It was too hard to find a lucid dreamer.
Anyone could encounter a lucid dream by chance, which was usually a rather tiny chance that might or might not happen in their lives. Rather than blindly looking for such a case, Angor decided to actively grant lucid dreams to someone.
With the right approach, one could “manually” cause lucid dreams regardless of the physical or mental conditions of the dreamer. Freud also mentioned certain cantrips for this purpose, which were available for Dream Manipulators. But for now, Angor wasn’t going to travel all the way to the Land of Revelation and study a new cantrip he wasn’t familiar with.
There were many books about psychology stored in his tablet that introduced ways of inducing lucid dreams. He found what he needed in no time.
Next, he would need more “guinea pigs”. And since going to Waterford for a second time wasn’t a good idea, he headed to Moonwater City this time.
Princess Tavier had gone to Inkhorn Province to lead another battle after chasing Heylan soldiers away from Moonwater City. Now, it was General Aaron who was in command.
When he saw Angor arriving, Aaron quickly put up his best manners, both to show respect to a powerful supernatural and to declare his loyalty.
Hearing Angor’s request, Aaron had no problem providing criminals waiting to be executed without asking why.
Within an hour, several military men pulled a cart of ragged felons to an area designated by Angor.
“Your death is inevitable. But I can provide gold to your friends or family if you help me with something.” Angor revealed his intention to the captives straightforwardly.
The prisoners immediately grew restless and wanted to resist. Angor didn’t have to do anything—the guards nearby were enough to deal with them.
Angor waited for everyone to accept his proposal—with no other choice—and handed a piece of note to each of them containing the “lucid dream training method” he copied. The method wasn’t exactly difficult as it only involved four apparent steps—compulsion, delineation, indication, and discrimination.
Compulsion referred to the strong will of “wanting” a dream. The more someone forced themselves to focus on a certain matter before falling asleep, the more likely they’d be having a dream based on it.
After shaping the dream with enough desired details, they could indicate their subconsciousness to raise suspicions about the dream, and then hopefully, they would be able to tell whether it was a dream.
Ultimately, when the dreamer could realize that they were having a dream, then it would be a lucid dream.
When one could become fully aware of the lucid dream, they’d be able to achieve anything in it as they wished.
Angor wasn’t expecting any of the criminals to keep this up. He only needed them to lucid dream for at least a brief second, which was enough for him to conduct his research.
The criminals had no idea what the strange “sleep training” meant to them. No one asked since they wouldn’t be getting any answer. They still did as Angor asked, just to grant their friends some extra cash, which was the least they could do in their lives.
In the next few days, Angor stayed at Moonwater City while observing the prisoners every night. When he had time to spare, he would use it to study “Dream Reading”—the second Dream Manipulator art he received from Freud.
Once again, he planned to use his tablet and nightmare energy to force his way through, instead of learning it normally.
According to the device, he would need to wait for half a month to get the optimal cantrip model this time.
...
Every night, Angor would check through the dreams of the prisoners and ask Aaron to remove anyone who slacked off too often. Here, “removing” probably meant early execution. Although he couldn’t care less about it.
A week quickly elapsed.
He would occasionally head back to Padt Manor to check on his family, and he was glad to see the Demeter working her wonders by fully benefiting everyone with her power of life. Even several old farmers who spent most of their days in the fields were looking rather energetic.
Such power was almost negligible in the views of wizards since it could do nothing more than letting them feel slightly refreshed. However, the effect was quite palpable on mortals.
Eureka was also getting better when bathed in the Demeter’s aura. It seemed such power could somewhat heal her spirit injury.
One day, Eureka called Angor over, hoping to learn what he had been up to.
Angor explained that he was performing research on human bodies but without mentioning the details.
Instead of digging further into this matter, Eureka tried to ask whether Angor had any other useful potions in possession. She asked so because she saw Angor taking out many valuable potions when treating Jon. Apparently, without enough potions to heal her spirit, she planned to try her luck on Angor.
Angor didn’t hide anything as he showed Eureka what he prepared for Jon, all of which were mild ones since Jon was in no condition to take anything too strong.
In the end, Eureka bought several servings of “Chicato Witch’s Stew” from Angor, which were a type of weak spirit remedy. It was far from what she needed, but it was still better than nothing.
“Gosh. I hope Red comes back sooner...” Disappointed, Eureka stared at the materials Brulee brought back and muttered to herself.
...
When Angor’s tablet almost worked out the cantrip model of “Dream Reading”, a prisoner successfully entered a lucid dream.
Angor was there to watch the dream from start to end, which was all about the dreamer’s strongest obsession—to gain revenge for his dead father.
This might sound like the story of a loyal son at first. But the truth was, the prisoner’s father was just another murderous killer who deserved a sure death, while his son, who inherited his cruel nature, maimed lots of people in his wake, including his own wife, for selfish gain. In the last few days of his life, this prisoner regretted his terrible deeds just a little. He worked hard to earn Angor’s gold so that he could at least leave some money for his son, who was his only family remaining.
That night, Angor ended this man’s life after fully blocking his senses of pain. Before the dream bridge was severed due to the lack of a breathing body, Angor managed to see him still hunting for his prey, before having to evacuate.
Will he live on in the Dream Realm? he thought. I need to see more of them.
The next day, Angor asked a soldier to deliver ten gold pieces to the criminal’s son, as he promised.
According to the soldier’s report, the recipient was a 15-year-old teenager who was badly addicted to gambling. One single night was all he needed to lose his new fortune to the casino when he could have used the money to reach adulthood while still having extra.
Again, Angor did not care. This was to be expected from the son of a serial killer. There might be stories of children of good virtue who didn’t follow the dreadful paths of their parents, but this would hardly happen in reality, when education and family were so decisively important in shaping someone’s character.
...
Once again, Angor jumped to success by building the model of “Dream Reading” in his mind without knowing any of the prerequisites, which was usually a risky thing to do. This was only possible when Dream Manipulator arts were related to Nightmare arts in many aspects.
There was another flaw in doing so. Angor had to spend extra time casting these cantrips because he needed more time to prepare nightmare energy beforehand. However, this wasn’t a serious problem since Dream Manipulator arts weren’t used for battles.
He wasn’t going to use Dream Reading on any of the prisoners, who were very likely to attack him in their dreams. Even Leon might do dangerous things to him during a random and possibly chaotic dream. For now, Jon’s lucid dream was the only sure shot he could try the new cantrip on.
Naturally, he couldn’t wait to get back to Padt Manor and hopefully speak to Jon immediately. But he managed to hold back his impulse and stay behind when he saw more of the prisoners showing signs of lucid dreams. Getting more data for his research was also important right now.