Chương 28: Diviner's Effort

Nolotl gritted his teeth upon hearing Enala's demise for the second time. The first time he hadn't cared about her, the enchantress was a complete stranger that had stupidly managed to get herself killed. That was a common occurrence at the academy. Mortality rates were somewhat high, even if such events were usually tied with ataximancers or akyromancers. But this second time around, it was no longer the case. Enala Pril wasn't a stranger.

Perhaps he didn't know the woman that closely, he had no idea about what food she liked nor what even her nationality was, but he had worked with her for hundreds of manhours. The diviner was aware how passionate that enchantress was about the printing press and making knowledge more accessible for everyone, yet now that path was scorched and salted as the woman had died. Only this time around, he told himself whilst putting himself under more emotion-numbing cantrips.

I only need to succeed with one ambush and get the Second Mind enchantment. From there I can allow myself to sketch a new script to play. You have resisted Apathy. You have resisted Rage. None of the notifications were surprising. He was under so many self-imposed mental effects that it made sense he was bordering the actual status effect. As for the later, he was angry at himself for letting the woman die when it would have been easy to save her life.

And that in return made him even angrier at the starless ambushers. If only that starless biomancer didn't decide to bring so many warriors with him because he couldn't recruit the gnosiamancers… He gritted his teeth in absolute rage, surprised he had actually managed to resist the status effect. They will pay. This is all their fault. For the time being, he continued to study the Simulacrum spell in the sanctity of his abode. He was now two weeks into the loop, meaning that only a full month remained.

Which was still a lot of time, but he wanted to be at his best state when the ambush came. Unlike the first time around, he now had to defeat the ambushers without a single cognitive wound. Physical ones didn't matter as much as long as he held until the completion of the ritual. After that, it was free game. Perhaps it was the umpteenth time he did so, but Nolotl re-read the abridged description of the Simulacrum spell.

Name: Simulacrum Schools: Gnosiamancy, Divination Requirements: Hylomorphism, Concentration Effect: Upon creating a complex spellware that works as both an anchor for the spell and a gateway for the Corporeality and Cognition, summon an illusory copy of the caster. This copy works as another vessel for the caster's mind, allowing the caster to use spells and Boons through it, alongside sharing the same senses.

The Simulacrum is not physical by any traditional means and can only be perceived by entities with cognition, but it will break upon taking relative magical damage. The Simulacrum will also break in the case that either the hylomorphism spellware does too or the caster loses concentration. Otherwise, the Simulacrum will remain summoned for perpetuity. It certainly was the longest spell summary Nolotl had read, and it still left a lot of details out.

Like, for example, how that hylomorphism was the material requirement of the spell and it needed to be a spellcircle of around the width of the caster's shoulder-span. A more important detail was that the concentration requirement wasn't just that he needed to be concentrated to use the spell—that was true for every spell—but that he actively needed to control the Simulacrum and in case he didn't do so, the divination would just poof out of existence.

Concentration was one of the worst spell requirements because barring some exceptions—like having a second mind—a mage couldn't use more than one spell that required concentration at a time, beyond them also taking actual concentration to use it.

"But well, with it having it a hylomorphism requirement, it does make it leagues easier to cast it, just like the Second Mind ritual." Contrary to popular belief, spell requirements were there because it made the spell incredibly easier to cast.

And because the component in question was a material one, that meant that Nolotl could shift a lot of the spell's overhead into the physical spellware—some called it hardware, but he just classified everything as spellware—meaning that once he managed to draw the spellcircle to a degree of absolute perfection, he would be able to cast Simulacrum with far more ease than the average fifth tier spell. Still, there was a reason why the tiered spell system was mostly an unofficial thing.

Nobody would classify Dijkstra's Routing as a grand magic even though as a fourth tier spell it was well beyond the capabilities of the average person. Nothing beyond lack of proficiencies stopped anyone from casting ninth tier spells, only the resources to do so and the time.

"Ah…" Nolotl sighed and started doing some push ups to relax.

