After calming down from the excitement of seeing someone’s dream for the first time, Angor wondered why nightmare energy could be used as a substitute for dream energy. In fact, he already felt that the Nightmare Realm and dreams might be related. However, Sunders never mentioned such a thing in The Mystery of Nightmare Realm.
On a cold night, one’s best choice was to keep their windows shut and enjoy a nice sleep under a warm blanket.
But of course, Angor wasn’t going to sleep yet. Looking at Toby’s dream was far from done. He planned to try the new cantrip several more times before going into Jon’s dream.
First, he opened his door and stepped in front of the neighboring room where Auri was sleeping.
Using his sharp senses, he could hear the maid breathing peacefully in her slumber.
Before he could cast Dream Walk, however, he suddenly heard Auri moaning in a small voice.
“Oh heh heh... no, you don’t... hmm hm hm...”
Angor silently canceled his cast. It wouldn’t be very gentleman-like of him if he were to peek into something that might be awkward for a lady.
He walked further down the hallway until he stopped in front of another door with a strange expression.
He was looking at an odd metal door that didn’t seem to belong to Padt Manor, or anywhere in Goldspink, for that matter. The heavy door had a number of engravings of different creatures on it, such as a tri-eyed giant, a large turtle with a snake-like tail, a demon covered in flames... The creatures were of different styles, but they all looked pretty fierce and bada*s.
Above all the creatures, there was the shadow of another individual towering over them. It wasn’t difficult to tell that this shadow with an anchor mustache was Nano.
It was Nano’s room. Obviously, he designed this door himself.
Angor didn’t know what Nano had been up to in these months, but he could more or less guess what happened when looking at such a bothersome decoration.
He shook his head and used his spirit feeler to pick the lock.
This room used to be a spare one prepared for guests. It seemed Nano did not revamp it too much apart from adding that door as well as several glowing curtains in the room.
Right now, Nano was snoring loudly on his large bed in a sprawling style.
Angor quickly built the spell model for Dream Walk in his mindspace, which took him about one minute, and reached the “dream sensor” in Nano’s mind.
He saw Padt Manor, where Nano was chasing after Latata while cursing loudly.
Latata had a piece of undyed silk in her hand. She was running to Mana’s room while calling, “Miss Mana! I rescued another!”
“GIVE IT BACK HERE!” Nano screamed at the top of his lungs.
Angor quickly left the dream since what was going on was pretty plain to see. He looked at Nano in reality again and noticed that Nano was showing a silly smile.
“He’s enjoying it...” Angor’s lips twitched.
He then spent most of the night checking people’s dreams in the manor, including sweet ones and nightmares. It seemed all the Krakoks were enjoying their pleasurable dreams where they were either building or admiring their new home. Angor was glad to see the tiny folks having such collective and innocent minds.
Compared to the Krakoks, humans tended to dream about odd stuff related to insignificant matters they went through during the day.
Angor learned quite a lot of experience during the tests.
Firstly, Dream Walk didn’t work on just anyone. There were people who were sound asleep without having any dreams, in which case Angor could not induce a “dream passage” from them. According to Freud’s instruction, there were ways to actively cause such people to dream such as placing certain magical plants near their beds. Angor’s Dream Weaver ant was also an applicable approach.
Also, most dreams could appear as random fragments of thoughts that couldn’t be clearly observed or perceived. Using Dream Walk on these dreams were quite pointless because one also needed certain methods to “connect” the pieces in order to tell useful information. Of course, that wasn’t something Angor could do yet.
There was another matter that bothered him. Each time he traveled through a “dream passage” before entering dreams, he would always see the same view of an empty wilderness first, which seemed to be a general “dream world” that contained different smaller dream worlds of people.
Unfortunately, there was not much Freud could tell him since Freud himself was still learning about this place that existed between reality and imagination.
Since the trials went smoothly tonight, he decided to find time to check on Jon’s dream next. It didn’t have to be during the night.
...
It was late spring. The sky grew bright early in the morning.
While having breakfast, Angor mentioned what he did last night to Toby, and Toby had no problem telling Angor all the fish he “ate”. The bird even used his “wing signs” to tell Angor which type of salted fish was his favorite.
“Is that so? Should we send a servant to the town to get some more?” Leon approached their table, yawning.
“Tweet!”—Yes, please!
Leon simply told Mana to handle the job and took a seat beside Angor.
“I asked our tailor to make you something new to wear,” Leon said to Toby, “I think that fairy is adding perfume to it now. Remember to get it later.”
Toby ditched his breakfast and rushed away immediately.
“Well, we shouldn’t coddle him like that,” said Angor even though he was more than happy to see his partner getting along well with his family.
“Why are you having breakfast anyway, Angor? You don’t need to, right?”
“A bit tired with my studies. I need a little rest-up, that’s all. How’s the war going? Are the refugees settled?”
“Everything calmed down since the victory at Moonwater. General Aaron is now in charge of Yamei in the place of Eton. I heard that Princess Shannon went to Inkhorn Province to get rid of invaders there, but I don’t know how she’s doing.
“As for refugees, at least we don’t have to worry ’bout them with your illusion here. Those who’re willing to work for us all started their lives anew. Most of them look good.”
Leon then gave Angor a curious look. “What about you? Is your... study going well?”
When Angor remained silent, Leon knew he should change the subject.
After talking about some trifles and finishing their meals, Angor took a brief tour around the manor. He made sure those he checked on yesterday were in good condition before heading to the ice chamber.
Jon looked fine in the ice coffin. At the very least, his condition didn’t worsen.
Telling from that slight smile, Jon had been enjoying the dreams made by the Dream Weaver.
Angor took a deep breath. He fully calmed his spirit down and slowly applied Dream Walk onto Jon.
Ah... there it is, the dream passage. I did it!
He glanced at the ant sleeping beside Jon’s head again and couldn’t help admiring the best decision he ever made. Paying the “trade secret” of an Energy Stabilizing was completely worth it.
While trying not to let his excitement affect his spell, he slowly reached a dream sensor to Jon.
Once again, an empty land came into his view first.
But upon a careful look, the place was not so empty this time. He believed he saw several small dots drifting about in the great distance.
“Are those... some of the creatures living in the dream world?”
He shook his head and kept moving forward. He just couldn’t wait to find out what kind of nice dream Jon was having.
Was it Earth, or the good old days at Padt Manor?
While feeling a bit nervous, he dived into a glowing entrance ahead.