Chương 5: Mindful Violence

As it would seem, reading a book about a single ritual was hard. Second Mind was a very powerful enchantment, and that made its complexity proportional. Even if it was just a short book, it took Nolotl three days to read it. Just to read it. And that was without adding the following days that went into demonstrating to himself that he had understood the contents. All the preparations ended up taking four days more, for the grand total of a week.

Sure, there was a lot of terminology and spellware he wasn't familiar with and that required checking other secondary texts to have a real understanding of it instead of reading it blind, but three days for a read was absurd for someone of his school of magic as it was an Information enchantment. Be as it may, that meant that he didn't have much time to prepare for the ritual.

The total celestial alignment was swiftly approaching, only a month remaining now, and he wanted the ritual to be flawless as it dealt directly with the mind and failing it would be catastrophic. There was a little neat caveat to it though. Second Mind was an enchantment, and like every enchantment, it was placed on the body, the Physicality.

Of course, Second Mind worked in the Cognition as the cognitive spell that it was, but if something went wrong, Nolotl was confident of being able to redirect any damage with his manufactured failsafe toward his body instead of his mind. Any sound mage valued their mind more than their body. Gnosiamancers even more. Whilst it didn't fill him with joy to possibly be physically crippled, that was a far better alternative than being mentally crippled.

And he doubted his Resistance to Cognitive Harm Boon would do much to ward him against such a dangerous ritual, especially considering the amplification effect of the total celestial alignment. With his status as gnosiamancer, though, he should be able to function and live without a physical brain, even if it wouldn't be a pleasant experience if it did end up happening. He did give it one more day to solidify the contents of the book in his mind before preparing anything.

Second Mind was one of those rituals that recreated an existing Boon. Since time immemorial mages have been trying to convert very well-understood Boons into passive enchantments as Boons were hard to come by yet exceedingly powerful. Nolotl himself had one of such enchantments, or at least it reused the logic from one, but it was a Life one instead of a Boon of Information.

The most sought-after Boon-enchantment was the early yet unbelievably useful Resistance to Anachronism that every chronomancer had due to its modest anti-aging capabilities. Resistance Boons and starter Boons were mandatory to obtain once someone advanced in any given Alignment, so they were the most well-researched.

Though that was the reason why there weren't any enchantments related to progression Boons like his Cognition Connection as those worked too close to the Alignment to be recreated freely by mortal hands. Though if magic ever reached the point of being able to enchant resistance Boons into people then life as everyone knew it would drastically change. Especially if that happened with starter Boons.

It scared him thinking what a mage wielding all nine progression systems would be capable of, but the difficulty of such feat would be not monumental, but outright cosmological. Keeping a true balance of all elements seemed like the worst of nightmares. But coming back to the Second Mind ritual, Nolotl was confident that even if he was not able to perform it correctly, he would suffer no lasting damage either.

He was really banking on the Alignment-boosting effect from the total celestial alignment to guide him through the ritual when the time was right, but he wanted to have the most solid and grounded grasp possible. It was advanced spellware he was dealing with, certainly past the graduation level, but if Xanax trusted him to perform it, then he was no one to doubt his Wise epithet. The ritual as such wouldn't need many resources, just the typical: salt, grinded quartz, aluminum dust, some glassware, and gold.

Nothing that he didn't have already. The real issue would be assembling everything for the ritual's spellware to work. Which was very stressful. If he didn't have millimetric, nay, molecular precision, then Nolotl would risk permanent damage, physical or otherwise. So he went out to blow some steam.

"Here I come," the woman in front of him somehow shouted in lowercase and charged at him. She wielded a nasty looking macuahuitl with both hands. The obsidian blades on the wooden club had been sharpened to cause as much damage as possible instead of killing. Nolotl tightened his grip on the rod of his spear. The preferred Tezlan weapon was the macuahuitl, yes, but that was only because most of the population were biomancers and it was near-impossible to outright kill them with one strike using normal weaponry.

