Chương 8: Gathering of Empyreans

The following days were more of the same, trying to work on a mock-up of the Second Mind ritual so his first and only execution was flawless, except some responsibilities had finally caught up to Nolotl, no matter how hard he had tried to avoid them. Which in retrospect, she shouldn't have done. But well, everything ended up well.

"Do you want to kill me?" Cillin cut through his thoughts.

"I mean, I wish no death upon anyone, everyone should be eternal," Nolotl responded after lifting his eyes from the book he was reading. He was doing research on the Archives for the position he was going to perform the ritual on. Not only all the good spots would be taken up by archmagi, tower masters, and people with great mobility skills, but also rich enough mages that his perks as an Empyrean wouldn't matter. Which was fair.

If he was a fifty-year-old mage on the verge of a breakthrough, he wouldn't give his spot to a nineteen-year-old, no matter how bright their future was. And besides, the academy would be too loud the day of the total celestial alignment, so even if he had a spot, his intention since the beginning was climbing Mount Empyrean as close to the top as possible to a spot he had already put his sights on.

"Will you stop ignoring me?" Cillin snapped back.

"I would be lying if I didn't expect you would give up if I ignored you for a bit longer," he added with a head tilt and a smirk.

"Ugh, you are insufferable," the female gnosiamancer sighed.

"I understand you are occupied with the incoming alignment, but couldn't you throw me a bone?"

"I have been filling up all the paperwork that has come up," the Empyrean replied. He wouldn't admit to doing a good job at it, but gnosiamancer standards for paperwork were already leagues ahead of any other mage. His mind was so occupied with magic that he performed the paperwork during his breaks. Mostly bathroom breaks by this point.

"Aren't you forgetting you are a public figure with authority? Paperwork is not enough!" Oh, that red tinge of frustration was a new one. Cillin could get worked up, but she was normally very cool-headed.

"If you are talking about today's gathering of empyreans, I've already have it under control," he added calmly to defuse the situation.

"Really?" Cillin recoiled in copious amounts of surprise.

"Now I'm offended," Nolotl crossed his arms and half-pouted.

"But on a more serious note, I am the Empyrean of Information, they wouldn't stop pestering me about not being in the forefront of a meeting, even if I'm the newest addition to the club."

"They can't be that rancorous, can they?"

"Well, the empyreans are quite the assortment of characters, especially Paizon. Excellence seems to be heavily linked to extravagance."

"So you are the epitome of excellence?" Cillin said over his shoulder.

"Oh, come on. I'm not that bad." The female gnosiamancer squinted at him.

"Am I?" Now the Empyrean mustered his own doubts.

"I'm satisfied with knowing that you are still performing your duties and you aren't trying to shove them all on me," she said, completely avoiding the subject.

"Though I will say that being an empyrean sounds way worse than it did a year ago. I don't deal well with… great personalities."

"Is that all then?" Nolotl inquired in a tired tone, aching to go back to his book. The total celestial alignment would occur the day after tomorrow and he still had to polish some last-minute touches, even after having worked on virtual executions of the ritual for weeks on end now.

"So far, yes," Cillin affirmed.

"I'll leave you rest until the alignment have ended, but when the heavens have stopped dancing in perfect harmony, you shall receive the pain you have inflicted upon myself."

"Okay…? I wasn't expecting a prophetic curse, but I can live up with that. See you in two days then." Cillin groaned as her curse proved ineffective on him and she stomped out of the Archives, earning an earful from a passing librarian. Nolotl chuckled at the exchange and returned to his book. The alignment would occur at noon the day after tomorrow, which meant he would need to wake up early and find a good spot on the harsh summit of the Mount Empyrean and set up the ritual by then.

Well, not quite the summit as air was impossibly thin up there, but still quite high up. Quite the endeavor, but not impossible. Perhaps he didn't possess the limitless movement capabilities of a topomancer, nor had enough mana to sustain flight with other school of magic, but his magic would allow him to find a spot with ease. In theory. He was really banking in Dijkstra's Routing to guide him.

After a few hours of number crunching and precalculating which of the spots would be more optimal, Nolotl went back to his room and showered for the upcoming meeting. He donned his ceremonial clothes, mainly because they were the only real ones he had that weren't the Information Tower uniform. People saw him wearing them so much that his cognitive self was a well-defined image with the white Nochochencan attire, though the cape remained more elusive as he didn't always wear it.

Most people's cognitive self would typically be a blur as people tended to change clothes, but he avoided that by giving himself a characteristic wardrobe. The perks of having a defined cognitive self were minimal, mostly health boosts as the body and the soul could pull up the redundant mind in the Cognition to heal themselves, or a minor boost to mental attacks as his cognitive self was a defined entity with no weak spots.

