Chapter 851: The Deconstructed (Dismantled) Great Wisdom Enlightenment Art
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 851: The Deconstructed (Dismantled) Great Wisdom Enlightenment Art
Ninglan Qiuyue took a sip of a Refreshing Potion and allowed herself a moment to recover.
"Strange... I'm still a bit sleepy. It can't be that I've already developed a resistance to Refreshing Potions, can it?" Ninglan Qiuyue muttered to herself in confusion, though she still stood up to stretch her limbs.
She glanced out at the pitch-black sky.
She had pulled another all-nighter.
As the City Lord of Ninglan New City, she had far too much on her plate. During the day, she had to constantly travel across the Expansion Realm. After all, uniting the Expansion Realm into a single, cohesive entity wasn't something she could accomplish just by sitting in Ninglan Township Castle.
Furthermore, she represented the will of the Witch Academy.
Ever since the incident involving Xiao Han began, she had to remain in constant coordination with the Academy to handle various responses.
"Hmm?"
Ninglan Qiuyue stared at the sky, her mind wandering. In a daze, she seemed to see an impossibly gargantuan figure against the horizon!
Even though she only saw it for a fleeting second, that brief moment delivered an incredibly powerful shock to her system!
It felt as if the moment her gaze landed upon it, everything she knew became distorted. The world began to crack, and everything before her eyes started to collapse.
Then, her vision failed entirely... followed by a sudden sensation of weightlessness. Within her void-like field of vision, a golden, rune-like object appeared in her consciousness. She didn't know what it was, only that it felt somewhat familiar.
However, she felt that the more she tried to grasp it, the heavier that soul-piercing feeling of the unknown and the uncontrollable weightlessness became!
Until she reached a breaking point. She suddenly snapped her head up from her desk... even the relatively soft backrest of her chair couldn't cushion her instinctive, startled awakening.
As her body jolted, the chair beneath her lost its balance.
Clang!
A crisp sound echoed through the room. Ninglan Qiuyue, still in a sitting posture, tumbled onto the floor.
Slowly, her vacant eyes regained their focus.
Looking at the familiar ceiling, she suddenly realized where she was... she was in her office?
"What just happened?"
Ninglan Qiuyue stood up without a hint of embarrassment and righted her chair. She then cast a Cleaning Spell on herself, her movements fluid and practiced, as if nothing had happened at all.
"I... was I dreaming?" Ninglan Qiuyue made this deduction hesitantly. But what she really wanted to complain about was... why was she still busy with official business even in her dreams!
Ninglan Qiuyue picked up one of the rows of diluted Refreshing Potions nearby. She vaguely remembered drinking one, but this particular bottle seemed untouched.
"Was it really a dream? Why? Didn't Xiao Han already help us settle the Dream Overlap in Ninglan New City? Or has the dream world..."
Just then, a hurried and chaotic set of footsteps sounded outside the door. Her personal secretary, Lan Ke, burst into the room.
"Sister Qiuyue! This is bad! I'm afraid Ninglan New City has been covered by a Dream Overlap region again!"
"Lan Ke? Calm down first!" Ninglan Qiuyue said.
With Lan Ke's appearance, Ninglan Qiuyue became even more certain that she had indeed fallen into a dream just now.
"I have a general idea of what's happening. Contact the City Guard and see how many people experienced that dream just now."
"This... I'm afraid it's widespread this time. When I was coming over, the City Guards protecting Ninglan Township Castle had all fainted and were just getting back up..."
"What? It's on such a large scale?" Ninglan Qiuyue was shocked, but she quickly recalled the message the Academy Dean had sent her previously: people in the areas near Xiao Han needed to be prepared to evacuate and avoid disaster at any time.
But... that place was so far from the Ninglan Territory!
Would the Academy Dean make such a low-level mistake?
"Sister Qiuyue... then should I still..."
"Let's go. We'll go see what the situation is together." Ninglan Qiuyue couldn't worry about anything else; she stood up to go investigate personally.
With a disaster of this scale occurring, she absolutely could not sit still.
As soon as she pushed open the door, she saw the City Guards of Ninglan Township Castle rushing toward her. Their duty, naturally, was to protect their City Lord.
Even though these guards knew full well that the City Lord was a witch and that her strength was far beyond their protection, their duty required them to react this way.
"Were you all just pulled into a dream?" Ninglan Qiuyue asked, getting straight to the point.
"Yes, City Lord! This is the incompetence of our City Guard..."
