Chapter 874: Dreamscape Calamity... A Side Effect of Order Conflict
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 874: Dreamscape Calamity... A Side Effect of Order Conflict
"Have they... entered a deeper layer of the Primitive Dream Realm? Is it really going to be okay?"
Looking at the now-empty space, one of the witches asked with concern.
"Sigh... It should... be fine..." Dean Mei Lind sighed. "But Xiao Han is still being far too reckless!"
"It's fine, it's fine~ After all, one is a newly ascended Saint Realm Transcendent and the other is a Little Witch. They're at the stage where their passion for the transcendent hasn't been extinguished yet. May, you should be happy for them. Didn't you ever do anything outrageous out of impulse back in the day?"
"I suppose... maybe..." Mei Lind had once been the type who loved to charge ahead, but impulse always came with a price.
But look at Xiao Han.
Had any of her impulsive streaks ever cost her anything?
Mei Lind looked back at Xiao Han's meteoric rise and felt that the lowest point in her life... was probably just that one time during the freshman competition when she was ruled out of bounds and lost the match?
Could that even be called a price?
To this, Mei Lind could only offer a faint, wry smile.
* * *
Within the Primitive Dream Realm.
Bai Yu felt a familiar sensation—the same powerlessness she had experienced the first time she sank into the Primitive Dream Realm.
Her soul essence granted her the right to exist within the Primitive Dream Realm, but it gave her no ability to save herself.
Now, however, she was no longer the helpless person she once was. Like someone about to drown, the moment she hit the water, she possessed the strength to save herself even in the direst straits.
"That's it~ Sister Bai, face your fear. I'm going to show you another special power within Body Cultivation."
A familiar voice drifted into Bai Yu's ear.
Immediately after, she felt a power that transcended ordinary "touch," reaching directly into her emotions.
The fear that should have been gradually dissipating suddenly felt as if it had been materialized right in front of her.
"What is... this?"
"Sister Bai, use your Heart Sense to feel it... Ignore the fear your instincts try to suppress. Accept that fear is a part of you, and... turn it into your blade!"
"A blade?"
Bai Yu had never felt such a bizarre power. Using Heart Sense to drive emotions... this was supposed to be a standard application of Body Cultivation power used to control one's emotions.
But to turn it into a blade in her hand like this... she had never even considered it!
"What is this called?"
"This is... Emotion Body Cultivation." My voice gradually faded from Bai Yu's ear, but the concept of "Emotion Body Cultivation" was deeply etched into her heart.
"Alright~ that was just a small interlude. As for Emotion Body Cultivation, even I haven't organized a systematic advancement system for it yet. For now, what you need to do is complete the construction of your Dream Domain Order!"
"Right... that's what I need to do now." Bai Yu's expression quickly turned determined.
The anchoring of her will made her soul's existence within the Primitive Dream Realm even more solid.
She didn't ask Xiao Han why she had brought her here.
This was clearly the depths of the Primitive Dream Realm. Her only impression of this place was... danger.
But now, beneath that label of danger, she saw something else... she gradually realized that this was the stage where she could truly perform.
Slowly... she recalled the stance Xiao Han had displayed back then in the Primitive Dream Realm. At that time, Xiao Han must have shared this same mindset, right?
At this moment, with Bai Yu as the center, the space within the Primitive Dream Realm gradually became "meaningful." As the order of perception solidified, information began to spontaneously fulfill its mission through the framework of that order.
Unlike the last time when the Primitive Dream Realm was "turned upside down," the Five Senses Order derived from the Body Cultivation system acted more like an "observer." It constructed order using the five senses as a concept, and then derived perception traits from that order.
Without Self-Awakened Body Cultivation to serve as the cornerstone of the domain, and without [Transcendent Knowledge] fragments to anchor the traits, Bai Yu relied purely on her Saint Realm soul essence, the Body Cultivation system, and her five senses to complete the architecture of a domain prototype.
This made Bai Yu's dominance over the Dream Domain extremely unstable.
Furthermore, the traits of her order were limited to basic perception. Her only means of dominating the Dream Domain was through "Time Sense."
After all, Heart Sense represented understanding and cognition, while Time Sense represented control and dominance.
