I was escorted to the gate by a couple of scared-looking guards. I saw they glance over in my direction multiple times during the walk, and every time I looked at them when they did so, they quickly moved their heads back, trying to ignore me. I didn't have any emotion in my main mind to be able to feel anything about this, so it went ignored. The same thing occurred to the screams from the citizens that saw me before noticing the guards, but I kept staring almost absentmindedly forward.

We arrived just as Amity finished dispersing the storm, and I got to watch one of the guards accompanying me rush to the ones near the blocked gate. I sat down as I watched them talk between themselves while glancing in my direction more than a few times. After what seemed like five minutes or so, I watched as glowing lines appeared on the metal wall covering the gate before it flowed upwards inside the wall, almost like a liquid.

As the gate opened, I saw Amity calmly walking towards it. She was a few steps from where the metal wall was before it fully opened, and as it did, her eyes widened when she took notice of me.

"Oh!" She exclaimed and walked towards me, completely ignoring the gate guard who tried to talk to her. The guard who accompanied me slapped the helmet of the one who tried to talk with her, and they flinched from it.

"Why, no, how are you here?" Amity started asking me. "It is you, right? Or no? I'm sure we've met before, but are you him? Or are you another dragon? Do you have a name? I can give you a name if you don't!"

"Yes, we've met before," I stated. "I fell through your teleport spell and ended up near here."

"Fell through?" She asked. "No, no. That's impossible. You see, I foolproof it! Lily was always trying to evade my invitations for her to come to my castle, so I had to perfect my invitations."

"Circumstances," I kept saying. "But that can be talked about later. Amity, I would like to ask you a small favor."

"A favor?" She tilted her head and placed her hand over her chin. "Athor is already asking me a favor, and he has yet to return gifts to me for them. Hmmmm. Should I accept it? Hmmmm-"

She trailed off, but before I could say anything else, her eyes snapped back to meet my own.

"You seem different," she said, her eyes glowing softly. I felt the shock of her [Appraisal], but didn't comment on it. "No curses or mind control, yet you have the facial expressions of a doll."

"My emotions are locked at the moment, it's a long story," I explained. I had no reason to lie to her, not when she could snap her fingers and restart the loop by destroying my body before I even knew what had happened.

"Okay!" She smiled. Just like that, she accepted my explanation without questioning a thing. I would sigh if I could, but as I couldn't, I kept talking.

"The favour I would like to ask is for you not to try to teleport me," I said.

"Oh?" Amity let out a curious sound. "That's easy! Okay, I won't! But the payment will be for you to help me find something I'm looking for!"

"Oh, what are you looking for?" would be what I would have asked if I didn't already know what she was looking for, that being myself, for something to do with Origin Magic, that I still didn't know what it was.

"Ok," I answered. "It's done."

"What's done?" She asked.

"Your search," I responded.

"But I haven't started it yet. I'm talking to you."

"Yes, I'm saying it's already over."

She placed her finger on her mouth as she tilted her head. "I don't think I follow."

For someone who could wipe out the entire city with a wave of her arm, she was very dense. This would be another time I would've sighed if I could. Instead, I looked her directly in her eyes before speaking.

"I am the one you seek. I am the one who used Origin Magic," I say to her.

I could see the gears turning in her head. Her eyes went from confused to narrowed, and then to widened.

"IT'S YOU?" She shouted. She grabbed my arm, ignoring the blood that was still somewhat bleeding from my wounds. "We are going to see Athor right-" She paused, then let go of my arm as she groaned.

"YOU'RE A MEANIE," she pouted. "YOU MADE ME PROMISE I WOULDN'T TELEPORT YOU. NO FAIR, YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I WAS SEARCHING FOR."

"I did," I calmly answered. That made her pause.

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"YOU DID?" She shouted again. "HOW? N-NO, I REQUEST A CHANGE OF THE PAYMENT OF YOUR FAVOR. THE PAYMENT IS FOR YOU TO TELL ME HOW YOU KNEW"

I had no reason to lie to her. It was already proven that not even she could persist across time loops. "I am inside a temporal loop. Should I die, or something trigger the temporal strand that is wrapped around my soul, I am sent back to the start of this day. I had already met you twice before this loop. The last time, you noticed I was the one you were looking for and tried to teleport me away, only for your teleportation spell to resonate with the temporal strand and trigger the loop."

She closed her eyes as she processed what I had said to her. It took several seconds before she groaned and started to stomp the ground.

"Not fair, it's completely not fair!" She shouted. Hands in the air. "First is Ellie, who knows everything from her cards! Then it's a baby dragon who already knows what I'm doing because he has already lived this day! WHY THE FAVORITISM ZWIRINIZ?"

