Chương 72: Chapter 69: When One Gazes Into the Abyss

"Oh, that was a quick..." Beta's words died in her own mouth as she looked for the completion of Nolotl's spell yet noticed something else.

"What have you done?"

"I... am asking that myself," Nolotl professed his doubts as his vision was becoming a mess. Unlike the akyromancer, he wasn't overwhelmed by the amount of information, at least not yet. His real eyes saw the Physicality, the eyes of his mind saw the Cognition, and the Archives still through the Simulacrum, but then his Disembodied Sight saw something else beyond the Physicality. Five points of view. It was beyond the amount of information that people could typically process, but he wasn't the average person.

He was a level 6 Gnosiamancer, and whilst that wasn't exactly a level to be proud of, his diverse skills along with the perks of the level granted him more than enough computational capacity to process the visual data that was pouring into his eyes.

"Are you peering into the...?" Beta didn't finish the sentence.

"I have a solid guess into what I'm peering, but I would like a confirmation," Nolotl calmly said.

"So could you finish some of your sentences?"

"You're peering into Oblivion," the akyromancer stated impassively.

"Yeah, I guessed as much," the gnosiamancer mused with a mixture of dread and fascination. It was hard to describe what he was peering into when Oblivion itself represented nihility. Devoid nothingness. And yet, there was something, an antithetical kind of latent energy. More than the anathema of existence and the liminality of all that existed, it felt like a corridor littered with all the trash that no one wanted.

Not a garbage disposal per se, but a more correct description would be a pile of lost items that no one bothered to claim or steal as it would be more cumbersome to do so. It had to be stated that the concept of sight was also failing Nolotl and he was seeing a more raw type of information closer to thoughts than anything else as he experienced an out-of-body type of synesthesia.

Calling it sight didn't make sense anymore, this was just a mental approximation his brain was throwing together; it was far from an accurate recreation. The sidereal pile of cosmic trash only existed in his mind.

"You should stop peering into Oblivion," Beta suggested, though she didn't look to be in a particular hurry.

"You're going to go insane if you continue."

"You underestimate my willpower and mental fortitude," the Empyrean of Information spoke in a bemused manner, more focused on processing what he was seeing instead of listening to his mentor. Processing what he was 'seeing' was hard. Oblivion wasn't as stale as he had thought, but at the same time, he didn't know much about it. It certainly didn't help that he couldn't see anything and the Disembodied Sight was barely giving him an interpretable sense, and calling them interpretable was being generous.

Nolotl tried to modify the rate of input from Vacuous Filtration but the slightest change made him blind to Oblivion, so he had to reset it. What's the issue here? Does the improved Vacuous Filtration not have enough sensitivity or perhaps peering into Oblivion requires a certain range like the spectrum of visible light? Questions, questions.

"Do you know why this has happened?" It made no sense keeping the doubts to himself when he had an eminence on the Void next to him.

"No," Beta taciturnly responded.

"I attribute this to your high Information Alignment. You're simply able to process far more information than anyone usually could with either of these spells. But..." Nolotl sensed a new ocular organ pop up on the Cognition. When had Beta consumed a dried grape was beyond him, but it was an undeniable fact she had cast Disembodied Sight, and from the looks of it, also Vacuous Filtration.

"Yes, I cannot peer into Oblivion in this manner," the akyromancer ascertained.

"So you can with other ways?" the gnosiamancer inquired and she nodded.

"I see, I see," he nodded back and crossed his arms.

"So why didn't you want to tell me that your previous iteration showed me Oblivion?"

"So you figured it out already," her tone was bemused.

"Duh," he rolled his eyes.

"I'm not stupid, Beta. Perhaps that previous iteration showed it to me visually, but the intelligence I'm getting from these spells is similar to that back then. So why not just tell me?"

"Because that wasn't just a display of Oblivion, but a gateway."

"Oh," Nolotl mouthed.

"So you mean that..."

"Yes, we could have physically stepped into Oblivion, but I don't believe it's necessary to state that you would have instantly died upon doing so. Outer space is rather comfortable when compared to Oblivion."

"Right," the diviner smacked his lips.

