Chapter 827: Consciousness Anchoring Within the Dream
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 827: Consciousness Anchoring Within the Dream
Inside the villa.
"Have you asked your precious Xiao Han yet? How did she respond?"
"I didn't ask," Bai Yu replied, shaking her head.
"You didn't? That doesn't sound like you. Or do you think you know her so well that you can answer on her behalf?" Sheryl asked with a smile.
"Xiao Han has her own rhythm. She is constantly moving forward... so-called schemes and conspiracies simply cannot keep up with her."
"Not even mine? You have that much confidence in her?!" Sheryl’s expression was quite a sight.
She naturally understood what Bai Yu meant. It was just like how Xiao Han had developed so rapidly within the Academy; before anyone could even react—before anyone could even make contact with her—she had already climbed to the very top. In the face of absolute strength, any calculation or plot looked like the work of a clown.
But had the current Xiao Han truly developed to the point where she could break Sheryl's plans?
Sheryl’s first instinct was that it was impossible.
She was a Rebel Witch. By coming to this Main World, she was already an existence at the very apex.
Scheming against a Little Witch and leading her into a trial of her own design should have been child's play.
"If you don't have confidence in Xiao Han, then you should pack up your little schemes," Bai Yu said. "Why go to all this trouble against a Little Witch you aren't even sure you can handle? You’d be better off giving up early and peacefully dissolving the contract while you're at it."
"What are you saying? Of course I have confidence in her," Sheryl replied with a laugh, seemingly unfazed by the verbal trap she had nearly stepped into. "But I really am curious... what is Xiao Han up to? Did she go to the Expansion Realm?"
"And I'm curious about what you intend to do. You keep saying you want to test Xiao Han—how exactly do you plan to do that?"
"That wasn't in the contract, so I don't intend to tell you," Sheryl refused bluntly.
"Then let me guess. Based on your previous words and philosophy, you loathe comfort and prefer radicalism. You want everyone to experience the same hardships you did. Therefore, what you want to witness is Xiao Han's courage, her methods, her determination..."
"Not quite right, but... go on?" Sheryl watched Bai Yu with great interest, as if expecting her to analyze further.
"To achieve such a goal is almost impossible in the Main World. Unless... you intend to trigger an Academy War."
In the history of the Main World, Academy Wars were clearly recorded. They were no mere games, but total wars!
Mentor against Mentor, student against student—no one was exempt. Historically, if the Mentors lost, the students faced a massacre. However, Transcendents were no longer allowed to slaughter students at will.
Even so, such wars had never truly ceased. It was just that modern Academy Wars were small-scale conflicts between minor Transcendent academies—localized wars within the world.
The top academies had always turned a blind eye to such conflicts, only speaking up to enforce the principle of Transcendent non-interference.
Perhaps some academies simply needed constant life-and-death combat to witness an increase in their strength.
But more academies were simply forced into the fray.
Why were there so many small Transcendent academies in the Main World?
Because someone always had to carry the burden, becoming sacrifices to resolve contradictions.
Some Transcendent academies even had affiliated academies, which were essentially production bases for cannon fodder.
Other Transcendent academies engaged in proxy wars, where the shadows of certain top academies could be seen directly or indirectly behind them.
Even the Witch Academy was no exception. The reason the surrounding regions of the Witch Academy were so "peaceful" was because the wars were happening at other academies.
Occasionally, special emergency tasks would appear on the Academy System—battlefield support missions.
Students without sufficient strength wouldn't even see these tasks refresh on their lists.
Currently, these wars were restricted to the student level; Transcendents were not allowed to take the field.
After all, once a Transcendent intervened, the nature of the conflict changed.
Many small Transcendent academies had only a single Dean and a few Transcendent Mentors. The rest of the teaching was handled by senior students acting as Teaching Assistants and proxy Mentors to pass on Transcendent knowledge.
News of these Transcendent wars was essentially never reported. Ordinary people had no way of knowing about the brutal combat conditions. Even if they did, they had no power to stop it, and it would only trigger uncontrollable social outcry.
Even students from top academies generally didn't care about the miserable state of these lesser schools.
