Chương 15: Messing with the Script

"Do you always do this at the start of the month?" Nolotl asked Enantyum with the nonchalance typical of gnosiamancers as the master of the time loop presented himself on the status-checking booth.

"There are many reasons to keep the loop on a consistent basis, mostly because the butterfly effect can have truly unexpected consequences, as you yourself have experienced and will continue to do so," the darker-skinned chronomancer explained calmly.

"But I mostly do it if just to keep seeing my numbers go up. Our minds are truly primitive in that aspect; they pump dopamine the moment a number is slightly bigger than before."

"I can't deny that," the Empyrean of Information sighed.

"I assume you are not going to let me behold your true status, are you?" To that Enantyum responded with a grin. Nolotl gestured to him to extend his hand, and he offered it. With trivial and practiced cantrips, the gnosiamancer read the chronomancer's inner Alignment, or at least, what he allowed him to see. Name: Enantyum Dei Age: 22 Race: Celestial Main Resource: Mana Resource Deposit Size: 937. 02 Top Alignments: - Time ▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰ 98. 02419% - Death ▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ 1. 02353% - Void ▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ 0.

40234% List of Titles: - Empyrean List of Boons: - Temporal Flux - Resistance to Anachronism - Perfect Timing List of Blessings: - Aligned with Time With a quick glance, the gnosiamancer could tell that everything had changed since the first time he had seen Enantyum's status, but if it was part of natural progression or trickery, that remained to be seen. Though it was clearly the later as the Boons were ordered in descending chronological order of obtention instead of ascendingly.

Clearly the work of the Alignment Obfuscation Boon.

"Oh, woah, half a digit of mana in a month and a half?" Nolotl was veritably surprised by the chronomancer's progress. Obtaining half the whole reserve of a non-mage indicated that he hadn't been idle with his practice, even after these many years in the loop. What he couldn't understand, though, was why Enantyum bothered to hide his Boons when he already knew of the ones he possessed. What he showed him now were the three first Boons a Time practitioner obtained.

Temporal Flux and Resistance to Anachronism were the mandatory first ones, one unlocked Time as an Alignment and the other was the respective resistance granted by it. As for Perfect Timing, it could be classified as the analog of Nolotl's own Perfect Recollection but just applied to chronomancy, and he guessed that was how Enantyum managed to follow the script of the loop to the letter even if the man didn't possess a gnosiamancer's perfect memory.

And yet, the most egregious of changes were the complete erasure of his Titles and Blessings, only leaving behind the obvious Empyrean Title and the Blessing tied to one's progression with the Alignment. That one wasn't a surprise as everyone knew that being 45% or higher in an alignment granted Touched by and 90% or higher granted Aligned with Blessings. This allowed mages who liked to double-dip in alignments to get two Touched by Blessings if they put enough work.

Whilst Nolotl couldn't estimate the chronomancer's maximum level, only his minimum—which was now bound to be level 6 considering he had seen six different Boons—Enantyum's prowess in magic was astonishing as his Alignment Obfuscation Boon had completely bypassed the diviner's spell. There had been trickery in Nolotl's previous gestures, for he had performed no simple cantrip, yet a complex ritual to discern truth from lie.

Alas, it had been a foolish hope to trick a man on his three digits of age when he was only level four. Enantyum only allowed him to veritably see the size of his deposit and his Alignments, though in a way, he hadn't lied with the list of his Boons as those were his earliest ones which he had obtained way before he manufactured the time loop.

"You are completely engrossed by my status," the Empyrean of Time commented.

"Well, I can't say I've ever scried the might of a Tower Master, but your might must be close. From which extreme of the limit, that I cannot ascertain." The last comment got a grin out of the old yet paradoxically young mage.

"You are not going to fish out any new information, little prince."

"Can you blame me for trying?" Enantyum sighed in amusement and left. Yet as Nolotl was returned to a semblancy of familiarity as more people pushed into the queue, his hands couldn't stop trembling. That man utterly scared him. The fact that a single mortal had the power to bend time—time itself and not a poor imitation born out of simulations or divinations—was a worrying fact. Who was to tell that the chronomancer was not the strongest mage of the Empyrean Academy, if not the whole world?

