“Brother, what are you spacing out about?”
Hearing this call, Lind finally came back to his senses from his daze.
At this moment, Lin Li was pointing and gesturing in front of him.
“If you want to sleep, you can wait until you’re on the plane to sleep; if you fall asleep at the airport, I won’t care about you.”
Lind then remembered that he was on a school-organized government-sponsored trip with a few coworkers—oh no, it was an academic tour, and they were currently at the airport waiting for the flight. Lin Li had come to send him off.
For some reason, seeing Lin Li’s arrogant and slightly disdainful face, Lind suddenly felt a wave of nostalgia.
The surrounding sounds of airport announcements, the nearby bald mathematics teacher Wang talking on the phone with his wife, and even the sound of a phone on speaker made Lind feel incredibly nostalgic.
After hearing the boarding announcement, Lind was ready to head to the gate, but was pulled back by Lin Li.
“Hey brother, where’s your girlfriend?”
“My girlfriend?!”
Lind asked in surprise.
Wasn’t he perpetually single? Where did this girlfriend come from?
But Lin Li had an incredulous expression, saying, “Didn’t you just spend the whole day together? She heard you were going on a trip, oh no, an academic tour, and even bought a ticket to go with you.”
At that moment, a voice came from the bustling crowd: “Sorry, I’m late. Did I miss the flight?”
A blonde girl was running and waving at Lind.
Lind seemed to recall; Lena was indeed his girlfriend, and they did spend every day together.
Lin Li elbowed Lind with a mischievous smile and whispered, “Where did you find such a pretty sister-in-law? No wonder you’ve been too busy to go home lately.”
Lind was speechless. Wasn’t he just busy with work, rushing to finalize a thesis for a title evaluation? But when did he meet Lena? Why was it all a bit hazy?
Lena finally reached Lind’s side and asked, “Sorry, dear. I’m late. Did I miss anything?”
Lin Li immediately replied, “No, no, you came just in time, sister-in-law.”
But at this moment, Lind was dazed, grasping Lena’s hand and asking, “What did you just call me?”
“Dear? Are you okay?”
Lena waved her hand in front of Lind’s eyes, asking with concern.
“Shouldn’t you be calling me brother?”
Lind, for some reason, blurted this out.
Lin Li laughed loudly, “Who cares if their boyfriend calls them brother? Brother, are you dazed from the rush for that thesis?”
Instantly, a complete memory flooded Lind’s mind.
“I have been a bit tired lately. Let’s go board the plane first.”
Lind regained his composure and held Lena’s hand as they walked toward the boarding gate.
“Have fun, brother. Don’t forget my local specialties.”
Lin Li was waving from behind, but Lind was already dripping with cold sweat—if he could sweat in a dream.
This is a dream, Lind could be sure of that; if it weren’t for Lena’s sudden appearance, he might have actually thought he was just confused from rushing his thesis.
Not only that, Lind noticed a nun, out of place in her environment, holding a lantern and curiously surveying her surroundings, but the people around seemed oblivious to this nun, as if she had just stepped out of a comic convention.
When Lind boarded the plane, that strange nun ignored security and boarded just behind Lind.
Lind carefully pondered the current situation, knowing that he was indeed in a dream. Yet for some reason, this dream had turned into what felt like a lucid dream.
A strange outsider also seemed to have entered his dream.
Was she an enemy? Was there some strange magic related to dreams in this world? That shouldn’t be the case from his recollection.
Lind didn’t dare to act rashly and could only wait for the flight to take off, adhering to the dream’s plot.
“It’s truly unbelievable; what kind of technology is this? Humans can reach such high altitudes?”
Just as Lind tried to see what he could do in his dream, the nun with the lantern gazed excitedly out the window.
Everyone still hadn’t noticed this strange nun, allowing her to crawl around the plane.
“This giant bird isn’t controlled by magic power? How can it break through the limits of magic to reach such a great altitude? If this is possible, then what’s the point of mages building towers?”
The nun in the split nun’s habit continuously expressed her astonishment.
The plane flew steadily in the stratosphere, and that nun also kept inspecting the cabin.
Lind merely pretended not to see her. When Lena fell asleep resting her head on his shoulder, he feigned drowsiness while observing her.
From his observations, he had already figured out that although this nun didn’t seem like anyone from this dream world, everyone else except Lind was unaware of her existence, and that this nun was also influenced by Lind’s dream.
For instance, the doors to the cockpit were sealed; this strange nun couldn’t pass through walls in Lind’s dream to see what the cockpit looked like.