But he still had yet to learn any restoration spells as the healing ward always helped students as other students had to practice their healing skills somehow. And if they were overwhelmed, Azithromycin was a competent healer in a pinch, even if she dealt more with augmentations rather than restorations. And talking about cognitive self, he was about to meet one of the most picturesque set of people in the Empyrean Academy. Not just their minds, but also their bodies and souls.

The Empyrean of Information left his tower and went to the central one where hundreds of stairs flights waited for him. It didn't matter he hadn't had his moment to exercise today yet; those stairs burned enough calories for a whole day. It would have been easy taking an elevator, but he didn't trust those death traps. He would only ride one he had manufactured himself, and even then, he couldn't be 100% on its functionality.

The terian body was paradoxically both frail and resilient, being able to die by a two meter fall yet being able to survive extreme wounds and temperatures. Even with all his struggle against gravity, he was the first one to reach the meeting room. It wasn't only a meeting room, but a whole space reserved to the Empyreans, but because he was himself and easily distracted by side quests, he never really visited the place.

"Am I not the first? How indecorous from my part," a female voice announced only a few minutes after he sat down and he prepared his documents. Nolotl turned his face around and his eyes met a sight that never ceased to be mystical no matter how many times he had seen it.

"I am afraid not, Nina. It would be indecorous if the Empyrean of Information was the one not to be first," he actually didn't care about being first or not, but he knew she would protest if he wasn't. Nina Metio—or rather, Metio Nina as she was a Tamorean like Roxina and Cillin—the Empyrean of Arcane was a sight to behold. A lot of things could be highlighted about the gorgeous woman, but the one that stood out the most was her hair. Nina boasted the longest hair of all the Empyreans, and possibly of all Origin.

It portrayed a pale salmon color that complimented her pale skin and powerful amethyst eyes, overflowing with arcane might. But even that was underplaying the significance of her outstanding mane. The Empyrean of Arcane's hair was so long that, as a matter of fact, she used it as clothes. It wasn't that she was walking around in her birthday suit, but she combed her hair in such a way that it flowed in and out of her open dresses she tended to wear.

She wasn't an opulent lady—hair notwithstanding—so all the jewelry she had focused on her many combs incrusted with amethysts or other gemstones. Calmly, and with a straight posture, Nina sat down at the table. She was a paragon of discipline, even if there was no one to observe her.

"Excited for the approaching alignment?" Nolotl engaged in a bit of small talk until the rest of the Empyreans arrived. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Quite," she expressed with a half-nod.

"'Tis an event of utmost importance for a person of my Alignment."

"Likewise," the gnosiamancer added. Arcane and Information would be at their maximums during the event, and it wouldn't be wrong to say Arcane would be the most affected Alignment as order was one of its many aspects, and they were dealing with order in galactic proportions.

"Do you intend to do something in particular? I will be engaging on a ritual to increase my computational power."

"I cannot say that Arcane allows for a taximancer like me to perform such enhancements," quite ironic as enchantment was the communal school of Arcane, "but I do intend to further increase my personal Alignment and my mana reserves, if possible."

"Makes sense, if there is a chance to increase one's Alignment, it this coming this coming celestial alignment. Especially for a wielder of self-control such as you." It was no secret that Nina indulged in many geass to further her magic thanks to Arcane's starter Boon of Personal Geas.

"You flatter me, Tezlan prince," Nina replied with a warm smile.

"But compared to some of the monks back at my lands, I am nothing more than…" Her words were cut off as someone materialized near the table they were sitting around. Nolotl recognized the mage as…

"Mio!" Nina rushed out of her chair, leaving all decorum behind, as she pounced on the fellow Empyrean.

"Oh, how much I missed you! We haven't seen in ages!"

"We saw each other like three days ago!" The girl protested, fighting the taximancer's embrace.

"An eternity, my dear! An eternity!" The salmon-haired woman rubbed her cheeks against her prisoner's one.

"Stop. I can't breathe, Nina. I can't bre…" Before finishing the sentence, Mio teleported away. She materialized already seated next to Nolotl's chair.

"Heya, Nolotl!"

"Greetings," he waved at her. Mio Sina appeared like quite the young lady even if her topomancy had nothing to do with it. She was normally mistaken for a child, even though she was two years older than Nolotl, already 21. Though he had the feeling she had lied about her age when he had asked. Besides her lack of physical maturity and colorful pink-purple hair, there was nothing to highlight about the Empyrean of Space's appearance beside her magenta eyes influenced by her Alignment.

