Chương 64: Chapter 61: …Future Memories

Enantyum Dei was far from a stable person regardless of the imperviousness of his façade of normality, and Nolotl knew that much. This time that instability might have helped him, but that might not be repeated in the future. As much as the Regressor was a wise mage that could teach him many things, the diviner hesitated to ask anything out of the man as he considered that the best path of action was interacting with the chronomancer in the three limited instances he always saw him.

One came instantly after the other, but fortunately, the times Nolotl saw him at the status offices tended to be trivial with the chronomancer not paying much attention to anything. It seemed more routine than anything else, a periodic ritual that he seemed to forget why he even participated in it. Nolotl was smart enough to not inquire, though at the same time, he expected that the answer wouldn't deviate from what he already knew.

After all, the master of the time loop couldn't appraise his own status as divinations targeting the Alignment scaled with Information Alignment. Though at the same time, he's bound to have found or created a spell that allows him to read his own status without Alignment. So why hasn't he? Nolotl pondered over his meal with Clonazepam eating in front of him. The rest of the loop had progressed as usual with him following the original script out of a desire to not spend much mental energy.

It didn't help that he had been running a whole day on an empty stomach until now after having released its contents prematurely. Perhaps it's simply not efficient to do so. Creating a spell takes time, and unlike Serpent's Muzzle that targets a limited part of the caster's own mind, a divination targeting Alignment itself will inevitably be difficult to create and would result in a high-tiered spell.

The answer may lie in the fact that it was simpler to come at the start of the loop to the status offices for a periodic check rather than to invest any time into development. The dryad left the table after having finished eating, leaving Nolotl alone. A sense of loneliness caressed him. Not because he was now alone, but rather because of the previous moments. He had been conversing with Clonazepam as usual yet the conversation felt devoid of life to him. Not by a fault of the Empyrean of Life, but his.

Can I mean the words that I utter while following the script when I don't bother thinking about them? He pondered, the nature of the coiling time always proving to be a cradle for philosophical thought. I am a different person than the day I spoke these words, and even if I were to lose all the future knowledge but keep my current personality, would I still utter the same words?

Partially springing into the Cognition, Nolotl caressed the mote of void that lingered in his mind—a hole devoid of color in a plane of cyan—and stood in the Physicality. He couldn't stay still. The two Void loops where he had searched for the Empyrean of Void's tutelage, he had first waited before meeting with Beta after he had finished the Simulacrum hylomorphism, but the last loop had showed him he didn't have much use for it. Yes, it was a powerful spell, but its applications remained limited.

And considering he could keep it summoned, nothing impeded him from creating the wooden board at the Void Tower and simply keeping the cyan construct at the Archives for the rest of the loop. As he made his way to the Void Tower, the events with Tramma Dol unfurled the same as the third Void loop. The Archmagi did appear ever-so-slightly faster this time around, but the conversation remained the same as it was a rather timeless in that sense. No frame of reference nor any different inputs.

Only time had changed, and not by much at that. So he stood there in the sidereal infinity of the Void Tower with Beta Methasome looking at him over the doorframe that led to her totally normal bedroom. A clash of reality: the terrene and the cosmic liminality. He had yet to speak but Beta looked at him with some interest as a sigil now floated over Nolotl's head. It was the physical component of Intellect Fortress.

The prince's gaze darted a bit to the side as he now felt a new gaze prodding around, his Starguided Blessing detecting something, but the thing that helped him the most was the abjuration that was shining atop him. This exemplification aura shared his resistance with others, and whilst he couldn't exactly pinpoint anything, it told him that at least another entity he couldn't see was benefiting from it. I think I've done well in not casting the spell before the Tower Master was gone.

It seems I've now piqued his interest, Nolotl softly smiled and focused his gaze back on Beta. Not surprising considering he wanted a new obscuramancer in the tower and this is the second best.

