Chapter 787: The Severance of Dream and Reality
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 787: The Severance of Dream and Reality
"What?"
April stared blankly at the figure the water had passed through, finally realizing the truth.
The person before her was a fake.
As the illusion dissipated, she was left utterly alone.
The moment those two figures vanished, April felt a flicker of impending collapse. It wasn't that the two maids, Aila and Aini, were so vital to her, but rather that during the time since her return, her stress had reached its absolute limit.
Aila and Aini were merely the final straw that had nearly crushed her.
Subconsciously, she tried to sense if someone nearby was playing tricks, only to find nothing out of the ordinary. She was left with nothing but her refined, powerful mental strength to perceive the world; having lost all her auxiliary and sensory spellbooks, she felt a sudden, jarring sense of helplessness.
She had no choice but to bathe by herself.
Even though she had lived this way for many years at the Witch Academy, it felt different now. The spellbooks she usually used to keep herself clean were gone. The act of bathing felt like a distant memory, yet she had to do it today; otherwise, her body’s natural metabolism would make for a very uncomfortable night.
"So, this is the one called April, right?"
In a corner of the guest room where no one would notice, two figures stood. April, walking right past them, didn't notice a thing.
"That’s her~ I didn't expect her to care so much about those two maids. Based on my Heart Sense, she looked like she was on the verge of a breakdown just now."
"It was just the final straw."
"I wonder how she’d feel if she knew those two maids had long since become the playthings of another old man in the Hawthorne family? They’ve known she was back these past few days, but they’ve been actively avoiding her."
"A bit pitiful, isn't it..."
"Indeed~" I nodded, not disagreeing. Everyone looks pitiful when they show their vulnerable side, but that kind of pity is worthless.
"Let's give her a few more rounds~" I flipped through the images of Ley Line Retrospection. They showed interactions from when April was young, playing with the two maids. The atmosphere during their baths back then had been full of joy. The warmer and happier the memory, the more it could bring a sense of untouchable hope to someone in the depths of despair.
"Speaking of which, besides these two maids, what other bonds does April have? That father of hers? Or perhaps her deceased mother?" I continued to inquire, not feeling in the least that these methods of toyed with others were excessive.
I had said from the start that I came here to achieve my goals. In the process, I would hurt many people. This harm wasn't just collateral damage; it was harm dealt by my own hand. As the primary target of this trip, April was undoubtedly the protagonist I would torment the most.
I silently averted my gaze from the bathroom and quietly expanded my domain.
Accompanied by the rhythmic resonance of the domain's order, the Primitive Dream Realm of the Core World began to overlap within April’s house.
I intended to give April an unforgettable night. Since there were constraints in reality, I would use the instincts within a dream to trigger a person's most primitive emotions.
However... the dream realm was still a somewhat distant field for me. Although I possessed a Soul Blessing and a Dream Space, and had mastered Dream Rewriting Spells, truly dominating a person's dreams remained difficult.
So, I was also experimenting.
I was trying to project a person's own dreams into the Primitive Dream Realm and then use Dream Rewriting Spells to control them.
"Someone should be asleep by now. Sister Bai, come with me to conduct an interesting experiment. It looks like April still has a while before she falls asleep."
"Alright~" Sister Bai naturally followed my lead. Although she thought my ideas were a bit wild, she was willing to indulge Xiao Han’s whims.
As the two figures left the room, the space returned to its original emptiness, save for the continuous sound of running water from the bathroom.
"Thank you... Aila... I can wash myself... and..." April started to speak, but as she turned under the spray of the shower, that familiar figure vanished once more.
Only she remained in the bathroom, accompanied by the pitter-patter of water.
"Am I... hallucinating again?"
After a long while, April leaned her head against her hand. She would rather call it a hallucination than admit someone was messing with her. She was beginning to sink into a world of her own making.
"Aila, Aini... gone again. Without you here, I don't even know whether to use the conditioner or the shampoo first..."
Meanwhile, in another guest room, my dream overlap had already covered more than half of the castle.
This time, there were no dream creatures to cause trouble. After all, there was no high concentration of transcendent energy here, nor the soul essence they craved. To dream creatures, this place was likely just a dusty corner of the Primitive Dream Realm.
But I was conducting my experiments with great curiosity.
This was the first time I had so directly felt the "inclusivity" of the Primitive Dream Realm.
The Primitive Dream Realm is a collective term for a concept. Living beings occasionally dream when their life essence unintentionally touches the Primitive Dream Realm.
But soul essence is soul essence, after all. Dreaming usually belongs to the shallow dreams. Once one falls into a deep dream, the soul essence itself cannot withstand it, which is why some people fall asleep and never wake up.
Taking my own soul essence as an example: because it can be carried by the dream, the dream can be very stable and very deep without me getting trapped. Unless there is some external cause or extreme stimulus, I generally wouldn't fail to wake up.
But I wasn't looking for a comparison of pros and cons; I needed to know how to dominate the dream. The feeling was similar to an illusion, yet fundamentally different.
"Xiao Han, hitting a snag?"
"It's fine~ just a small issue. Soul essence is just too fragile; it can't handle my more precise operations." I waved it off, indicating it was no big deal.
While I couldn't absolutely dominate a person's dream, being able to interfere was enough. As for the rest of the dream, the dreamers themselves—or rather, their instincts—would perfectly fill in the gaps.
The key to achieving this was the target's subconscious. As long as I grasped the basic instinctive rule that "the more one fears something, the more likely it is to happen," controlling the rhythm and tone of a dream was relatively simple.
At that moment, the person I was using for testing began to curl up unconsciously on the bed, as if dreaming of something unpleasant.
