Chapter 838: I'm Not Sure, But I'm Willing to Believe!
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 838: I'm Not Sure, But I'm Willing to Believe!
This approach allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of the Great Spellbook while simultaneously providing another layer of insight into the power of self-awakened Body Cultivation.
It wasn't just the Tree of Great Knowledge; before I could truly grasp that, there was an even more vital piece of [Transcendent Knowledge] I needed to understand.
That was the Great Wisdom Enlightenment Art, which the Fool's Dream referred to as a "Holy Relic."
If the Tree of Great Knowledge represented "plant growth," then what did the Great Wisdom Enlightenment Art represent?
Did it stand for pure "Wisdom"?
Or perhaps... "Enlightenment"?
Neither seemed quite accurate.
While those two concepts described the Great Spellbook well enough, my interactions with the Fool's Dream suggested that the essential nature and concept of this [Transcendent Knowledge] was something else entirely.
It felt, vaguely, more like... Life.
Yes, in my eyes, whether it was "Wisdom," "Enlightenment," "Dreams," or even "Souls," they were all constantly steering a specific concept toward Life!
And what was that concept?
To me, it was the Fool's Dream themselves!
Did [Transcendent Knowledge] that existed solely to become Life truly exist?
I wasn't sure, but I was willing to believe!
It was just like the Tree of Great Knowledge! I refused to accept it as merely a plant-type spell; it had to be an existence of a higher concept.
And so... for the first time, the thought of dismantling the Great Spellbook known as the Great Wisdom Enlightenment Art was born within me.
I had realized that the framework of the Great Wisdom Enlightenment Art had locked this [Transcendent Knowledge] into a cage. No matter what, whether by definition, concept, or philosophy, it could never achieve what I hoped for within those confines.
Perhaps to other Transcendent Witches, this thought would sound incredibly conceited. What kind of arrogance did it take to claim that a Great Spellbook—a transcendent technique unique to witches—was limiting the development of a piece of [Transcendent Knowledge]?
One must remember that every Great Spellbook is a miracle, the culmination of countless Transcendent Witches' time, energy, knowledge, wisdom, and inspiration.
But the more rigid a concept was, the more I enjoyed breaking it. It was like the things no one else would do—those were the things I loved to do most.
What I wanted to say was... some Transcendent Knowledge is simply not meant to become a Great Spellbook!
The Void never decreed that the final destination for all [Transcendent Knowledge] must be a Great Spellbook.
The way a person chooses to explore the transcendent is the way the transcendent responds to them.
The weight of that saying continued to grow in my mind.
As Sister Bai had told me to stay in Fool's Village for a while to "lay low," I gradually slowed the pace of my research.
The work I was doing was repetitive and tedious, and it failed to ignite my passion for exploration.
Thus, I decided to balance work and rest, combining my research with another pursuit.
That pursuit was... interacting with the Fool's Dream on a much closer level.
Rationally speaking, the [Transcendent Knowledge] of the Great Wisdom Enlightenment Art was inextricably linked to the Fool's Dream, as I believed it was the medium that guided them toward Life.
Emotionally speaking, I was the Sage they honored, the great existence loved by the Fool's Dream who provided them sanctuary. How could I bear to remain distant from them?
As the frequency of my appearances in Fool's Village increased, I—the Sage who had previously existed only in "rumors"—began to leave a lasting impression on the Fool's Dream.
At first, the Fool's Dream were nervous and excited by my presence, finding it almost unbelievable.
Until I spent time playing with them in the gardens, catching butterflies that fluttered through the dreamscape, having the time of my life.
Until I went up the mountains with them after the rain to pick mushrooms, learning to distinguish the vibrant, large mushrooms that would make one's head spin if eaten in a dream, before heading back down to share a massive pot of mushroom soup brewed by everyone.
Until I went to the orchards to help tend their fruit and vegetables, spraying mist under the sunlight and introducing the Fool's Dream to the brilliant rainbows they had never seen before. From then on, a rainbow-like scenery became a permanent fixture of Fool's Village.
Until I joined the Fool's Dream at their banquets, mixing Fool's Dream Brew together and sharing our different flavors. They told me bluntly that the Lord Sage was like a giant Fool's Dream, bringing them a kind of joy they had never known before.
