Chapter 843: The Broad Prospects for the Application of Dreamscape Calamities
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 843: The Broad Prospects for the Application of Dreamscape Calamities
"Hmm?" I looked at Aina in confusion, wondering what she had managed to come up with in such a short amount of time. Nevertheless, I told her the truth.
"It's because I can communicate with the outside world through the Tree of Great Knowledge."
"What? The Tree of Great Knowledge can communicate with the out—" Aina stopped mid-sentence as it suddenly dawned on her. The Tree of Great Knowledge was a Great Spellbook. Since it was a Great Spellbook crafted from [Transcendent Knowledge] that could take effect within the Primitive Dream Realm, performing such a feat didn't seem that difficult after all.
However, Aina had never used a Great Spellbook herself, so she wasn't entirely sure to what extent one could function within the Primitive Dream Realm.
Even if she knew a lot and curiously sought confirmation from me, I could still provide an answer that would satisfy her.
Because the Tree of Great Knowledge itself was an integrated Great Spellbook that used the concept of "knowledge" as a carrier to process information, its "reconstruction" within the Primitive Dream Realm was the fastest and most convenient.
"Sorry... I might have been overthinking just now. I thought I might be in a special dream constructed from my own memories by the Primitive Dream Realm..." After all, regarding the concept of a "Dream Domain" mentioned earlier... she still instinctively felt it was a bit too fantastical.
"So that's it? The Primitive Dream Realm is indeed treacherous and complex; maintaining vigilance is very important."
Once I understood the reason behind her wariness, I was quite sympathetic. After all, the way dreams could deceive one's consciousness and perception was truly terrifying.
However... as one delved deeper into the Great Soul Subject, the soul's fundamental understanding and perception of dreams would gradually allow one to distinguish between dreams and reality. Thus, it was basically impossible for a witch of that level to be in a dream and not realize it.
In fact, witches of the Soul Faction had even developed abilities like life essence resistance against dream-based illusions on this foundation.
Aina had personally stated she was a practitioner of the Great Soul Subject and a powerful Saint Realm witch.
For someone of her caliber to still doubt her own perception showed just how much the Primitive Dream Realm had tormented her, leaving her in a state of extreme hyper-vigilance.
After calming Aina down, we temporarily settled her into a house in Fool's Village with the Village Chief's help.
But before long, Aina sought me out again of her own accord.
Having accepted the reality of her situation, she had suddenly realized a few things.
For instance... what was she here to do?
She had originally entered the Primitive Dream Realm to investigate its characteristics. After all, for many experiments, it was better to experience things firsthand than to stay in a laboratory.
But an accident had brought her here, and the peaceful atmosphere of this place had affected her so much that she had almost forgotten her purpose.
It wasn't until she found herself with nothing to do and reflected on her situation that she suddenly remembered her goals.
Only then did she narrowly prevent her perception, targets, and objectives from being assimilated by the Primitive Dream Realm.
Furthermore, she realized another very important thing...
Earlier, when she was talking to Xiao Han, she had overlooked a crucial detail!
Xiao Han said her Tree of Great Knowledge could communicate with the outside world!
At the time, once she got the "answer" to her question, it had eased her inner worries, but she had ignored the intrinsic value of that answer!
Aina cursed the damn Primitive Dream Realm under her breath before immediately seeking me out again.
"Xiao Han, I just remembered... your Tree of Great Knowledge can contact the outside? Reality, right?"
"Yes. But... because the functions are still being developed, I can currently only contact Sister Bai—that's Bai Yu. Do you know her, Sister Aina?" I tilted my head slightly as I looked at her. I couldn't help but feel that witches in the Primitive Dream Realm seemed to become a bit... slow.
Then again... if I hadn't used the Tree of Great Knowledge to anchor my own memories, I might have looked even worse than her.
Recalling my own performance the first time I delved deep into the Primitive Dream Realm, even the memory alone was enough to convey the extreme danger of this place.
"Bai Yu... I know her. She's your girlfriend, right? You can only contact her?" Aina asked, nodding quickly.
"Mhm. Because of my relationship with Sister Bai, the connection between my Tree of Great Knowledge and her Great Knowledge Seed is currently the only communication channel. But it's fine; Sister Bai has already informed the Academy Dean. This channel has become the only link between the Primitive Dream Realm and reality. If you want to contact someone, Sister Aina, I can just tell Sister Bai."
