As the soldiers left their beds to answer the morning call, Angor returned to his room after a full night’s work. There were five subjects who had lucid dreams yesterday night, who “continued on” after death, much to Angor’s delight.
But despite his good progression, he still had one big question about reading dreams.
Until now, he had used Dream Walk for over 200 times. No matter which dream he was looking, he always passed through the same wilderness before entering the dream.
It didn’t affect his cantrip in any way, but he still would like to know what that place was.
According to Freud, there was only the “dream bridge” that acted as a medium for a Dream Manipulator to go inside a dream. There should be nothing else in between.
Could this be something unique that only he could see? But what caused it?
Taking shortcuts while building the cantrip model couldn’t be the reason since many apprentices tended to improvise in similar ways when studying level-0 cantrips.
Could it be something related to his nightmare energy?
He added this theory in his notebook, along with all the research results he gained, so that he could look at it later.
He did hear about some interesting relations between the Nightmare Realm and the “Dream Realm” before. Rumors had it that wizards from ancient times used to call the Nightmare Realm the Dream Realm. But at that time, this “Dream Realm” was used to refer to another special place, not the Dream World today, which was supposed to contain people’s dreams.
The “projections” in the Nightmare Realm sounded rather similar to all the unreal existences in dreams, which might also be a clue.
However, projections from the Nightmare Realm might “give birth to the truth”, while shades and shadows in dreams could not.
“Could that place be something I accidentally created by mixing dreams and nightmare energy? I hope I can explore it one day...”
He tried to do so before, but he had yet to succeed.
...
On this day, two prisoners successfully entered their lucid dreams.
After Angor murdered them in their sleep, both of them vanished far away in their dreams until Angor couldn’t catch up with them.
He acquired valuable results from a total of 19 targets in three days. The dreamers were of different personalities, genders, and backgrounds, but their results appeared to be similar.
Angor was now certain that lucid dreamers would have their consciousness lingering in their dreams after death. But for now, he could not ascertain how long they could last because the dream bridges would vanish quickly, preventing him from tracing the dreamers ever again.
There were only ten prisoners remaining. It would be best if these people could fully grasp the way of lucid dreaming and had full control of their dreams so that they might do stuff just like when they were awake. However, this wasn’t something Angor could force into happening.
Since there was nothing to do during the day, he told Aaron’s soldiers to take good care of the captives and went back to Padt Manor.
It had been a week since he successfully learned Dream Reading. As soon as he arrived at Grue Town, he dived straight into Jon’s ice room.
To his surprise, he bumped into Leon.
It seemed Leon was still responsible for noting down various information regarding Jon’s conditions, which required him to come to the ice room at least once a week.
As Leon explained, it wasn’t Eureka who asked him to do so, but his “teacher”.
This had told Angor that, compared to Eureka, Red-Haired Thewis was actually more interested in Jon.
“Miss Eureka mentioned something about your ‘research’ at Moonwater City?” Leon finished his notes and looked at Angor.
Angor nodded. Even so, he had enough reason not to tell Leon what exactly he was doing.
“I still don’t like this old man, but I hope you’ll get him back to us nevertheless.”
“I’ll do my best, brother. And thank you.”
“I’ll leave you to your things then.” Leon put a hand on Angor’s shoulder. “We don’t get to spend much time together. Don’t forget to come to dinner.”
Angor watched Leon leave and looked back at the ice coffin, where Jon was still smiling slightly.
Seeing this made him somewhat happy.
After staying in the ice room for a while to calm his mind, he carefully cast Dream Walk and revealed Jon’s dream bridge. In the meantime, he also prepared the model of Dream Reading in his mindspace.
Once the second cantrip was cast, he felt something new growing on his “dream sensor”. This extra part looked nothing like a mouth or any tool for communication, but something told him that he could speak through it.
While holding back his excitement, he stepped onto the dream bridge.
Not surprisingly, the familiar wilderness came into his view again, which was very brief.
He swiftly moved past the dream bridge and entered Jon’s dream.
The first thing he heard was childish giggling of a small boy and a girl, both of whom sounded rather happy.
Before today, he made many guesses about what made Jon smile in his sleep.
But still... he wasn’t expecting to see THIS.
A young boy in the prime of his growth stage was playing chase with a tender-looking girl in the shadows of trees.
“Get me if you can, Muey!” The boy ran behind another big tree and poked his head out.
“Call me big sis! No, wait. You should call me ‘Your Highness’, Angor. I’m older than you!”
Speechless, Angor watched his younger self and Jon’s daughter having a lovely time in the garden.
“Isn’t Mister Jon proceeding a little too fast?”
Last time he was here, Jon was still introducing “Angor” to his daughter. But now, the children already looked like young lovers who had their future marriage determined by their family.
Away from the kids, Jon was strolling in the sunlight together with his wife.
“They’re the best fit!” Harvey covered her mouth and giggled. “What did I say, you let the children develop their bonds earlier.”
Jon showed a stern look. “Humph! I don’t agree with this yet. If that boy dares do something funny to my daughter, I’ll spank him until Old Padt can’t recognize his own son!”
What’s that supposed to mean?! Angor couldn’t help but protest in his mind.
Across the gentle breezes of spring, he saw the two kids now running in circles around a tree trunk, while Jon and his wife watched the childish fun with their own smiles.
Angor simply felt the awkwardness getting unbearable, which was made worse when the children were still laughing non-stop as if the dream had come to a halt.
“Oh, come on! Even the most cliché television dramas won’t use these acts anymore!”
As he yelled out aloud, the whole dream froze up all of a sudden, leaving Jon as the only element who was capable of moving.
Jon always knew that this was all a dream, and that voice he just heard shouldn’t exist.
“Who’s that?” Jon questioned in a small voice while trying to discover the intruder in his dream. As the dream’s creator, he could definitely do such a thing.
Angor sighed in great relief when he saw Jon asking him to come out instead of using harsher means right away. As he expected, Jon remained to be a composed scholar and knew how to control his actions, unlike those prisoners who wouldn’t have a second thought when using their fake freedom however they liked.
“Hey, Teacher. It’s me.”