Angor’s excuse wasn’t a very good one because he had no reason to suddenly take out a Mystery item and risk upsetting a wizard at a time like this. Besides, he had ample time to do his “research” elsewhere. Doing so in the Abyss Plane was not a good choice.
In Sunders’ view, Angor was hiding something. Again.
“I was indeed using the whelk, sir. I want to know where an item affected by the whelk will go.”
“What do you mean? It will go into a dream. Where else?”
“I’m still trying to find out, sir. But… My work was interrupted.”
“Huh…” Sunders looked at Angor up and down. “What are the possible results you can think of?”
“I can only answer that after I’m done with the test. May I have a few minutes?”
Sunders nodded. He also would like to know what kind of curious subject Angor came up with.
He watched as Angor began to release a strange energy ripple into the room while preparing a cantrip.
A minute has passed… Sunders thought. He’s using a cantrip he just learned?
As Sunders tried to guess which cantrip Angor was working on, he saw Angor’s body being covered in a bubble made of nightmare energy, before Angor fell sound asleep.
“A Dream Manipulator cantrip? That’s rare. I hope he truly understood the cantrip model instead of risking a backfire by forcing it… But what exactly is he trying to do here?”
Sunders thought Angor was attempting to find the “sleeping item” by going to the Dream Realm. Usually, this was impossible because the Dream Realm was boundless and would continue to grow as new dreams and new thoughts were added to it. Without a way to accurately locate the item to be found, Angor was basically trying to find a needle from a thousand haystacks randomly hidden at the bottom of the sea.
In fact, the Dream Whelk was considered to be useless just because people couldn’t use it to find “sleeping items” in their dreams.
A moment later, Angor woke up and began mumbling something with a thoughtful look.
“Did you succeed?” asked Sunders.
“No, sir.”
“Phew.” Sunders crossed his legs. “So your ‘research’ did not reach a favorable result after all.”
“Yeah…” Angor hesitated. “I failed to find it, but I think I could tell where it’s hidden…”
“What?!”
…
Sunders was taken to a dark, empty realm. There was nothing in view. The sky was dim, and the land was barren and boundless.
It wasn’t a strange sight in the Abyss because most places looked so boring. However, Sunders could tell that this was not the Abyss Plane. He could not use magic or any of his supernatural abilities. Apart from his trained muscles, he was as helpless as a mortal.
While trying to calm his agitated heartbeats, he looked further and managed to see an object in the gloomy distance.
A bookshelf.
When he couldn’t even find a piece of stone in this bare and deserted place, looking at a bookshelf was indeed an odd experience.
Also, he recognized the bookshelf as the same one in his room.
Slowly, he walked to it and took out a book with a black cover. The book was titled “Practical Applications of Illusion Prisms”. He wrote this one.
The content of the book, the quality of the ink used, the expensive papers… Everything told him that it was exactly the same book he kept on the shelf.
“Is this the Dream Realm? The Dream Whelk put the bookshelf here?”
It was Angor who used Dream Enkindle to bring him to this place. Entering the Dream Realm was no big deal because most wizards knew how to do it. But it was a whole different matter if someone was able to summon items from the reality into the Dream Realm and find their “dreaming counterparts” with ease.
Sunders turned back at the sound of footsteps. Angor just used Dream Enkindle on himself again and came as well.
He can find not only items, but people as well? Sunders took a deep breath at the shocking realization.
“Can you freely search for what you want to look for in the Dream Realm, without any restrictions?” Sunders decided to ask.
Angor stopped moving upon hearing the question as he was just confused by another thing. It seemed his previous assumption, that the Dream Whelk could be used to open up special territories like the dream wasteland, was correct, because he was now standing in a place similar to the dream wasteland.
More importantly, the special “privileges” he gained in the dream wasteland, including Dream Gate and Gatekeeper, just became active. He was now free to control the landing points of items or people he sent to sleep.
This new piece of wasteland, or “dream wasteland 2”, was slightly different from the previous one. He couldn’t feel any nightmare energy, and he couldn’t use his “nightmare vision” to freely check every corner of this place as he wanted.
His Dream Gate ability told him that “dream wasteland 2” was almost as large as the old dream wasteland. However, they were not connected, which meant he couldn’t go to Foundation City from here.
Now the question was, what was the relationship between the two wastelands? Since he retained his special privileges, was the new wasteland an independent extension of the other one? Could they get fused together?
Seeing Angor unresponsive, Sunders repeated his question.
Angor recovered from his thoughts and sighed. “In fact, this is not the Dream Realm.”
“It’s… not?”
Angor sat on the ground and slowly explained everything he knew about the dream wasteland.
“This was also how my right hand was further affected by those green stuff. At first, I did this to help Jon…”
As Sunders heard what Angor had to say, he found his heart beating faster than what was comfortable. This was the biggest surprise coming from Angor today. Sunders somewhat expected Angor to save the best for last.
The incident revolving around Lucas’ skull only affected a small number of people, meaning, wizards who were looking for the item.
As for Jon, his particular existence meant a lot to academism wizards and Karabits, but nothing more.
The dream wasteland, however, was enough to change how the wizarding world worked. Or rather, it was no longer limited to the wizarding world, because Angor just created another one in the Abyss.
Sunders almost felt his brain stop working due to the overwhelming discoveries Angor provided. Also, he couldn’t believe that Angor could be so fearless as to deal with a possible nightmare domain without anyone’s help, which resulted in more “projection bloodline” being pumped into Angor’s body.
And to think Angor could control the dream wasteland at his free will using his right hand…
Sunders wasn’t sure if he was brave enough to claim such a large nightmare domain if he ever found one. And Angor just hot-headedly went for it like it was nothing!
This was not even the first time Angor did some dangerous business. During Twilight Auction, Angor almost summoned a deadly nightmare monster—the “Queen”—into the wizarding world. His guts knew no bounds!
Sunders clenched his teeth. “Don’t tell this to anyone!”
He had said this for the third time today.
“I-I know.” Angor gulped when he saw Sunders’ face almost twisting in rage.
Sunders spent several minutes to grow calm and began asking Angor more about the dream wasteland. While he was still frustrated at Angor’s unruly nature, he would admit that the dream wasteland was an unparalleled treasure if used properly.
Angor never planned to keep this from Sunders, so he gladly told what he could. Though he didn’t get to speak for much time as something suddenly stopped him.
His “Gatekeeper” sent him a warning. Someone was trying to get inside by force.
