"Doctor, are you using hypnosis smoke?"
As Shard pushed the door and entered the bedroom, he asked out of curiosity, in fact even more curious about how the doctor who emitted the smoke was unaffected.
"No, this is my 'Mist of the Sleeping Dragon', a spell from my Arcane Technique. Sotis, I use it to assist in patients' hypnosis for therapy. Don't worry, he is just an ordinary person; unless we make a lot of noise next to his ear, he is not going to wake up tonight."
The doctor confidently stated.
Although Dr. Schneider's luck was not great, his professional skills were still trustworthy.
After entering the sowhat cramped bedroom, the two of them checked the room to ensure there were no other dangers before they would enter the dream. During this ti, Luther Kinwis, who lay on the bed, showed no signs of awakening, even as the two n who had finished checking the room placed their hands onto his head one after another in the dark— the sleeping man did not stir.
With his eyes closed, under the light of Silvermoon, he wore a sowhat grim expression on his face. Combined with the swollen, horrific burn scars on his face and the large shadows ford by his head on the pillow, the scene was indeed sowhat terrifying.
Dr. Schneider thought that the man was having a nightmare and it was a good opportunity to enter the dream.
"These burn scars are really severe."
The doctor whispered. He and Shard each brought a chair and sat down on either side of the single bed.
Shard extinguished the glimr on his fingertip and drank the Magic Potion Dr. Schneider handed him, which was ant to assist in entering the dream. The doctor then used a silver Rune Chain that looked like a lady's bracelet to bind Shard's right hand with his left. The rune chain displayed three Runes— "Slumber," "Sound Sleep," and "Dream"— in sequence, over and over. This was an Alchemical Item.
It would not be this troubleso for the doctor to enter the dream alone, but to bring Shard along into the dream, these additional preparations were necessary.
After making all these preparations, the two n sitting on either side of the bed in the dark room placed their free hands on Luther Kinwis's forehead.
"Doctor, why does it feel like we are conducting so sort of evil ritual?"
Shard whispered, worried that Luther Kinwis would suddenly open his eyes and be scared to death by the scene.
"Detective, don't talk nonsense. Now relax your mind; I'm about to start entering the dream. If nothing untoward happens, we should be able to wake up in about ten to fifteen minutes of real-ti."
"And if sothing does happen?"
Shard asked again, and the doctor looked at him. In the nearly pitch-dark environnt with the curtains drawn, he seed to see a silver light in Shard's eyes:
"Hmm... How worried are you exactly about encountering an accident? However, if sothing unfortunate really does happen, it's hard to predict the specific ti. But trust , Detective, I am a professional. Now lie down on the bed, close your eyes, keep your body in a comfortable position. Good, one, two, three!"
His consciousness gradually beca diffuse, and an almost imperceptible tugging sensation seed to be pulling Shard towards a certain place. Shard did not resist this pull, allowing his awareness to grow increasingly blurry.
In a daze, it seed he was standing again on the ridge of a field under Silvermoon, gazing up at the vast night sky and the Star Ocean. However, as the temperature grew around him, the huge silver disk overhead gradually vanished, with the red glow of fire slowly encroaching and replacing the peaceful countryside scenery under the moon.
The crackling sound of burning and the flickering flas grew clearer and clearer.
Shard, regaining consciousness, shivered as if he had burst from underwater to the surface.
He gasped for air and looked around, realizing that he was standing on a deserted nightti street, in front of a house engulfed by roaring flas, as if devoured by a fire demon. The entire three-story building was ablaze, and the oncoming heat wave mixed with the terrible crackling noises seed to signal the imminent collapse of the place.
In the darkness, the brightness of the flas was nearly blinding.
Dr. Schneider stood in front of Shard, raising his palm in front of his eyes, squinting towards the flas, which cast a red glow on half of the doctor's face:
"As expected, it's a nightmare, a fire scene? This matches our expectations."
Shard, anwhile, looked down at his hands but did not see the golden cracks:
"I rember you ntioning that as long as I'm in a dream, I should..."
"[Only in deep dreams will the 'Divine Afterglow' marks be exposed. This dream isn't yours, you can only interfere to a limited extent, so you can't reveal the essence of your soul.]
It seed that even in soone else's dream, she was still with him.
"Understood."
Thinking to himself, he continued to survey the fiery scene that seed ready to consu everything. It was easy to determine this place was a dream; such a large-scale fire didn't alert the neighboring houses, and upon closer scrutiny of the burning building, the flas weren't really destroying the building, just burning in place.
"Doctor, what do we do now?"
Shard asked quietly. As he looked up toward the higher floors of the building, he saw a black figure flash past a burning window:
"What was that?"
He thought to himself, but the special environnt of the dream greatly diminished the perception of outsiders, so the voice in his mind did not respond.
"I'll go find the master of the dream. Detective, wait here a mont."
The doctor stood still with his eyes shut, while Shard continued to watch the flas ahead. Although this was his first ti entering a dream, the dream always gave him a strange feeling.
"Found him, upstairs... But this dream feels a bit odd, why do I get the sense that apart from us there's sothing else here?"