"No, it's not your fault. This is a Great Power on a Transcendent level; it's not something ordinary people can resist. Just now, even I fell for it. Never mind that for now... come with me."
Just as Ninglan Qiuyue was about to begin her investigation, she suddenly received a message from her Great Knowledge Seed.
It was the Academy Dean contacting her personally.
After she finished reading the clearly hurried notification, she was stunned.
Just a moment ago, she thought this was merely a Dream Overlap affecting Ninglan New City. But... who could have imagined that this was a Dreamscape Calamity involving more than half of the Expansion Realm!
"Tsk... this is going to be a headache..." Ninglan Qiuyue's head throbbed at the thought of the disaster's scope. Her primary goal now was to ensure the operational status of various locations across the Expansion Realm, followed by personnel safety and other concerns.
* * *
Inside the Primitive Dream Realm.
After the Academy Dean and the others left, my methods became even more unscrupulous. Regarding the mastery of the Wisdom Granting technique, I could clearly feel my progress.
Wisdom Granting was extremely important for both me and Fool's Dream. After all, this was one of the concepts I intended to grant Fool's Dream in the future.
The only pity was that I couldn't use Wisdom Deprivation on these Transcendents; I could only use Wisdom Withering. This meant I couldn't use them to create Great Knowledge Seeds that I could utilize.
However, this didn't affect me much.
After marking these people with a bit of Power of Knowledge for anchoring, their final destination would be to get lost within the Primitive Dream Realm.
They would only potentially be recovered during the Primitive Dream Realm Search Plan proposed by the Academy Dean.
Now, staying in the Primitive Dream Realm, I had roughly two major tasks left.
First, to continue my research into Nightmares, find a Dream State Soul Essence suitable for Soul Depiction, and complete the shaping of the Soul Fool's Dream.
Second... was to dismantle the Great Wisdom Enlightenment Art and use the Fool's Dream Seed as a framework to create a brand-new "Tree of Great Wisdom Enlightenment"!
This new Tree of Great Wisdom Enlightenment could arguably not even be considered a Great Spellbook anymore.
The Tree of Great Knowledge had been shaped using the framework of the Memory God's Spellbook. If I wanted the Tree of Great Knowledge to become a complete Great Spellbook, I would at least need to advance to the Transcendent level, master Real Editing Technology, and possess the foundation for creating spellbooks to complete its capabilities.
But the Tree of Great Wisdom Enlightenment I planned... didn't even have a spellbook framework!
Its framework was the Dream Scroll!
It was simply transcribed into a Fool's Dream Seed based on the special techniques of the Tree of Great Knowledge.
Therefore... the essence of the Tree of Great Wisdom Enlightenment was a... modification technique born from the spell effects of another Great Spellbook.
Though it sounded a bit messy, once I broke the restriction that the destination of [Transcendent Knowledge] must be a Great Spellbook, the actual nature of the Tree of Great Wisdom Enlightenment didn't really matter.
Or rather, what it was no longer mattered; what mattered was what it could bring me.
A brand-new... Fool's Village?
Or a Fool's Village bolstered by a Holy Relic?
Even I wasn't sure what the final result would be.
I was actually quite curious whether the other techniques derived from this Great Spellbook platform would undergo strange changes after reconstructing the Tree of Great Wisdom Enlightenment.
Mimicry Soul... Soul Depiction... Wisdom Granting...
Even my Domain!
After all, my Domain was a mutual architecture between Body Cultivation and two Great Spellbooks...
This meant that if I took this step and failed, I would lose a lot of things. The power of my Domain would be affected, and the Order contained within the Power of Knowledge in the Domain would undergo unpredictable changes.
But what if I succeeded?
The benefits would be absolutely unimaginable...
However, these so-called imaginary successes and failures meant nothing to me right now.
Even if I failed later, it would only bring anxiety about the future; and success... would only bring a moment of empty joy right now.
This choice was absolutely not a gamble for me, and the outcome was by no means limited to just success or failure.
Looking at my current choice with an eye toward development, this was a decision where I couldn't possibly lose.
Something that doesn't suit me, even if it's a Great Spellbook, is just a spell to me. So-called "reluctance to let go" is nothing more than self-stagnation.
Those derived techniques and the Domain are, in the end, just "tools" that I've grown accustomed to using. If I can't bear to part with them... then it proves I've fallen into the trap of chasing power.
But the knowledge used to shape these powers, and my understanding of the Transcendent, will not disappear.
