Chapter 844: The Witch Academy's Evacuation
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 844: The Witch Academy's Evacuation
"I must say... Xiao Han, I didn't expect your understanding of the Primitive Dream Realm to be this profound."
In Fool's Village, Aina had been conducting her own dream experiments, but after seeing the gap between her work and Xiao Han’s, she couldn't help but sigh in admiration.
"It’s not really that... It’s mostly because I have more methods at my disposal. Your theoretical foundation is much more solid than mine, Sister Aina. If you had the same starting platform and the same means as I do, you’d definitely be more capable than me!"
"That... that makes sense..." Aina replied, barely managing to keep the conversation going. In truth, one's "methods" were part of their overall ability; it wasn't just some capital to be envied, and Aina knew that well.
By that logic, if she possessed everything a Primal Witch had, she could claim she’d do no worse than them!
Witches who only knew how to complain, looking only at what others had and what they lacked, were short-sighted losers...
Aina suddenly felt that during her time in Fool's Village, she was becoming a master at seeing through the essence of life. As expected, after experiencing the great ups and downs of life, one’s mind tended to drift toward grand philosophies.
She had also asked Xiao Han what she planned to do in the coming period.
The answer she received was simply... wait.
Wait for everything to settle, and then all the troubles could be resolved slowly.
"So, what are you going to do now?"
"Clear out the unstable elements in Fool's Village in a timely manner, and conduct some small experiments along the way."
The "unstable elements" I referred to were the Dream Demons and the maddened consciousnesses that had entered Fool's Village.
As for the "small experiments," I meant the study of Nightmares. After all, having completed the guidance on technique and theory, I now only needed to finish the "purification" of Nightmares.
Lest it be forgotten, Nightmares were one of my most important hypotheses—Dream State Soul Essence!
This was also the vital bridge I was building for the Fool's Dream to reach the state of life.
"Have you never thought about letting the Fool's Dream help you? Your experiments are constantly interrupted by those invaders; it must be exhausting."
"I understand... but the Fool's Dream itself has no power..." I said, shaking my head helplessly.
If I truly wanted to grant them power, I thought of the power network, but it was clear that such a network could not be deployed here.
More importantly, the Dual Tree Structure was an effect of the Great Spellbook; I likewise could not grant that kind of power to the Fool's Dream while they were within the Primitive Dream Realm.
Therefore, until I could grant the Fool's Dream "absolute power," any method of temporarily boosting their strength was no different from "children's self-defense"—a useless deception.
The Fool's Dream couldn't handle Dream Demons, nor could they deal with those stray consciousnesses. Moreover, what if a dream creature broke in?
The Fool's Dream would be completely finished.
"You can't even manage a temporary endowment? You can clearly manifest a domain that covers the entire Fool's Village dreamscape, and even block so many dream creatures..."
"It’s meaningless. The Fool's Dream is just a group of simple consciousnesses within the dream. Instead of thinking about having them help, it’s better to do something more meaningful." The "more meaningful" thing I referred to was, naturally, purifying Nightmares.
"Alright~ I’m not very familiar with what you’re researching, so I won’t talk nonsense... But from what I see, you’re studying Nightmares, right? You’re interested in those, Xiao Han?"
"Yes, Nightmares. I believe this substance is the soul essence of the dream world. It is the foundation for shaping life within the Primitive Dream Realm, so I call it Dream State Soul Essence. I’m trying to purify it."
"Dream State Soul Essence? An interesting term. I think I’ve heard similar descriptions before, but... Xiao Han, if I’m not mistaken, you want to use Dream State Soul Essence to shape dream life, right? Have you considered that life in this form is equally meaningless in reality? The Fool's Dream still wouldn't be able to become true life, right?"
At this moment, Aina displayed her professional expertise in the Great Soul Subject, raising this very obvious question.
"I’ve thought about it. I’ve even wondered if dream creatures are a ready-made form of dream life, but none of that matters. Sister Aina... have you ever considered the possibility of Dream State Soul Essence sublimating into a soul? The soul... the bridge between dream and reality. If one masters the technique of sublimating Dream State Soul Essence into a soul, would that mean completely transforming dream life into real-world life?"
"This! This..." Hearing my bold hypothesis, Aina was stunned. She stammered "this" several times, momentarily at a loss for words. "Isn't this... too idealistic?"
