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She looked emptily at him. Her gaze passed through him.

A cold sensation sunk into the pit of Ike\'s stomach. He shivered despite the day\'s heat. Lifting a hand, he knocked on her forehead.

Hollow. Porcelain. She was a puppet. Just like the rest.

He turned around him, a new appreciation for the puppets in his heart. They weren\'t simply placed here by a megalomaniacal madman. They\'d been replaced. At one point, these had all been real people, until one after another, the puppets had taken their place.

And now they\'d taken Wisp.

How long until they take me?

Ike wrinkled his nose. He shook his head. No. I won\'t let that happen. He lifted his foot, then paused. But how? How was he going to stop it? He didn\'t even understand how it happened. Didn\'t know how much time he\'d missed. He passed a boundary, went to sleep, and everything shifted. Anything could have happened.

He took a deep breath. Stepping away from the Wisp puppet, he walked over to the nearest building and began climbing.

I already know I won\'t find Wisp. Whoever is in control of this place can freely distort space and time. I have no ability to overcome that as I am now.

But that just means that I need to change.

At the top of the building, Ike settled into a sit. He crossed his legs and rested his hands on his knees, a meditative pose, but left his eyes wide open. He wouldn\'t close them. Wouldn\'t miss a thing. If they came after him when he slept, or broke an unspoken rule, then he wouldn\'t sleep or break any rules. He\'d sit here and watch.

And grow.

He reached out around him. As expected, the air was thin. There was little aether or mana around. Masses of it clung to the ground, powering the puppets, but he already knew that if he smashed the puppets, he\'d get sent back to the start of the loop. Years might pass again. With Wisp gone, that was a risk he couldn\'t take. Instead, he turned to a skill he\'d never used before.

Chlorophyll Lv 2

He\'d never used it before, and yet, it was level two. It was a clear message from the past, from a him he couldn\'t remember. Chlorophyll was part of the secret. A vital piece of the puzzle.

Or the past me failed, and that\'s why I\'m still here. Ike pushed his doubts away. He could remember all his failures, but had no memory of success. He could only assume the person looping the world was deliberately erasing his successes. In which case, Chlorophyll was important. It was a bit of a logical leap, but he was grasping at straws here. Straws were all he had.

Sitting under the full heat of the sun, he activated the skill.

A strange new energy flowed into him. It was vicious, full of heat. The mere activation seared into him. Immediately, his core began to burn, then boil. Ike held on for as long as he could, but had to give up. Blood surged up in his throat. He spat, grimacing, and activated his Body Reforging Art. It healed him quickly.

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Can it make me more resistant to heat? Ike activated it again, imagining his body, but able to bear Chlorophyll\'s—or rather, solam\'s—heat. Nothing happened. He scowled and deactivated the skill. He hadn\'t expected much, but he was still disappointed. Still, it wasn\'t surprising. So far, he\'d always had to have a plan when he activated skills. A framework for them to work with. Just picturing himself able to bear heat with a wish in his heart had never worked, so he hadn\'t expected it to work here, either. Still, it\'d been worth a shot.

He activated Chlorophyll again at a low level. Solam trickled into his core. He easily absorbed it into his aether, but the solam was so slow that it was barely worth absorbing. He could easily absorb the same amount of mana or aether, even as thin as it was.

I need a better method. This isn\'t enough.

His mind went to the heat-oriented support Unique skill he\'d given Wisp. He scowled. I should\'ve taken that one. I bet it was heat-resistance or something like that. It\'d be so handy right now.

Ike shook his head. There was no point obsessing about the past. Tempest was a good skill. In all situations but this one situation, it was a better skill to have. Besides, I don\'t even know the skill was heat resistance. It\'s all guesswork.

One way or another, it didn\'t solve his problem. He needed a way to deal with solam right now, not thought about how he might have been able to deal with it in another world. Idly, he reached into his bag and drew out Rosamund\'s head. Black goo stuck to its insides, thick and gunky.

I used this to convert lunam into something I could process when lunam was too cold for me. Why not the reverse?

Ike activated Chlorophyll again. Rather than absorbing it directly, he coursed it through his body and into Rosamund\'s skull. The second it met the lunam, it bubbled up. Black smoke began billowing off of it. Ike grabbed one of the herbs Wisp had led him to long ago into the boiling black goo and breathed deeply.

The mana he absorbed was still warm, uncomfortably so, but he could process it now. He passed more and more solam into it and absorbed more mana from it. In his core, the mana smoothly transformed into aether.

Time passed. One day, then another, then another. Each day reset, but Ike, awake, sitting motionless atop the building, never changed. He never reset. Nothing ever approached him.

I haven\'t given them the chance to. It\'s like the rules that determine when you get reset. As long as I don\'t break the rules, the world doesn\'t touch me.

I don\'t understand why it is, but it does seem to be true. I wonder if this world is automatic, to some extent? A chill crawled over his skin as a horrible thought occurred to him. Or if its creator can still control it. The world might be self-perpetuating at this point. Acting on automatic rules without any interference from a mage\'s hand.

His core filled and filled. Ike continued filling it, pushing it wider and fuller when it grew taut. There was no point hesitating. If he had to fight a Rank 4, he had to be at least Rank 3. He wasn\'t going to hold back. All it took to Rank up was sufficient mana, as far as he could tell. All he had right now was mana. Or rather, solam.

It wasn\'t an ideal place to gather mana. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Still, Ike refused to move. He kept Chlorophyll active and absorbed mana through Rosamund\'s head endlessly. At night, he used the skill to forcibly absorb lunam from the moon. On and on, focusing on nothing but gathering mana.

"Why do you struggle?"

Ike looked up, startled. He\'d been so focused on absorbing aether that he hadn\'t noticed anyone approach. But she sat beside him now, undeniably. Wisp. Or rather, the Wisp puppet.

He turned away. "Give Wisp back and let us leave, and I won\'t anymore."

"She\'s happy."

Ike laughed aloud. "I really fuckin\' doubt that."

"You could be happy, here. I\'d keep you safe."

"In your Wizard\'s Tower, where you control everything?" Ike asked.

The Wisp puppet tilted her head. "Does it matter?"

"Sure it does. Do you control it, anymore? This world you created. Is it still within the palm of your hand?"

The Wisp puppet scowled. It looked away.

Ike lifted his head and gazed at her. At the puppet. "Do you want to be saved? Are you trapped?"

"I\'m happy. We\'re all happy," the puppet insisted.

"Yeah. Looks like it," Ike deadpanned. He took a deep breath. "I\'m going to hit Rank 3. And then I\'m going to rescue Wisp, and you, and everyone."

"What if I stop you?"

"If you could, you already would have. But you can\'t, can you? You\'re just as trapped in your tower as I am." Ike turned away, dismissing the puppet entirely.

"The puppet can," it declared. A shadow fell over Ike. A powerful aura burst from the puppet, far stronger than Ike. Beyond his ability to destroy. Beyond his ability to deny.

"But do you want it to?" Ike asked.

Silence. The aura retreated. The shadow fell back.

He glanced over. Once again, he sat alone on the roof.

He chuckled. "That\'s what I thought."