Chương 73: Chapter 70: Healer, Support, and Warrior

There were many interesting facts about the Dark Gaze spell that Beta had brought. It was his first offensive spell and also the first one that could induce status effects, but also a neuromancy. Neuromancies were usually thought of as healing spells because it was the only school of casting that directly dealt with healing the mind. Any and every Information spell that healed cognition would immediately be classified as a neuromancy.

But, technically speaking, any spell that affected another person's mind could fall into the category of neuromancy, ergo the presence of the school in this spell. And yet, that wasn't the most egregious thing of the spell.

"Beta, this is a fourth-tier divination!" Nolotl shouted upon reaching that part of the spell's description.

"Yes, and?" she raised her gaze from her book in an unamused manner. She seemed to be investigating more about information theory and how it interacted with obscuramancy.

"Didn't we agree that we would exploit the fact that there weren't any diminishing returns on learning spells from the same tier?"

"For starters, I didn't agree to such thing," Beta stated plainly.

"I have no issues with sacrificing myself for the inevitable triumph of a future iteration, but I would like if you adequately compartmentalized my iterations."

"Right, sorry," he apologized immediately. Nolotl might not want to antagonize Beta due to the advantages she brought to the time loop, but he didn't want to hurt her as a person either. Not out of sheer empathy, but outright because she had become the person he was the closest to within this coiling time.

"Having said that," she continued, "you mentioned wanting to have useful spells. Truth is, there aren't many spells you would personally consider useful in lower tiers. Akyromancy divinations tend to be the set-up for complex rituals rather than their standalone spells. This is the best I can offer you without being too egregious in its difficulty."

"I don't know, this looks pretty egregious..." Nolotl smacked his lips.

"The fourth tier of casting is not something I can perform reliably at my level, and this is an unbalanced akyromancy. This means one proficiency less and no affinity whatsoever."

"Didn't you mention you were a diviner first and foremost?"

"... I don't think I did?" her claim was so confident that it confused someone with eidetic memory.

"I might've said similar stuff though."

"There you have it," she finally set aside her book.

"Yes, your Empyrean Title might not help you here, but you still have many advantages, and you won't lose a proficiency either. You mentioned that setting proficiencies lowered your assimilation, but isn't this the perfect spell to assign to the slot?"

"Yes..." he sighed.

"I would prefer not changing slots so periodically, but I guess this is the exception if the spell does half of what is entails." Before being able to slot the Dark Gaze spellware into his Boon, Nolotl had to first learn about said spellware. Out of all akyromancies, this one felt like the most touched by Void so far and it made sense as it was the most complex one up to date. It was crystal clear to him that no matter how many proficiencies he had, this would be a difficult task.

Unlike Disembodied Sight where he knew many of the inherited spellcircles, he was basically starting from zero with Dark Gaze. It couldn't be stated enough times that he had no affinity whatsoever with the spell.

"We really should focus back on the abjurations," Nolotl implored.

"That or far easier divinations."

"Are you going to give up so soon?" Beta wasn't ridiculing him or anything, she was being honest with her question and he could feel it.

"You've only been at it two days."

"Two days of reading the spellware!" the gnosiamancer stated with a hint of desperation.

"You need to understand that the most complex spell that I constantly use is one that I originally had three proficiencies and high affinity. You're removing here a proficiency and a whole affinity." The Empyrean of Void sighed and stood up. Unlike when she was sitting, her robe gained that ethereal aspect that made it look like it would phase out of existence at any moment. Nolotl hadn't bothered asking about it for two reasons.

One, he thought it was likely tied to her Alignment; and two, he liked having that mysticism. It wasn't an important question so it was best to just let the fantasy be free and exude some whimsy.

"I can tutor you more closely," Beta offered once she had walked up to him.

"I can afford to waste a bit of time." Nolotl frowned at her words.

"Something wrong?"

"No, not at all," he denied. It's not like I can tell her that her words reminded me of Enantyum. The Empyrean of Information didn't see the Regressor much and he was glad to keep it that way as most of their interactions ended with him feeling like dying.

"Please, teach me." Instead of grabbing a stool, Beta produced one from her Inner Abyss and sat next to him. She pointed at the pages of the book with her pale fingers and ebony nails. Whilst Beta wasn't exactly a paragon of healthiness, her hands weren't as bony as one might expect, just plain normal beyond their coloration.

"This spellcircle is important as it deals with the connection of Oblivion," she highlighted the page he had been studying for a while now.