That was why the macuahuitl was so prevalent, as the best strategy against biomancers was to hemorrhage them. But the tepoztopilli spear was equally serrated without being such an unwieldy weapon and having better reach. The biomancer, Azithromycin, attacked him with a violent descending arc. Her Life Alignment made her already stronger than Nolotl by default let alone the fact that she was a true terian, so blocking wasn't an option.

Nor did he have enough time to dodge the heavy weapon, so he resorted to deflecting it, as much as his arms hated being subjected to even a fraction of the force of that strike. The gnosiamancer panted but kicked the wooden weapon to the side and gained some distance by backpedaling. Azithromycin was strong, so the only real chance of winning without magic was from a distance. With some difficulty, Nolotl raised his spear.

It wasn't the wooden one with an obsidian tip he was used to for sparing, but instead a lead one with a steel tip and obsidian blades. His personal weapon. The reason for such a needlessly heavy shaft was none other than magic. Most magical casting resources were absorbed by lead, so it wasn't uncommon for anti-mage weaponry to be made out of such metal. Only Deep Ebony had better absorbing capabilities, but it was too heavy to wield, let alone incredibly rare to waste on a weapon.

They weren't using magic for this spar, but he didn't trust a wooden polearm against a macuahuitl. He hadn't been on a battlefront many times, but he had memories of common warriors, not even biomancer ones, splitting horses in half with them when the first Originals came to Tezlan. And he preferred not to be bisected. Azithromycin charged again in a frenetic and wild mess of strikes.

It wasn't that she was a newbie in combat, in any case, she could be considered a weapon master at her young age, but she was well aware that she was fighting a gnosiamancer. Whilst Information lacked offensive spells, the mental passive augmentation of the Alignment made gnosiamancers quite a problem in a battle, especially in a duel. He just thought, reacted, and processed faster than others.

Even if she had modified her body with biomancy to reduce her reaction time, Nolotl was completely sure that his reaction time was still shorter than Azithromycin's. With great difficulty, Nolotl sidestepped and deflected the wild attacks, weaving some of his own lunges whenever he had the chances. The lead tepoztopilli's attacks weren't as fast as he would have liked due to the weapon's weight, but they certainly presented much more of a threat as they packed more of a punch.

"Ah!" Azithromycin grunted as Nolotl landed a strike on her right shoulder, making her grip slip. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. The biomancer bit her lip and breathed from her mouth. The spar allowed no magic—except passive ones, that was—so she couldn't heal her body beyond her augmented regeneration. And augmented regeneration was something biomancers had in loads.

Azithromycin gave a look to the wound and after raising the macuahuitl and failing to do so, she planted the weapon's head on the ground.

"You win this round, high priest," she announced. Nolotl sighed, both in relief and frustration.

"I told you to not call me that, Azi. I don't use your full name like you asked me to, so I expect an equal exchange." Abbreviating names was something that the priest hated to do, mostly due to his beliefs but also his knowledge from gnosiamancy. Names had power and meaning, so abbreviating them was short of an insult. But the Starguided warrior in front of him had repeated several times that her name was too long to be pronounced in battle, which had led to such abbreviation.

And he respected Azithromycin's desires, as uncomfortable as it made him.

"My apologies, Lord Nolotl," the biomancer slightly bowed. The gnosiamancer scowled, but it was better than nothing. He was technically her prince even if they were seas away from Tezlan. But most importantly, she did have a duty to protect him, even if they had never engaged in such behavior as no one had tried to assassinate him in years after coming to Origin.

"I request to use my animal form for the next round," Azithromycin petitioned.

"Hmm. I'll allow it." All terians could release their animal form if they were biomancers like her, though they always presented a singular trait of their Animal Spirit in their default form. In Azithromycin's case, her animal spirit was that of the ocelotl. The terian trait she portrayed was that of a tail. Whilst most ocelotl terians preferred to have terian legs for their increased speed, Azithromycin said she liked the tail more because it gave her better equilibrium.