She was also subject to physical rules—or perhaps the physics of the dream.
Gradually, it seemed Lind began to grasp the sensation of a lucid dream, even being able to control some things in his dream, like transforming the magazines on the plane into his Switch, changing the baldness of the math teacher Wang’s hairstyle, and even secretly altering the scenery outside the window.
“How strange, did the Rom Empire ever have this kind of technology?”
The nun put down her lantern, abandoning her exploration of the cabin. If the owner of the dream didn’t unlock those doors, she would be helpless. Although the Lantern Dream could control others’ dreams to some extent, if she were to forcibly break something, the door behind it might only lead to the unmanifested void, and it could possibly awaken the dream’s owner.
Seeing the suspected technologies of the Old Empire, the nun felt a sense of regret and prepared to carry out her order to eliminate Lind.
Just as Lind was pretending to be asleep, he heard that nun scream, “Why can’t I fully read the permissions of this dream?”
“Wait, this shouldn’t be possible; the goddess’s authority should be absolute. What is wrong with this dream?”
The nun’s gaze landed on Lind, who was pretending to be asleep in the dream.
Seeing that he might have exposed himself, and after confirming his control over the dream, Lind no longer hid and slowly stood up to ask, “What’s wrong? Aren’t you going to introduce yourself when you come to someone else’s house?”
In the midst of their conversation, the scene shifted from the cabin to an open space.
The nun saw that Lind remained lucid in the dream and calmed down, genuinely introducing herself: “I am Sister Bernice from the Church of the Light Goddess, nice to meet you, descendant of the Empire.”
Lind shook his head: “I am not a descendant of the Empire.”
Bernice smiled and said, “We initially thought that the descendants of the Empire were merely identities fabricated for you by bards, but based on what we just witnessed in this dream, you truly are a genuine descendant of the Empire.”
“You don’t seem like a nun from the Church of the Light Goddess either.”
Lind scrutinized Bernice. Although her nun’s habit looked similar, there were still some differences; the design seemed bolder.
“No, we are the true followers of the Church of the Light Goddess. Those sitting within the Holy See are the heretics. It’s just that people outside generally refer to us as the Lantern Dream, labeling us as a cult.”
Hearing this, Lind felt somewhat speechless. Wasn’t killing in dreams exactly what a cult does? Which legitimate church would engage in such acts?
Ignoring Lind’s expression, the nun continued, “Since you can remain conscious in your dream, that’s even better. For some reasons, we are extremely curious about the technology of the Old Empire. If you can showcase more of this technology in your dream, we would be eternally grateful.”
“So what? If I show you, will you still kill me?”
“Your death is a decision made by the higher-ups; specifically, I have to finish recording these technologies before it is handed to them for a determination.”
A very worker-like response.
“What if I refuse?”
“You do not have the right to refuse.”
At some point, a chair appeared behind Bernice, and the nun sat down holding her lantern.
“Although we cannot fully acquire permissions to your dream, we can still manipulate your dream. In a dream, the most important thing is imagination. It can be said that as long as you have seen and generally understand the principles of magic and technology, you can perform them freely in your dream.”
Lind’s eyes brightened; didn’t that mean he could conduct experiments in his dream? Thinking this, he immediately conjured a computer in front of him, inputting the magical models being disassembled on the ground into it, and Lind quickly felt his brain igniting in a physical sense.
It seems that even in a dream, math still wouldn’t go away; perhaps those flashy magical effects could be released without constructing magical models and without consuming infinite magic power, but true calculations would still consume computational power. However, this still sparked many ideas in Lind’s mind.
Seeing Lind tinkering with something unknown, Bernice continued, “Don’t think that the technology of the Old Empire can save you. Everyone in the Lantern Dream has undergone training to use high-level magic that they’ve seen in their dreams; several lords can even wield super-level spells. What’s more, we have seen the Divine Kingdom of the Goddess in our prayers; we can project her Divine Kingdom in our dreams. Even if you are a person who lived from the Old Empire to this day, you cannot compete with us in a dream.”
“Humans cannot imagine things they haven’t seen, and what we have seen far exceeds what ordinary people can imagine!”
With these words, Bernice was filled with pride, as if victory was already in her grasp.
Meanwhile, Lind looked at her with the eyes of a fool. Such a conveniently powerful dream ability, and they only came to kill—what a squandering of talent. No wonder the technology in this world was so distorted.
However, regarding what Bernice said about being beyond common imagination, Lind was a bit curious; could it be more shocking than the movies he had seen in his previous life? He was even ready to grab some popcorn for himself.