Within the Primitive Dream Realm, the birth of order inevitably alerted the dream consciousness. Just as those dream creatures began to stir, an even more terrifying order descended. The dark shadows waiting for an opportunity to strike were instantly wiped out within the Primitive Dream Realm.
"Hmph~ you'd better run fast, or you'll all end up as materials for my Dream State Soul Essence experiments."
Under the deconstruction of the Power of Knowledge order, these words transformed into a cognitive concept that rippled through the Primitive Dream Realm.
Perhaps those dream creatures didn't understand what the words meant, nor did they know what a Dream State Soul Essence experiment was, but the sheer, overwhelming sense of threat was like a dagger stabbing into the consciousness of every dream creature. It strangled their primal instincts before they could even be released.
Once there was nothing left in the Primitive Dream Realm that could threaten Sister Bai, I watched as her Dream Domain slowly took shape.
Of course, it wasn't forming a complete Dream Domain like mine; it was merely a domain prototype.
To reach my level of completeness, Sister Bai would need much more time to continuously adapt.
What I was doing now was waiting for Sister Bai to achieve this stage of success—at least to the point where she had a presentable "ability" to demonstrate on an application level.
Sister Bai's domain order was different from my "omnipotent-leaning" order shaped by the Power of Knowledge; hers leaned heavily toward "perception."
In other words, once this domain prototype was finished, Sister Bai would be the witch in this laboratory with the strongest capacity for perceiving and collecting Primitive Dream Realm data, second only to me!
What is the most important thing in an experimental process?
Observation and data feedback, of course!
This data was directly related to the construction of the theoretical framework and the advancement of future experiments.
One could say that from this moment on, Sister Bai had become a highly sought-after "Humanoid Primitive Dream Realm Observation Instrument" in the field of Primitive Dream Realm research.
Of course, that was just the most basic use. The primary function of Sister Bai's Five Senses Dream Domain was the monitoring of the Primitive Dream Realm itself.
If the Primitive Dream Realm were compared to a massive open-world game, then Sister Bai was like a player with a "cheat" that cleared the fog of war across the entire map, provided all-around perception, and boosted her identification skills to the maximum level.
Though she lacked "combat power," this boost in utility existed on a dimension far above mere combat.
The only pity was that other races' exploration of the Primitive Dream Realm was too shallow. It was as if the "Primitive Dream Realm" open-world game hadn't officially launched yet, so she couldn't fully demonstrate her superiority.
However, while the "Primitive Dream Realm" game hadn't launched, the "Real Void" game had been open for a long time.
Even though the two "games"—Reality and Dream—couldn't normally interfere with each other, it didn't matter, because there was a concept called "Linkage."
And the method of linkage was "Reality Dream Overlap."
Once Sister Bai's order framework was built, I knew the time had come.
As the saying goes, you have to eat one bite at a time. Sister Bai's plan to perfect her Dream Domain would still require more time.
But even though Sister Bai hadn't done anything else, I felt a fluctuation originating from the Primitive Dream Laboratory.
I was very familiar with this specific trait... a small-scale Dreamscape Calamity was brewing!
What stirred the Primitive Dream Laboratory was never mere power, but the conflict of orders. Even a perception order with no "destructive" traits would kick up waves in the Primitive Dream Realm when it collided with chaotic disorder.
* * *
In the reality realm.
Inside the Primitive Dream Realm.
Even as a clone, Mei Lind felt a "familiar" fluctuation.
"Wait... what are Xiao Han and the other one doing?" Mei Lind's face suddenly changed!
The last time she had felt this kind of Primitive Dream Realm fluctuation, it had been immediately followed by... a Dreamscape Calamity!
"Go! It's a Dreamscape Calamity! Evacuate all the witches from the lab immediately!"
Mei Lind instantly made what she believed to be the most correct choice.
But just as she shouted and prepared to run, two figures appeared from the Primitive Dream Realm, causing her to freeze for a moment.
"Leave it to me!"
As I brought Sister Bai back to reality ahead of schedule, I realized exactly what kind of commotion we had caused.
We had triggered a small-scale Dreamscape Calamity!
Although the technique for dispersing large-scale Primitive Dream Realm incursions was still theoretical, I could use my domain order to suppress the Primitive Dream Realm, nipping the calamity in the bud.