"Help me contact the Academy Dean... just the Dean is fine. I'll let her know my current situation... I hope she doesn't think I'm dead..."
"Ah... surely not? Besides, I heard that Sister Aina isn't the only Transcendent Witch who entered the Primitive Dream Realm. I think six went down in total? The Dean definitely won't just leave you all behind..." I asked curiously.
"Six? Why so many? I thought only three of us went down?"
"Maybe they decided to go after you did?"
"Yeah, that's very likely."
Aina and I chatted casually like this while I acted as the messenger.
"Strange, why hasn't there been any movement after so long? Bai Yu didn't miss the message, did she?" Aina had been waiting longer than expected. Usually, information reception via a Great Knowledge Seed was instantaneous, wasn't it?
And it wasn't something easily ignored, Aina thought to herself.
"Definitely not. Sister Bai wouldn't miss my messages unless there was an emergency. The concept of time in the Primitive Dream Realm is complex, so there's a perceived difference in the flow of time between reality and the dream. Let's wait a bit longer."
"Alright..."
Feeling a bit bored, Aina toyed with some nearby dream information constructs before starting a new topic.
"By the way, Xiao Han... can this technique of yours for communicating between dreams and reality be applied to interconnect all Great Knowledge Seeds? If it can... this technique would be a massive help for exploring the Primitive Dream Realm..."
Aina felt the Tree of Knowledge within her Sea of Consciousness. Clearly, her Great Knowledge Seed currently could not communicate with reality.
Or rather, her Great Knowledge Seed was currently a mere decoration—a dream construct formed from information within the dream.
Even for the physical body of a Great Spellbook, only the [Transcendent Knowledge] within it could function here. The spell effects of a Great Spellbook certainly wouldn't work in the Primitive Dream Realm; such permanence only manifested in the real world.
But clearly, Aina wasn't entirely clear on this yet.
"Maybe, but there are too many technical hurdles to overcome. It's not easy to popularize at this stage," I replied after some thought, though I didn't say it was impossible.
The idea was actually feasible. I would just need to use the Tree of Great Knowledge within the Primitive Dream Realm to reconstruct and derive a brand-new "Great Knowledge Seed"—a dream version that could function here.
But that was only sound in theory and inspiration; the actual problems to consider were numerous.
For example, how would the Great Knowledge Seeds in reality and the dream interface?
How could a dream Great Knowledge Seed exist in reality?
What technique would be used to convert dream information into reality information?
How could the dream and reality Great Knowledge Seeds coexist?
Otherwise, I couldn't be expected to manually provide a dream-version Great Knowledge Seed every time someone wanted to communicate...
If that were the case, would there even be a point in promoting it?
Thus, a simple idea often hid difficulties and problems that far exceeded what a burst of inspiration could imagine!
"Another technique that's hard to popularize? Figures... after all, if everything were that simple, countless witches smarter than us would have solved these problems already~" Aina sighed.
We hadn't chatted for long before my Tree of Great Knowledge received a message. Surprisingly, the efficiency was quite high this time.
From the response, it was clear that the Academy Dean and the others considered it a "miracle" that I could encounter Aina within the vast Primitive Dream Realm.
Afterward, Aina slowly prepared to send back all the information regarding the current situation.
This included, but was not limited to, the cause of this Primitive Dream Realm descent.
* * *
Meanwhile, in reality.
A group of witches had gathered like curious onlookers, summoned by Bai Yu.
Previously, many witches had discussed the issue of the Dreamscape Calamity and had ultimately decided they would not back down.
It wasn't until Xiao Han sent a message informing them she had found the witch Aina, followed by subsequent reports, that they realized the severity of the situation.
They were naturally familiar with Aina. As one of the first Transcendent Witches to "seek death" by entering the Primitive Dream Realm, her courage—and her recklessness—were legendary among the witches.
But no one expected such a Transcendent Witch to "meet with misfortune" in the Primitive Dream Realm and even end up in Fool's Village.
What was even more unexpected was that Aina had coincidentally run into Xiao Han!