"Dijkstra's took me a lot of time, but that was before I was an Empyrean and now I have the effects of the Title beyond the fact that I'm far more knowledgeable after a year of studying and I'm also level 5. How long will it take me to learn a fifth-tier spell?" He predicted quite a lot of time. Considering that he had to ready himself for the ambush, train even more for the ritual, and still follow the script for those times he hadn't spent locked inside his room on the zeroth loop…

Nolotl predicted that it would at least take him an additional loop to learn Simulacrum. And that was taking into account that he would be getting the enchantment he had working all this time towards. His major issue with being restricted by his first time around was that he couldn't train his body. Sure, he could do some exercise and practice some spear katas in his room, but to truly polish his instincts, he needed to practice real combat, like he had done with Azithromycin.

"Ugh, I even recreated the original combat step by step, so I didn't learn anything from it…" In his stubbornness to follow the script to the letter, Nolotl had recreated the sparring that preceded Enala's death with perfect accuracy. And yet, a powerful Insight struck him after pondering on it.

"Wait, wait, wait!" He jumped out of the ground.

"If I truly follow the script to the utmost degree of perfection and there aren't too many elements out of my control, like Enantyum or Paizon, I might be able to tackle the original ambush with ease." Yet he instantly noticed a problem with that school of thought.

"No, the butterfly effect is far more drastic in battle. A single different attack will change the entire flow of the battle. But I guess I at least will now the first attack of every ambusher which is better than nothing…" Nolotl's eyes opened wide as plates as he processed his own words.

"The akyromancer! I forgot about them!" The terian brough his hands to the head.

"Starless void mages and their capacity to slip out of my perfect memory!" He stomped on the ground but then sighed.

"I didn't have enough time to prepare any countermeasure besides commissioning Roxina for more powerful enchantments but… Yes, this time around I have enough free time to learn something, any spell that will counter an akyromancer's Voidform." After ascending countless staircases, Nolotl found himself in front of Xanax's office. Like the first two times, Luminol was acting as the secretary.

Perhaps the astromancer hadn't been present in the last ambush that had enraged the prince so much, but Nolotl still had it clear in his mind that he would be doing something with the man. Perhaps not now—even if he would inevitably kill him at the end of the loop—but Luminol needed to be tackled at some point. A man that assassinated another one from envy over a woman that was way younger than him was not a man that could be allowed to go unpunished.

For the time being, Nolotl followed the script as he had been doing for the last weeks and the secretary let him pass into the office after a terse yet short conversation. Immediately, the Empyrean of Information knew that there was something wrong. It was very minimal changes but his Perfect Recollection told him that not everything was were it should be in the office, creating a weird superposed image from his memory that showed some deviations.

I really hope that asking for the Simulacrum spellware hasn't sabotaged this loop. Nolotl would definitely hate experiencing that enhanced ambush again and coiling back in time after getting emulsified. That type of death wasn't even pleasant, even if he had cut as much of his sense of pain as possible.

"How's it going with the ritual progress?" Xanax's first sentence was different this time around, confirming some of Nolotl's doubts but not all of his fears.

"Pretty well," he responded honestly after seating down in the other armchair overlooking the fireplace.

"I believe I have a strong handle and understanding of the spellware, and I've also readied several contingencies in case the spell goes poorly." After all, my Cognition is far more valuable than ever before. Now that he was stuck in a temporal loop that was completely based on his cognitive—not physical—mind, Nolotl was even more paranoid about committing mistakes with the ritual. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"That's good to hear," the tower master nodded.

"What about the Simulacrum spell? Any progress?"

"Not much really," Nolotl sighed.

"It's really complex even with dual proficiencies. I'm more than aware now that I will only be completing it a month or two after the total celestial alignment." Well, I guess I could try casting it as many times as possible during the whole celestial alignment next loop to forcefully increase my mastery and understanding of the spell. That's basically what I'm doing with the ritual already.

The time loop, the ambush, and Enantyum's behavior was a load so heavy in his mind that Nolotl kept forgetting how massive and important the total celestial alignment could be for his progress. An opportunity that he would be having every fifty days or so.

"It's nice to hear that you understand your limits," Xanax smiled in almost a grandfatherly manner.

"Many myths will be born after the cosmological event that will be the total celestial alignment, so you shouldn't lose your opportunity just because you wanted to procrastinate with a spell that looked cool." Nolotl giggled nervously at that, mostly because it wouldn't be the first time that happened, even before the loop. In that sense, he also wasn't Empyrean material. He couldn't focus single-mindedly on the important task at hand like Cillin could, he was only following his instincts and personal preferences.

Beyond the fact that the Tamorean girl was also a far better gnosiamancer than him, even if she had absolutely no way of winning him in combat.