Not that she could chose what trait she was born with. Nolotl also liked the tail more, if only because it looked rather cute. Not that Azithromycin could be described as a cute person as she, whilst not especially tall but still matching Nolotl's height, had a pretty toned body. Her orange ocelotl-like hair was left short so it didn't hinder her in combat, and the woman herself reduced her breasts with biomancy for the same reason.

What Nolotl liked most about Azithromycin was that she only wore the minimal cloth needed. He found rather oppressive the number of clothes people wore here. She donned a training loincloth, an armored neckpiece, and an upper torso wooden chest plate that acted both as protection and tight sash. All in all, the amount of protection she wore was pitiful, but it wasn't like the biomancer needed it. In any case, the one in danger here was Nolotl as he only wore a leather sparring vest.

Both of them depended on Azithromycin's capabilities as a healer if something went wrong.

"Will you use your terian form?" The older biomancer asked. And when Nolotl meant older, he meant two years older than him.

"No," he stoically denied. Whilst his silvery tattoos did have an even lesser version of the Lesser Release Animal Form enchantment, Azithromycin hadn't misspoken. Nolotl couldn't truly release an animal form; instead, he could become his terian self as right now he was indistinguishable from a celestial. But releasing his default state was not something he liked.

"I see," the girl pouted but she didn't make much more of a fuss. Azithromycin proceeded to heal her shoulder with some basic restoration spells then she activated her Release Animal Form Boon. Depending on the biomancer's level, they could shift into the real animal's shape, but in her case, she only got a spotted layer of fur atop her skin. What mattered, though, wasn't the visual changes. Instantly, Nolotl noticed the ferocity in Azithromycin.

Releasing one's animal form tended to do that, though it was way stronger in Nolotl's case because of his troubled nature. Even though she wasn't particularly boosting her strength, the biomancer now wielded the macuahuitl in one hand and lowered her hips so her center of gravity was closer to the ground. Like a prowling predator. Nolotl assumed a defensive posture with his spear, he didn't need to read the local Cognition to know that an attack was incoming. Azithromycin blurred.

Faster than he could see but not react, the gnosiamancer raised his tepoztopilli and blocked the attack that had come from the side. He gritted his teeth as he heard the popping of his articulations. A feeble Information mage like him, no matter how well-toned, wasn't a match for a shapeshifted Life battlemage. Showing his true terian self could even the odds, but he wasn't willing to commit to such extreme. Azithromycin moved behind him, but Nolotl didn't need eyes to see where she was.

At this point, he was working through the Cognition rather than his mortal senses. He sidestepped, dodging a lunge. She was vicious, like an animal, yet in control. He was exhausted but saw every attack coming. The ocelotl woman targeted his legs, and much to his dismay, she utterly violated his defenses, shoving his spear to the side and curtailing his left leg.

"Augh," Nolotl let out a dry scream but didn't let himself be outdone. He drove his spear to the woman's chest. Or rather, tried. She dodged the rod and kicked it away, almost breaking the gnosiamancer's fingers with the gesture.

"Round's mine," Azithromycin said after having put her macuahuitl on his chin. Both of them panted after such exertion. The biomancer's fur, which had been soiled by the spray of blood, vanished a few instants later, leaving behind blood-soaked skin instead.

"It seems I can't win against you when you use your animal form," Nolotl said as he bit his lip. His leg hurt. Badly. And the worst part was that he was using gnosiamancy cantrips to lower his pain reception.

"I don't expect you to fight, Lord Nolotl," Azithromycin knelt and started healing the gushing wound as emerald light poured of her hand. Emerald as her biomancer eyes.

"Though it would have been a closer match if you used your own form."

"I won't, Azi." And that was that.

"I can't say I fought many knosiamancers," she had difficulties with the word, her accent too thick to pronounce it correctly.

"But even those I have fought with spells didn't present as much danger as you."

