nap when he wasn't actively practicing Ode to Silence. Dijkstra's Routing failed to locate the treatise Beta had talked about, so he was forced to ask directions from one of the many present bibliomancers.

"Excuse me, do you know where On the Inexistence of That Which Can Be Perceived is?" The librarian looked at him for a hot second, his osmium eyes shining brightly. Not all Alignment combinations resulted in expected colors, just like how hemomancy resulted in red rather than a moss or chamomile color that one could get from mixing emerald and orange. In this case, the combination of cyan and brass—plain yellow depending on who you asked—resulted in a metallic blue reminiscent of osmium.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Nine floors downward with all the rest of doctoral dissertations of photomancy," the bibliomancer nonchalantly informed and went back to pushing his cart. Nolotl raised an eyebrow at the photomancy part, but he nonetheless thanked the man for his work and started making his way down. The fun way of course. The Simulacrum wasn't alive nor material, which had both its advantages and disadvantages. The best one, however, was that fall damage was nonexistent.

Nolotl's projection casually jumped out from a railing in one of the many open columns of the Archives and plummeted at the usual speed of the planet's gravitational attraction. The cyan divination had no mass, yet it seemed to be affect by gravity in the same way any object might. But because the weight was zero, or perhaps just infinitesimally close to it, he collided with the floor with no damage whatsoever to the spell's integrity.

From there, Nolotl quickly found the treatise in question that seemed to have written by a postgraduate student a handful of decades ago, then picked it up with his telekinesis and slowly read it. Perhaps he didn't understand the contents about the demonstration of that Void couldn't be immaterial and inexistent if it could be recorded and accessed, but his Perfect Recollection still recorded the contents with perfect quality as he made an active effort to be as conscious as possible with the recording.

Once he was done, he put the treatise back where it had been and left the Simulacrum standing around on the Archives as his real body stood up back in the Void Tower. The terian cracked his neck whilst he flowed some mana into his tattoos, the silvery enchantments lighting up. It took him nearly a minute to reach the point of safely releasing his true self, which only lasted for a couple of seconds as he materialized an illusion of a perfect replicate of the dissertation.

I'm running low on time for my bindings, his time with Azithromycin had showed him that he could recreate any book he wanted with perfect accuracy using illusions as a medium, but the issue was that his illusions weren't that good. Only using his Quetzal Wings was he able to portray such skill. Fortunately, he could maintain the illusions after cancelling his true self, he only needed to undo his bindings to summon them. The illusion felt somewhat tangible in his hands, but that was an illusion in of itself.

He calmly walked in front of the sitting akyromancer and put the book in front of her.

"That was quite fast," Beta raised her head. She had already donned her hood again.

"What was that, half an hour?"

"Around that," Nolotl nodded, handing her the illusory treatise.

"But it was a short work, just a dissertation, so I got it done quite quick."

"I see, thanks for your help," her words were soft yet her actual tone was deprived of the emotions that should have accompanied them. A chore born out of societal norms rather than coming out of the heart.

"I don't believe I could've progressed this much without you, for whatever is worth," Beta added, as if she had read his mind.

"How not?" The gnosiamancer veritably asked.

"I just made you some food and brought you some books. And considering you're fine with eating anything, I can't even have saved you time with all the private lessons you give me."

"It's not about the saved time, but that it has even been used," she explained, putting the illusion aside for the time being on a coffee table.

"There are so many materials that I've cross-referenced to even progress, let alone get a satisfying result, with what I have in mind for the total celestial alignment that I couldn't have gotten without you."

"Uhm, why not?" Nolotl slightly modified his question.

"The gazes," Beta closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her black robe melded with her light-absorbing hair as she exhaled.

"All those shining gazes... they are absolutely repulsive. It takes a lot from me to get out of this tower. I cannot tolerate those gazes. I think that if it weren't for you, I would've just surrendered and forgotten about this whole total celestial alignment." The pale woman's tone was interesting because she wasn't grateful in the slightest, for her it was just a statement. Nolotl had brought that change yet he merited no congratulations for it. I guess I don't if I'm already getting something out of his deal?

He told himself, trying to convince himself as it was hard believing that someone as intelligent and capable as Beta could be wrong, failing to notice the fallacy in his school of thought.

"Well," he let out a soft chuckle, they came more naturally as of late, "you'll have to get out in a handful of days for the gathering."

