Chapter 827: Consciousness Anchoring Within the Dream State
Inside the villa.
“Have you asked your Little Han? How did she respond to you?”
“I did not ask,” Bai Yu said, shaking her head.
“You didn’t ask? That doesn't seem like your style at all. Or do you think you know her well enough to give the answer to this question on her behalf?”
Cheryl asked with a smile.
“Little Han has her own rhythm, constantly moving forward... so-called schemes and conspiracies cannot catch up to her.”
“Even if it’s me? You actually have such confidence in Little Han?!”
Cheryl’s expression at this moment was quite a sight.
She naturally understood the meaning behind Bai Yu’s words.
It was just like how Little Han had developed so rapidly in the academy that no one could react.
Before anyone could even contact her, she had already climbed to the very top tier of the academy.
Any calculations or planning seemed like a clown’s act in the face of absolute strength.
So, had the current Little Han already developed to the point where she could break Cheryl's plans?
Her first thought was that it was impossible.
She was an Anti-Witch; by coming to this Main World, she was already an existence at the topmost level.
Plotting against a Lesser Witch and making her walk into a trial of her own design—wouldn't that be easy?
“If you have no confidence in Little Han, then put away your little schemes. Why bother going through so much trouble to deal with a Lesser Witch you yourself aren't confident about? It would be better to give up early and peacefully dissolve the contract along the way.”
“What are you saying? Of course I have great confidence in her.”
Cheryl spoke with a smile, not feeling at all that she had almost fallen into a linguistic trap just now.
“But I am truly curious... what is Little Han going to do? Did she go to the Expansion Realm?”
“I am also very curious about what exactly you intend to do. You keep saying you want to test Little Han; by what means do you plan to test her?”
“That is not within the contract, so I don’t plan to tell you.”
Cheryl refused quite directly.
“Then let me take a guess. From the words and philosophies you spoke before, you hate comfort and prefer radicalism, attempting to make everyone experience the same hardships as you all. Then what you want to witness is Little Han’s courage, methods, determination...”
“While not quite right, but... and then?”
Cheryl simply looked at Bai Yu with great interest, seemingly expecting to see what else she could analyze.
“To achieve such a goal is nearly impossible in the Main World, unless... you plan to trigger an Academy War.”
In the history of the Main World, the history of Academy Wars was clearly recorded.
This was no child’s play, but Full War!
Mentor against mentor, student against student—no one could be exempt from this war!
In history, once the mentors failed, the students faced a massacre.
However, now Transcendents could no longer wantonly massacre students.
But even so, such wars had never ceased; it was just that modern Academy Wars were wars between small Transcendent academies, and were localized wars of the world.
Top-tier academies always turned a blind eye to such wars, only speaking up regarding the principle of Transcendent non-interference.
Perhaps some academies simply needed to constantly be in life-and-death combat to witness the improvement of their strength.
But more academies were simply forced into it.
Why were there so many small Transcendent academies in the Main World?
Because someone always needs to carry the heavy load and become the sacrificial lamb to resolve contradictions.
Some Transcendent academies even had affiliated academies, which were essentially cannon fodder production bases.
And some Academy Wars were Proxy Wars; the shadows of certain top-tier academies could be seen directly or indirectly behind them.
Even the Witch Academy was no exception.
The surrounding area of the Witch Academy was so “peaceful” because the wars were happening within other academies.
The Academy System occasionally posted special emergency missions, which were battlefield support missions.
Furthermore, students without a bit of strength couldn't even see such missions refresh in their lists.
Currently, these wars were still at the student stage; Transcendents could not enter the field.
After all, once a Transcendent entered the field, the nature of the war changed.
Many small Transcendent academies only had one Academy Head and a few Transcendent mentors, while the rest were high-year seniors acting as Teaching Assistant proxy mentors to pass on Transcendent knowledge.
Regarding these Transcendent wars, they were basically not compiled into news reports for broadcast.
Ordinary people had no channel to know about these tragic battles.
Even if they knew, they had no power to stop them, and it would even trigger uncontrollable social public opinion.
Even students of top-tier academies basically did not care about the tragic state of these academies.
But... the families outside knew.