"But talking about the total celestial alignment," the student continued, "would you happen to know any spell that would limit the influence of Void in me?"

"Why would you need such a spell?" The archmagi inquired out of surprise rather than judgement.

"As of late my Void Alignment has been growing a bit too much, and I fear it might affect me or at least distract me during the alignment of the celestial bodies." Whilst this was the excuse he had fabricated, it wasn't a lie. His Void Alignment had indeed increased and he didn't want to be affected by it.

"Hmm, I doubt you should be worry about it but… there is an akyromancy divination that will allow you to selectively gather information related to the Void. I doubt this will help you much, but at the same time, it's only tier one so it won't hinder you to learn it even with a single proficiency," Xanax offered.

"I would be glad to know it, yes," Nolotl nodded. It was far from perfect, but if it help detect the akyromancer assassin even fractions of a second earlier, it would be a starsent.

"You can find it at the Archives under the name of Vacuous Filtration," the experienced gnosiamancer explained. It was in moments like these that Nolotl realized the potential that his own build could have with mind augmentations and Perfect Recollection. After all, how would one remember—let alone know—of such a specific and minor spell that wasn't even fully related to their own magics? Xanax held the Title of Wise for a reason as he truly was a reservoir of magical knowledge.

The two gnosiamancers continued talking for a bit, but Nolotl left the office around the same time of the zeroth loop in the hopes to mitigate as much the effects of his small deviations from the script. One of the most noticeable changes wasn't that Xanax had already guided him to learn two new spells, but rather, he had yet to comment on this loop that Nolotl should abuse more of his privileges as the Empyrean of Information.

Nolotl had to actually wait a day before going to the Archives as he hadn't done it immediately after leaving Xanax's offices during the zeroth loop, but when he was there, he only needed a swift application of Dijkstra's Routing to guide him to the book he was seeking. Perhaps the spell wasn't thought out for that, but it was still a divination that hijacked the Cognition for easy information, so it could do a lot of stuff if one was creative with its applications.

The tome in question wasn't solely dedicated to the spell Xanax had recommended him, but a compendium of minor divinations to classify information rather than gather it. They were rather useless to him for the time being, but they were interesting enough that Nolotl thought of eyeing them in the future. Probably another loop.

But what mattered now was the following spell: Name: Vacuous Filtration Schools: Akyromancy, Divination Requirements: Concentration Effect: The spell allows the caster to actively concentrate on the lack of information that the Void presents and categorize it adequately. A lackluster description, but at the same time, summaries were just that: summaries. An abstract of what the spell could grant without going onto the whole thing.

Nolotl could only afford to read the book for a couple of hours to not deviate from the script, so he first did the best he could to imprint each page on his mind with Perfect Recollection whilst also taking notes on the side. Thankfully he didn't need to use his transmutation cantrip to turn blood into ink as the Archives provided all of those resources. Studying spells without dual proficiency was always hard, but it wasn't that bad as—like Xanax had said— Vacuous Filtration was a first-tier spell.

Whilst it wasn't a 1-to-1 correlation, proficiencies with schools of magic usually lowered the requirement of a spell by one tier. Yet again, this wasn't really the case in theory as tiers were a manmade creation, but in practice it usually ended up like that. That's why dual proficiencies were the standard and why anyone who tried to create spells tried to give them a generic school of casting instead of only making them depend on the school of the Alignment itself.

In other words, Simulacrum was actually a third tier spell for Nolotl, albeit one that he wouldn't have any proficiencies with if he went by that logic. That was mostly what was expected from someone of his age. He had already pushed it a lot with Dijkstra's Routing after all. As for the Vacuous Filtration spell, that meant the akyromancy would be at the level of a cantrip for him with the single proficiency, but as stated previously, proficiencies weren't 1-to-1 comparisons with the tier system.

The lack of a full proficiency still hurt so it just remained a tier one spell that he might have a somewhat easier time with it. Which meant he could learn it in a matter of days, weeks at most. The only reason why he had been able to cast a virtual first-tier spell like Real-Time Status instantly was because most of the spellware the divination used was recycled from the status-reading spells he knew, lowering the entry barrier and casting difficulty even more.

"I don't like how it doesn't have requirements, though…" Nolotl sighed as he sat on the desk back on his bedroom, his notes littered in front of him.