As the process advanced, the subject began to struggle violently, muttering under their breath. Finally, upon reaching a certain threshold, they let out a sharp cry and jolted awake.
"Looks like the effect is decent," I said casually.
But I wasn't going to give April a nightmare. On the contrary, I was giving her a beautiful dream. Only a beautiful dream would make her yearn for it more, making the contrast with reality all the more jarring.
* * *
Night fell.
Unable to hold out any longer, April finally drifted into sleep.
Even though April was a former Teaching Assistant with a very high life level, she couldn't endure this kind of internal attrition and the mental exhaustion imposed by her family indefinitely without getting sleepy.
As April lost consciousness in reality, her awareness gradually sharpened within the dream.
She found herself transformed back into her younger self. The inherent logic of the dream allowed her to accept this setting without a shred of doubt.
I intended to craft this dream into a sanctuary for her soul, catering to her current inner desires. Since she wanted to immerse herself in her own world, I would give her a perfect one.
Her father was kind to her, as was her mother. She would save her mother with her own hands, mending the tragedy of her childhood.
She would enter the Witch Academy again, but this time she would experience a completely different school life. She would make the purest of friends and be assigned to Mentor Chris, who would care for her deeply.
In the dream, Mentor Chris would once again teach her the principles of life and the theories of transcendence. She would revisit her witch research projects, and she would once again face a choice in life...
I would let her know that life could actually be this fulfilling, and that it seemed one never needed to make forced, painful choices.
"This really is... an enviable life." Sister Bai sighed as she watched the simulated images I shared and the progress of the "script" I had written.
"If you add the premise that this is my charity, is such a life still worth envying? Life always needs to be fought for by oneself," I replied, sighing in return.
"True... looking at it that way... she becomes even more tragic. But it's only one night; can such a long life really be lived through?" Sister Bai asked, puzzled.
"How can you ask that as a Time-Sense Body Cultivation Witch? The plasticity of time rules in dreams is immense. But doing it all at once would be too rushed, so I've segmented the dream over many days. Only by letting her feel the accumulation of time and the contrast with reality—coupled with her own slight escapism—will she look forward to the dream even more."
"If she has the same continuous dream for several days, won't she get suspicious?"
"Of course she will~ but she's so good at lying to herself. Anyway, don't worry about it~" I waved my hand. "Just think of it as watching a show. When the dream ends, the fun ends too."
"Xiao Han... sometimes I feel your ability to manipulate hearts is even more terrifying than I imagined..."
"Is it? I don't think so. If I were that good at it, would my social skills be this bad? Would I have so few friends?"
"That's different..."
"It's the same~ anyway, don't sweat the details. Next, we need to set the stage in reality~" I looked up at the dark sky. By that, I meant I was going to start shaping the fools in the real world.
"Are you going to move against those people?"
"Mm-hmm~" I nodded slightly, deciding the fates of many in an instant.
One thing that fell slightly outside my plan was that Monopeng City was merely the Hawthorne family's base. The important figures who managed the family's operations didn't have normal schedules like ordinary people. They were busy every second of every day, the kind of people for whom every minute was worth millions.
But it didn't matter. I wasn't in a rush. Even if I spent ten days or half a month here, it wouldn't be a problem.
When I had nothing to do, I would study the Self-Generated Mana Perfecting Ritual; nothing would be wasted.
In the blink of an eye, two or three days passed.
After sharing the new Self-Generated Mana Perfecting Ritual with Tan Han via the Tree of Great Knowledge, I followed Sister Bai out of the dungeon world.
Over these past few days, Sister Bai and I had finished building the small house in the dungeon world. However, many things hadn't been set up yet, and it lacked decorations, so it looked rather empty.
But it didn't matter. As long as there was a large bed in the house that could fit both me and Sister Bai, that was enough.
During these days, the Hawthorne family had visibly suffered several major upheavals, including a disastrous policy error and a heated conflict during an exchange with another family.
Many other great families near the Wizard Academy quickly noticed the Hawthorne family's abnormality. However, they couldn't determine the cause—whether it was internal or if someone was secretly sabotaging them.
But the biggest change was in April.
The succession of dreams had created a massive severance between her dream world and reality, to the point where she was beginning to lose track of which was which.
During these days, she was also scolded by her father—a venting, emotional roar. In her memory, her father was never this emotional. But it was precisely this emotionalism that diluted the majestic aura he usually projected.
She felt more and more that her father was losing his hypocritical mask, and she was beginning to see his true face.
So... Father is just a man capable of impotent rage...
The extreme contrast from her dreams began to build a specific thought in her mind: Is he truly fit to be my father?
This wasn't the first time she had rebelled against him, nor the first time she had defied the family's will, but she felt she had never been as courageous as she was now.
Perhaps it wasn't just the "rebirth" brought by the perfect family in her dreams, but also the life lessons taught by her mentor, Chris, within those dreams.
Chris was like someone silently encouraging her from behind, letting her understand what was right, what was wrong, what was brave, and what was worth holding onto.
Yet, she still harbored an instinctive fear.
She had experienced this kind of false "self-awakening" before, but every rebellion had ended in failure. Multiple attempts had left her terrified of an inevitable, losing conclusion.
"As expected... April still has things she fears deep down..." I sighed, remarking to Sister Bai.
"The mental confinement of the Ley Line Shackles isn't that easy to break."
"Then, Sister Bai, what was your mindset when you advanced back then? You were so quiet about it, not a single peep of commotion~" I teased, lightly nudging Sister Bai with my hand.
"Me? I was thinking of you, of course~"
"Liar! We hadn't even made our relationship official back then... Oh~ I see! You were playing hard to get. You already had designs on me back then, didn't you!"