"Actually, outer space is rather safe. The only real issue is the pressure, and recreating one single atmosphere of pressure is rather simple. The ocean and its depths are way more hostile and lethal." Beta remained looking at him impassively, but with the kind of annoyed impassiveness. She didn't show any emotion at all, though it still looked like she hated being mansplained in her own Alignment.

"Now, I couldn't have survived Oblivion well either, but my literal Resistance to Oblivion would have allowed me to last for a sufficiently long time to decide not to be there." And talking about decisions, Beta apparently decided to ignore him.

"Whatever you're doing isn't as bad as being in the presence of a gateway, but you won't be able to hold by long so I recommend you again to stop."

"As I've had said, I can hold—" His voice died on his lips as he felt Oblivion gazing back at him. Void Alignment increased by 0. 0001%. You have resisted Madness. Your tolerance to Madness has permanently increased. The integrity of Serpent's Muzzle is taking a toll. Your Sanity is taking a toll. The moment Nolotl saw those notifications, he instantly recalled the Disembodied Sight spell and turned up the Vacuous Filtration power to the maximum. Whatever that was... it wasn't natural.

Not mortal, not natural, not real, something that transcended existence altogether. And yet... the memory promptly disappeared from Nolotl's mind, making Voidform look like a toddler hiding beneath the sheets against a mage with actual true invisibility. As his thoughts became hazy, his mind latched onto the closest next thing, which were the notifications, automatically ignoring everything else.

Everything had gone wrong, but his Information Alignment was so high that Real-Time Status could inform him of lots of stuff with sufficient warning. The gnosiamancer had a hard time deciding which of the pop-ups was the worst one. Increasing any Alignment that wasn't Information was bad, but at least that casual inspection of Oblivion was orders of magnitude away from whatever that starless failed ritual that Beta tried to perform all those months ago now.

Now, an increase of tolerance was technically good, but that was only the byproduct that followed a bad event. He was lucky to come out unscathed. The toll notifications were the worst in that sense. The fact that he hadn't even felt that his sanity was dangling on such a precarious level was problematic, and that his silencing divination almost failed wasn't optimal either. Fortunately Serpent's Muzzle was just that, a silencing spell, but it pointed at an ominous future.

If his sanity took a toll and that damaged the integrity of the spell, who was to say it wouldn't damage the cradle-prison of the Ehecatl? For whatever reason, the cognitive parasite didn't decide to goad on Nolotl's near catastrophic failure. The terian could only be helpful for that as he placed a hand on his sternum and took a deep breath.

"Okay, you were right. I couldn't hold for long," Nolotl admitted his faulty thinking.

"Of course I was right. I'm the Empyrean of Void." What came out of Beta's mouth wasn't a boast or smugness, but a plain statement. Obviously that the Empyrean of Void should be able to predict the tolerances of people to Oblivion.

"That was... certainly an experience," the Empyrean of Information continued.

"I'm glad knowing that I can turn off that Oblivion-sight if I tweak Vacuous Filtration a bit. It would have been awful if the spell somehow corrupted Disembodied Sight and I couldn't use them in tandem."

"You plan to use both?" There wasn't curiosity in Beta's voice. Nolotl nodded." Vacuous Filtration allows me to 'detect' people in Voidform and this new divination will give me omnidirectional sight. I have something similar already, but it's more about a sense of proximity and tangibility rather than sight so I can't detect things that far away. Disembodied Sight can correct that."

"Those are lots of other protections against akyromancers. You are aware that I won't fight you, right?"

"I am," Nolotl knew that Beta wasn't one for subtleties, but to him that certainly felt like a 'those defenses won't do anything against me' type of threat. He was convinced, however, that was just his paranoia speaking.

"It's just that..." he thought for a moment his next words before telling the truth.

"Whenever I'm outside the Void Tower, I have certain group of people trying to kill me. The most problematic is an akyromancer, so most of my defenses are meant to play around him."

"I see." Yet again, zero interest coursed through Beta's tone. Nolotl grimaced at that, but he failed to elaborate on his mentor's detached behavior. This was still an early Beta, so if anything, she was rather open when she had barely interacted with him. The akyromancer said that the akyrodata storage could get several upgrades, but he was already seeing many changes in her.

"Oh, and before I forget, cast Disembodied Sight and take it outside through that wall," she pointed at the wall of the workshop to her left.

