The first thing I did after the loop reset was to get out of the inn while transformed into a weasel. I used [Spatial Manipulation] to hold myself on the ceiling. It was trippy, to be honest, seeing everything upside down, but I managed.

After leaving through the doors when another person was leaving as well, hiding myself behind them, I sprinted towards a random street two blocks away from the inn and waited for five minutes, constantly checking the barrier I had raised for signs of the mind mage.

When I confirmed I had successfully escaped him, I smirked and laughed a bit maniacally, which was a weird sound coming from a weasel. So many loops I've been tiptoeing my way out of the inn, trying not to get caught in the mind mage's spell, but all I needed to do was be something else than what they expected. How did I never think about it before?

It would never cross their mind that I wasn't a cat person but a dragon with a shapeshifting skill. Though, to be honest, I did try to leave in my true form before, it didn't go well, but I never thought about transforming into another form, although those were times where the soul burn was fresh enough to be torture to use the skill once, let alone multiple times.

Shaking my head to get rid of these useless thoughts, I made my way to the exit that Karol showed me when I got her out of the torture room.

When I reached it, I noticed two thug looking humans standing guard near the entrance. I started wondering why they weren't there the last time, but a lightning strike against the city's shield reminded me of the commotion that would unfold when Amity made her appearance, which would probably draw them away from the door.

"I need another plan," I said to myself, and then looked around.

I was near the outskirts of the city, near the walls that protected the city. There wasn't much foot traffic around, but what was there was from visibly poor people, with torn clothes, very skinny, and, in the case of the non-human people, patches of fur falling out.

I needed a distraction, but I didn't want to cause more suffering to these people, so I couldn't use a fireball or something similar to that effect. Maybe water will do the trick, I thought.

I pulled [Magical Programming Language] and created a spell that would condense water into a very high-pressure water sphere and would shoot it where I was aiming. It was a very simple spell, but one that would pack a punch if I put the right pressure.

I looked at the chest of one of the thugs and cast the spell. Water condensed in front of me from the air around and created a sphere with 30 centimeters in diameter before I shot it directly into their chest.

The sphere flew fast, but not like a bullet, and hit the guy a bit lower than where I aimed. The pressure was not high enough to cause any damage, it was as if someone had thrown a water balloon at him rather than anything else, which worked for me because it made both of them leave the door and come towards where I was.

"Who's the goblinshit that threw a water ball at me?" He shouted, looking in both directions in the street, but besides a few curious looks from some passersby, no one said anything.

"You!" He pointed to a guy passing close enough. "Did you throw a water ball at me?"

I had already left, raising myself through [Spatial Manipulation] to get to the roof of the house I was near and another use to make me somewhat glide through the air until I was at the door knob, which I promptly opened, got inside and closed without making a sound.

"Phase 1 complete," I said in a whisper.

From there, I made my way towards Karol, stopping outside the door once I heard the sounds of two people inside the room and the sounds of someone hitting another. I knew who was being punched, I wanted to get in and stop, but I also knew how strong she was, the people hitting her were probably high-level as well, if I interrupted it, I could end this loop earlier than I wanted it.

Thankfully, I didn't have to do anything, as both of them, a human and an elf, left the room two minutes after I got there.

"Man, I am so hungry right now I could eat a dragon," the human said.

"I doubt one would let you eat them that easily," the elf said.

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"I just need to break their skulls and turn their brains into mush, then I can eat them," he countered.

I half-froze from their conversation. I definitely didn't want to end up being that guy's lunch.

After they got out of sight, I entered the room and saw Karol slightly worse than when I first found her. I must admit, even being suppressed, she had impressive regeneration. I approached her and transformed into a cat person. I noticed how her eyes tracked my every move, even while she pretended not to look, it was scary.

"The dragon king loves his cookies," I said with confidence. She looked puzzled for a moment before her eyes widened.

"Future vision, and I gave you that code? Interesting," she said while I cut through her shackles with the water cutter spell.