"I mean, it's not the best having to do gesticulations nor chanting during battle, but they always lower the difficulty. And most importantly, the resource cost." Gnosiamancy was one of the cheapest schools of magic alongside with necromancy, but this spell was Void magic.

He was bound to have enough mana, and in the worst of cases he could technically use computation as he had a proficiency with the spell thanks to Cognition Connection, but he still didn't like using up his mana; or even worse, reaching the bottom of his reserves. Perhaps he constantly trained his body and spearmanship, but he was first and foremost a mage, and running out of casting resources was a death sentence. His indignation, however, was minimal after he managed to cast the spell a handful of days later.

Information assimilation progressed by 1%. Void assimilation progressed by 1%.

"Ah, I should have expected that it should be cheap considering it's a first tier divination," he mouthed to himself after managing to cast the spell.

"Only 0. 5 mana. Well, only," he scoffed.

"A normal person would've felt pretty beaten after having half of their mana disappear." In that sense, having 26 people worth of mana was pretty bad. Perhaps that was one of the few things where he was ahead of the curve even with the time loop in play, but it wasn't that much mana, especially considering his future bound to Enantyum. However it might be, the diviner swiftly felt the effects of the spell.

It wasn't the most notable of changes because there wasn't anything remotely related to Void around him beyond his own pitiful Alignment, but it gave him a new sense.

"Hmm, I can filtrate the information I get from the Void, either increasing it or decreasing it," he mused to himself as he pranced around the room, his senses telling him that there was something that didn't 'exist' around him.

"But it seems I cannot amplify the information I receive by much nor can I completely block it. I guess it makes sense considering how simple the spell is, but I would've loved that this allowed me to go into the Void Tower. As it is now… I doubt I can do much without a stronger version of this spell." All Alignments were weird if one wasn't used to it.

Just like Information and Death connected one to the Cognition and Spirituality respectively—planes of existence that the average person wasn't used to—the same could be said with other Alignments, even if not all of them were nowhere as tangible. Nolotl was vaguely aware that Void connected one to the Void but…

"Yeah, it's even weird connecting to something that… doesn't exist. What a weird Alignment," the terian sighed.

"But, oh well, this is still useful. As weird as physicalized inexistence is, this should allow me to detect the akyromancer assassin with more ease." The keyword being: more. A multiplier. He really had no capacity to detect the void-shrouded ambusher, but if he just detected them a second before they plunged the knife inside of him, that was more than enough.

"I really would like to talk with Beta about it, but I really don't want to go out of my way to look for her. That would mess a lot with the script." Call it trauma, but Nolotl Xocoyotzin absolutely didn't want to confront that enhanced ambush ever again in his life. Nor he had especially enjoyed putting a foot into the Void Tower.

"I guess I could talk to her after the gathering of empyreans but… huh," he mouthed.

"Well, considering it's really close to the total celestial alignment, it shouldn't mess with the script, but it wouldn't give me much time to talk with her. I guess it's better than to go looking for her at the Void Tower." Beyond the fact that that mages didn't tend to leave the tower of their Alignment, Beta Methasome was an akyromancer, which meant her sole presence would disrupt low-power divinations, and something told Nolotl that even his Dijkstra's Routing would be affected.

Mostly because it was a cheap spell rather than a complex one.

"But that does give me an idea," the prince rubbed his chin.

"The ambush is rather haphazard and improvised, but there's bound to be some preparation. Preparation that shouldn't be affected by my events on the last days of the loop… I think I will be coming to Roxina's workshop earlier than expected, so this means I can commission her back all the enchantments and spellware that I readied for the previous loop." The diviner's effort toward the ambush was way less than he would've liked.

Those were the limits of being forced to stay in his room with the limitations of his original pathing. And yet, he still had managed to learn a new divination and made progress with the powerful Simulacrum spell, one that he had very high hopes for. Hopes especially related to the ambush. But all of that paled in comparison with the notifications he received before and now again. Void assimilation progressed by 1%.

"Oh, wow," Nolotl blinked twice in surprise.

"I hadn't expected that it would have increased again. Perhaps I wasn't progressing much my Information assimilation because the Boon doesn't want just comprehension of the Alignment but also feats. Hmm…" He ended up shrugging as he was unable to come up with answers.

"This is still pretty well. I like that my efforts are paying some dividends."