Through the connection between the Great Knowledge Seeds, they had used Xiao Han's internal descriptions and Aina's external reports to roughly piece together the cause and effect.
The culprit behind this Dreamscape Calamity was actually that Fool's Village! And Xiao Han seemed to be somewhat involved as well...
From Aina's description, Xiao Han's worried conjectures now seemed highly credible.
A special dream world within the Primitive Dream Realm... due to an accident, it was dragging endless dream creatures with it as it continuously rose from the depths of the Primitive Dream Realm!
Once such an entity reached the Shallow Dream, the massive number of dream creatures it carried and the characteristics of the deep Primitive Dream Realm would be enough to plunge a vast area of the Expansion Realm into the Primitive Dream Realm!
They had still underestimated the potential scope of the disaster.
Furthermore, the news that the consciousness of students entering the Primitive Dream Realm would turn mad... had become somewhat trivial.
Since the student tests were useless, the Witch Academy could simply suspend the students' cooperative experiments.
They could also call for other academies to suspend their experiments, though the others certainly wouldn't listen.
The more important issue was... they couldn't estimate how large an area of the Expansion Realm this Dreamscape Calamity would affect.
Based solely on Xiao Han and Aina's descriptions, they had no way to begin.
Moreover, most of the witches present were amateurs when it came to dream data calculation. After all, the witches specializing in the Great Soul Subject and related fields had all entered the Primitive Dream Realm; those left behind were only half-experts.
Data calculation for the Primitive Dream Realm couldn't reference the real world. They couldn't even establish a spatial coordinate reference system... naturally, they couldn't estimate an abstract concept like "scale."
So... they were forced to face the same question once again.
Should they temporarily retreat to avoid the brunt of the storm?
There was no need to suffer pointless losses, especially from such a large-scale Dreamscape Calamity. It would even require the cooperation of the Expansion Realm's indigenous people to evacuate their existing shelters.
Although there were no nearby shelters in this immediate area, as a precaution, they still needed Ninglan Qiuyue to coordinate the effort.
Even if the Dreamscape Calamity didn't cover everything, the aftershocks of the Primitive Dream Realm would intensify the Dream Overlap Phenomenon in the surrounding areas, leading to unexpected situations.
However, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. If the Primitive Dream Realm accelerated its absorption of the Expansion Realm, then the Expansion Realm could enter the recession period of the Dream Overlap sooner.
Furthermore, the indigenous people of the Expansion Realm would no longer be harassed by dream creatures from the Shallow Dream.
But doing so would undoubtedly have significant side effects: the place where they were currently located would suffer a much more violent Dreamscape Calamity.
It might even lead to the extinction of races in this region.
After all, creatures like the Variant Beasts in this area would also be affected.
Even if dreams couldn't cause physical damage to reality, it didn't mean a Dreamscape Calamity wouldn't cause irreparable disaster to life itself.
The witches discussing the calamity also realized the impact dreams had on reality.
Previously, their attitude toward dream disasters was one of indifference, as it basically had nothing to do with them in reality.
But after truly experiencing such a disaster, they felt it viscerally—the Primitive Dream Realm was terrifying!
This was a method that targeted only life, a method that wouldn't damage a single grain of sand or speck of dust in reality.
However, upon realizing this, Sheryl's thoughts differed from the other witches; her eyes actually lit up.
As a Rebel Witch who had participated in world expeditions, she knew exactly how useful such a method was. One could perfectly harvest a world without violently destroying it. Its effectiveness at clearing "trash" was beyond words!
Unfortunately, she wasn't a witch who majored in the Great Soul Subject, so she couldn't master such a method.
But she knew very well who the little one responsible for all this was.
Yang Yuehan.
The culprit behind this disaster was Yang Yuehan. She had every reason to believe this little witch had played a role far more significant than just being a "fuse."
She suddenly found herself appreciating this little witch. As expected... only when "achievements" were presented before one's eyes could a witch gain widespread recognition from her peers.
After the temporary meeting ended, Sheryl was in no hurry to leave. She looked at Bai Yu, who, upon meeting her gaze, roughly knew what she wanted.
After a while, once the other witches had left, she finally spoke: "Now that everyone's gone, let's talk, just the two of us. About Xiao Han~"