"Could we talk in private?" Nolotl casually added, but Beta's own eyes darted away too and she simply nodded, retreating back to her room, leaving the gnosiamancer to be the one to close the door. The Empyrean of Void sat on the chair of her bedroom's desk without much fanfare, crumbs of bread dropping from her robe as it would seem she had been eating before opening the door, but the Empyrean of Information kept himself standing up.

He was aware that Beta cared little for societal or conversation conventions to be affected by this. Before saying anything, however, she cast something. An abjuration that manifested out of her body and spread like a wave across the walls and ceiling. A wave of nihility.

"So," she started, "are you going down the path of obscuramancy?"

"I will assume that this was some privacy abjuration?" Beta nodded at his inquiry.

"We could say something like that. The actual path I want to walk down is abjuration, but because I need to learn Void in the meanwhile, it's obvious that my Information will intertwine a bit."

"Useful to know that." That was all she said.

"Beta, that was a subtle comment on how I want you to teach me," he added a moment later.

"Oh," she mouthed silently.

"Well, I guess that I could, but I'd be needing your services, specially for the total celestial alignment." It was weird seeing the "Daughter of Nihilism" being so proactive, but this is one of the only things that she wanted. The previous Beta wagered it all on the existence of the time loop so she could instruct Nolotl in subjects that would help a future Beta. And that brought him to the current situation.

"Talking about the total celestial alignment," Nolotl walked forward and knelt in one knee in front of the akyromancer, putting himself at eye-level with her.

"I need you to examine my brain." She had indeed betrayed him, but thanks to the conversation with Enantyum he could tell Beta wasn't as malicious as the Regressor made her out to be. She had shoved something inside his mind, yes, but it wasn't an aggression. Or at least, it didn't feel like one. Neither Real-Time Status nor Serpent's Muzzle could classify the mote as such. Perhaps it was the utmost foolish of endeavors, but he decided to trust Beta, both the current and old one.

A part of him did it just to spite Enantyum. Beta tilted her head to the side.

"I can offer you advice in akyromancy and abjuration, but I don't have any skills regarding the mind nor its appraisal. Wouldn't that fall under your jurisdiction?"

"I have the feeling that you will still be able to see what I'm talking about," he explained calmly.

"Just try looking at it." The akyromancer frowned, but she didn't outright negate him as she extended an arm forward and placed a hand on his forehead. The reaction was instantaneous. She didn't yank the hand backward, but her arm definitely tensed.

"You have a vestige of Void in your mind," she stated. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Does that mean anything?"

"No," Beta swayed her head, one that was still partially occluded by her hood.

"It simply means that there's a touch of void in your mind. I don't know how that happened or what it entails."

"Hmm…" Nolotl hummed in thought after hearing that.

"Can't you make more detail out of it?"

"What do you mean with more detail?"

"I've been told by someone else that is a refresher."

"A refresher of what?" Nolotl snorted at those words.

"That's the thing, I haven't been told. She got her speech cut off before she could finish explaining herself. But knowing her, I have the awful sensation that she did so in purpose."

"Why don't you go ask that woman then?"

"Oh, but I'm doing so." The corners of the gnosiamancer's lips slightly rose.

"I would have recollection of saying such thing, Nolotl." Her voice wasn't quite stern, but there was an undeniable annoyance in Beta's tone.

"Oh, so this subtlety of the language you did understand?" the terian rolled his eyes.

"I swear to the Celestials, Beta, you must be acting dense sometimes on purpose."

"Bold of you to assume I'm not always dense," she countered, but from her lips, it was far from an amused bicker. And yet, that was enough for his mind to tell him it was impossible for Beta to have betrayed him. Well, beyond betraying his expectations.

"Now stop talking in riddles and be straight."

"I have a spell that allows me to send information back to the past thanks to the total celestial alignment and this vestige was your handiwork," he stated plainly. And Beta's reaction was… lacking. She stayed silent and mostly immobile for a long and pregnant moment, silence reigning eternal as she inspected him.