More importantly... the order conflict Sister Bai had caused was far weaker than mine.
Even so, the dreams erupting from the Primitive Dream Realm still had a significant impact on reality.
However, compared to the scale that had swept across half the world in the Expansion Realm, this was negligible.
Under the suppression of my order, the deep Primitive Dream Realm barely intruded into reality. Nevertheless, a large amount of uncontrollable shallow dreams swept through nearly a third of the Witch Academy.
"I have to use the academy's emergency announcement again..." Mei Lind said, rubbing her forehead.
However, seeing that it was only a shallow dream wave, she breathed a sigh of relief.
If it was just shallow dreams, the witches were more than capable of handling it.
Witches weren't ignorant when it came to dreams; their accumulated experience and techniques were enough to deal with most issues arising from shallow dreams.
As for why the witches didn't clear the shallow dreams in the Expansion Realm, it was because the Expansion Realm needed the process of being reclaimed by the Primitive Dream Realm after its world repair; they naturally wouldn't interfere with that.
In the Core World, however, reality and dreams existed in a relatively stable state, and the witches needed to maintain that stability.
Since such a major accident had occurred during an academy experiment, a public announcement was necessary.
Shallow dreams weren't as intensely impactful as the deep Primitive Dream Realm.
Theoretically, not many people would be seriously affected. Usually, only ordinary people would be pulled in, and even then, they would simply show symptoms of being in a deep sleep.
Everyone within the Witch Academy was a candidate witch who had practiced Witch Meditation Methods, giving them a special resistance to shallow dreams.
But compared to these "insignificant" accidents, Mei Lind was clearly more concerned about whether the experiment had been a success!
If it really worked, then the power system of the witch race would need to be redefined!
Furthermore, the weight given to the Body Cultivation system would increase significantly.
At this moment, looking across the entire Witch Academy, centered on the experimental zone and moving outward, the area affected by this dream overlap was indeed vast.
After all, the Witch Academy was an entire academy city with complete facilities. Even if it only affected a small portion of the academy, it still encompassed most of the Central Teaching Area.
Naturally, they had to give an explanation not just to the students, but to all the witches who had been affected.
While witches wouldn't be trapped by such shallow dreams, Mei Lind, as the Dean, needed to take care of everyone's feelings.
After all, when witches started gossiping, it could be quite terrifying.
While all the students and witch mentors were looking at the sudden emergency announcement with strange expressions, Sister Bai and I had already returned to reality, our soul essences back in our own bodies.
Seeing the two of us looking as if nothing had happened, Mei Lind and the other witches stepped forward.
They were far more concerned about whether Bai Yu had actually succeeded!
"Bai Yu, did you succeed? That commotion just now... you caused it, didn't you?"
As the Dean, Mei Lind was the first to ask the question everyone was dying to know.
"I... can only call it a stage-wise success. I still can't reach Xiao Han's level. As for that commotion..."
"That commotion was indeed caused by Sister Bai," I said, stepping in to explain the truth for her. "I finally understand why I caused such a huge scene back then without knowing why."
"It's because these so-called Dreamscape Calamities are actually just side-effect disasters born from the conflict between 'Dream Domain Order' and the 'Primitive Dream Realm Chaos.' The principle is similar to how a totem tears a void rift in reality—it's uncontrollable..."
What I said was a bit difficult to grasp for witches who had neither a Dream Domain nor a totem.
But they understood one thing: Bai Yu had personally admitted her success!
Even if it was only a stage-wise success, it proved that this method was worth trying.
"Good!"
Mei Lind couldn't help but exclaim with genuine emotion. Nothing could be better than this.
Even when she had first witnessed Xiao Han's methods, she hadn't been this excited. The success of a second case carried far more significance than a single, unique miracle!
However, after the excitement, there was a problem that she, as the Dean, had to face personally.
The witches who had been drawn by the commotion were already starting to gather.
Fortunately, this was the experimental zone, which required authorization to enter; otherwise, the crowd would have been even larger.
But seeing the witches trickling out of their labs to "see the fun," Mei Lind felt a headache coming on.
This matter... involved the concept of a Dream Domain. It wasn't going to be easy to explain.