Nina liked to joke about how that made them a match made in heaven with her salmon hair and Mio's bright pink eyes, but truth be told, Nina tried to match herself with any woman. Especially if she was cute. Nolotl could understand the desire for cuteness, but erotism was a far more logical standard of beauty on his mind, even if he didn't particularly seek a bond of any kind for the time being.

"For someone who can teleport anywhere on the academy, you took your time," he chastised Mio, though his tone was playful.

"Excuse me?" The topomancer puffed her chest in fake annoyance.

"I have come early! Look, there's no one here yet!"

"I count 33% attendance rate," Nolotl countered.

"That's far from no one."

"Nyeh, nyeh, nyeh!" Mio protested with her tongue out and teleported next to her fellow female Empyrean.

"Nina! Nolotl is being bad with me!"" Empyrean Nolotl, you should not bully your peers." The taximancer instantly took Mio's side and started patting her. It didn't matter the Empyrean of Space wasn't actually a child and probably older than her, Nina was still weak to her. If there were only those two, maybe Nolotl would have played along, but he sighed and rubbed his temples when he remembered he still had to deal with 6 empyreans more. Clonazepam, the Empyrean of Life, was the next one to arrive.

And unlike her lousy predecessors, she kept her salutations short and tame. The dryad was one of the easiest empyreans to deal with as she was the most sensible one, which spoke great length of the empyreans when they were behaving worse than a newborn plant. The next arrival wasn't as subtle.

"Sup y'all, it's ya' boi!" Paizon, the Empyrean of Chaos, blitzed into the room. Nolotl would have bet on the man arriving late based on his personality, but at Paizon lived up to his title of Empyrean of Chaos by being completely and utterly unpredictable and he arrived before schedule. Whilst there wasn't any code of dressing for this meeting, Paizon was certainly the Empyrean wearing the most casual clothes as he donned a barely-buttoned green shirt and short pants with sandals.

Every part of his attire was of a different color, and it certainly didn't match with his white hair and his Chaos-coated orange eyes. Nina instantly threw all decorum out of the window and groaned at the ataxiamancer's presence. Some people thought that the Empyrean of Arcane was a misandrist due to her partner preferences, but truth was, she just hated Paizon. Only him. For a woman that valued discipline and control above anything else, the free-spirited and unpredictable Paizon was her antithesis.

"Love you too, Nina!" Paizon snapped his fingers at her, prompting another groan from the taximancer.

"I value punctuality, but I would be lying if I said I would have preferred for you to arrive last, if not at all," Nina answered in a venomous diplomatic tone. Nolotl himself didn't hate Paizon, but gnosiamancy was all about establishing patterns and outcomes. Things that didn't matter before the non-deterministic nature of ataxiamancy.

The Empyrean of Chaos became a puff of smoke and appeared next to Mio in a similar act of teleportation to the topomancer, but something told Nolotl the principles behind the spell were wholly different. One was likely a conjuration whilst the other a wild magic.

"Did you just use ataxiamancy in public? Do you have the slightest idea of what could have happened if your wild magic summoned a deflagration instead of a teleportation trick?" Nina rubbed her eyeballs in exhaustion already.

"But it didn't," Paizon smiled.

"What can I say? I'm Born Lucky." Ignoring the Boon with the same name, there was a kernel of truth in his wordplay. Paizon was immeasurable lucky by any standards, Boons or not. Which led him to perform any spells that he desired, even if the Chaos Alignment made it so its casters had no control over their desired spell due to the starter Boon Surrender to Chance. Nina groaned again at his words, but Mio didn't portray such abhorrence to the Empyrean of Chaos.

"So what's up, Pai-pai?" The topomancer asked.

"Any plans for the alignment?" Paizon let out a hearty chuckle.

"I'm afraid not, Mio. Thankfully the celestial bodies do not weaken magic and only strengthen it; otherwise, I would be utterly useless when the day comes."

"The total celestial alignment is the pure expression of synchronicity and order," Nolotl entered the conversation.

"So an agent of Chaos like you would find themselves weakened, not by the effect of the celestial bodies themselves, but by the crippling ensued of Arcane swallowing randomness."

"Not gonna lie, fam. I didn't notice you were there," the ataxiamancer pointed at the gnosiamancer.

"You got that royal aura of yours, but you are totally a background character, do you catch my shots?" Nolotl backtracked on his thought. He totally hated the man.

"No, I don't. And you haven't acknowledged Clonazepam here either, if you want to talk about people not piquing your interest," the Empyrean of Information raised his hand.