"There’s no harm in trying, is there?"
"But have you thought about how to transform Dream State Soul Essence into a soul?" Just thinking about how all real-world techniques were meaningless in the dream world gave Aina a headache. Trying to complete a soul sublimation similar to the Great Soul Subject within a dream... it was practically a pipe dream!
"I have... but that’s a research project for another stage," I said with a smile and a shrug, not mentioning my Soul Depiction technique.
Fortunately, Soul Depiction was a derivative technique of the Great Spellbook. I only needed to complete the dream-ified technical reconstruction within the Primitive Dream Realm, and many things would become possible.
So I knew very well that what seemed impossible to Aina was actually the easiest part for me.
What I was doing now was gambling—gambling on the possibility of the "Dream State Soul Essence" concept!
It was a gamble where a single mistake meant losing the entire game.
However, I had plenty of supporting evidence, from the theoretical experiments of Soul Depiction to the behavior of dream creatures consuming soul essence.
Even if there was no so-called Dream State Soul Essence, the concept of soul essence was definitely inseparable from the Primitive Dream Realm.
Since dream creatures liked to consume soul essence, then soul essence within the dream must be a most "common" concept.
Aina’s attitude toward me had shifted again; she truly envied the carefree mindset I maintained during research.
To be able to say "that’s a research project for another stage" so easily... what kind of mental state allowed someone to speak in such a tone?
If it were her, having exhausted everything to chase a goal only to find another mountain to climb at the end, she would surely collapse.
But collapse or not, the experiments still had to be done.
Thus, Transcendent Witches with eternal lifespans didn't necessarily enjoy spending centuries on a single experiment.
Rather, they collapsed until they eventually became numb, naturally accepting that it would take that long, and learned to find joy in the struggle—like gathering sisters for a tea party to relieve stress when there was nothing else to do.
Time passed bit by bit. In the Primitive Dream Realm, the concept of time differed greatly from reality, even causing one to lose their perception and anchoring of time.
If an ordinary person were locked in a sealed room without a clock or timer, unable to see the transition of day and night, their perception of time would blur within days. Their body and mind would suffer various issues, such as endocrine disorders.
Transcendents were different; because their life level touched upon Real Time, perceiving the passage of time was practically an instinct.
Yet, Aina, situated within the Primitive Dream Realm, was like that ordinary person in the sealed room.
She could clearly feel herself gradually becoming "weak."
This was the "erosion" of the essence of life by the Primitive Dream Realm.
In my view, this erosion was somewhat similar to "Nightmare-ification"—the negative emotions and cognitions deposited in the Primitive Dream Realm were gradually eroding the soul essence.
Therefore, even witches of the Great Soul Subject could not stay in the Primitive Dream Realm for long.
In such an environment, my research on how to dispel the negative information deposits within Nightmares was indeed as difficult as reaching the heavens.
Through the explorations of this period, I had gained a preliminary understanding of Nightmare-ification.
The deposition of negative emotions in the dream was as easy as a person feeling joy, anger, or sorrow in reality; this was not good news.
The only good news these days was that Fool's Village had welcomed a second and third witch besides Aina.
Aina immediately acted as the "commentator," explaining the current situation to the two sisters and calming them down so they could accept their present reality.
It had to be said that with Aina as a precedent, the acceptance level of the two witches who arrived later was significantly higher.
This also made me realize one thing: most of those who used my stepped return concept as an anchor—be they witches or others—would fall into the Fool's Village dreamscape.
Knowing this, I could judge what level of the Primitive Dream Realm Fool's Village was currently at based on the people falling into it.
For instance, at the very beginning, the first visitor was a Dream Demon. As special demon creations adapted to the Primitive Dream Realm, it was predictable that they could dive into its depths.
Then came the consciousnesses so broken they had no form, followed by these witch mentors.
Their appearance indicated that Fool's Village was still in a relatively deep layer of the Primitive Dream Realm.
Moving upward, Dream Demons became rare. Further up, one encountered the consciousnesses of lost students; the frequency of their appearance changed clearly with the depth of the dive.
Based on the integrity of their consciousness bodies, one could distinguish the depth of the Primitive Dream Realm they were in at the time.