"I understand that you're having difficulties with it as this spellcircle works through the very concept of Void so having no direct proficiency in akyromancy will hurt your progress."

"Yes, that's an understatement," Nolotl nodded.

"I also lack the affinity."

"Yes," she replied in kind.

"But you're still managing to progress and that's good. If anything, you're dealing with the Void far better than I am with information theory. It's truly a shame that we cannot exchange our tasks." The akyrodata storage dealt with Void so closely that Nolotl didn't have any hopes of creating one in his life. The complete lack of proficiencies and affinities would make a spell of that kind perhaps three tiers of casting more difficult than it should be for him.

And as for his own quest, it wasn't like Beta could get the Lesser Alignment Assimilation Boon and then give him her own assimilation. The closest to that ridiculous school of thought that could be done was to transfer the knowledge she already had through teaching. I. e. what she was already doing.

"Any tips for understanding this spellcircle?" Nolotl sought for advice as he peered into her black eyes. They had no distinction between iris and pupil whatsoever, just a massive obscure blob.

"My tip is that you perform whatever you did with Disembodied Sight again. This will give you some clarity on the concept of Oblivion as a whole, though of course, this will be done under my supervision."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," he smiled softly, for some part of him was hesitant to peer into Oblivion again. Yet he was pragmatic enough to know it might be the way forward. The 'Oblivion sessions' were now some kind of meditation they performed so Nolotl got a better hold of what Void represented. They were kept short as to not increase his Void Alignment and he also had to have his Simulacrum recalled as he would be using his concentration slot for Intellect Fortress.

Between Beta's Resistance to Oblivion Boon and the mental fortitude he shared with her thanks to the exemplification abjuration, the akyromancer was confident that she would be mostly impervious to the cognitive effect of Void. This meant that she could 'be' 'in' Oblivion to guide him. All the quotation marks were needed as the experience was too surreal to be classified as existence or presence.

Beta could do something with the hollowness of plane of Void so guide him, but it couldn't be classified as if she existed within it. It was more than her idea of guidance lingered on the place rather than being present. Void was also the Alignment of paradoxes, and it showed. Void assimilation progressed by 2%. It wasn't a ludicrous increase of assimilation but it was good progress for a week of effort. Nolotl hadn't started yet practicing Dark Gaze and he was almost at two thirds of assimilating Void.

Solid progress considering he was still at the start of the fifth Void loop. Yes, assimilating Alignment was a massive undertaking even with the help of the total celestial alignment, but one approximated year to complete the task wasn't that bad. Though it was only becoming clearer and clearer by the day why no one took this Boon series. Nolotl somewhat trusted Enantyum's claim that this was the most powerful Boon series, but the effort was also ridiculous.

Nine years of constant effort to fully unlock a Boon was crazy. Nolotl didn't even want to think that this was only the Lesser version as otherwise he might fall into a depression so great he might not recover from. The days of the Empyrean duo continued as they had on the previous loop with Nolotl learning spells and being taught akyromancy, and Beta learning information theory and being taught gnosiamancy. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The reason why this life of constant effort with very few breaks wasn't destroying him was because Beta was living the same way and obtaining the same benefits. Yes, she might not have to experience all of this exhaustion as a new iteration would take the mantle, but it did wonders for Nolotl's psyche to compare their situations. After another week and the countdown for the last month of the loop, the diviner had prepared himself mentally enough to slot the spell.

Vacuous Filtration spell removed from the Lesser Alignment Assimilation Information slot. Information assimilation reduced by 10%. This time around, Nolotl didn't have the many warning notifications. He wasn't sure if it was due to the fact that Real-Time Status was conscious that its caster already knew about them or that warning had an innate limit of how many times they could be shown, but he was inclined for the former.

Perhaps the third-tier divination wasn't intelligent, but his Information Alignment certainly made the spell far more powerful than the version most mages would benefit from. Either way, his backlogged Information assimilation—which after checking with basic books on Boons seemed to be what was happening here—was high enough to be topped up once more. You have completely assimilated Information. Dark Gaze spell assigned to the Lesser Alignment Assimilation Information slot. Dark Gaze proficiency obtained.

Immediately, Nolotl's comprehension of the spell widened and deepened. Alas, this wasn't something he could exploit more than he already was doing as slotting a spell required a minimum understanding. If anything, these two weeks had been the easy part. Now he had to actually cast a spell. It was ludicrous to call violent sparring a break, but the twiceborn enjoyed bloodletting from time to time. It was both part of his terian blood and his culture.