Mindlessly, almost like one of the undead servants a necromancer might employ, Nolotl walked to the academy's cafeteria after he was done with his shift. If I have to do this every loop, I may be going insane faster than I thought. It was no surprise at all that the placement of each individual student at the cafeteria played exactly like the first time. Enantyum feared the randomness introduced by the butterfly effect, but so far, he had yet to experience it.

He did say that my survival was the consequence of such effect though… A single slip bred enough paranoia in my mind to keep me alive for the zenith of the total celestial alignment.

"Mother be praised," the Empyrean of Life saluted him the moment he put a foot into the Empyrean-reserve chamber of the canteen. Clonazepam looked at her with the same politeness as the previous start of the month, completely unaware of the passage—or rather reversal—of time. Each interaction that was repeated gestated unrest in his body. Each a reminder of Enantyum's prowess.

Just in case, he repeated his exact wordings and interactions with the dryad until he had a plan formulated, even if he doubted such a shallow exchange could cause major ramifications. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Once he was done eating, instead of going to the seminar where he should meet with Xanax, he went to his room as he no longer needed the Information tower master's help for his advice.

"Alright, what should I do and how?" Nolotl laid himself quill and paper as he started thinking, though the contents he wrote weren't chronal-related but had their nature on the ritual he failed to perform. Roxina had lectured him on how he had brought the blueprints to her workshop a bit late, so he wanted to know what would change if he brought them early. Technically speaking nothing should change as it was an isolated event.

So that would be his preliminary butterfly effect experiment, but both paranoia and anxiety whispered him awful tales.

"But should I be experimenting? That is the question." Regardless of his words, he continued tracing the blueprint from his memory.

"Enantyum has 'gifted' me a couple of loops to get settled, so first let's do that. And in my case that would be stopping the ambush or mitigating its effects." He went over the whole fight with Perfect Recollection and he evaluated that he could easily win it with key and decisive movements; but if he went against such movements could jeopardize his script. Something told him that the butterfly effect would be more significant in a fast-paced scenario like a battlefield.

"I'm approaching this from the wrong angle," he recriminated himself.

"Instead of tackling the ambush, I should tackle the perpetrators. I know nothing about them except Luminol. Though I guess I could reverse search the gnosiamancer students from my memories. But that still leaves the taximancer, the Cahtuli biomancer, and that starless akyromancer." The diviner cursed as his mind recalled the ambush from the last living mage. It was a very sour memory. At first glance, he couldn't recognize the gnosiamancer students he had killed, but they were the slightest of his problems.

The Empyrean was confident in finding them if they truly resided on the Information Tower as he had infiltrated their very minds and could easily recognize them if they were ever to approach him.

"Six perpetrators, three identified, three unknown. Solid progress, but not enough." The gnosiamancer pinched his nose.

"The taximancer and the akyromancer must be mercenaries hired by the Cahtuli man, so unless I get him, he can just hire other mercenaries. Though it must have not been easy to gather two mages in such a short time in such an important event… But no, I won't be able to kill the hydra by cutting its heads, I must target the body. That biomancer probably convinced Luminol to join him too." But as he furiously wrote the blueprints for the artifacts of the Second Mind ritual, Nolotl found himself at a dead end.

"He must not be at the academy just yet, maybe not even Origin, but across the ocean all the way back in Cahtul. Argh…" He groaned yet his quill continued sliding precisely along the paper.

"What should I do? Divine his position? But how if I don't have anything linking him to me? Alert the motherland of an attack on my person? No, the warrior came here sent by a prophecy, if I contact Tezlan they are going to be alerted even sooner by the stars… Is there no victory?" He preferred if Luminol were the mastermind, but the man was too weak-minded for that to be the case.

Protecting a country through preemptive murder was a honorable excuse, envy didn't even begin to work as one; it was purely pathetic and a sign of a troubled man. As the blueprints were finished, Nolotl realized that he would manage nothing if he sat on his ass the whole day so he did the only thing that could brighten his dark day and visited the Empyrean of Light.

"Oh, long time no see, Nolotl!" Roxina instantly greeted him as unlike the first time he had visited her, she was now on the counter crunching number instead of the back of her workshop.