This "experience" was built upon life after life; it was, undeniably, a series of tragic data points.
And further up... were the consciousnesses of local mutant beasts from the Expansion Realm who had been innocently caught in the crossfire.
When the first mutant beast consciousness was captured by me in Fool's Village, I thought someone's cognition had been warped into an animal by the Primitive Dream Realm... but then I realized we might be nearing the upper regions of the Primitive Dream Realm—the "location" adjacent to the Shallow Dream.
The consciousnesses of mutant beasts could not enter the deep Primitive Dream Realm. At most, they would fall from the Shallow Dream into the shallow Primitive Dream Realm; any deeper, and their fragile consciousnesses would be torn to shreds!
"I know you witch sisters might be curious why I suddenly called you all together." I looked at the witches I had gathered. None of them were in good shape; the oppressive environment of the Primitive Dream Realm was slowly eating away at their consciousness.
More importantly, the various dream experiments they were conducting in Fool's Village had drained much of their energy.
My own spirit wasn't in the best state either.
However, I had the control over my life essence from being an Awakened Body Cultivator, the self-regulation of rudimentary Emotion Body Cultivation, plus my technique for stripping negative information from Nightmares. My state was at least much better than the witch sisters before me.
"I have some good news. We might be about to reach the Shallow Dream. When that happens, we can use Fool's Village as a springboard to return directly to reality."
I didn't waste words and stated my hypothesis directly.
"Really?!" Hearing that we were close to returning to reality, they instantly perked up!
"Based on our current statistics and the information feedback from Fool's Village within the Primitive Dream Realm, this news is most likely correct."
* * *
In the reality of the Expansion Realm.
"Begin informing them. Our Witch Academy is preparing to evacuate the area covered by the Expansion Realm's Primitive Dream Realm. Additionally, notify all students of our academy through the Root Network to evacuate the Expansion Realm in an orderly fashion." The Academy Dean looked away from the messages on the Great Knowledge Seed and spoke.
"Furthermore, the advice to evacuate must be shared with all the other academies. Ensure they are properly notified, so we don't lack a justification when we strike back later. We witches are a reasonable race, after all."
"Yes, Dean~ Hehe~"
the witch who responded chuckled softly and then quickly departed.
The witches present all knew more or less what was happening, so they naturally understood why the Witch Academy was leaving now.
But the other academies certainly wouldn't understand.
Even if the Witch Academy told them they were evacuating, they would never follow suit.
They might even suspect the Witch Academy was plotting some conspiracy against them.
The reason Mei Lind was acting so decisively now was, of course, because she had received a message from Xiao Han within the Primitive Dream Realm.
The Fool's Village dreamscape was about to surface from the Primitive Dream Realm into the Shallow Dream!
In other words, they didn't have much time left.
The Witch Academy still had so many witches remaining in the Expansion Realm not only to collect routine Primitive Dream Realm data but mainly to wait—to wait for Xiao Han and those other witches to return. They couldn't just leave them behind in the Expansion Realm, could they?
And now... it was time for everything to end.
In Mei Lind’s view, the best outcome would be for the Primitive Dream Realm to deal a massive blow to the Expansion Realm, causing all the transcendents from the various academies present to become lost in the deep Primitive Dream Realm.
But since many things had yet to happen, no one dared to predict exactly how things would unfold.
As the Academy Dean, Mei Lind had already planned multiple schemes, backup plans, and remedial measures.
She cared more about Xiao Han; she had to prioritize her. If possible... that Fool's Village dreamscape also needed to be preserved.
As for the witches who were lost in the Primitive Dream Realm and hadn't entered Fool's Village for refuge... she could only pray for their luck.
However, in her backup plans, she would use those witches' Primal Clones to enter the Primitive Dream Realm and search for them. This was the limit of what she could do; after all, even she didn't dare to explore the Primitive Dream Realm recklessly.
And she had another remedial plan: the "Dream Domain" mentioned in the chat logs, which those three witches had described as extraordinary.
This was a special ability Xiao Han possessed. She still didn't know exactly what kind of ability it was, so this plan was the backup of backups—a final remedial measure.
Only at the very end of her calculations were the transcendents of the other academies. No matter how many unlucky guys ended up lost in the Primitive Dream Realm, the final result would be a win for the Witch Academy.