If their children could not enroll in top-tier academies, even if they attended ordinary academies to return home in a few years to inherit the family business, they did not want them entering those small Transcendent academies.
Because those people were all cannon fodder.
Those students would die silently, entering the earth vein soul-substance cycle, and then the Main World society would encourage more births to constantly accelerate the flow and birth of talent.
“Trigger an Academy War? Do minor squabbles even deserve to be called war?”
Cheryl gave a light laugh, appearing quite indifferent.
As an Anti-Witch who had witnessed world invasions countless times, she had experienced even the tragedies of falling world clusters too many times to count.
Compared to those battles that involved racial extinction and the shattering of worlds at every turn, this kind of confrontation on the Main World seemed like child’s play to her.
It didn't even make it into the news reports.
“True. Although your ambition is not in the Main World, as an Anti-Witch, you also hope this Main World is the property of the witches. Furthermore, the Academy Head and the others have mastered the Main World restoration technique, plus the Umbilicus Mundi is currently still held by those other races. From these perspectives, you wouldn't use such radical means as triggering an Academy War in the Main World.”
“So...”
Cheryl spoke, her voice trailing off, seemingly guiding Bai Yu to give the answer.
“So you must move the battlefield and lead the fire to another place. That Game World. Little Han has already cut the world chains in advance. You want to take Little Han to the Game World to fulfill the promise Academy Head Mei once gave on her behalf—to harvest the Game World.”
“Oh I didn't expect you to remember that I mentioned it once. You couldn't have associated all this just based on what I said last time, could you?”
“Is that not the case?”
Bai Yu asked with certainty.
“Couldn't there be another possibility? That is, without being so troublesome, I could just help that person Mei find the Umbilicus Mundi and then directly launch an Academy War?”
“You found the Umbilicus Mundi?!”
Bai Yu looked at Cheryl with a frown, finding it somewhat unbelievable.
“You guess then.”
Cheryl did not respond directly, which suddenly made Bai Yu a bit uncertain.
“Hmph hmph Look at you. With just this level, you won’t pry any useful intelligence out of my mouth.”
“Since you are unwilling to say, then please leave.”
“Driving me away already?”
“I have things to do. I am preparing to visit Academy Head Mei.”
“What are you going to see her for? You signed a Witch’s Contract; you cannot tell her anything. Even wordless expressions or implied meanings will be restricted by the contract.”
“I naturally know this. I am simply going to communicate with Academy Head Mei to ask on behalf of Little Han about the promotion plans and suggestions for concepts like Self-generating Magic Power and Body-transformation Spells within the academy later.”
“Is that something you should be concerned about right now?”
“Matters related to Little Han are all important matters to me.”
“Fine, fine.”
Cheryl let out a helpless sound and spoke: “How about... I go with you?”
***
Expansion Realm.
“What? Big Sis Xiao Han actually came to the Expansion Realm?”
Ninglan Qiuyue’s first reaction upon learning this news was shock!
But very quickly, she accepted it.
The Academy Head told her she didn’t need to manage this matter; she only needed to be aware of it.
As usual, she didn’t need to tell others the news of Little Han’s arrival either.
Unless Little Han contacted her personally, then they would see about the situation then.
The main reason the Academy Head contacted her specifically this time was to tell her that if Little Han caused a huge commotion in the Expansion Realm, not to be too panicked.
If the commotion was truly too massive, the academy would come to provide a backstop.
Such a statement truly made Ninglan Qiuyue curious.
What exactly was Little Han doing to cause such a massive commotion?
And at this moment, below a world rift in the Expansion Realm.
An illusory maze enveloped this place.
Its vastness covered the entire mountain peak.
And beneath a massive stone block of the mountain body, on a platform carved out, I stood here performing dream experiments.
As I laid out the Dream Maze, the dream creatures attracted by the Soul Crystal constantly wandered within the maze, and the number of these dream creatures was continuously increasing.
However, under the consumption of my experiments, their numbers were also continuously decreasing.
After entering the dream world and using dream creatures as experimental material, the first thing I did was not verify the possibility of a soul dream-state, but use Soul Depiction on the dream creatures, attempting to understand if Soul Depiction could give them the possibility of life.
But the result was as expected.