"And before you speak again, we have more people coming." The door opened a handful of seconds after he finished speaking. He had sensed the newcomers over the Cognition.

"Greetings," Alvedon, Empyrean of Death, calmly announced his entrance.

"Hi, hi!" The same couldn't be said about Roxina. Alvedon Novum was quite the opposite of what one would expect of an ominous title such as the 'Empyrean of Death'. Instead of a decrepit lord of the dead—which couldn't have been an Empyrean as they were all students—Alvedon was a young and lifeful boy. Well, lifeful was a wrong epithet considering he was dead.

Mentally speaking, Alvedon was around their age, but after having died in an accident when he was young and then being resurrected by his parents, that had left the necromancer in a perpetual childish state. Even if by any standard he wasn't alive, Alvedon could continue his life—or rather, undeath—as normal.

The only real signs of his dead state were his white hair that had a ghostly aura, his pale skin—though there were paler empyreans already, only that his was greyish—and his grey eyes boasting the Death element. They said the eyes were the window to the soul, and technically speaking, Alvedon had the biggest soul of all the empyreans thanks to his studies as a necromancer. That made his pupils as big as his eyes, and instead of black, they had a grey death color that merged with his iris.

The only thing Nolotl could say about Roxina next to the boy was that at least she wasn't going around half-naked and she was wearing a white one-piece dress instead of her apron. Alvedon cordially greeted Clonazepam, as even if they were the Empyreans of Death and Life respectively, they had quite the good relationship. Unlike Nina and Paizon.

Part of Nolotl's solitude and disconnect from the rest of empyreans—beyond his recent appointment of the position—was that Information was the only Alignment that lacked a counterpart. Something he had heard being said a lot, especially from Xanax's mouth, was that Information was its own counterpart as misinformation was still information. Roxina strolled around the table until she reached Nolotl and sat down next to him.

The photomancer put a finger on the table, implying the number 1, and Nolotl guessed she was guessing she would have his order tomorrow. The gnosiamancer warmly smiled at her, he had already forgotten Paizon's shenanigans after laying his eyes on Roxina. Now that most Empyreans were on the room, they broke into small groups and made some small talk until the last two of them arrived. It didn't take that long for the next one to arrive, but her entrance wasn't as pompous as the others.

Beta Methasome was the Empyrean of Void, and it showed on her lack of presence. The first ones to notice her were Nolotl and Alvedon, which could sense her movement on the Cognition and the Spirituality respectively up to a degree, but the rest hadn't acknowledged her existence until she had already sat down. It wasn't that they were ignoring her, but just that akyromancy literally ate one's presence. By definition, Beta was not a woman with highlights. She wasn't ugly, but she wasn't beautiful either.

Nolotl's thesis was that her magic hadn't eaten her beauty, but rather that the Void had consumed her Cognition of beauty, making her seem unremarkable to everyone. Only three of her traits could be named: her pale skin that had lost all her vitality, her pure black eyes that was pure sclera—or technically iris as she could still see—and her hair. Much alike her eyes, Beta's hair absorbed light, which removed any depth it had and made it quite hard to see individual strands of hair.

The effect was quite uncanny as even if her face was three-dimensional, her hair was two-dimensional as it didn't reflect back any light, just a void in space.

"Hello," Beta tiredly stated after sitting down, which allowed the rest of the empyreans to acknowledge her.

"Holy shit!" Paizon almost jumped out of his chair in surprise.

"You gotta stop doing that, girl. One of these days you are going to kill me from the scare." The others reacted with less energy, and Alvedon and Nolotl gave the poor akyromancer an apologetic look.

"Not that I do it on purpose," she added with a weak, near-dead voice. Not all Alignments were built equally; some had more severe drawbacks than others. If it wasn't because the Void's effect mainly focused on the Physicality, the Empyrean of Death and Information wouldn't be able to sense her either. Her near permanent Voidform was quite the curse, but even the most haunting of curses had their uses or even went as far as becoming blessings.

With the arrival of the penultimate Empyrean, the small talk died down and Paizon was the first to voice out what everyone is thinking.

"Quite funny for the Empyrean of Time to arrive last, huh?" The white-haired man joked.

"Pulsars!" Nolotl jumped out of his seat and cursed out of nowhere.

"What what's wrong?" Paizon inquired in surprise as he felt as if his heart was going to bust out of his chest.

"Since when you've been here?" Nolotl asked, not Paizon, but the newcomer. Having materialized out of nowhere, not even triggering a ripple on the Cognition, Enantyum Dei, Empyrean of Time, was sitting on the last chair in a relaxed position.