Chapter 534: Spiritual Leader
Witch Academy.
After several days, my villa has been completed in compliance with the suggestions of many witch sisters, and rather than a villa, the witches staying here seem to have transformed it into a laboratory.
The main space even has expanded with spatial expansion runes, enlarging the indoor area, and of course, the primary focus has been on the excavation and reinforcement of the underground laboratory.
As the Great Knowledge Seed spread, more and more witches became aware of the situation here, and the number of witches coming here increased significantly.
With my hands-off approach to various research endeavors, many witches have managed to accomplish numerous wonderful developments.
If we talk about the teams conducting the most research on witches at this moment, it would have to be the topic team related to Knowledge Shadow research, which I did not anticipate.
They utilized the Knowledge Shadow from the Great Knowledge Tree to derive alternative personal reality enhancement technologies and have even formed a related game development group. Their ideas are quite pure; they wish to develop interesting games based on the Knowledge Tree as a platform, hence not wasting the ability of magical spell sharing.
Well… regarding this matter, they symbolically submitted an application for my approval, and of course, I approved it without hesitation!
Who can refuse to play such cool games?
However, during this time, I have been trying to refine the “Fool Dream Drink Meditation Method.”
To test the capabilities of this meditation method, the villa has become populated with many Fool Dreams, and this action has directly led to a decrease in the number of Fool Dreams inside the Witch Cat Café at the Witch Academy.
After all, currently, the number of Fool Dreams is fixed. I do not know how to increase their numbers, I do not know their lifespans, and I do not know how to handle their deaths, but the Resurrection Spell should be able to revive them.
Regarding the inability to increase the number of Fool Dreams, I have asked several witch sisters, but most of their answers were uncertain, while a few provided more constructive suggestions — to capture dream creatures and transform them into Fool Dreams.
However, this doesn’t quite align with reality because while Fool Dreams are also dream creatures, they were once carriers of “Extraordinary Knowledge,” a group of dream creatures that gathered together to become life.
Transforming other dream creatures into Fool Dreams, I am not yet willing to take that risk.
Of course, I also inquired with Principal Mei, after all, Fool Dreams are her domain, and she understands a lot about them. She has many insights regarding the issue of increasing their numbers.
For example, Principal Mei suggested that life in the Void World, driven by the cycle of earth veins, undergoes natural decay and rebirth, recycling the informational wealth carried by life’s memories to enrich the world’s foundation.
This is the complete process of life in a Void World.
But what about dream creatures?
They are not life, so their existence is not soul material, nor spirit; they are creations twisted by dreams. In the unperceived Primordial Dream World, the birth and demise of dream creatures can happen within just a moment of a dream.
Some may even lack the possibility of individual consciousness arising.
And it was due to an accident that a group of dream creatures became carriers of “Extraordinary Knowledge,” allowing them to have the potential for independent existence until they met Principal Mei, who helped them gain independent consciousness through a transformative process using physical vessels, after which they, based on instinct, completed the preparation of the Fool Dream Drink following the half-baked potion-making techniques taught by the Principal.
Ultimately, they forcibly severed the rational nemesis Nightmare with the driving force of the script, combined with the perfected Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell, and became the current Fool Dreams.
If any single step in this series had gone awry, the current Fool Dreams would not have been created. How to put it? The self-rescuers are aided by the heavens, and the role of the Fool Dreams in this is crucial.
Thus, this is an almost non-reproducible miracle.
Now returning to the initial question of wanting to increase the number of Fool Dreams, this requires the introduction of a new concept.
That is, with a clear concept of ethnicity as an anchor, let dream creatures spontaneously form.
So, does “Fool Dream” count as an ethnicity concept currently?
No, it is merely a definition applied to a special group of dream creatures that have been observed, a subjective concept created to distinguish them from other dream creatures, rather than a concept with actual significance and objective existence.
As for this, Principal Mei could only provide so much useful information; beyond that, she was not quite certain.
Because creating and assigning the concept of an ethno-cultural group is tantamount to creating a whole new species, which is the ultimate goal that Principal Mei had initially agreed upon with me — to create a brand new life and obtain its corresponding two primary spells, “Primordial Life Summoning Spell” and “Primordial Life Metamorphosis Spell.”
