Mystical Journey

Chapter 687: Dragged in 1

Practicing a technique based on dreaming was a troublesome task, as it wasn’t something you could master in one try.

Garen cautiously asked about the details regarding the dream world technique, and also the methods for resolving the possible issues and problems he might face. If he managed to master the vision technique, according to Black Sethe, it would have some obvious effects on him in various aspects. After achieving Vision, he would be able to drastically increase his field of view, allowing him to see many things that normal people were unable to see.

He kept the symbols he’d drawn neatly in the desk drawer and locked them up.

‘Let’s try it out in the first dream world today,’ Black Sethe advised.

Garen nodded as he made his way towards his bedroom. After greeting his maid, he went straight to the bathroom for a cold shower. After refreshing his body, he went straight to his bed and lay down, trying his best to relax his body.

Lying face up on the bed, he put on his noise canceling ear muffs. Staring up at the checkered black and white ceiling, he slowly closed his eyes, breathing slowly.

As his consciousness started to blur, he was also getting more and more sleepy.

The key to entering the dream world was to be in a comfortable position. You simply could not move your body or exert any strength.

After a short while, Garen started to feel his body getting lighter as if the bed itself was starting to float, and it entered a narrow black tube. It felt like he was being compressed by the strong force.

He tried looking around, but all he could see was that he was encased in a weird, brownish, gooey substance, almost as if he was completely immobilized by mud. However, there seemed to be none on his body.

This strange tube seemed to be alive, making small movements every few moments. He could vaguely hear a lot of different sounds; sounds of humans, cars, airplanes, even insects. It was a chaotic jumble of different noises.

After a long time, Garen finally saw the light at the end and his entire body suddenly flew out of the tube, entering a small dark room that looked similar to his actual bedroom.

Black wallpaper, black wall lamp, black and white checkered sofa, black and white checkered bed frame, a mini bar counter, and a giant 92-inch flat screen television on the wall.

As Garen landed in the bedroom, he turned around. What was behind him was a room door left ajar that was slowly closing. Through the shrinking gap, he saw a dark abyss.

Click.

The door was closed.

‘That is the door of your heart. Since it was closed, it means that your dream world is also closed. This is a psychological defense mechanism for defending against invisible creatures, but don’t rely too much on it,’ Black Sethe’s voice rang in Garen’s ear, but it felt as if it was played through a voice changer, with the voice constantly changing like a melody. Sometimes he sounded sharp, sometimes he sounded raspy, with his pitch constantly going up and down, it sounded very surreal.

‘This place is your bedroom, or at least the bedroom in your dreams. Pay attention to the details in this area, we’ll set this point as the rally point for today’s training,’ Black Sethe continued.

Garen nodded. He could clearly feel that he was in a dream, as his body wasn’t as agile as it was in the real world and his consciousness was also a bit fuzzy. The surroundings in his vision were very blurry, almost as if they were constantly changing.

‘Let’s start by strengthening your dream world. Try to focus your sightline, start to focus on every detail of the areas nearest to you, but do not focus on something for more than two breaths. Otherwise, you’ll start to lose focus, causing the dream world to change,’ Black Sethe said softly.

Garen started looking around his surroundings and decided to start with the small bookcase right next to him.

The bookcase was filled with books, from books on philosophy to history, geography to science, computers to art, there’s a book of almost every genre on the shelves. However, they were just put there for display purposes; in reality, Garen hadn’t read any of them before.

He started from left to right, scanning through the bookcase, imprinting the rows of black leather books into his mind.

‘Find the things in your dream that are illogical, those are distractions that you should remove,’ Black Sethe reminded him.

Keeping that in mind, Garen continued.

History of the Earth… Andrew’s Growl… Astronomy and the Sky… The Life of Edolas…

One book after another passed in and out of Garen’s sightline.

Suddenly, a book’s title stood out.

“Reinhardt placed an apple on…” the cover of this book was very strange. The name etched on the edge looked as if they were ripples on water, and couldn’t be read clearly. The words after “on” were blurred, almost as if it was constantly changing.

Garen moved his hand over to grab the book, placing it on his palm. It turns out that it wasn’t a book at all; flipping it over, it was a deviled egg plate.

What a joke! Why would a plate be placed in a bookcase? It was simply illogical.

Garen now grabbed this plate with both hands, attempting to snap it.

At that instant, the plate softened and transformed into some sort of living slime that escaped from his grasp. It somehow burrowed its way through the wall on the right and disappeared. The wall now had a crack that wasn’t there at the start.

‘Don’t mind it. That is something from some unknown place. When in a dream world, you may encounter various creatures from other worlds or dimensions. It’s very difficult to capture them, but you’ll get used to them soon,’ Black Sethe softly said, ‘Your mission now is to remove the distraction factors from your dream world.’

Garen felt somewhat amused.

