Aurelius had not seen the Sage’s office in around 2 weeks, having instead been focusing on training with Mr. Tona, and on his personal studies in magic.

  He had picked up around 3 basic spells that were useful for offensive purposes. One was the ‘Water Repulsion’ spell, which he had used to dry off.

  Learning the spell was recommended highly by the grimoire that had been lent to him given its ability to create a small air pocket underwater to gain a small advantage in fights.

  The other two consisted of a more combat-oriented form of ‘Locomotion’, where one could use mana to create a small region of space suitable for firing projectiles with an application of wind magic, and for a more specialised form of bodily manoeuvres in combat.

  Learning these spells were made to be a lot easier thanks to the practical guidance of Mr. Tona during his lunch breaks, and from the spirit contract with Pultris.

  After the fiasco 2 weeks ago, Sage Yeltz had heavily restricted Pultris’s contract with Aurelius, nearly halving the angel’s magical output through Aurelius, and enforced her interpretation of the contract on him to force the angel to become more subservient as a penalty.

  However, what was more impactful was the fact that Aurelius now felt himself cautious of the angel.

  He had deluded himself when the contract had been made, due to his lack of experience, that he was in control over the contract with Pultris, soothing his moral qualms with the angel by reasoning that the djinn could not harm him.

  However, Pultris had, in a fit of irrational hysteria, tried to take over Aurelius completely. An unacceptable kind of risk and source of terror for Aurelius indeed.

  And Aurelius had simply decided that entertaining such a dangerous being was way out of his pay league…

  Aurelius stepped out of the lift, walking along the corridor to the office.

  He smelt the somewhat pleasant smell of… burning iron along the corridor as he made his way, but thought nothing of it, assuming it to be nothing to be concerned about.

  At least, that was until he reached the source of the smell.

  The sage’s office… And outside the door, were… her bookshelves.

  As Aurelius opened the door, he braced himself for a shock. The smell and the unique placement of the bookshelf had already indicated to him that Sage Yeltz had… likely done a… remodelling.

  But what he saw was something that even the True Dragons would have had a hard time grappling with.

  ???

  “M-Ms. Yeltz...How much did this cost?” Aurelius asked in sheer financial horror.

  “In total? Maybe around 8000 gold coins. I didn't really check the receipts” Sage Yeltz replied candidly.

  “EIGHT THOUSAND?!” Aurelius cried out, quite literally hearing his accountant forefathers clattering over in their graves at the statement.

  If there was a place where ‘financial irresponsibility’ could be captured in a snapshot, it would have been what Sage Yeltz had done to her office.

  It seemed that the bookshelves were not the only victim of Sage Yeltz’s ruthless research measures, with all furniture in the room apparently having been replaced by an expensive, hyperspecialised mana forge, and several magical equipment that would take generations to pay off for any normal person.

  What was left of the furniture could be observed from the light discoloration on the carpet, apparently a product of age, and only barely, against the backdrop of the sheer mess that the room had become.

  The window was ajar with a… magic duct hanging from the side, apparently letting air ventilate out the fumes from all the numerous dangerous chemicals and magical components in the room.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “You see, Aurelius, the biggest hurdle in the research of magic is truly in its cost. Money may truly be the solution to all of society’s problems.” Seraphine greeted wisely, wiping the sweat off her forehead and adjusting her goggles.

  “W-We live in the balanced era!” Aurelius cried out in anguish, his cornea reflecting the equipment as its weight in literal gold.

  “You could have rented the equipment, or used the Commission’s equipment! W-What is this madness!” Aurelius said in sheer financial disbelief.

  “First of all, the Commission’s equipment for research mostly lies in the Western continent and they don’t really work with charms. We usually prefer to outsource their production and order from the Magical Families.” Sage Yeltz explained.

  “The Tower has only a small lab, which is nowhere near enough for our objectives. And the research that we’re doing is not only quite risky, but also difficult, so we’d have had to do the forging ourselves anyway.”

  “And the equipment here are rented. At least, they were until I kind of exploded one of them and they threatened to take all of them back” Sage Yeltz said, rolling her eyes with fierce intensity.

  “I got mad at those little cucks and just bought the whole set-up. I’ve got enough money, plus this life means nothing since everything resets with you eventually, right?” She scoffed.