"Well, Information spells don't tend to cause damage, only divert attention, so if you don't have a weapon, that crafted opportunity only works for running away. Which isn't that useful in a duel." Ironically enough, the easier target for gnosiamancers were other gnosiamancers as they were always partially open to the Cognition, allowing for mental attacks. A fact that wasn't possible against every other mage type, at least at his current level.

The issue with that was that everyone and their mother had Resistance to Cognitive Harm because it was a mandatory level 2 Boon.

"I see…" The lightly-clothed warrior said.

"Anyhow, I am available any time you'd like to spar. It is hard to find a good partner here in Origin. Only knights down in Descent can match me, and they are quite pathetic even without me using magic. They can't even go for more than three rounds without tiring themselves out." Nolotl squinted his eyes at Azithromycin words, pondering if they were still talking about dueling, but he chose not to bring that subject into light.

"There's nothing more than a bit of bloodletting to relax oneself," he added.

"That I have to agree," the biomancer stretched her arms and let out a moan as a joint or two popped into place.

"I assume Your Highness will be doing something for the coming alignment?"

"Indeed, though not theological business, I must disappoint you," Nolotl admitted.

"I'll be doing a complex ritual to substitute one of my future Boon choices."

"If you need help, I can provide first aid," she offered.

"No need," he raised his hand to turn down the offer.

"I am confident with my odds of failure."

"Failure?" Azithromycin tilted her head to the side alongside her tail in a cutesy manner.

"I know my tongue needs some work-""Your language," The Empyrean corrected.

"Thanks," she nodded and continued.

"I know my language needs some work, but don't you mean odds of success?"

"Nah," the mestizo shrugged.

"It's a very complex ritual, I cannot say that I will succeed for sure, but what I can do is minimize the risk to be as close to zero."

"Hmm," Azithromycin hummed in understanding.

"Quite the cautious approach."

"People who are not careful in this academy die," he wasn't joking. After that, the biomancer gave him a quick check as she couldn't send her prince away in a damaged state, and Nolotl went to his bedchamber. His desk was full of papers, as always, but he grabbed them and took out the Second Mind ritual book from the pile. He had made enough copies of the spellware and had enough confidence that he no longer needed to double-check the source material on his preparations.

He had the materials ready, at least the practice ones, though he would have to go down to Descent to commission some glassware. The Empyrean wanted nothing short than absolute perfection. And gnosiamancer glassmakers were the right ones for the job. If there was a job, a gnosiamancer would be outright better than a non-mage alternative. But he didn't discard photomancer glassmakers as they could do quite tricky and impressive things with the glasses' refractive index.

Hmm, considering this is magical glasswork with touches of astromancy perhaps I should consider visiting her workshop… For now, he went to return the ritual enchantment's book to Enala. He didn't know where to look, so his first destination was the Archives, as maybe some librarian would know her location considering her job as a printing press enchantress.

"Hello," he talked to the male librarian at the reception.

"Do you know where the postgraduate Enala Pril is? I need to give this book to her." He could give it back to Xanax when he saw him at the seminars, but it probably would be a mess as the archmagi wasn't physically there. And this way the enchantress could also peer at the book herself. The librarian instantly straightened his back.

"Enala Pril, the printing press maker?"

"Indeed," Nolotl nodded.

"Uhm…" The man hesitated.

"I don't know how to say this… but she died." The Empyrean of Information frowned.

"When?" Death was no surprise in the Empyrean Academy, he had just told Azithromycin so a moment ago, but it was true that he had pushed Enala away a week ago when she was having mental difficulties just because he was offended by her suggestion. It wouldn't go down well with him if she had died by his own neglect.

"Two days ago," the librarian said.

"From a stroke."

"Ah, okay." Nolotl instantly dismissed his concerns, letting his worry fade away. If the woman hadn't gone to a healer in the last week when he had explicitly told her to do so, the fault was solely hers. He wouldn't dwell on the death of a woman he had only known for a couple of minutes; he had better things to do.