I half-expected the God of Time to actually answer, but nothing came out of it. This bugged my mind a bit, but I shelved it for a later date, now it was not the time… If my emotions weren't locked away, I would've laughed about the non-intended pun.

I kept staring at her as she continued stomping the ground, now with her arms crossed and lips pouting, mumbling something about temporal magic and affinities.

I waited for her to finish, taking note of the guards looking at us in disbelief about the scene she was causing. I was also hearing voices coming from a distance away from us, from the normal citizen who seemed to have calmed enough to my presence to observe me. It was too far for me to understand what they were saying, but it was clear enough that they were talking about me and Amity.

A small headache caused me to flinch. I was overextending my use of [Mathematical Cortex] with my soul burn, but I couldn't stop now, not before I managed to get some answers out of Amity. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to make the headache pass. I also took a look at my MP and it was staying at the same level, meaning I was regenerating it at the same rate I was expending it.

I opened my eyes again and saw Amity looking at me with a curious look.

"Your soul's a mess," she stated.

"I know. I am working on fixing it, hence the locked emotions."

She nodded at my explanation, seeming satisfied by it. She then gave out a defeated sigh and sat down on the ground.

"It's not fair, I can't seem to grasp how this time thingy works. I would've had a field trip with it." Somehow, in the back of my mind, I seemed to have the realization that's exactly why she couldn't grasp it, not that I understood what that meant, but still.

I stared at her for a moment more before finally asking.

"Why did this Athor guy send you to look for me?" I asked.

She looked at me and seemed like she was about to deny what I had said, but she paused and placed her hand on her chin, humming a 'hmmmm' sound as she thought about something.

She stayed like that for a few minutes, each passing second that passed she looked more and more angry. Suddenly she got up, looked, and pointed at me and said.

"YOU STAY HERE UNTIL I COME BACK!" She shouted as a magical circle appeared below her, and she vanished with a flash of light.

I kept looking at where she was moments ago and took notice of how clean her teleportation spell felt on the space around it. It was nothing like the brute force method of the portal plaza the cities had, or my own method to do it. Hers was clean and almost elegant.

I took note of my magicule reserves and judged I wouldn't have enough to test my manipulation of space, nor did I have enough to slow down time for more than a few seconds. I had concluded my battle with that elf assassin right on time. I would not be able to accompany their movements hadn't I slowed down time.

I looked at my wounds. The bleeding had slowed down to a trickle and would stop in the next hour or so, probably, but I didn't care, as when the loop reset, my body would be healed. I had never stopped to examine my own blood before.

I raised my arm and got it close to my face as I observed it. It wasn't like normal blood. Sure, it was neon green, like my scales, that alone would set it apart from normal red blood. But no, I was talking about the sensation of it. I passed a finger where some of it was and it didn't feel like a liquid at all, more like a type of condensed energy than anything. There was also the fact that my blood was basically pure temporal energy. I had ignored it whenever I felt it, but now that I looked at it closer, I could tell how much of it was on each drop.

I returned my arm to the ground after examining my blood. I was clearly trying to distract my main mind from the screaming I could hear from my emotions in my second thought process. They were screaming, hurting, and crying. It was a strange experience, to say the least. Everything around me felt disconnected, like I was just a character in some novel being written or a reader who observed everything from an outside point of view. I didn't know what I would experience after I had regained my emotions. I knew it would be at least very awful and painful, but I had an inclination to think it would be better than having no emotions whatsoever.

I knew what I had done, I knew that it was wrong, but I did it anyway. Not because I wanted to taste their blood or anything like that, no. I did it because I needed to. I needed to deal with this soul burn, I needed to get out of this place, and I needed to hold my own against Jack. Everything felt very impossible, but the headway I've been making showed it wasn't. I just needed time. And that was exactly the thing I didn't lack.

A flash of blue light brought my attention back to Amity, who had appeared from her teleportation. She looked around for a while before spotting me in the same place where she told me to stay.

"Good, you're here still. I would be very angry if you had left!" She said.

I just stared at her, waiting for her response.

"Okay, so," she started. "I talked with Athor a little. He was very busy, something about the barrier and whatnot. Anyway! I've talked with him and he agreed I could say a few things to you, considering your specific situation."

I nodded. I was going to say my gratitude when she cut me off.

"BUT!" She shouted. "After you're done, you'll come with me to see him."

I stared at her for a while before answering. "I can't."

"Good, I'll try to come up with- WHAT?" She shouted. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T?"

"I need to go to the church of space," I said. "I need to find my friends that were brought here from another universe."

That gave her pause, and then she looked at me. "What?"

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