"I could have created that mote," the akyromancer finally affirmed.

"And you come at a time when we lack an obscuramancer at the tower. That's perfect timing." Her conspiratorial musings were highly amusing to Nolotl, whose visage was left bemused. After all, she was the very cause of that perfect timing because she had taught him Intellect Fortress. It hadn't been his intent, just a relation that her mind decided to create. The diviner, however, wouldn't protest about it.

It did work in his favor and only a fool would sail against the wind when it was blowing towards their destination.

"How have you done it?" Beta inquired.

"You aren't a chronomancer."

"Thank you, I didn't know," his snarky comment felt in deaf ears. To be honest, this was just him being sore about the whole death threat ordeal as it hadn't even been 24 hours since he had experienced it.

"But I cannot offer you much of a serious response either. I mean, you've just asked a gnosiamancer how he has sent information."

"Information back in time," she corrected.

"Minute details," Nolotl smiled with the likeness of Enantyum.

"What matters now is what you've done, or rather, will have done with this vestige. So could you inspect it before I go into details?" Beta looked at him, not quite in suspicion but it was to discern any emotion. Was it interest about the regression of time? Thrill? Excitement? Fear? Indifference? His ability to read Beta's expressions seemed to also scale with the amount of time she spent with him.

"I will take you on that," the akyromancer spoke taciturnly before focusing on the mote. Nolotl wasn't sure if they taught ever single generic school of casting in every tower of it was a specialized curriculum for the Information Tower as gnosiamancers could gain proficiency with other schools outside of Lesser Alignment Assimilation too. And there was also the fact that gnosiamancy was mostly a supportive Alignment that acted like a modifier to the generic schools.

All his divinations and the new Intellect Fortress were an example of that. The Empyrean of Void kept herself silent and immobile with her eyes closed. Through his forehead, Nolotl could feel her heartbeat and it was a sluggish one. He doubted how the woman was alive, or at least not in a dormant state. She was also cold. He doubted that akyromancers could sacrifice—or more exactly, prune—their body heat, but certainly something was happening there.

The only thing that was annoying was how beads of sweat slowly gathered in her palm as the terian's body temperature was higher than hers. An utterly disgusting feeling for Nolotl who couldn't even sweat. A memory of the past flashed in his mind as he recalled his infancy and the embrace of her mother. Sweat had been repulsive to a psychotic degree to him back then, yet her mother's was the only one that didn't pester him.

Not quite pleasant to the nose, but he remembered how the beads glistened like diamonds on her fair skin against the harsh Tezlan sun. Her golden mane and cyan eyes equally glinting as…

"Interesting," Beta muttered, snapping him out of the memory, as she pulled her hand back and rested her back on her chair. As for Nolotl, he quickly dried the foul sweat on his forehead with one of his bands. That gesture provoked a glance from Beta, but she failed to comment on it.

"What's interesting?" He asked, finally standing up as his knees were killing him.

"This mote seems to contain information on a… compressed state. I'm somewhat more certain of hearing your claim because I had once theorized on compressing information with the un-existential capabilities of Void, storing the addresses of information in keys that then can be brought into existence and unfurled into the decompressed information… but I gave up after the losses were commonplace. Besides, it didn't help that I didn't have any usage for such investigation."

"I would dare to say that lots of people could use that investigation," Nolotl added.

"Haven't you thought of sharing the idea with another akyromancer?"

"No, that sounds like a chore," she stated as a matter of fact.

"Ah, laziness and secrecy, the worst enemies of knowledge," the gnosiamancer lamented.

"I will have to pry out of you that concept at some point, but can you decompress this information?"

"If the question is if it's within my capabilities, the answer is yes. If the question if I can do it right now, the answer is now. The compression algorithm seems to be better than the one I had in mind and it wasn't even finished, so I will need some time to decipher it."