The only thing that disappears is my obsession with this specific power.
Come to think of it...
I should be the person in this Main World with the least amount of power-related anxiety!
Below the Transcendent level, if I say "I am invincible!", who would dare contradict me?
And above the Transcendent level, that's even less of a reason for me to be anxious.
In the end, all I lack is time.
After figuring this out, I suddenly found that the psychological burden of wanting to dismantle a Great Spellbook wasn't so heavy after all.
* * *
In reality.
The Academy Dean had already followed my request and placed my physical body in the Expansion Realm.
However, simply placing it there wasn't enough; several Witch Mentors were watching over it to prevent any accidents.
It could be said that the Academy Dean placed a very high level of importance on Xiao Han.
But... Mei Lind seemed to have forgotten one thing.
That was the fact that the very Xiao Han she valued so much... was a little witch who was very good at causing trouble.
Among the three witches staying behind in the Expansion Realm, Bai Yu had also volunteered to be one of those looking after Xiao Han.
Although Bai Yu had just returned from the Primitive Dream Realm, she ultimately chose to stay by Xiao Han's side.
After all, the upcoming matters were all professional bickering and negotiations; there was no need for Bai Yu to keep following the Academy Dean and the others to negotiate with other academies.
"Is this Xiao Han? It's my first time seeing him from this close~"
At this moment, the other two witches naturally leaned in. However, they kept their hands somewhat restrained; after all, his girlfriend was right there, so they needed to show some decorum.
These two witches had volunteered to look after Xiao Han with Bai Yu because they had their own ideas—for instance, they were genuinely curious about what was happening in the Expansion Realm.
After all, the effects of the Dreamscape Calamity showed no signs of subsiding, and associated dream disaster phenomena were still occurring.
So, they mainly wanted to strike up a conversation with Bai Yu, get a bit of gossip, and learn some things they didn't know!
It could be said they had been waiting impatiently to find out what exactly was going on in the Expansion Realm.
In their eyes, as a personal participant in these events, Bai Yu definitely had the right to speak!
At this moment, Bai Yu was lightly tidying Xiao Han's clothes, cleaning off some dust gathered during the incident, and then using a comb to gently brush his slightly messy, silver-white long hair.
"Sister, if I may ask~ you're Xiao Han's girlfriend, the legendary Bai Yu, right?"
"Legendary? That title is a bit of an exaggeration, isn't it?" Bai Yu found the way these two sisters approached her quite interesting.
Although the two clearly knew who she was, Bai Yu still gave a formal self-introduction, and the two witches did the same.
Friendships between witches were very simple; many relationships started with a single conversation or a bit of gossip.
And these two made no secret of their intense interest in the events of the Expansion Realm.
They even claimed to be the witches at the very forefront of gossip within the Witch Academy.
To this, Bai Yu was naturally willing to call them sisters. After all, befriending a few witches who were well-informed about gossip had many benefits for her; at the very least, she could have more channels to learn about valuable matters as soon as they happened.
It was just that now... she had become the source of the gossip being spread.
Regarding this incident, Bai Yu knew very well that some things could not be revealed—for example, the Dream Domain that Xiao Han mastered!
Regarding such an "ultimate weapon," even the Academy Dean advocated for secrecy.
Currently, the witches who knew about Xiao Han's Dream Domain were at most those who had participated in this incident, and they had all promised not to speak of it.
At least until it played a decisive role on a strategic level, this matter would not be disclosed.
The information Bai Yu shared was very standardized; after all, they had "coordinated their stories" in advance.
The Witch Academy had indeed been affected by this Dreamscape Calamity like other Transcendent academies, but because the rescue was timely, the losses were not great.
Only a few witches were lost in the Primitive Dream Realm.
During this invasion of the Primitive Dream Realm, the Witch Academy had made some small, breakthrough progress regarding the Primitive Dream Realm, which was why they were able to make predictions about the Primitive Dream Realm Calamity...
But just as Bai Yu was recounting this, a sudden disturbance made her stop mid-sentence.
The other two witches were also drawn by this disturbance.
They saw Xiao Han's body suddenly glow with golden Power of Knowledge. Then... a ball of light emerged from within his body.
This ball of light, wrapped in the Power of Knowledge, was none other than a Great Spellbook.
This scene left all three witches present staring in a daze.
But what happened in the next moment shocked them beyond measure!
Because... under the shroud of the Power of Knowledge, this Great Spellbook was gradually deconstructing and collapsing!