I knew she was going to be alone for some time, judging by my last loop, and so I proceeded to cut through all of the shackles holding her and suppressing her magic. She massaged the places where they were before getting up from the chair and stretching.

Her wounds started to heal at a rapid pace before my eyes. She locked eyes with me, eyeing me from head to toe before asking.

"I must have had a good reason to say that code for a mimic in the possible future you saw," she started. "So say it, why did I give you the code?"

She didn't release bloodlust like the first time she asked, but she was still intimidating as she was. I took a deep breath and then explained everything that happened in the last loop.

She kept staring at me, judging if I was telling the truth, but then shrugged.

"Alright, I believe in you," she said. "I'm not good at investigations like Jack or Max."

"It seems you already know where my shed is," she stated. "Go wait there, I have a few things to resolve with the guys here."

I could imagine what she was going to do, and although I wanted to help beat some criminals, I would probably get in the way. Images of the street where she and Jack fought flashed across my mind. I definitely didn't want a front row seat to that.

I nodded to her and rushed out of there, kicking the door of the empty house where they had the hidden entrance open. The two guards were looking at the sky, which meant that Amity had arrived. The sound of the door being swung open made them look at me, but before they could say anything, I had already increased the pressure of my earlier water ball by one order of magnitude and cast two of them, each on one of my hands.

The water condensed right in front of my palms, sizzling and evaporating slightly due to the pressure. I saw the realization striking both of them that it was I who had shot that water ball earlier, but before they could say or do anything, I shot the spell as I was barely holding on to it.

The water sphere hit both of them above their chest and exploded, sending both of them to the ground with the force of the impact. I was also affected, the shockwave of the two water balls sending me flying back inside the empty house. I hit my back and my head on the ground, the pain was awful, but not unbearable or close to anything I had to deal with before, so I quickly got up and ran outside.

The two thugs were getting up, but I managed to slip past them by pulling myself upwards with [Spatial Manipulation] and using the walls as footwork to jump above them and onto the roof of the buildings around us.

It took five minutes until I arrived at Karol's shed and entered it, the door being unlocked. I reached for the chair and collapsed from physical exhaustion. My stats were way too low at the moment for me to run like I had just done.

As I panted, trying to regain my breath, I could faintly hear the sounds of things breaking and screams of pain. I chose to ignore them.

It took another twenty minutes before Karol appeared, she had some blood on her clothes. She looked at me, still seated in the chair, but not panting anymore.

"How old are you?" She said, eying me up and down.

It took me a moment to understand what she was talking about. I quickly covered myself as best as I could with my hands and felt my face getting hot from embarrassment.

"S-sorry about this. My clothes don't usually stay on me when I transform," I explained.

"Imagined. Here," she tossed some clothes that were too big for me, and even had a cut right in the middle, with blood still wet on it. I could only imagine where she had taken it from, but it was still better than nothing, so I put it on.

She walked to the bed and sat down.

"If what you told me is true, then I imagine you want to continue to learn how to not be affected by bloodlust?" She asked me.

"If possible, yes," I answered.

"Eh, might as well. You did free me, after all," she shrugged. "There isn't much to it. You need to 'steel your will' or some wyvernshit like that. Just know it will take time, and you need to be very stubborn."

She looked at me.

"Are you ready to start?" Before I could answer her, I was hit by her bloodlust, causing me to freeze in place, and my heart beat wildly in my chest.

"First lesson," I could barely understand her words, my vision was starting to blur, and sounds were starting to melt into each other. "It can come from anywhere at any time."

I knew this would be hell, but honestly? It was nothing compared to how I was when the loops first started, and I was feeling the worst of my soul burn. Compared to that, this was a mild annoyance more than anything. It was just too effective on my body.

Sure, apparently, if she kept this up for hours on end, I would have a heart attack, but the soul-wrenching pain from soul burn was thousands of times worse than this. I just needed to learn how to endure it.

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