Indeed... things I found novel were things they did day after day; perhaps this was their understanding of happiness.
Did all of this count as the Sage being "unproductive"?
No... I didn't think so. I simply felt I hadn't spent enough time with the Fool's Dream, and that I didn't understand them well enough.
Many things cannot be described with language, just as many things cannot be explained through logic or profit. Meaning is something one bestows upon oneself. None of the Fool's Dream in the village thought my behavior was "unproductive," because they didn't even understand the concept of being unproductive.
Wasn't it only natural to actively participate in the pursuit of a beautiful life?
On the contrary, my previous behavior—cutting off all contact with the outside world in the name of research—was what they found incomprehensible.
This "daily life" finally came to a brief end when the Village Chief personally came to find me.
"Village Chief? Is there something you need?" I stood up and looked at her, then excused myself from the Fool's Dream beside me.
I had a unique perspective on this Village Chief.
As the guardian of the Dream Scroll, she possessed a "maturity" that the other Fool's Dream lacked. She had broken free from the original framework of the Fool's Dream, only to step into a much larger one.
If the other Fool's Dream were simple, heartwarming stories on the Dream Scroll, then this Village Chief... she was a lonely watcher atop the Starlight Tower, the only Lucid One in the entire Fool's Village.
She called it the "duty of the Village Chief," but as a Fool's Dream, did she truly understand what "duty" meant?
So, when she approached me, I instinctively assumed she was curious if I was fulfilling my duty as a Sage—leading the Fool's Dream to become true Life.
But I realized... I was still overthinking her.
The Village Chief's maturity was built upon a massive amount of memory and an understanding of the truth, but beneath all that, she was still just a Fool's Dream.
"Lord Sage... an anomaly has appeared in the Fool's Village atop the Starlight Tower."
"An anomaly?" I was surprised by her cautious words. Had something happened in the Primitive Dream Realm again?
But through the Tree of Great Knowledge, I had learned from Sister Bai that the riots in the Primitive Dream Realm were supposed to be subsiding.
"Then I should go take a look with you." To be safe, I decided to investigate. I would never be lax when it came to anything that might threaten Fool's Village.
After a regretful farewell to the Fool's Dream I had been playing with, I followed the Village Chief to the Starlight Tower.
* * *
The Primitive Dream Realm.
A consciousness drifting within the Primitive Dream Realm gradually coalesced into a figure. Though her form was slightly blurred, it couldn't hide the exhaustion on her face.
Being lost in the Primitive Dream Realm had caused her to lose her anchor on time completely. She had no idea how long she had been here. Perhaps... even knowing wouldn't matter, for within the Primitive Dream Realm, even the concept of time was distorted.
Or rather, it was consciousness that was distorted, and consciousness was the anchor for perceiving the flow of time.
Whether time moved too fast or too slow, it took a massive toll on a person's cognition and energy.
"My name... is... Aina Tours."
The witch calling herself Aina Tours muttered these words. As a Transcendent Witch walking the path of the Great Soul Subject, this wasn't her first time exploring the Primitive Dream Realm.
She had developed a simple but effective method for anchoring her consciousness here.
By calling out her own name, she could strengthen her self-awareness and prevent herself from being "assimilated" by the Primitive Dream Realm.
It was hard for her to tell if she was truly lost. She had underestimated the terror brought by this Dreamscape Calamity.
In this patch of the Primitive Dream Realm, she had encountered a "Dream Order" unlike anything she had ever seen. To her, it was nothing short of a miracle!
Furthermore, there were massive numbers of unusual dream creatures here, like schools of fish in the deep sea.
Unless there was some special "food" here, it would be impossible for so many dream creatures to gather.
These dream creatures also caused her immense trouble.
If these things appeared in reality, she could annihilate them with a wave of her hand!
But this was the Primitive Dream Realm; she could only rely on her Soul Essence and Soul Dream to evade the surging tides of so many dream creatures.
What shocked her most, however, was that continuous "Ladder"!
It wound its way out from the depths of the Primitive Dream Realm like an invitation from the abyss.
It was this very Ladder that had constructed an order within this chaotic, disordered dream—an order that the dream creatures could not cross. It was by using this Ladder that she had been able to delve deeper into the Primitive Dream Realm and reach this point.
