Chapter 310: Dream and Reality
“Eh? Xiao Han, isn’t your room across the hall? Why are you coming into my room?” Bai Yu asked awkwardly as I pushed her into the hotel room.
“Weren’t you going to accompany me to try things out? How can we try if we’re not in the same room?” I pushed Sister Bai right up to the hotel door, “Hmm? We can actually touch this door…”
“Yes… and we can… open it.” At this moment, Bai Yu also reached out and rested her hand on the door handle, and with a click, the door opened.
However, through Spirit Vision, I could see that the actual door had not been opened; only the door in the dream had opened, and within the dream, we would selectively ignore the closed door in reality. How miraculous can this be described?
“Hehe~ We’ve entered~” After entering, I shut the door behind us; doesn’t this count as sharing a room with Sister Bai in a way?
It seemed like the last time we did this was when we had just arrived at the academy, right? Sister Bai had accompanied me to sleep then, but unfortunately, she seemed to have slipped away in the middle of the night.
What a pity.
“Alright, Xiao Han, what exactly are you trying to test? If you don’t tell me, I can’t cooperate with you, you know?”
“Actually, I’ve pretty much reached the results I wanted to test.”
I walked past Bai Yu and out of the entrance, arriving at the large bed in the center. I have to say that the hotel’s facilities are indeed worthy of a high-end room, with many luxurious and ostentatious decorations, although they weren’t really to my taste, and they weren’t even as comfortable as my room in the Witch Academy’s villa.
“Dreams are dreams, and reality is reality; they are indeed completely independent. Earlier, when you mentioned interacting with reality, like picking up things, it’s still the existence within the dream. However, when we pick up items in the dream that mimic reality, we subconsciously ignore the original things in reality, completely focusing on the creations within the dream. This effect of ignoring is quite obvious. How should I explain this? Didn’t you just feel like you opened the door, Sister Bai?”
“Yes, I really felt like I opened the door,” Bai Yu nodded.
“At first, I thought so too, but with Spirit Vision, I could break through this cognitive ignorance. The door in reality hasn’t moved at all; even if we don’t close it now, to the people in reality, the door is still closed, and we just went straight through it.”
“Is that so…” At this moment, Bai Yu seemed to ponder, ultimately momentarily accepting this explanation as the current truth.
“Since you’ve discovered such a law, why go through so much trouble to come here and have me cooperate with you?”
“Because… I also want to try other things.” At this moment, a sly smile appeared on my face as I slowly walked toward Sister Bai, who was sitting at the edge of the bed.
“Huh? Try other things? Xiao Han, what do you… want to try?” Bai Yu looked at me, feeling a subconscious flutter in her heart, especially as I got closer, as if something rated-R would happen after entering.
“Of course… trying… magic~”
“Magic? Here? Are you sure? What if…”
“This is a dream; what is there to be afraid of? Sister Bai, even if we were to tear down the entire Ninglan New City, it wouldn’t affect the lives of the normal people here. Sister Bai, tell me… when we use the spellbook in the dream, is the magic power consumed from within the dream or… reality?”
“Probably from the dream… after all, the effects of magic can only occur in the dream, and cannot affect reality.” Bai Yu thought for a moment and expressed her opinion.
“Right, that’s correct. But what constitutes the magic source in the dream? There must be a reference, or a template. Is this template subjectively generated through our consciousness, or does it objectively reflect the information of our physical bodies in reality?” I asked again.
“It should reflect reality objectively. If it were too subjective, then a simple psychological suggestion spell could make one invincible in the dream, but that’s impossible.”
“Exactly. The dream constructs a carrier for our consciousness based on the information received from reality. Of course, that’s my hypothesis, which I believe is the most reasonable hypothesis.”
The term “information” generally refers to what can be obtained and provides value to oneself, and this term in the realm of the extraordinary has been endowed with more meanings. Unfortunately, this concept was only something I learned when looking for information related to Spirit Vision, and I hadn’t delved deeper into it.
However, information is undoubtedly a very important concept within the extraordinary.
Just like now, the information my Spirit Vision receives can be considered information obtained from the true passage of time, except that there’s so much of it that I cannot comprehend.