If Principal Mei knew this, she wouldn’t have thrown this difficult problem at me.
So this issue is temporarily set aside.
Now, back to the refinement work of the “Fool Dream Drink Meditation Method.”
Although this topic has encountered a significant challenge, even confounding the few witches who were researching this topic alongside me, causing them to feel somewhat downcast these days, it is at least a difficulty that I may be able to resolve.
However, I have not yet discovered the crux of the problem; this issue is not at all on the same level as “how to make Fool Dreams into life,” at least I do not think any discovery regarding the crux can directly solve that problem.
Yet finding the crux of the Fool Dream Drink Meditation Method and resolving it would undoubtedly allow progress to continue.
“Hey, Xiao Han, have you heard the recent news? It sounds explosive.”
Just as I was preparing to clear my mind in the leisure area for new ideas, a witch sister suddenly sat down beside me.
“Um? What news?” I asked curiously.
“It’s about those players. They recently pulled off a big stunt; although not in the city, they detonated an explosive on the outskirts, completely destroying a small factory and affecting the normal operations of several surrounding factories. It also led to the deaths of several new students returning to school, and the students who went to rescue them could only rely on undying ability to save their lives.”
“Ah? That’s so outrageous?” My hand, which was about to pick up a piece of cake, froze in mid-air, somewhat shocked that people actually died?
“Of course! But this is no big deal. By the way, do you have time to visit Principal Mei? Because of this incident, related research on the Observation Qi Technique might have new progress. I heard that witches who’ve conducted practical investigations have already gone out to verify data, and Observation Qi will record this incident, getting new data feedback.”
“Uh… I won’t be going for now; I’m currently stuck on a project I’m handling…”
“Is it hard to accept those people’s deaths?” She slightly asked, noticing something off in my tone.
“Not really… After all, it’s not related to me. I’m not the type to feel overwhelmed with sympathy for others.” I hurriedly explained, though it’s true I felt somewhat affected; after all, this was a fatal incident, and the witches seemed indifferent, even viewing it as an opportunity to gather real data for the Observation Qi technique.
Perhaps the extraordinary and non-extraordinary truly have a gap far beyond comprehension, but I think I should adapt; after all, consuming too much of my emotional energy on such matters clearly isn’t a correct choice.
Ultimately, I politely rejected her offer, and I realized she was one of the members of the team researching the Observation Qi technique.
Since my Observation Qi became known to Principal Beif Alanna, especially after I informed Principal Mei, she came to meet with me once and expressed a willingness to take over research and share the outcomes of the Observation Qi project.
However, this project isn’t conducted in my villa but in Principal Mei’s office.
After expressing some regret, the witch sister left plainly, after all, this was just data observation related to a big incident, not a major technological breakthrough.
However, I promised I would come down in the form of a Knowledge Shadow, and when the time comes, someone who is enthusiastic should offer a Knowledge Shadow to allow my subjective consciousness to descend.
Although after the Great Knowledge Seed matured into the Knowledge Tree, I could no longer manipulate the Knowledge Tree or interfere with its capabilities, through the ability of the Great Knowledge Tree and the active cooperation of others, I can still achieve consciousness descent using their own Knowledge Shadows.
In fact, it all feels the same.
Right now, my thoughts are still focused on the progress of the Fool Dream Drink Meditation Method.
Previously, I accidentally heard a witch sister mention something, and at this moment, although I have nominally released the research authority of the Great Knowledge Tree.
Even any witch can publish papers and other works on this matter independently, without needing to exclude me, yet I still became the spiritual core of the Great Spellbook research team and its derivative projects.
Because they believe I can continually open up new fields and overcome the difficulties encountered therein, that feeling is one of joy they have not experienced in their previous topic groups.
They were fortunate to join the Great Spellbook research group, and typically, after one or two years without results, they would just miserably conduct various data verifications and rune analyses on “Extraordinary Knowledge.”
However, here, although the Great Spellbook is incomplete and “Extraordinary Knowledge” hasn’t been thoroughly researched, the innovative approach of having results first and then deriving from those outcomes is new.
Typically, such situations are tested after the Great Spellbook is perfected, but these tests rarely include them—by simply understanding the nearly complete interpretation of “Extraordinary Knowledge,” they can generally know the rough upper and lower limits of this extraordinary knowledge.
