Chapter 837: Nightmare Purification and Emotion Body Cultivation?
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 837: Nightmare Purification and Emotion Body Cultivation?
As Bai Yu finished her explanation, the room fell into a heavy silence.
Mei Lind wasn't even sure what to focus on first—the relief that Xiao Han was temporarily safe, or the fact that the girl had already stumbled upon the concept of Dream State Soul Essence.
"When exactly did you discover that you could use the Great Knowledge Seed to contact her?" Mei Lind finally asked, her voice steady despite the weight of the situation.
"Just a short while ago. I was so preoccupied with Xiao Han's safety that I hadn't had the chance to find you and tell you yet."
"A short while ago... did Xiao Han reach out to you first?"
"Yes. I never imagined the Tree of Great Knowledge could facilitate communication across the boundary between dream and reality," Bai Yu admitted, her tone tinged with disbelief.
"Actually, it can..." Mei Lind didn't elaborate, but she knew well that what functioned within dreams was never the Great Spellbook itself, but the [Transcendent Knowledge] it contained.
Still, she was curious. How had Xiao Han managed to preserve the functions of the Tree of Great Knowledge within the Primitive Dream Realm?
According to her understanding of that specific [Transcendent Knowledge], its core concepts revolved around things like plants and growth, not communication. One could say that the Tree of Great Knowledge, as a Great Spellbook, was an entirely derivative application of that [Transcendent Knowledge]—none of its functions were being used for their "intended" purpose.
Well, perhaps there was one: the Omni-Link Main Network Tree, which was a modified derivative technique.
"Would it... be convenient for me to see your chat logs? If not, could you relay some questions for me?" After a moment's hesitation, Mei Lind made her request.
Now that she knew Xiao Han's situation, it was clear the girl was relatively safe within the Primitive Dream Realm. If possible, Mei Lind wanted to establish contact herself. She also wanted to see if she could uncover what had triggered this breach of the Primitive Dream Realm into reality.
If she could manage it, she even wanted to try rescuing the other witches trapped within. In a situation where everyone was missing and information was a void, the ability to communicate was the ultimate advantage.
"That... of course. Just a moment..." Bai Yu hesitated briefly, but recognizing the gravity of the situation, she shared the logs after filtering out a few private exchanges.
Upon receiving the shared logs, Mei Lind was stunned. She hadn't expected Bai Yu and Xiao Han to have discussed so much already.
From the beginning of the logs, it was indeed Xiao Han who had initiated contact.
Scanning through the text and extracting the key points, Mei Lind began to piece together the sequence of events.
First, it was certain that Xiao Han had fallen into a dreamscape called "Fool's Village," a highly unique existence even within the Primitive Dream Realm. Furthermore, it was home to a massive population of... Fool's Dreams!
Yes, the very same Fool's Dreams Mei Lind had encountered during her own travels in the Primitive Dream Realm. To think they actually had a settled community there!
The one who had guided Xiao Han there was none other than the Great Spellbook Mei Lind had edited herself: the Great Wisdom Enlightenment Art.
Currently, Xiao Han had managed to become a Sage among them and was busy researching Nightmares and Dream State Soul Essence.
This string of information was a massive shock to Mei Lind's sensibilities. Who could have predicted the plot would develop this way?
However, learning to accept the absurd was a fundamental instinct for any Transcendent. She turned her focus to the theory Xiao Han had proposed regarding Dream State Soul Essence.
It wasn't that she had never heard of it; Witches were at the absolute forefront of the Great Soul Subject!
Setting aside the achievements of the elusive Soul Truth Witch, the community of Transcendent Witches dedicated to the Great Soul Subject produced a steady stream of brilliant scholars who made miraculous discoveries within the Primitive Dream Realm.
"Dream State Soul Essence" wasn't a formal term in academia, but taken literally, it suggested that a concept similar to soul essence existed within the dream world, which stood in opposition to reality.
It was a bold hypothesis, though such theories were common in academic circles. Many Scholar Witches had similar conjectures—after all, how could one conduct experiments without a bit of audacity?