"You should be able to see something interesting." The diviner frowned at that claim, but it was a task simple enough that he had no issue in performing it. He grabbed a new dried grape from the raceme and put it into his mouth. It tasted like nothing at all, though it wasn't like he had much time to savor it as fruit became a cloud of smoke and manifested an ethereal and incorporeal organ.

This time around he had already set up Vacuous Filtration correctly so there wasn't any sight of Oblivion, only an extension of the Physicality. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! His mind had no issues on processing the regained point of view, no matter how much information that much visual cluttering was.

Perhaps the Ehecatl's presence was repulsive, but the gained computation from Second Mind still lingered and it was a whole mind that wasn't restricted by the physical limitations of a brain that had to use much of its capacity to keep a body alive. There was a lot of untapped power there, even if he couldn't access the most important part that it was the additional concentration slot. But not that I will be able to give it much use until I have enough computation that it becomes my mind resource.

Nolotl had no idea when that would become the case, but he knew that computation was the 'least efficient' of the casting resources. Technically speaking it was the most efficient as computation could simply will things into existence with thoughts alone—if one had proficiency with the spell—but one needed a copious amount of computation to do the simplest of tasks. Perhaps, and just perhaps, Nolotl had enough for cantrips, but it didn't make sense trying that now.

Instead, the diviner focused on the actual task at hand and he started moving his Disembodied Sight around. Unlike other constructs like the Simulacrum, this spell had a tether that limited its effective range. Nolotl estimated that it was about 9 meters—because of course it had to be 9—of length so he had more than enough space to move the construct around and do what Beta told him to do. Having no corporeal component whatsoever, Disembodied Sight was able to phase through the workshop's walls.

The lining was way thicker than Nolotl expected so a darkness covered the whole construct's sight for a couple of seconds, but he didn't feel blind by virtue of having three extra sets of eyes. The moment his incorporeal eye reached the other side of the wall, he understood what the akyromancer wanted him to see.

"Ah," he mouthed with a smile forming on his lips.

"This is certainly useful." The previously sidereal tower had now become a plain old tower. The Void Tower lost all of its mysticism as Nolotl was able to see it for what it truly was instead of the illusion that the Tower Master had woven into it.

"Pulsars, it's an ugly tower," Beta raised a brow at his comment.

"Like, there's nothing at all. Why isn't it decorated?" The Void Tower, the actual and physical Void Tower, was a barebones place with barely anything around it. Neither the floor nor the walls were paneled and it mostly remained stone. Neither any kind of corridor decorations nor lighting gave life to the place. It was the skeleton of tower and no one had bothered to fix it or develop it.

The reason why he might even see through Disembodied Sight with this darkness was because the spell most likely didn't need light to work as it was hosted on the Cognition.

"Why should it be?" the claire-obscure woman asked with the utmost atomic kernel of amusement.

"Because akyromancers can see it?" the chocolate-colored man stated as a matter of fact.

"Literally 99% of the people at the tower?"

"Well, you might be quite correct with the 99% as I believe there might be 100 people currently residing in it, counting you." Yet again, Nolotl couldn't discern if that was a jest or a factual statement.

"But you ignore one important part of akyromancy. Just like they demand gnosiamancer students to control their emotions on the Information Tower, they demand that we cast away material needs and comforts." Nolotl looked around the stocked workshop.

"I had fewer resources in my palace and temple."

"I'm the Empyrean and this is research material, it doesn't count," the diviner frowned at that but he didn't bother to counter her words.

"So you all just live in a stale environment?" Beta nodded.

"Between that and the enchantments on the tower, we get a boost to leveling our Alignment, and considering how dangerous it's to do otherwise, the Void Tower might be the only place in all of Lon that might produce akyromancers in a... mostly safe manner." Nolotl frowned again, or rather, intensified the frown that was already present.

"Is pruning yourselves that dangerous?"

"One of my previous iterations told you that our local obscuramancer has died, didn't she?"

"Yeah, but because they were eaten by an eldritch entity," Perfect Recollection came to the rescue on that nameless person's death.

"Occupational hazards from leveling up," she stated with a shrug.