However... the external families knew.
If their children couldn't get into a top academy, they would rather they attend a normal school and return home after a few years to inherit the family business than enter one of those small Transcendent academies.
Because those people were cannon fodder.
Those students would die in silence, entering the Ley Line Soul Essence cycle. Then, the Main World society would encourage high birth rates to constantly accelerate the birth and circulation of talent.
"Trigger an Academy War? Do those petty squabbles even deserve to be called 'war'?" Sheryl chuckled, utterly dismissive.
As a Rebel Witch who had witnessed countless world invasions, she had experienced the tragedy of falling world communities more times than she could count.
Compared to campaigns that involved the extinction of races and the shattering of worlds at every turn, the confrontations in the Main World were, in her eyes, mere child's play.
They weren't even worth a news report.
"True. Although your ambitions lie beyond the Main World, as a Rebel Witch, you still want this world to be the property of Witches. Moreover, the Deans possess World Repair Techniques, and the World Navel is currently held by those other races. From that perspective, you wouldn't use such radical means as triggering an Academy War within the Main World."
"Therefore..." Sheryl spoke, drawing out the word as if guiding Bai Yu to the answer.
"Therefore, you must move the battlefield. You'll draw the fire elsewhere—to that Game World. Xiao Han has already severed the World Shackles ahead of time. You want to take her to the Game World to fulfill the promise Dean Mei once made: to harvest the Game World."
"Oh? I didn't expect you to remember me mentioning that once. You didn't link all this together just based on what I said last time, did you?"
"Is that not it?" Bai Yu asked with certainty.
"Is there not another possibility? That I don't need to go to all that trouble—I could just help that fellow Mei find the World Navel and then launch an Academy War directly?"
"You found the World Navel?!" Bai Yu frowned at Sheryl, her expression one of disbelief.
"Keep guessing~"
Sheryl didn't give a straight answer, which left Bai Yu feeling uncertain.
"Hmph hmph~ Look at you. You won't pry any useful intel out of me with just that level of skill."
"Since you're unwilling to speak, please leave."
"Kicking me out already?"
"I have things to do. I'm going to find Dean Mei."
"What for? You've signed a Witch Contract. You can't tell her anything. Even indirect expressions are bound by the contract."
"I am well aware. I am simply going to communicate with Dean Mei on Xiao Han's behalf regarding the promotion plans and suggestions for concepts like Self-Generated Mana and Body-Manifested Spells within the Academy."
"Is that what you should be worried about right now?"
"Anything related to Xiao Han is a matter of importance to me."
"Fine, fine~" Sheryl let out a helpless sigh. "How about... I go with you?"
* * *
The Expansion Realm.
"What? Sister Xiao Han has actually come to the Expansion Realm?"
Ninglan Qiuyue's first reaction upon hearing the news was shock!
But she accepted it quickly.
The Dean told her she didn't need to manage the matter, only to be aware of it. She was to act as usual and didn't need to tell anyone else about Xiao Han's arrival.
Unless Xiao Han contacted her personally, they would deal with the situation then.
The Dean had contacted her specifically to tell her that if Xiao Han caused too much of a stir in the Expansion Realm, she shouldn't panic. If the commotion was truly too large, the Academy would step in to handle the fallout.
This explanation made Ninglan Qiuyue intensely curious. What exactly was Xiao Han doing that could cause such a massive disturbance?
Meanwhile, beneath a Void Rift in the Expansion Realm.
An illusory labyrinth shrouded the area, its vastness covering an entire mountain peak. On a platform carved out beneath a massive rock formation, I stood, conducting dream experiments.
As I laid out the Dream Labyrinth, dream creatures attracted by the Soul Stones wandered through it, their numbers steadily increasing.
However, under the consumption of my experiments, their numbers were also steadily decreasing.
After entering the dream world and using dream creatures as experimental subjects, the first thing I did wasn't to verify the possibility of a soul's dream state. Instead, I used Soul Depiction on the dream creatures, trying to see if Soul Depiction could grant them the possibility of life.
The result was as expected. Dream creatures, which possessed only consciousness, could not form a healthy "soul" as I understood it under the effects of Soul Depiction.