For now, she would call it "Dream State Soul Essence," even though witches had yet to discover such an ideal substance in the Primitive Dream Realm.
They had, however, discovered a similar concept, one that already had a formal name: Nightmares.
Nightmares were once described as the primary obstacle preventing dream creatures from evolving into true life. But if Nightmares were actually "Dream State Soul Essence" in an ideal state, it would completely overturn existing theories.
Mei Lind didn't delve deeper into the academic nuances. She wasn't an all-rounder who studied everything; knowing the general gist of such fascinating topics was already impressive enough.
Looking back at Xiao Han's "self-taught" research into Dream State Soul Essence and Nightmares, even Mei Lind was beginning to wonder if the two were truly one and the same.
In the Transcendent realm, many things weren't proven theorems, yet they were used extensively. This was the "consensus" of the Transcendent world. Besides, just because you couldn't prove it didn't mean you couldn't use it! It followed a logic similar to occultism.
"Does Xiao Han still not realize what's happening in the outside world?" Mei Lind asked casually while scrolling through the logs.
"She might really be in the dark..." Bai Yu checked the logs; she realized she hadn't explicitly mentioned it.
Bai Yu had taken the dream disaster in the real world as a given, so her initial messages were filled with concern for Xiao Han's safety. Xiao Han, in turn, had been responding with comforting words, telling Bai Yu not to worry and that she was safe—showing absolutely no awareness that she was at the heart of a Primitive Dream Realm riot.
"Ask her. If she doesn't know, it means she accidentally avoided the Primitive Dream Realm calamity. In that case, tell her to stay in Fool's Village and not to do anything reckless. It's best if she waits until things settle down before coming back."
"Understood."
Bai Yu agreed wholeheartedly and immediately began typing a message.
* * *
Meanwhile, within Fool's Village in the Primitive Dream Realm.
I glanced at the message arriving via the Tree of Great Knowledge.
"Hmm? A dream disaster in reality... causing the Primitive Dream Realm to breach the boundaries of the real world?"
I was slightly stunned by the news. Even I hadn't expected this. A dream disaster in reality?
For Sister Bai, a Transcendent, to use the word "calamity" to describe a dream event was enough to signal the severity of the situation.
However, it was impossible for me to return to reality right now just to see what this calamity looked like. A bit of a pity.
After replying to Sister Bai, it took a while before she messaged me back. She told me to stay put in Fool's Village and that she would notify me when it was safe to return.
I accepted this, of course. Besides, I had already planned to stay in the Primitive Dream Realm for a long time. My experiments with Nightmares had only just begun!
I could now say with ample evidence that Nightmares were indeed "Dream State Soul Essence." Furthermore... I had already used the power of Body Cultivation to isolate the first wisp of "sadness" from a Nightmare!
This experiment proved at least two things.
First, the negative conceptual information within a Nightmare could be extracted. This meant that Nightmares could be "purified."
Second, within the Self-Awakened Body Cultivation system, there was a method for utilizing emotions! It was a specialized channel on the same level as "perception."
Actually, I should have realized the second point sooner. When I first achieved the sixth sense, Heart Sense, I had perceived emotions, and Body Cultivation inherently grants the ability to dominate one's own feelings. These were all signs that an "emotion" power framework existed within Body Cultivation.
As for what this represented... well, it didn't mean much for now. For me, it simply meant I could use Body Cultivation to "strip away" the negative emotions from a Nightmare.
If I were to leave the dream, I might try to explore "Emotion Body Cultivation" further. Perhaps this power could literally punch someone until they cried uncontrollably. It might even be possible to punch someone into a state of depression, since Emotion Body Cultivation can both strip and guide emotions. Imagine slapping someone, and instead of getting angry, they just start laughing hysterically at you.
Such an eerie ability... just thinking about it was terrifying, especially in a psychological sense.
But clearly, I didn't want to focus my energy on Emotion Body Cultivation right now. I was interested, but not to the point where I felt I must master it. Its primary use was combat, unlike Five Senses Body Cultivation, which helped me better explore the truths of the world.