But there is one piece of information I can understand and it’s quite simple: the direction of information flow. This is an abstract concept, but Spirit Vision really seems to be able to see it; it’s an ability that is easily overlooked.
It’s somewhat like having visual floaters, where one often sees strange things in their field of vision, but over time or with attention diverted, they subconsciously ignore these things.
“Does the dream mirror reality to construct a world that completely overlaps with it, then?”
“Yes, that’s pretty much what I mean, but that’s not my main point.” I nodded and then shook my head, “What I want to emphasize is… the channel through which dreams acquire information from reality; that channel is very important.”
“And… what significance does this have for you, Xiao Han?” Bai Yu still could not keep up with my train of thought.
“Sister Bai, have you noticed that the dream world we altered constantly accepts reality’s information… and is gradually repairing itself?” I walked to the door and opened it, “The door in reality is closed, but now I’ve opened it. The changes and feedback from reality are causing discrepancies in the dream, and the dream is slowly repairing this discrepancy, manifesting as… the door slowly closing again, but… this process is very slow.”
“Is that so… then what significance does that hold? Are you planning to destroy the whole Ninglan New City and see how long it takes for the dream to repair? Wait, the channel – you can see it; do you want to…”
“Yes, Sister Bai, have you noticed how quickly the magic in the magic source recovers after we use the spellbook? That’s precisely because the magic source in the dream is self-recovering while the dream is receiving the information from reality to compensate for this change. This dream… follows an entirely different set of rules from the dream we reach through dream devices; the rules here are more primitive, while the primordial dream reached through devices is all artificially designed.”
“You… want to find the connection between us and reality by observing the magic source, and not just that, but even ourselves?”
“Exactly!” I nodded with a smile.
“Have you made any progress?”
“None, since you wouldn’t cooperate with me, how can I make any progress~”
“But wouldn’t it be more efficient to observe yourself?”
“Observing myself is so inconvenient! If I have you, Sister Bai, cooperating with me, wouldn’t that be better?” At this moment, a mischievous smile spread across my face as I rubbed my hands together, biting my lower lip.
Compared to the slightly flustered Sister Bai at this moment, from Bai Yu’s perspective, she suddenly found that Xiao Han was indeed somewhat cuter than before, and thought…
“It’s okay, it’s okay~ Sister Bai, didn’t you tell me earlier that this is a normal interaction between close friends? Were you trying to fool me before?” I leaned against Sister Bai’s shoulder, with my right leg resting between her legs on the bed. The slightly swaying bed made Bai Yu wobble a bit, causing me to subconsciously swallow.
Ah~ Is this the feeling of taking initiative?
I can’t wait to see what reaction Sister Bai will have under my teasing.
I looked at Sister Bai with expectations, my eyes full of smiles.
But in the next moment, Bai Yu leaned back, causing me to tumble forward, with the hand I was using to support her shoulder giving way under my weight as I fell.
“Eh?”
Then I found myself nestled into Bai Yu’s embrace, and the only image that registered in my mind was that of face wash.
“Xiao Han, have you become bolder? Daring to tease Sister Bai like this? But you’re still a bit naive~”
Sister Bai’s voice came, along with a hand that firmly pressed down on my head, burying it firmly…
“I’m sorry… I was wrong…”
“Do you dare to do it again?”
“I won’t dare to next time, I won’t dare…”
“Good that you won’t dare.” At this moment, Bai Yu also slightly loosened her grip, not caring about the “next time”; perhaps she was thinking about the next time in her heart?
“Uh… Huh~”
I quickly scrambled up from the bed, not expecting Sister Bai to be so capable… I thought she would only retreat, but she can really take charge when she wants to.
“Um… um, let’s get straight to the point; I have research to do.”
“Research what? You aren’t going to study me, are you?” I looked at Bai Yu’s expression, which still held a hint of lingering desire and was speechless. If you want it that badly, would you still resist if I make a move?
“Of course, it’s your… magic source. I still can’t interfere with magic using mental power, so I want to start by analyzing the magic source.”
“Alright.” At this moment, Bai Yu also reined in her earlier demeanor as if nothing had happened and took out a magic source from her body to hold in her hand.