  Aurelius was at a loss for words. Why was it that Sage Yeltz was the one going through time loop nihilism and not… like him, who was actually in a time loop?!

  “...We don’t know the mechanics of the timeloop, Ms. Yeltz. And you could at least have considered renting out a space somewhere else in the city. You didn’t ” Seraphine sighed, putting a palm against her forehead in exasperation.

  “What will you do when it turns out the world just keeps moving on even after Aurelius resets? You’d be totally broke if that’s the case. Or what if he only resets after death, instead of there being an actual time limit?!” Seraphine grumbled, clearly annoyed with Sage Yeltz’s irresponsibility as well.

  “Eh, every instinct in my body says that the Lost God is not powerful enough to bring us out of this particular timestream, even considering the idea of parallel universes.” Sage Yeltz scoffed.

  Then, with a rather concerningly frightening face, she stared at Aurelius before stating something incredibly bone-chilling. “There is definitely a limit, and I’ll kill Aurelius myself if the debt gets a little too large for my liking.”

  Aurelius stared at the sage, his face draining of blood. He stepped back involuntarily, feeling the flight response in his body trigger like a weather alert during a torrential downpour.

  “I’m bloody kidding. 8000 shitty gold coins are nowhere near enough to put me in debt.” Sage Yeltz scoffed, shutting the door behind Aurelius with magic.

  “Because you really don’t spend your money.” Seraphine muttered, rolling her eyes, and reaching down to retrieve a magic pipette filled to the brim with ignivite powder.

  Sylven stood on her shoulder, with Aurelius catching a few of the spirit familiar’s words. Something along the lines of… a quarter of her net worth?

  The droplet of ignivite glowed rather magnificently, cycling mana through its tiny crystalline structures, and creating a rather impressive display in the pipette.

  With careful precision, Seraphine dropped a single droplet of its contents down onto a metallic ornament sitting at the center of the disorganised, make-shift lab.

  Aurelius could see, and feel the mana in the room shift, and change, as a warm glow of gold enveloped the room.

  And Seraphine picked the ornament up with tongs gingerly, showing off its intricate red metallic surface, and proceeded to place it in the magic forge.

  The fire from the magic forge lit up in magical, white hot flames, and nearly just about burned through the retinas of Aurelius, leaving him clutching at his eyes in horror.

  And with that, the first prototype of the soul-box was finished.

  ???

  Week 6 of Loop 5, Exactly 42 days, 42 minutes, 0 seconds from the Start of Aurelius’s State of ‘Death’

  It was a wonderful day for Aurelius.

  He had completed training with Mr. Tona, and he was now out with Seraphine to find a certain magical component for Sage Yeltz.

  The first prototype had been an abysmal failure, with it simply burning through its ignivite upon activation.

  However, the VERY expensive equipment, the mana-recorder, had been able to capture the flaws of mana-movement in the exact moment of failure, a testament to the predictive powers of divination charms, and that had allowed them to record the experiment in detail to work on the second prototype.

  Through the last 6 weeks, Aurelius felt that he had gotten on more or less cordial terms with Sage Yeltz and had now subscribed to the idea of helping the woman. She was certainly… more polite than in the last loop, and he had become sympathetic to her situation.

  Aurelius did mention the fact that Mr. Tona had handed him over to the fae queen last week, and infuriatingly enough, Mr. Tona had simply muttered, “Hmm, sounds like a fair trade-off to me…”

  At the same time, he did start using… slightly less extreme temperatures of water, and had even let him go off from training early, like today…

  So Aurelius felt that life was happy and dandy. He had no idea how he even got himself involved in the divine struggles of the Fae Queen in the first place!

  “Yo, Shaman Boy, watch your step.” Seraphine commented casually, preventing Aurelius from falling as she caught his arm casually.

  “...Stop calling me that.” Aurelius responded, taking his arm back irritably.

  “Is the child flirting with an actual woman? Colour me surprised.” Pultris commented miserably in Aurelius’s brain.

  Aurelius simply ignored the comment, enjoying the gentle breeze of the nearly-summertime, and about to dig into his chicken drumstick.

  However, just as his teeth met the sweet seasoning of its skin, the world… stopped.

  42 days, 42 minutes, 42 seconds

  Loop 6 begins