Dream creatures with only consciousness could not form a sound “soul” in my cognition under the effect of Soul Depiction.
Therefore, using Soul Depiction directly on the Fool’s Dreams would not allow them to become true lives, and this made me completely give up on that path.
However, this didn't leave me with no discoveries at all.
When using dream creatures as experimental material, I discovered that dream creatures seemed to possess more than just “consciousness.”
They had another layer of a concept I was long familiar with, only I had almost forgotten it.
Nightmares.
When I cut the nightmares for the Fool’s Dreams back then, I had relied on the driving force of the Script.
And now this gave birth to another thought.
That was, if these dream creatures had their nightmares cut away, then... what would be the difference between them and the Fool’s Dreams?
With my level of understanding of dream creatures and Fool’s Dreams, I found that there seemed to be... no major difference?
It was like removing the body, then cutting away the racial concept and bloodline information—how would the remaining soul be any different?
There seemed to be... not much difference.
Could it be?
Did the Fool’s Dreams have anything special...
Had they once borne [Transcendent Knowledge]?
Had they once craved to become true lives?
It seemed only these added concepts could define the difference between Fool’s Dreams and dream creatures.
But among dream creatures, there was no clear conceptual division, no race or bloodline.
They all seemed very similar, just with different postures, but they were all dream creatures...
Then... could they be converted into Fool’s Dreams?
Theoretically, it should be possible.
After all, humans could be converted into witches, holy angels, or elves, so race was just a definition.
The Fool’s Dreams should seemingly be the same.
“This doesn't seem quite right...”
In the dream, I suddenly realized such a problem and slowly returned to reality from the dream.
The problem I realized was the issue of consciousness entering the dream, and also a problem that should not be ignored: the method for consciousness to return to its original body.
With the soul serving as the medium for me to contact the dream, my consciousness wandered the dream.
If the level of the dream I dived into was too deep, then there would be the possibility of being unable to return.
Specifically, Dream Lost!
Therefore, I needed to ensure a method that could pull my consciousness back at the first moment no matter what—namely, establishing an anchor in reality or the shallow dream...
“No, that isn't safe. It should be a continuous anchoring throughout the process from reality to the shallow, and then to the deep dream, forming a complete awakening mechanism. Only that can be considered safe.”
After all, I don’t do things I’m not sure of, nor do I play jokes on myself.
And the reason I needed to enter the deep layers of the dream state was to contact what was beneath the surface of the dream... the Primal Dream State!
That place was the dream itself.
Shallow dreams were merely coexisting with reality, the two stabilizers for reality and the dream being opposites.
Similarly, it was the place where consciousness unintentionally extended when life dreamed while sleeping.
To use an analogy, the Primal Dream State was the deep sea, while shallow dreams were the shallow sea and the beach.
Countless tourists played on the beach, just like dreaming while sleeping at night; basically, there would be no risk.
What I had to do was tie a safety rope to myself that could return at any time, and then without hesitation explore the deep sea to perceive the principles by which the Primal Dream State gave birth to dream consciousness.
And verify whether a dream soul existed, or if such a hypothesis was feasible.
If it existed, then everything had hope.
If it didn't, then I would attempt to create a soul.
Just as before the fourth Interpretation of Life the Void had no concept of a soul, I would use all the thoughts and inspirations I could think of to shape it.
Until I succeeded, or failed.
I looked at the peculiar rune appearing on my hand.
This was a compound rune shaped with the Primal Dream State rune as the core, using my relatively intense memory nodes as a ritual.
This compound rune was used to forcibly communicate with my soul and consciousness.
Similarly, such a compound rune was my consciousness anchoring in the dream.
If an uncontrollable accident occurred, I could follow these anchors to constantly perform dream consciousness delivery until I was safe.
All of this was “fully automatic.”
Intense memory nodes could achieve the rapid stimulation of my consciousness to make instinctive reactions.
After all, if a moment of crisis truly occurred, there would be no time left for me to react, so special circumstances naturally required special means.
“Let’s try one more time...”
Diving into the dream again, I captured a few dream creatures in the Dream Maze as experimental material for after this dive into the Primal Dream State.
Whether they were useful or not, it was fine to bring them along.
Subsequently, I once again entered the Primal Dream State.
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