When Sister Bai originally nudged me toward Five Senses Body Cultivation, it was to help me adapt to Spirit Vision and bridge the gap toward the "Real Five Senses" after ascending to Transcendent status.
But at this stage, I still needed to borrow the power of Emotion Body Cultivation to complete a specific technique: "Nightmare Negative Emotion Stripping."
I was dying to know what a Nightmare would become once the concepts and information I deemed "impurities" were removed.
Of course, I was even more curious about how Nightmares spread. Dream creatures merely carried them. If the mode of transmission was infection... then why couldn't they be discarded?
Many questions continued to plague me, and I couldn't provide a rational answer all at once.
For instance, what exactly are Fool's Dreams?
I had once explored their essence. Fundamentally, they are consciousness—specifically, dream consciousness. It's a unique consciousness incompatible with reality, which is why my Soul Depiction technique couldn't shape them.
If I could find "Dream State Soul Essence" in the Primitive Dream Realm, I could use it to shape the life essence of the Fool's Dreams within the dream world.
This line of thought led me to another realization. Would a dream creature shaped by Dream State Soul Essence not be considered "life"? In reality, even something that is purely soul essence is still recognized as a living being.
This was quite puzzling. Or was it that they simply couldn't receive the recognition of the Void while within the Primitive Dream Realm?
Regardless, once I complete my Dream State Soul, I should have the answers. Since the nature of the soul is to act as a bridge between dream and reality, a Dream State Soul and a reality soul should be fundamentally similar.
By granting the Fool's Dreams a soul through this method, they could reach reality through their soul essence. This was essentially no different from my soul entering the dream from reality; they would just be doing it in reverse.
This was the logic I had constructed when I boldly hypothesized the concept of "Dream State Soul Essence." Now that my Nightmare experiments had reached a breakthrough, everything else would follow naturally.
The only pity was that in Fool's Village, there was no one else to help me with these tedious, repetitive processes.
As for the Fool's Dreams? Those cute little things should just enjoy their lives happily. Researching Nightmares was a task only I could do—not just because it was an objective fact that Fool's Dreams couldn't touch Nightmares, but because I was the only one with a Holy Relic and the power of Self-Awakened Body Cultivation.
As my understanding of the Holy Relic deepened, I began to grasp what the [Transcendent Knowledge] within the Great Spellbook actually was.
I first learned of the concept from Sister Bai during my enrollment and talent awakening. Clearly, even she didn't fully know what [Transcendent Knowledge] was or how to define it; she only knew it was precious—precious enough to get someone killed.
Thinking back to the fragments of [Transcendent Knowledge] from the Great Glacial Throne Technique, people were indeed desperate for them, and they certainly carried a risk to one's life.
Now, within the Primitive Dream Realm, the Great Spellbook had shed its "spell" exterior to reveal its essence. I could perceive that essence from a different perspective.
It felt like... a Totem!
That's not to say [Transcendent Knowledge] is a Totem. I can state clearly that it isn't. But its properties were very similar to one. It was more like a combination of my "Self-Awakened Body Cultivation" and a "Totem."
To draw a comparison...
Self-Awakened Body Cultivation itself possesses infinite possibilities. It is the origin of all Body Cultivation concepts—Five Senses, Body Tempering, Emotion... all of these exist as if structured upon Self-Awakened Body Cultivation, a special power that composites nearly every "Body Cultivation concept."
Taking my Tree of Great Knowledge as an example, the [Transcendent Knowledge] within this Great Spellbook also possessed infinite possibilities. It could have become a plant-based Great Spellbook, just as it became the current Tree of Great Knowledge. These were possibilities granted by the concepts chosen for it, but the core concept it represented was likely "plant growth."
And "plants" weren't just plants in the common sense. After all, the Tree of Great Knowledge was a "plant" constructed from a series of concepts: consciousness, thought, knowledge, information, and so on. The concept of "growing" and "expanding" by absorbing knowledge and information fit it almost perfectly.
Within the Primitive Dream Realm, these sudden insights allowed me to connect the dots instantly, granting me a rapid understanding of things that words could hardly describe.