Yet again, it had to be stated that Tezlan didn't sacrifice people but only sought donations of blood to maintain infrastructure that was sustained with hemomancy. Donating blood for the state, the religion, and the people was a right and a duty. Voluntary duty.

"Good exchange," Nolotl congratulated Azithromycin, instantly recalling his true form as he didn't have that many sparred minutes to waste them.

"Likewise, Lord Nolotl," the ocelotl woman, unlike him, was perfectly composed. He might be able to rival a biomancer in combat that wasn't using augmentations, but the same couldn't be said for the stamina. Not being able to sweat actually hurt his stamina as his body overheated. That wasn't a problem during the ambush for obvious reasons, but the Life Tower had a similar humidity and temperature to that of the jungles of Tezlan, so Nolotl needed some water to cool himself down.

Not drink it, but literally pour it on himself to reduce his temperature. If one couldn't produce sweat naturally, water did more than a good job as a substitute to lower body heat back into an acceptable level.

"I recommend reducing your efforts," Clonazepam added next to them. The dryad was standing still with her hands clasped in front of her, looking more like a tree than a person.

"Needing to seek outside cooling is never a good sign."

"I appreciate the advice," Nolotl nodded and exhaled a bit as he was still a bit starved for air.

"But I know my body. At least we haven't been bleeding this time around, have we?"

"I guess that much is true," the dryad sighed, but unlike the rest of the people, her shoulders didn't move as it wasn't like she had a pulmonary system. Dryads were all about crude approximations that somehow worked even if they didn't make the most biological of senses.

"I am glad that you listen to my advice, Lord Nolotl, but it hurts me seeing how much effort you put in battle when you aren't a biomancer." Nolotl didn't know Clonazepam that well, but he was aware that she had a strong sense of empathy, especially one that targeted bodies. She didn't want to see anyone abusing their body or getting hurt.

"Perhaps you could be my training partner?" he said mostly as a jest, but still with some seriousness. His words weren't empty; they seldom were.

"I mean, it beats standing around because you don't want to see us get hurt, right?" As much as Clonazepam valued her fellow empyreans, the Empyrean of Life was also helping the members of the Life Tower currently present. She was a supremely capable healer and was actively manning the whole arena. Nolotl also had the suspicion that she had some auras active to help everyone but because they didn't work with mana or through the Cognition, he had no way of checking that.

I really need a divination that allows me to see tonalli. Biomancy was one of the few elemental schools of casting that used their special resource as their primary one—beyond Arcane as mana was used by everyone—because vitality was far easier to obtain for biomancer than mana. Or any other resource with any other type of Alignment. Though if I'm to do that, I guess I could do it for every resource. Hmm, I never asked what's the resource of Void, how does that even work when the whole school is about nothingness?

"I guess I could," Clonazepam responded after a moment, giving Nolotl more than enough time to put an end to his own thoughts.

"I must warn you, however, I'm not much of a combatant, so I apologize in advance if I do hurt you." It was tradition by this point or something, but the words that came out of the dryads mouth weren't to taunt the terian. Nolotl was 100% sure Clonazepam was drastically physically stronger than him, and that was what she was saying. A healer and herbalist obviously didn't have the same self-control as a warrior.

"I'm aware," he nodded and raised his spear.

"At worst, you can just heal me." He didn't like the pain, but this was a nice chance. Nolotl had yet to fight any of the empyreans and the only one who he knew some of their capabilities was Enantyum, but the chronomancer was by far the strongest of them all. So least to say, any of their exchanges hadn't been a battle but an abuse. Clonazepam wouldn't fight at her top strength either, but at least that would give him some insight on how truly weak he was.

"Ready?" Azithromycin raised her hand, deciding to take the mantle of referee without needing to be told. Both the terian and the dryad nodded.

"Go!" and she lowered her hand. Clonazepam was fast. Too fast perhaps. With his superior reflexes born out of his myriad of divinations and accelerated thought process as a gnosiamancer, Nolotl processed that his only way of surviving the dryad's reckless charge was to step to the side. And the tactic proved to be exceedingly effective as Clonazepam was unable to stop herself and rushed all the way through the arena.

The moment she did try to stop she stomped the ground so hard that the momentum played against her and her body went flying as the top of her body was no infinitely faster than her bottom. The dryad ragdolled on the sand of the arena, raising a dust cloud on her wake and drawing the attention of many practicing biomancers.

"Uhm..." Clonazepam shyly mouthed after emerging of the dust a moment later. She was obviously unharmed.

"I must say I'm ashamed of my lacking fighting capabilities."