And this complete unknown yet highly participative development of the Great Spellbook is their first attempt.
Moreover, the owner of this Great Spellbook is a “leader”; currently, the research topics and projects opened by this Great Spellbook are almost all initiated by that person. This spiritual sense of safety, with someone to lead and navigate, has given them immense motivation.
Additionally, she allows for free development of personal ideas, and even a witch was allowed to develop a game using this derivative technique, which brought a different perspective to many witches.
While some witches with a rigid research attitude feel somewhat repulsed by it, if the environment is such, the innate playful nature of witches will quickly lead them to accept it. Of course, those who do not accept cannot be forced; respecting the will of each witch is also important.
After all for me, I cannot offend any academic bigwigs.
But because of this, at this moment, I have hit a bottleneck, showing slight signs of fatigue, which has shown some concern among the witches in the project groups within my villa.
So I’m not a very good leader; unconsciously, I have been lifted up by a group of witches.
But I am not an all-knowing and all-powerful god; encountering difficulties is perfectly normal…
Moreover, I’m not without clues.
Now the issue lies in the Fool Dreams needing to use the Fool Dream Drink Meditation Method to enter my Sea of Consciousness, and this process always encounters problems.
You could say I have taken too large a step; originally, following the procedure, I should have completed observing and intervening with the Fool Dreams using the Fool Dream Drink Meditation Method, and only then reached the level of communication.
Yet, due to the insights from the Fool Dream Drink, I suddenly jumped to the step of allowing Fool Dreams into my Sea of Consciousness.
However, every time the Fool Dreams try to enter my Sea of Consciousness, they dissipate like the initial Yu Yun, without exception!
And this dissipation places immense pressure on the Fool Dreams, as if they had a nightmare in which their entire being was torn apart, consuming enormous amounts of mental power, energy, and awareness.
Through the continuous cooperation of the Fool Dreams and my summary, I halted this meaningless testing. To be honest, the emergence of this issue must have a breakthrough point lying above the Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell.
There are many factors leading to this conclusion, but each piece of evidence is built upon the repeated tests of the Fool Dreams.
With the stable progress of the integration testing between the Great Knowledge Tree and Witch Academy’s network, my Great Knowledge Tree has also gradually started to include content related to the library’s books.
This way, I don’t have to go to the library every time I need information or log into the academy’s mobile library.
The abundant knowledge opened up my vision, but there was no information regarding the Sea of Consciousness in the library. However, that’s fine; I can analogously deduce conclusions from my own inference process.
The Sea of Consciousness is not merely a dream, just as the Sea of Consciousness is not reality, but it exists based on reality.
When entering the Sea of Consciousness, I am using consciousness as a carrier, thus I deduced the concept of “carrier.”
So is the carrier for entering the Sea of Dreams… the soul?
After all, whenever I think of dreams, I can’t help but think of the soul; these two concepts are nearly inseparable.
According to my personal empirical tests… I first entered the Sea of Consciousness and then ventured into the Sea of Dreams; the transition process is an interaction between consciousness and soul.
So… now a crazy thought has appeared before me: if Fool Dreams want to enter my Sea of Dreams, then it requires a… carrier.
This soul is a carrier, but the carrier should not be limited to the soul; the soul and the carrier should not be equated; this thought is the breakthrough point.
Perhaps… deriving a “Mimetic Soul” using the Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell is a potential method.
This is not mere fantasy; to prove my conjecture and this crazy plan, I only need to understand what kind of effect the Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell first had on the Fool Dreams.
I know this is just a hypothesis, but as long as there is no clear refutation of this conjecture, it can serve as a guiding principle for gradual experimentation until evidence sufficient to refute it appears, and on that basis, I can propose more accurate hypotheses and conjectures until I achieve my goals.
Yes, the goal is to achieve my objectives, not to pursue absolute truth.
It is clear goals that allow tasks to be accomplished; absolute truth is merely a directional tool for achieving objectives, as long as it is useful.
This is a process of continuous refinement, a process of meaning granted by humans.
With this thought, a slight smile involuntarily appeared at the corner of my mouth, one that reflects having a goal in sight and a determination to execute it.
At this moment, the slightly bitter chocolate mousse in my mouth also began to melt, revealing its unique richness.