"At least I will have an escort. That will make it… more bearable." Yet again, a plain statement. But oddly enough, Nolotl didn't have any issues with that. The day of the gathering came with the usual inexorability of time. This was his fourth time around and even during the first he couldn't say that he was excited about it, yet this time around there was something different.

"Do I need to slow my pace?" Nolotl turned his head around to look at a slow-moving Beta. She was fully covered in her robe and even her hair was hidden inside her hood.

"No, I can keep up," the akyromancer said softly. With any other companion, the gnosiamancer wouldn't have needed to turn his head but Beta's presence was so thin in every single plane that she was practically invisible on the Cognition. Her lack of presence was different to that of the assassin's Voidform as that one literally vanished from everything, even thoughts. Beta did maintain herself in his mind at all times, even if he couldn't feel her, but the notable thing was that she wasn't doing anything.

All of this was a passive endeavor. He doubted the akyromancer ambusher could keep their Voidform for long, yet Beta didn't need to put an effort to being near-indetectable. Her thin presence always left her mostly unspotted at the gathering too as everyone failed to acknowledge her if he or Alvedon didn't step up. Though Nina always did a headcount whether it was this repeating gathering or any previous ones, so at some point the fellow Empyrean always ended up accounted for.

Even though Beta said she could keep up with his pace, Nolotl still slowed down as there wasn't any rush to get to the meeting room. The pale woman hadn't lied when she said she didn't enjoy the gazes of people, her silhouette shrunk a bit when they made it to the Central Tower. The terian wasn't capable of comprehending such shyness considering the Empyrean of Void was a powerful woman, or as far as a powerhouse if Tramma Dol's words were to be believed.

He could only think that his lack of understanding was born from his own nurture as Tezlan and terian culture alike valued strength of all kinds, and a strong person couldn't nor shouldn't feel shy. If anything, the one who should be ashamed was him for being so pitifully inferior to the rest of his fellow empyreans. For a moment, the terian prince thought of unleashing his true self as his feathery self would remove gazes from Beta and redirect them towards him, but he considered it a waste.

I can maintain indefinitely my true self, that much isn't a problem, but I would be burning the remaining minutes that I have, and I better save them up for the ambush. If it even happens…. Which it might. The failed annulation of the ambush on the first loop had led Nolotl to never let his guard down, overconfidence was truly a brutal killer. So brutal that it turned your flesh into a paste and blood into a mist. Whilst Beta portrayed to show any emotion, it was somewhat clear that she was uncomfortable.

Fortunately, her discomfort didn't last long as they purposely picked up the highest sky-bridge that connected the Void and Central Towers. And I trust more the Void Tower's bottomless pit of weightlessness than an elevator. And it's also way faster. His avian counterparts didn't know how to behave in the solitude of space, so that actually made his second-hand vertigo way easier to deal with. After all, sidereal space had no frame of reference with which to feel vertigo.

Due to their slow pace even though they had left the workshop in advance, the meeting room wasn't empty. Still not quite full assistance, but Nina and Mio had already made it there, with the former having already readied all of the adequate documents for the meeting. As for the latter…

"Oh!" Mio instantaneously teleported in front of him, his body slightly jumping from the outrageous display of movement. I REALLY loathe teleportation.

"Beta and Nolotl together? I certainly didn't expect this combination?" The short Empyrean jumped from side to side, delighted in seeing two of her fellows together.

"I had heard that something was strange about you, Nolotl, as people kept seeing your spirit at the Archives, but this arrival surprises me more than that." Beta proceeded to ignore Mio and walked toward her assigned seat, and the energetic violet-pink-haired woman ignored her, mostly out of compassion than anything else as the topomancer was well-aware that the akyromancer valued her solitude. Which meant that it fell onto him the duty to deal with her. Well, at least better than dealing with Paizon.

Unlike him, Mio is charming.

"I understand what you are saying," Nolotl started, "but those apparitions at the Archives weren't my spirit but the Simulacrum spell. It's just that I don't have the skills needed to pull a True one."

"I see, I see," Mio "Elsewhere" Sina nodded repeatedly with her eyes closed yet clear interest.

"It must be cool being able to send your mind to do your chores for you."

"It would be nicer being able to be anywhere whenever I pleased," the gnosiamancer replied with a sweet smile. Whilst it wasn't as veritable to the ones he had dedicated to Beta as of late, it was true that Mio deserved such a superlative smile. It felt like a crime—if not outright a sin—to not respond in such a manner to such overflowing kindness. As scatterbrain as she was, Mio Sina truly brought the best out of people.