"No problem, Clonazepam. We all start somewhere," Nolotl said politely whilst redoubling the strength of his grip. A single unprotected strike would be the end of him and he doubted healing would be even an option. Why was I doing this?

"Here I go!" the dryad announced in the least warrior-like way possible and she started skipping. Apparently rushing had been too much, so her decision was to simply skip her steps like a prancing and joyful child. Which I guess she is considering her age and... Nolotl couldn't finish that thought as he hurriedly drew a sigil on the insides of his bracer, barely being able to summon Mage Armor in time and raise his spear.

He had also moved to the side and yet, when he blocked Clonazepam's punch his whole body skittered backwards, his sandals nearly digging into the sand. The worst part was how his arms had gone numb. At least the armor has held.

"You're terrifying," he said softly under his breath.

"Thank you!" Clonazepam responded energetically as she hopped on the spot to kill her inertia.

"I must say this is far more entertaining than I thought!" And then Nolotl realized what was happening. He wasn't sparring for martial training, he was playing with an overgrown child. It didn't matter that all dryads were basically born adults and they reached maturity in the time a potted plant might, this was still a clueless woman that hadn't even lived half a decade. And she was having the time of her life fighting. The spearman didn't have time for any counterattacks as the dryad rushed back at him.

Lacking the need to recover her stamina or breath, Clonazepam was a ceaseless abomination that threw punch after punch. Nolotl's only saving grace was that the dryad lacked any fighting instincts due to her nature as a plant-fungi hybrid. She just threw punches left and right because she felt like it, but they didn't have any intent behind them. This made it easier to avoid them or deflect them.

Somehow a woman with zero fighting experience was the only one that had pushed him to work on his footwork as if his life depended on it. With every coming fist, Nolotl had to move his feet, lest his body would lag behind. It was a vicious exchange that kept him on the defensive. Yes, Clonazepam wasn't dealing any damage, but that was the bare minimum. She wasn't even trying nor did she have any fighting experience, and yet Nolotl was completely at her mercy unable to throw a single attack.

This was the might of an Empyrean that deserved their Title. The worst part? She was a healer. Even if Cillin had become the Empyrean of Information she wouldn't have had to fight because if Clonazepam was a healer, Amoxi Cillin was a support. His junior had picked Cognition Stimulation as her level 3 Boon and Heightened Computation as her level 5 Boon. Yes, Cillin was level 5 at age 18, younger than Nolotl and still a level greater than his pre-loop self. That was why even he considered her the true Empyrean.

She had a more supportive role, she wasn't as much of a fighter as him and that was why she had lost the Title. And now he was losing to a healer. Nolotl couldn't help but remember his own fight with Cillin nearly a year ago—outside of the loop—as it was rather similar. Battles for the investiture of the Empyrean of Information tended to be mental ones, but the younger Nolotl knew that and had prepared. Instead of fighting mentally, he decided to take a defensive approach.

The young Tamorean was stronger mentally speaking so he presented a mental wall and let it be bombarded as he attacked Cillin on the Physicality. Cillin, the poor Tamorean scribe that hadn't seen a weapon in her life, panicked upon having a spear lunged at her and her whole mental assault crumbled then and there. As expected of a 17-year-old girl she screeched upon seeing the weapon and even louder when it cut a single strand of hair. The only difference between the two was that Nolotl wasn't screeching right now.

But otherwise, the whole exchange was pretty similar. I never apologized for that, did I? Growing in a martial culture and with a spear in hand since young, he hadn't thought of the whole exchange from another point of view until now. Perhaps it wasn't the best moment to do so considering he was fighting for his life, but the loop did help him see things differently and interact with people in other ways that hadn't been possible. I should speak with her again this loop.

As for Nolotl's body, he really wasn't holding. His breathing had become an asynchronous effort, no longer coordinated with his movements and the exchange had become mostly anaerobic. He would last more than one minute. Even with his true self active, the twiceborn felt his strength waning. Looking to have a decent showing out of this one-sided spar, Nolotl readied his dryadic spear for a stab. He, unfortunately, failed.

The shaft had been withstanding Clonazepam's strikes prodigiously, but the moment he thrust it at the biomancer, she blocked it with a rushing fist. The fist won and shattered the spear. With time moving in slow motion as his body pumped unhealthy amounts of adrenaline, Nolotl raised his arms to protect his himself. He could see Clonazepam panic with his many sets of eyes, the young dryad was trying her best to pull back her fist, but milliseconds weren't that much time to react, even less act.

Nolotl was sent flying to the other side of the arena and his consciousness faltered.