His current consciousness level was slightly blurrier than in real life, and it was also the case during his battle with Nadia. It was largely affected by external factors such as suppressed rationality and reason.

Continuing to look through the bookcase, he found nothing of interest.

He then moved on to the black cloth sofa that had a tiger-like furry texture and pattern, which seemed to be quite fluffy.

Garen attempted to sit on it, slowly pressing his weight onto it.

Hyaaaaa~~~~

The sofa let out a strange moan, almost as if it was alive.

“I don’t think sofas are supposed to make sounds like that,’ Black Sethe said.

Garen nodded in agreement.

The shadow of the sofa suddenly lunged forward, speeding directly towards the room door. Almost like a stream of black water, it rapidly seeped through the gap at the bottom of the door, disappearing without a trace.

‘That was another guest from another galaxy, these guests can also be pretty useful. If you want to go visit another galaxy or enter a world in another dimension or time, they can act as great tour guides. All you need to do is grab on to their tails.’

“We can go to other galaxies with them?” Garen started to take interest in the topic.

‘Yes, though I need to mention that if you do that you’ll have to live in the dream world forever. If you blindly follow these tour guides away from your original location, you will be easily lost in space-time or in a different dimension, unable to find your way back. Then, you’ll have to live the rest of your life there, or maybe in the eternal emptiness of another galaxy, or maybe some rip in space-time between galaxies, staying there forever until your soul dies out.’

“Then why are they in my dream world?” Garen sat on another sofa.

‘No idea, these visitors all have their various goals, but one thing’s for sure, their intentions are never good,’ Black Sethe answered.

“Alright,” Garen stopped asking questions.

After checking the sofas, he started exploring the smart television mounted on the wall.

He tried to turn on the television, but nothing happened. There seemed to be blue sparks flying about at the sockets.

He started touching the display of the television which looked smooth, but when he touched it, it felt strangely bumpy and uneven. Other than that, it seemed to be normal.

Garen then moved his focus over to the television frame. Eerily, the frame was actually a thin yellow snake. The snake was even still alive, flicking its red forked tongue at Garen while hissing.

Hiss!

The snake suddenly lunged towards Garen, flying towards his face.

In a state of panic, Garen reflexively reached forward to grab the snake.

‘Don’t touch it!!’ Black Sethe shouted.

However, it was too late; Garen had already grabbed on to the snake tightly. In a blink of an eye, he started to feel that everything around him was becoming blurry as if someone had just flashed a bright white light at his eyes. He also felt like he was moving at high speeds through something.

After an unknown amount of time, he honestly did not know whether a long time has passed or if it was just a brief moment.

He suddenly noticed that in front of him was a huge, pitch-black vortex, almost like a whirlpool, slowly spinning. At the center of it was an endless abyss of darkness. He was being dragged directly towards the vortex by a strong force.

The vortex occupied almost the entirety of his field of vision, almost making it feel like it had the size of the solar system or even the Milky Way. The enormity of the vortex made him freeze in his tracks. A strange feeling of attraction was luring him towards the vortex, almost making him have the urge to just move directly into the vortex.

‘Wake up!!’

A sudden sharp noise came from behind him.

Garen furiously shook his head, feeling a strong pulling force from his back, dragging him away from the vortex.

Whoosh!!!

Garen forced his eyes open. He was still lying on his bed, though his whole body was sore as if he’d just undergone an intensive exercise routine. It completely didn’t feel like he had just woken from his sleep.

‘You were almost dragged into an unknown universe by a creature from another dimension,’ Black Sethe’s voice groaned from beside his ear.

“If I really went into that vortex, what would have happened?” Garen asked as he stood up and wiped the sweat off his face.

‘Vortex? You saw a vortex?’ Black Sethe seemed to not know what Garen saw in the dream world, ‘I have no idea, you’ll probably start seeing the scenery from other dimensions or universes I guess,’ Black Sethe answered after a brief pause.

‘This kind of thing will happen quite often, so please be more cautious. In the dream world, some of these things can be very cunning, so you shouldn’t believe everything they say, but you shouldn’t completely ignore it either. You have to be able to distinguish the truth from the lies yourself. As for entering another dimension or universe, it’s a very dangerous thing especially for you. Your soul with its space-time attributes is these visitors’ favorite prey, so they will do whatever it takes to lure you into their universe.’

“I felt a strange sort of attraction towards that vortex just now,” Garen frowned.

‘That is for sure, as you enter another dimension or universe, it causes certain benefits for your soul’s consciousness. A trip to another universe while being conscious is not something you can do no matter how powerful you are, though it would definitely be a precious experience. However, it is a one-way road; once you enter, it’s highly likely that you’ll become lost in it forever, never being able to return.’

“What would happen then?”

‘To put it simply, you’ll be put in a vegetative state. Your body will still be alive, but it will no longer have a consciousness.’