"Right..." the gnosiamancer sighed. He knew that death was ubiquitous and inescapable at the Empyrean Academy, but it was surprising how unsensitized everyone was. And he couldn't deny that was the case with him too as he hadn't cared in the slightest about Enala in the zeroth loop.

"Whatever the case is, you said you had planned to teach me another optical-based spell, so can we get down to business?"

"Your rapid success with this one has surprised me, but yes, we can proceed with the next one," the akyromancer nodded.

"Alas, I do have to go search for it as it won't be hosted on the Archives."

"What are you planning for me to learn?" he accused. The Archives of the Empyrean Academy were an extensive records of everything that had ever been registered. Thanks to the 'discovery' of the new world and the integration of Tezlan and Cahtuli people in the academy, all of the magics and lore of the new world were slowly being documented. But it had been less than half a century since then, so there were still many knowledge gaps. But that didn't mean that all that knowledge was freely accessible for everyone.

The Archives could be accessed by students, graduates, and staff of the academy without issues, but unassociated people could only access a handful of limited and selected floors that mostly contained history books—and of other basic disciplines—and cantrip-level spellbooks. There was also a 'forbidden' section, but that was more about spells that people needed to get certified to use for certain and controllable professions.

Actual forbidden spells would be hosted by their respective towers in order to secure the trickling of information. Nolotl had no interest in forbidden information spells, mostly because he wouldn't have the skill to cast them with his current skill. All of this was to justify why he hesitated a bit when Beta said that the spell wasn't hosted at the Archives but instead she needed to look for them in the Void Tower.

"Nothing too difficult," Beta calmly responded, clearly misunderstanding the intent of his question.

"Right, right," he smacked his lips.

"I know that you will aim for a spell that maximizes my assimilation of Void, but could you try to teach me a spell that I could use? I'd like to not bloat my grimoire, and if possible, I would like an offensive spell as I don't have any in my repertoire." Beta stood up and walked to the workshop's door.

"That's exactly why it isn't on the Archives," she responded with a pale imitation of a smile. It was far from a true one, but what mattered to Nolotl was the intent, that she even bothered to perform one.

"Oh, and start making lunch while I search for the spell." Cooking was a bit hard when the supplier decided not to give you any food, but there wasn't any food around. This was still the first day of instruction on this loop even if it felt like lots of stuff had happened thanks to Beta's partial assimilation of memories. Fortunately, the akyromancer had some unperishable food lying around, so he was able to bake some pastries.

Perhaps not the best of meals, especially because he had to treat a pan as an oven—which was possible, just tricky—, but he doubted that Beta could care as she didn't savor the food most of the time. The only one who would be suffering was him, but he could afford filling his empty stomach with pastries until supper. Beta didn't take long to come back, just a couple of hours. Time that Nolotl used for more prime number exercises, baking cookies, and practicing with his new optical spell.

Though as he did all of that, he couldn't help but feel like he was forgetting something, or rather, that he had forgotten something. Which should be impossible thanks to Perfect Recollection. Level progressed by 1%. Any progress was good progress, so he was estimating that he would get to level 7 before his deadline was over. Perhaps even before he finished assimilating Void.

"Yeah, I remembered that there wasn't any food around when I was searching for books," Beta commented after seeing all the pastries at display.

"You mentioned that time travel was weird, but dealing with vague memories is even more."

"I can get behind that, yes," he nodded in agreement and pointed at the assortment.

"Treat yourself."

"Will do," and she promptly grabbed a cookie the size of her mouth, shoved it inside, and it went down without barely getting bitten. Nolotl actively chose to not comment on that.

"So, how did it take you so long to find a spellbook of a spell you already knew?" Nolotl sat down to eat with her, though he was less enthusiastic about it as there hadn't been many ingredients to make the pastries with so they were... lacking.

"Well, there aren't any librarians to ask for directions here, nor do I possess divinations to give me." Even though she was gobbling trays of pastries, Beta had the modesty to only speak with an empty mouth.

"You could bring me with you to find stuff," he offered.

"No," she instantly turned him down.

"And what about learning divinations?"

"Waste of time," the akyromancer produced a jug of juice out of the Inner Abyss and drunk straight out of it.

"Those divinations are bound to be gnosiamancies and, unlike you, I won't be able to translate any mastery of my spells into future iterations. At least with how the akyrodata storage progress currently sits."