"Didn't we see…" He almost blurted the word 'yesterday' but he quickly collected his thoughts and recalled when was the last time the non-interlooper Nolotl had seen her.

"Two weeks ago?"

"I don't know about you, but that's a long time in my country."

"You speak truth, Roxina, it is I who is absentminded," the Empyrean of Information bowed in apology.

"Nolotl!" Roxina dashed away from the counter towards him and pouted.

"I told you to call me Roxy!" Nolotl got assaulted by a powerful deja vu as—even if it wasn't the correct time—the photomancer repeated the same antics as before when he had called her by her name.

"I…" He pondered for a moment. Why not? I'm already messing with the script, let's see how big of a tornado this flap can create.

"My apologies, dear Roxy," the diviner said as much as he hated shortening names. It helped thinking that such slight could be corrected if the time looped proved to be real. I cannot get too outrageous with the changes when I have yet to verify the existence, or rather, the working of the loop. After all, a single point of support was enough for a full hypothesis to be born. As much fear as the chronomancer infused in his being, it was foolish to blindly trust the existence of the loop from a single event.

"Oh." The response instantly petrified the fellow Empyrean as it caught her completely with the guard down.

"Who are you and what have you done with Nolotl?" The photomancer's eyes burst with light—her iris going from white to iridescent—and balls of searing radiance appeared in her hands.

"Really, Roxina?" Nolotl put his hands on his hips and growled.

"A single starless joke and you are at my throat?"

"Okay, it is you." She dissipated the balls, but her eyes still lingered with a myriad of colors.

"So what brings you here~" The Empyrean of Light added with a cutesy voice.

"This," the Tezlan took a scroll out of his satchel and threw it at her.

"Whoop!" The Tamorean caught it midair with a yelp and unfurled it.

"Hmm, some sort of catalyst and safety function for a ritual, eh? Is this for the coming total celestial alignment?" He nodded.

"But what's with this thingy… everything seems to work for a ritual, except this component. It seems to be a boost to Light-based illusion magic."

"You got me," the gnosiamancer raised his open hands.

"For reasons I prefer not to disclose, I will need that component to perform the ritual safely."

"Is it illegal?" The photomancer pointed at him with his own scroll.

"Mayhaps," he answered with a smile. Roxina looked at him from head to toe and smacked her lips.

"Sure, why not." A snicker left his nose.

"Why am I not surprised you accepted after I told you about its dubious legality?"

"What can I say? I am a naughty woman," the blonde and sun-kissed woman pulled up the suspenders of her leather apron to outrageously highlight her cleavage. Which needed no highlighting, to begin with.

"I suppose that this will be enough," Nolotl responded with nonchalance to her obvious taunt by throwing her a coin bag, though he wordlessly thanked his emotion-numbing spells for keeping him from ogling. Flirting was only funny when there was an embarrassed party, and because he was going to be the embarrassed party, he decided not to engage, as much as his eyes begged him to look downwards. The bag contained enough coins to pay for what he had commissioned, even if there were some extra addons.

"I had the idea that you were poor, Nolotl. Where has this money come from?" Roxina asked after opening the purse. Hmm, a deviation. Nolotl mused in the privacy of his mind. In the previous timeline she was musing if I had gone into debt for this commission, so it isn't the most egregious of differences… but it is something.

"Fret not, I had just some spare materials that I sold off as I had no need for them." In reality, he had pawned Nochochecan relics he had been gifted as a departure gift. If the time loop had been an elaborate scam, he could always get them back by sending the letter and getting the gold; if not, he would get them back in a month. This was also part of his plan. By not contacting Chichihualxo-chitl for gold, maybe he wouldn't raise any alarm to Cahtul, and then there would be no ambush.

He doubted it was going to be that easy, but it would be foolish not to try. His first and only objective was to stop the ambush from occurring in any shape or form.

"Alright, I counted the payment and it's pretty much what I would have asked. Is it a gnosiamancy trick or are you that good with budgeting?"

"It is a trick alright," Nolotl answered with a smile, which irked Roxina, though unlike her other Tamorean fellow, she didn't react physically but with a rivalling smile. Jokes on her, he loved that smile.