"Ah, but that's not something many can do," Mio replied with an amused smile.

"Even if topomancy brings advantages to any kind of spatial displacement, only yours truly can be so free with their movements."

"That sort of brightens my day. I really don't like dealing with people that can appear and disappear at will," he revealed.

"Is that some Pai-pai trauma that I'm smelling?" She deviously tilted her body towards him with a knowing smile. Mio's short height only became clearer to him with that gesture as she stood move than a whole head beneath him, which was curious sight as he was a rather short terian and he was used to being towered over and not the one towering.

"Mayhaps," Nolotl added. And also some real trauma with akyromancers killing me. Well, I guess akyromancer in singular though plural in the act.

"Ah, his teleportation is truly irking, mine has grace but his is just so unwieldy!" Even if she had raised her tone, Mio only spoke out in good conscience and playful.

"I cannot say I find any difference between the two," the terian snickered, which brought a pout on the colorful celestial's face.

"But I will admit that your teleportation doesn't unsettle me as much." That last comment satisfied her and she turned the pout to a bright smile once again.

"But enough talking about me, what about you?" She backstepped in her tiptoes with her hands behind her back, which was still leaning forward. Warriors didn't backstep in general and Nolotl tried to do so even with his connection to the Cognition and the Starguided Blessing, but Mio had no such qualms as she was connected to Physicality, the very physical reality that everyone was treading.

"What about me?" He asked in confusion.

"Are you dating Beta?" Ah, I know understand what this is about… Nolotl mentally sighed at the question. At least such stupid claim has only appeared at the end of the loop. I would've hated if someone else asked this, ugh… He softly shuddered just thinking about it.

"No, we aren't. And if you're so curious, why don't you just ask her?" He betrayed Beta without so much of a thought nor remorse. The Empyrean in question threw at him the nastiest of gazes which was the most emotion she had ever shown him, but Mio still remained with her eyes locked at him.

"Ah, ah, ah. I cannot do such things, Nolotl. There's a code for this type of questions, and even if there weren't… Well, I do feel good if mock you a bit, but I would feel bad if I were to mock Beta, you see."

"The worst part is that I understand what you're saying," Nolotl sighed. There was little fun in fooling around with someone who showed little to no emotion and actively disposed such types of exchanges. Nolotl might not be the most social of people, but he understood that kind of jesting and could engage with it.

"But," he raised a hand, "I don't enjoy being toyed with." And he flicked a hand at Mio's temple.

"Ouch!" The woman—which was way older than him—cutely groaned in pain and instantly disappeared from his side, instead appearing next to the Empyrean of Arcane.

"Ninaaaaa! Nolotl is mistreating me."" Empyrean Nolotl, I must ask you to not touch the national treasure that is Mio and instead tolerate any kind of treatment she subjects you to." The worst part was that Nina said that with a straight face.

"That seems like hardly a fair deal," Nolotl protested and made his way to his seat.

"I never said that it was," the taximancer nonchalantly said whilst patting the topomancer. He sighed and finally sat down. Nina feels a bit colder than usual. Is it because I didn't have the usual starting conversation with her at this gathering or because I haven't seen her at any point during this loop? Hmm, I guess it's possible I'm only imagining things or just a bit of a poor mood as with these many changes the butterfly effect is bound to have changed some stuff here and there.

I sort of did cause a bit of commotion at the Archives, even if it was mostly hearsay.

"Also," Nolotl added whilst straightening his papers.

"I expected you to be against Mio's pink rumors."

"Rumors as a whole are a bit of a nasty hobby," the salmon-haired royal tapped the Empyrean of Space's head, "but not something I can exactly chastise."

"Even romantic ones? Wouldn't those tarnish the image of the empyreans?"

"I understand your school of thought, Nolotl, but romance between empyreans is not exactly uncommon," Nina explained.

"We're the best of the best, so it's not unexpected that we might find attraction in our own little circle. And there's quite the precedent, so I wouldn't care if you tried to aim for any of the empyreans. Barring me, of course."

"Even Mio?" He roguishly suggested as a jest.

"If you can keep her leashed," the taximancer let out a refined laugh.

"I would like to see you trying."

"Ah, that much is true. I think that's too difficult of a task for me." Banter was a beautiful thing. Nolotl would never go out of his way to search for talking partner, but he couldn't deny he loved engaging in a good-spirited conversation.

"And now you're mistreating me too, Nina…" Mio added weakly under the Empyrean of Arcane's embrace. That comment prompted a chuckle from both royals in the room.