"I guess that makes sense," Nolotl didn't try asking why accompanying her wasn't an option. That 'no' had been pretty resolute.

"Well, if you still need to find something, I always have my spells active to do so." Beta inquisitively looked on top of him to see a Disembodied Sight. It only lasted 90 minutes, but he had recast it to practice with it. What was more surprising was that they akyromancer could sense it when it theoretically only acted on the Cognition, a plane she wasn't connected with. Well, not one that she could actively peer inside.

"How many spells do you even have active at the moment?"

"Uh..." At first, Nolotl tried to count them, but not even a millisecond into the effort he delegated the work. Status, compile on a list my current active spells, he ordered to his Real-Time Status as such a task did fall within the limits of the rather powerful divination.

List of Active Spells: Real-Time Status Second Mind Dijkstra's Routing Vacuous Filtration (Third Tier) Simulacrum Confluence of the Four Dimensions Argent Bindings of the Twiceborn Serpent's Muzzle Disembodied Sight What interested Nolotl more than the considerably long list was the order of the listed spells. Or rather, the complete lack of it. Did it even follow any criterion to display them? Beyond a sense of self-importance, it seems.

He didn't fail to notice how the first spell was the very divination that had created the list. Alas, his doubts were only a passing thought and he projected the list with Thought Projection to Beta, which was neatly displayed to her on a cyan page in front of her.

"Those are... a lot of spells to have active," she mused in confusion.

"To be fair, three of these are enchantments," he elaborated.

"More than active spells, they are passive ones. Especially the Confluence."

"But they still take resources, don't they?"

"Some infinitesimal modicum of mana, yes, but the enchantments don't take any computational input or load."

"So you're constantly sustaining the rest?" At Nolotl's nod, Beta became nauseous. In a surprising display of emotion, the akyromancer led a hand to her mouth as if to block any incoming bile.

"How?"

"I... don't understand?" the gnosiamancer tilted his head in confusion.

"How what?"

"How are you sustaining so many spells?" There was a tinge of panic in Beta's voice.

"Six active spells aren't that many," he stated calmly.

"I mean, most are on the third... okay, third tier is rather high, but they aren't exhausting in the slightest. And only one of them takes concentration." It must be noted that concentration could mean two things. Either the requirement or mental effort. The best analogy would be multitasking. A person could perform several tasks like talking, listening to music, and writing at the same time, yet for that latter task their hands would be occupied and it would be impossible to use them for another task.

You could add cycling to the list of tasks, but not juggling. That was the main difference between concentration as a mental effort and the casting requirement.

"I..." Beta smacked her lips and thought her words.

"Truth be told, I had a low opinion of you after processing the past memories, but this has shown me that your strengths lie elsewhere. Can every gnosiamancer do this?"

"Hmm, if they want to live up to the Title, then yes," Nolotl nodded.

"Otherwise, I still have yet to reach my limit. That's why I don't say no to more sustained spells. I could add Mage Armor to the list without issues."

"Right..." the pale woman looked very exhausted.

"Just read the book I brought. I need a bit of time to process this." Nolotl honestly didn't understand what was the issue with all of the sustained spells, but he agreed with Beta's proposal as he was interested about which spell she had brought to him. The book was rather thin in the sense that it contained a single spell yet it was hefty enough to take a whole book. He was surprised upon reading the abstract.

Name: Dark Gaze Schools: Akyromancy, Divination or Neuromancy Requirement: Cheironomy Effect: Upon filling one's eyes with the lacking energies of the Void, release a wave of nihility from the eyes, carrying the potency of both Oblivion and the Cognition to overwhelm the mind. People that meet the dark gaze will have to succeed a Madness check, and they will be afflicted with the status effect in case of failure. In case of critical failure, they will also be affected by Suppression.

Regardless of the outcome, the target also takes psychic damage. It was his first offensive spell ever and that should have excited him, but he felt that something was wrong in the back of his head.

"Huh," he mouthed reflexively.

"What?" Beta raised her head, she had already sat on her armchair and grabbed a book for herself.

"Nothing," Nolotl softly mussitated.

"I just had the feeling that I should focus on another dark gaze..."