“This is it.”
“Mm, thank you, Sister Bai. Can I use some small spells to consume the magic power from this magic source? I need to see what changes it produces and what effects follow.”
At that moment, I also calmed my emotions. The earlier incident was just a small interlude, a seasoning; just a taste is fine, and now it’s time to focus on serious matters.
After a few deep breaths, feeling my emotions settle, this feeling is indeed quite nice; the sense of having my emotions under control is truly wonderful.
Except in those moments when allowing my emotions to dominate my consciousness can create a sense of pleasure, but that is just a fleeting enjoyment. Only by understanding what I want and resolutely executing it can that advanced pleasure lead to lasting joy.
Then, I stayed in Sister Bai’s room, continuously experimenting with various possibilities on the bed, trying to explore the channels between dreams and reality. The way dreams acquire information from reality is indeed very mysterious, to the extent that I still haven’t discovered any breakthrough progress.
“It seems like something is still missing…”
At this moment, my brain was racing, and I was continuously using Spirit Vision to absorb the impact of that information.
The effect of the Knowing-Doing Unity spell was also continuously persisting, maintaining a highly focused search for the feedback from Spirit Vision while ignoring useless information.
This was another way I discovered to combine the Knowing-Doing Unity spell with Spirit Vision, allowing me to utilize Spirit Vision to an even greater extent.
“Still no discovery?”
“Mm, I should say no breakthrough progress.” I shook my head; from the information gathered through Spirit Vision, I learned many useful things, but that information merely widened my understanding. I couldn’t integrate it into a utility that could establish a connection with reality.
This situation might arise from problems with my exploration approach or methods, or perhaps I overlooked something.
It’s like facing a math problem that only involves a few “solutions.” I read through the entire prompt repeatedly and gained a deeper understanding of the issue, but I found myself unable to take action because I hadn’t found the real breakthrough.
At this moment, I withdrew all my earlier thoughts; since this path was blocked, I needed to organize everything I had and start anew.
The best way to start anew is to re-evaluate myself, not letting past ideas interfere with my current thoughts.
“Then… Xiao Han, are you considering giving up?”
“Give up? It’s not the time yet; that word comes into play only when I hit a wall, feel the pain, and understand I’ve made a mistake. Sister Bai, please don’t backtrack behind me!”
“Sorry, Xiao Han, I really think you…”
“If you’re feeling free, Sister Bai, you can try to construct spells here without using the spellbook. This will help understand the essence of the spell and your own application of runes. If there are any unfamiliar runes, you can refer to my Memory Shelf; I’ll cooperate with you.”
“Wouldn’t that be too much trouble for you?”
“Sister Bai, what are you saying? The Memory Shelf spellbook was a gift from you! How could I ever find you troublesome? Aren’t we helping each other out?”
“That’s true…” Bai Yu nodded at this moment; she couldn’t just sit idly by and watch Xiao Han grow while she remained stationary.
“That’s the spirit!” I released the Memory Shelf spellbook and displayed those shelves in front of me, “These books are the memories related to runes. I might read too quickly, so some recording methods may be hard to understand; just read through a few times.”
“Mm, thank you, Xiao Han.”
“Do you still need to thank me? Sister Bai, your help to me is something I can never repay, no matter how many times I say thank you.”
After saying that, I immersed myself back into organizing my thoughts. Then, I cast a spell: Illusionary Clone.
It was an illusionary clone controlled by my subconscious, a great way to directly see the real me, helping me jump out of my current thought process… another me.
“It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other~”
“I’ve noticed we are becoming more and more alike, but it seems like this isn’t the time to think about that. Are we facing difficulties?”
At this moment, the Illusionary Clone began speaking on its own, and I didn’t interrupt, just quietly listened.
“Why aren’t you speaking? I’m you; even if we don’t need to communicate, at least say something; do you expect me to give you answers? How is that possible? You think of something I wouldn’t?”
“Fine… then do you have any constructive suggestions?” I sighed and finally spoke up.
“Um… not really… but…”
“But? What is it?”
“Why not go ask the amazing Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell?”