The blue-eyed doctor said with so surprise. He didn't lead Shard straight into the fire but instead summoned the Ring of Fate, and the Core Spirit Rune "Dream" and the Spirit Rune "False Reality" both emitted a faint glimr.
The use of Arcane Technique caused a strange halo to spread from the Brass Ring, and in the air, which already seed sowhat distorted from the heat, black filants began to appear.
Those black substances looked extrely filthy and bizarre, moving through material and air like phantoms, passing through one's fingers when touched.
"What is this?"
Shard wondered silently, but she still did not answer because she had not touched these things.
"Doctor, things look a bit strange here. Are we going to find the Dream Master, or should we exit now and give up?"
Shard asked Dr. Schneider for his opinion. The doctor frowned and pondered, even sniffing at the burning building in front of him as if he were capturing scents:
"There's no need to exit. Different people's dreams indeed harbor different strange phenona, especially since the subject is a Gifted One during the awakening phase. Moreover, if it were real enemies we encountered, I might worry about accidents, but here in the world of dreams, I am a professional."
His strong self-confidence also affected Shard, who didn't really want to give up:
"So how do we break into the fire scene?"
The dangers within the dream could affect them as well.
"Leave it to ."
Spirit Runes of the [Dream] flickered with Spiritual Light, and as the doctor recited a cumberso string of Spell Words, a layer of water mbrane enveloped Shard. The heat was insulated from the outside, and he felt as though his strength had increased.
"Arcane Technique [Blessing of the Dream Sprite]. Within the one-hour perceived ti in the dreamscape, damage from the scene is greatly reduced, and at the sa ti, the recipient's strength is enhanced. Additionally, as outsiders in such dreams, to avoid waking the Dream Master, even if there is a way to control the dream, it would be better not to do so. We can leverage our Circle Sorcerer powers, but do not try to use a Relic. Even if your spirit is strong enough to simulate a Relic, do not use it in the dream, or it could skew the dreamscape towards an even more bizarre direction."
As the doctor explained the basic rules of dream exploration, he walked up the steps of the house. He grabbed the searing hot doorknob with his hand, rattling it several tis, then turned to Shard and said:
"Detective, you open the door. The locks in dreams are even more difficult to open than the ones in reality. If you weren't here, I would likely need to look around for clues, understand the the and background story of the dream, in order to unlock the first barrier."
"Doctor, each foray into a dream sounds like a role-playing ga with predetermined rules."
Shard comnted as he walked up the steps and touched the door lock. He only felt a warm heat, and after a slight resistance, the lock turned, and the door opened. According to Shard's understanding of dream theory, locks in dreams are actually "Locks of the Heart," and thus fall within the effect of the Key of the Door.
The doctor smiled:
"Role Playing? That's an interesting phrase. But indeed, it is like a very real ga. Psychiatrists actually count as detectives in dreams. Though, compared to detectives like you who have gone into the past for investigations, detectives in dreams are slightly safer."
Seeing that Shard had successfully opened the lock, the doctor took a deep breath and his expression turned serious:
"Prepare for battle now, even if there are no intruders other than us in the dream, this nightmare will certainly generate so strange entities to resist us."
"What happens if you get injured in a dream?"
Shard looked at the firelight inside the door and stepped inside, with the doctor following him. The flas licked at them:
"Spiritual power loss."
The foyer was blocked by a collapsed, burning shoe cabinet and coat rack. The doctor had Shard, who was walking in front, cut through the obstacles.
"And what if you die in a dream? Do you die in reality as well?"
After passing through the foyer, the living room was next with the upstairs staircase on the other side of it. The crackling flas seed particularly terrifying, surrounded by glimrs, flas, and heat waves, which twisted the air and made everything seem extrely strange.
This was Shard's first deep dive into a fire scene, and even though it was the fire scene of a dream, it was quite an eye-opening experience for him.
"No, no, detective, don't underestimate
so. Dying in a dream will force an exit from the dream, followed by headaches for several days, during which Psychic Resistance will be significantly weakened and the risk of losing control will increase, but you definitely won't die directly."
The doctor said, then pressed on Shard's shoulder to slow him down:
"Look ahead."
In the roaring flas, sothing that looked like a charred corpse was crawling on the floor. But on closer inspection, it wasn't crawling; its body was facing up while its hands and feet were bent downward touching the ground. As Shard looked at it, the monster lashed out with its limbs, carrying flas as it rushed toward Shard and the doctor.
"Monsters in dreams reflect the fears and thoughts of the Dream Master. It seems that Luther Kinwis did witness these people being burned to death in the fire years ago."
The doctor motioned for Shard to step back as he approached the burning mummified corpse. When there were about three steps between them, the lanky blackened body suddenly leaped through the flas, lunging for the doctor's face.
But the doctor casually raised his left hand, and as a transparent circular shield appeared in it, he tossed it upward—
Boom!
The flailing corpse was forcefully knocked flying by the shield, hitting an outcropping of brick in a collapsed corner of the living room and dissipating into a cloud of black ash.
"That weak?"
"This is the dream of a Gifted One, not that of a Circle Sorcerer."
The doctor's shield dissipated, and he shrugged:
"However, the closer we get to the Dream Master, the stronger the backlash we will encounter. So don't think we're absolutely safe here."
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