Therefore, using Soul Depiction directly on the Fool's Dream clan would not allow them to become true life. This realization made me completely give up on that path.
However, it wasn't without discovery.
While using dream creatures as experimental subjects, I found that they didn't seem to possess only "consciousness."
They possessed another concept I was already familiar with, though I had almost forgotten it.
Nightmares.
Back when I severed the Nightmares for the Fool's Dream clan, I had relied on the momentum of the Script.
Now, this gave me another idea.
If these dream creatures had their Nightmares severed... what would be the difference between them and the Fool's Dream clan?
Based on my understanding of both, I found that there seemed to be... no significant difference.
It was like removing the body, then stripping away the racial concept and bloodline information. What difference was there in the remaining soul?
There seemed to be very little.
Was it possible?
Was there anything special about the Fool's Dream clan?
They had once carried [Transcendent Knowledge]? They had once craved to become true life?
It seemed only these additional concepts defined the difference between the Fool's Dream clan and ordinary dream creatures.
But there were no clear conceptual divisions among dream creatures—no races, no bloodlines. They all seemed very similar, just with different forms. They were all just dream creatures...
So... could they be converted into the Fool's Dream clan?
Theoretically, it should be possible.
After all, humans could be transformed into Witches, Holy Angels, or Elves. Race was just a definition. The same should apply to the Fool's Dream clan.
"This doesn't seem quite right..."
Within the dream, I suddenly realized a problem and slowly returned from the dream to reality.
The issue I realized concerned the entry of consciousness into the dream—a problem that should not be ignored: the method for the consciousness to return to its original body.
With my soul acting as the medium to touch the dream and my consciousness roaming within it, if I dove too deep into the dream layers, there was a possibility I wouldn't be able to return.
In other words, I could become Dream Lost!
Therefore, I needed to ensure a method that could pull my consciousness back immediately, no matter what. I needed to establish an anchor in reality or the shallow dreams...
"No, that's not safe enough. I should set anchors continuously throughout the process—from reality to the shallow dreams, then to the deep dreams—forming a complete wake-up mechanism. Only then can it be considered safe." After all, I don't do things I'm not sure of, and I won't gamble with my own life.
The reason I needed to enter the deep layers of the dream was to touch what lay beneath the surface... the Primitive Dream Realm!
That was the essence of the dream itself. Shallow dreams were merely a co-existence with reality, a stabilizer between the opposition of reality and dream.
It was also the place where the consciousness of living beings unintentionally extended when they dreamed during sleep.
To use an analogy, the Primitive Dream Realm was the deep ocean, while shallow dreams were the shallows and the beach. Countless tourists played on the beach—just like dreaming at night—with essentially zero risk.
What I needed to do was tie a safety rope to myself that could pull me back at any time, and then dive fearlessly into the deep sea to discover the principles by which the Primitive Dream Realm birthed dream consciousness.
I needed to verify if a dream soul existed, or if such a hypothesis was feasible.
If it existed, then there was hope for everything.
If it didn't, then I would attempt to create a soul. Just as there was no concept of a soul in the Void before the Fourth Life Elucidation, I would use every thought and inspiration at my disposal to shape it.
Until I succeeded, or failed.
I looked at the strange rune appearing on my hand. This was a composite rune shaped with the Primitive Dream Realm Rune as its core. Using my most intense memory nodes as a ritual, I completed this composite rune to forcibly communicate with my soul and consciousness.
Similarly, this composite rune was my Consciousness Anchoring within the dream. If an uncontrollable accident occurred, I could follow these anchors to continuously project my dream consciousness back until I was safe.
The entire process was "fully automatic."
Strong memory nodes could quickly stimulate my consciousness into an instinctive reaction. After all, in a true moment of crisis, there would be no time for me to react. Special circumstances required special measures.
"Let's try one more time..."
Diving into the dream again, I captured several dream creatures within the Dream Labyrinth to serve as experimental subjects for this deep dive into the Primitive Dream Realm. Whether they would be useful or not, it was better to have them.
Then, I entered the Primitive Dream Realm once more...