Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Dream Explorer’s Record

In Igewent at night, on the apartment building of Nanyang Flower Street.

“Hey, Dorothy, did you have fun in the city today?” In the living room, Gregor, who had just finished dinner, leaned against the sofa and asked Dorothy on the other side.

“Mm… It was great. Igewent is much larger than I imagined, not comparable to our village, let alone Purple Shirt Town. Today, I went to explore the lower district, and I’ll find another chance to visit other places,” Dorothy replied while standing on the balcony, drinking a cup of hot milk.

“Hmm, the lower district isn’t very safe, Dorothy. Did you encounter any danger?” Gregor warned, and Dorothy smiled in response.

“No, not really. I just bought some things and played hide-and-seek with two dogs in the city. Then I read by the river for a bit. Everything’s fine.”

“Playing hide-and-seek with two dogs… and reading by the river?” Gregor, leaning on the sofa, was surprised and then laughed.

“Heh, Dorothy, you’re still the same as always, fond of animals and books.”

“Pretty much, isn’t that a good habit?…” As she spoke, Dorothy placed her empty cup in the kitchen to be washed, then waved to Gregor.

“Goodnight, Gregor. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, get some rest, Dorothy. I’m going to sleep too.”

Entering her room, Dorothy immediately turned around, closed and locked the door. She then sat down at her desk, took out an old book from her bag and placed it on the table.

This was the Secret Transmission, The Dream Explorer’s Record.

During the day, Dorothy had already finished reading this old book. It wasn’t much thicker than the previous fragment of the Sacred Body Deconstruction Technique, so it took her about an afternoon to finish it.

While reading, Dorothy paid close attention to her mental changes, fearing contamination from the knowledge of the gathering known as “Poison Recognition.” However, she felt no unusual effects throughout.

That so-called “Poison Recognition” seemed nonexistent to Dorothy.

‘Might it be due to insufficient accumulation? Or is it possible that not every Secret Transmission contains “Poison Recognition”? Could it be that I just happened to read ones that didn’t? Or perhaps…’

Dorothy’s mind was filled with numerous thoughts, but since she couldn’t verify them immediately, she stopped pondering further and turned her focus to more pressing matters.

‘Firstly… I studied The Dream Explorer’s Record. Its knowledge directly accumulated 3 points of “Enlightenment” and 2 points of “Shadow” for me.’

Looking at the old book on the table, Dorothy thought, yes, because her Soul Book was full, she could not exchange the knowledge from The Dream Explorer’s Record for interdimensional knowledge. Therefore, she extracted and accumulated the spirituality from the book, seeking advancement.

The spirituality extracted from The Dream Explorer’s Record was 3 points of “Enlightenment” and 2 points of “Shadow.”

What did this indicate?

Previously, Dorothy knew that all knowledge contained “Enlightenment,” but never more than the theme of the book itself. For example, after studying the fragment of the Sacred Body Deconstruction Technique, she accumulated 5 points of “Cup” and 2 points of “Enlightenment.”

This was because the theme of the Sacred Body Deconstruction Technique was “Cup,” focusing mainly on “Cup” knowledge, hence why “Cup” was more prominent, while “Enlightenment” existed due to the essence of knowledge; it would always be present when studying a Secret Transmission, but its quantity would be less than the theme spirituality of the book.

And what about this Dream Explorer’s Record? It extracted 3 points of “Enlightenment” and 2 points of “Shadow,” with “Enlightenment” being predominant.

Wasn’t this proof that the themes of The Dream Explorer’s Record were “Enlightenment” and “Shadow”…?

“Enlightenment” was one of the themes, thus giving Dorothy additional “Enlightenment” spirituality…

Deeper thinking led Dorothy to consider that in a Secret Transmission describing dreams, if it had two themes—”Enlightenment” and “Shadow”—it might imply that people’s dreams were closely related to these two types of spirituality.

Like the relationship between flesh and “Cup,” Dorothy speculated that dreams had dual attributes of “Enlightenment” and “Shadow.” After all… everything in the world has spirituality, including dreams…

Shaking her head, Dorothy stopped pondering such profound questions about the essence of the world and turned to the immediate issues at hand.

Now, she had accumulated 5 points of “Enlightenment,” 5 points of “Cup,” and 2 points of “Shadow.” From her system’s subsequent inquiries, she knew that her current maximum accumulation limit for each type of spirituality was 10 points.

This meant that she only needed to accumulate 5 more points of “Enlightenment” to reach 10 points, qualifying her for advancement to an “Enlightenment” path Extraordinary Being. Although she didn’t know the exact ritual yet, she now had a goal to work towards, and finding the ritual would come later.

After advancing, her Soul Book would expand, allowing her to exchange for more interdimensional knowledge.

Although… Dorothy already had quite a lot of “Cup” energy, and with a little more accumulation, she could meet the conditions for becoming a “Thirster.” The ritual was clear, and the Holy Communion knew about it; she just needed to figure out how to obtain it from them. In a sense, advancing to become a “Cup” Extraordinary Being was clearly more convenient for Dorothy now, but unfortunately, “Cup” didn’t align with her aesthetic preferences, so she firmly rejected it.

“Sigh… I won’t think too much about it for now. Time to handle tonight’s main task.”

Taking a deep breath, Dorothy cleared her thoughts and began preparing for tonight’s main task.

Knowledge isn’t just for accumulating spirituality; it’s also for practical use. She had finished reading The Dream Explorer’s Record, and now it was time to try entering a dream.

The Dream Explorer’s Record that Dorothy bought from the Gray Hill was a Secret Transmission in the form of a fable. It recorded some fairy tales, all related to dreams.

The most typical story was “The Thief and the Miser.”

The story told of a thief who, in his dream, transformed into a bird through a spell and flew into the miser’s dream to steal the secret of where he had buried his treasure. Later, the thief dug up the treasure in reality but continued to steal more secrets from the miser, eventually getting caught in the dream. The miser transformed into an eagle using another spell and devoured the bird that the thief had become.

Apart from this story, the book contained others, all sharing a common element: the protagonists used spells in their dreams to transform into various animals and accomplish different tasks.

If the entire book were like this, it might be hard to understand. Fortunately, besides the stories, there were annotations explaining the content.

Someone had studied this book before and left various annotations.

As she thought, Dorothy opened The Dream Explorer’s Record and turned to the page about the thief and the miser. On the blank space of that page, there were extensive annotations.

Dorothy looked at the longest annotation.

…

“So, entering a lucid dream is easy, requiring only adherence to a few tricks I summarized earlier. But entering the Dream Realm requires special operations.

“You can see, in the story, characters transformed into animals in their dreams. This is actually an allegory for entering the Dream Realm. To put it simply, human spirits cannot enter the Dream Realm directly! Therefore, we need to take on the form of dream creatures by partially transforming our souls. That’s why characters in the story often turn into various animals.

“The spells mentioned are transformation spells. Recite them during a lucid dream, and instantly transform into a dream creature to see the gateway to the Dream Realm. Enter it, and you can roam the Dream Realm in animal form. Different spells can transform you into different animals.

“Remember! While the spells mentioned in the book are the ones spoken by the characters, they won’t work if recited in ordinary language. They must be recited in mystical language—Elven, Ghost, Abyss… especially key words. Using different languages can greatly affect the effectiveness of the transformation spells.

“Therefore, choose your language carefully!”