"Oh, so that's what you did with all of those obscuramancy books," Nolotl nodded in understanding, now getting why the akyromancer had spent so much time with them and ignoring the total celestial alignment.

"It was a refresher. I don't know what your previous self meant with that, but perhaps the whole sentence was 'a refresher of future memories'."

"…No, I don't think so. I don't speak like that," Beta looked at him with a hint of disgust. Or not. Indifference was hard to interpret.

"Well," he cleared his throat, "I believe that what information is resisting in that vestige is information about left about your previous self on your future experiences. If you interpret them, you should be able to have some guidance." Nolotl was acting in a collected manner, but in his insides, he was overjoyed. This is a game changer. If it only increases my costing cost by 1% then getting a third looper is utmost definitely worth it. Though… it remains to be seen how much information this little mote can hold.

"I would like to see those obscuramancy books," she asked.

"Do you know where they are?"

"Easy, follow me to the workshop." If Beta had dedicated to him a nasty gaze before, this one was a dead one. Even dead fish's eyes portrayed more emotion. Not that Beta's eyes were dead. Unfortunately, that image would be hard to forget. Or rather, he would never be able to do so thanks to his Boon. Whether it was due to his confidence or something else entirely, Beta simply sighed and followed him to her workshop.

He strutted inside like he owned the place but in the meanwhile he was pouring mana on his tattoos, already visualizing the books in his mind before he undid his bindings. The abjurer failed to react as the diviner's body sprouted hundreds of feathers, but she walked closer to the workbench as a pile of illusory books materialized on top of it.

"This big pile here is the one you read regarding your ritual for the upcoming alignment, and this smaller one is the books on obscuramancy I suppose you used for this compression vestige."

"You suppose?" Beta frowned at him.

"You didn't tell me anything about this," he explained.

"Only at the very end. And I also have to state that I didn't read any of these books, only stored them in my memory for posteriority, so there's a chance that some might have a blurry page or two."

"What a great start," she rolled her eyes.

"Hey! I've just materialized dozens of books for you to read!"

"If you think that is supposed to motivate me, then you're plenty wrong," Beta responded dryly.

"Even if I'm interested in this whole sending information to the past concept and also decrypting the data I have myself stored… I cannot say I'm easily interested in a chore." Nolotl scoffed.

"Tell me about it, you were only motivated to teach me—and I'm being superlative here—because you were eager for me to use this," he pointed at the glowing sigil atop his head. It had moved a bit higher up after his Crow Crown now occupied a significant part of his head.

"Before I get to decrypting the information I've seemingly stored in your mind," the abjurer idly commented while she parsed the covers of the obscuramancy books, "can you tell me what relationship we had?"

"What do you mean with that?" The diviner frowned.

"I know myself all-too-well. I wouldn't have accepted helping you learning without a good reason, and from the looks of it, your offer wasn't that good if I shoved something in your mind that you had no idea about."

"Ugh, don't remind me about it." Nolotl was risking himself by interacting with Beta again, but Enantyum himself asked him to deal with that mote, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't interested himself. In a manner of speaking, the Regressor did him a favor by 'forcing' him to interact with Beta again.

"Our offer is what you're seeing. I gave you materials to study and progress your ritual and you instructed me. So far you've aided me with three spells, but we've barely started our deal and you've never told me to take notes for you so… yup, that's it."

"Hmm, I feel like I have made you take notes, only that I've been more forceful than simply asking please."

"And I would thank you if you did that next time, yes." This start of the loop was proving to be way different than before as he approached her directly as a time looper without any pretensions, but Nolotl was less naïve than he was a day ago. He would never be able to beat Beta if she truly was stronger than a Tower Master and Enantyum was hesitant to interact with her, but at least he wouldn't die by being stabbed in the back.

Seeing the knife plunge into his chest wasn't that much better, but that difference meant the world to him. And if he did survive… well, next time maybe he would be able to slap the metaphorical knife out of her hand too.