She pressed forward, rushing toward the Ladder. She had fallen from it more than once, but it had become her only anchor in this part of the dream.
She had countless opportunities to turn back and follow the Ladder upward to reality, but she chose to plunge downward instead.
She was curious to see what lay at the end of the Ladder.
She wasn't alone; several other sisters had entered the Primitive Dream Realm with her.
And it wasn't just Transcendent Witches. Further up, she had seen too many powerless consciousnesses drifting aimlessly.
Those consciousnesses lacked Soul Essence; they were merely minds swept into the Primitive Dream Realm. Their identities were obvious.
They were the students pushed into the Primitive Dream Realm by the Transcendent Academies.
Perhaps the people outside thought they still had a chance of "survival," but having delved deep into the Primitive Dream Realm, she knew better. There was no chance.
When the dream creatures ruthlessly tore apart their consciousnesses, their physical Soul Essence collapsed the moment their awareness vanished. They didn't even have time to enter the Ley Line Soul Essence cycle of the Expansion Realm before being consumed by the dream creatures.
The creatures in the Primitive Dream Realm were nothing like the harmless ones in the shallow dreams.
They were the most ruthless of devourers!
They shredded Soul Essence saturated with memories and emotions, turning it into nourishment for their own growth.
To avoid the risks of the Primitive Dream Realm, Aina had to move to a higher layer of the dream to better reach that anchoring Ladder.
"Is that you, Aina?"
In the silent Primitive Dream Realm, a call suddenly rang out, followed by a resonance at the soul level.
"It's... you all." Aina followed the direction of the voice and locked onto several figures.
This was the Primitive Dream Realm, where concepts of direction and space were so muddled that without that call acting as a perceptual anchor, Aina wouldn't have even noticed the figures standing on the Ladder.
"It really is you, Aina... were you just lost in the dream?"
"Yes... the situation here is far too dangerous. If I didn't have my Soul Essence and this Ladder as an anchor, I might have truly been lost."
"Then shall we explore further together?"
"Together?"
"What? Have you lost your spirit of exploration and decided to return to reality?"
"Heh... how could I? I was thinking the same thing!" Aina lowered her head and chuckled. How could she possibly back down now?
But just as these three witches, driven by their shared pursuit, prepared to dive even deeper into the Primitive Dream Realm, one of them suddenly noticed something strange.
"There... wait, what is that?" She pointed toward the depths where the Ladder extended, as if seeing something impossible.
Aina followed her gaze toward the end of the Ladder.
Previously, when they "looked" that way, it was like staring into an abyss; looking for too long gave one the illusion that their soul was being assimilated.
But now, they realized that the unreachable end seemed to be gradually revealing its scenery.
However, it wasn't that they were approaching the depths; rather, that indescribable existence was coming toward them!
"Are those... ruins within the dream?"
"But... it looks like a city to me."
"Why does it look like an entire world to me?!"
In the Primitive Dream Realm, which lacked concepts of space and distance, the Ladder had created a perceivable order, thereby deriving a concept of distance anchored to the Ladder itself.
And now... the Ladder seemed to be guiding that massive, unknowable thing out from the depths of the Primitive Dream Realm.
Accompanying that unknowable thing were dream creatures even more violent and terrifying!
They gathered into a massive dream tide, a spectacle of dream creatures that the three Transcendent Witches had never witnessed before.
Wherever that massive, unknowable thing passed, the Primitive Dream Realm shattered, and endless data was reorganized because of it.
They could only catch a fleeting glimpse of golden chains wrapping around that massive, world-like existence as it rose toward the boundary of reality.
Seeing this, they seemed to understand the culprit behind this Dreamscape Calamity.
The instigator stirring up everything in the Primitive Dream Realm was the dream world before their eyes...
"Watch out! Prepare for the risk of being lost—"
Before Aina could finish her final warning to her companions, she was swallowed by the chaotic tide of dream creatures.
What kind of sight was it?
In the Primitive Dream Realm, a dream world of undefinable size fended off endless dream creatures, using the Ladder as an anchor to rush toward the place called reality.
Aina's final "vision" froze at that moment. She felt herself falling into an endless Dream Scroll, but golden chains caught her form...