Free Web NovelChapter 806: The Fool's Dream Defined by Me as “Sapient Life”
Inside the laboratory.
“Eh? Big Sis Belica, you’re all leaving this place?”
I was very surprised to suddenly learn this news.
Several witch mentors had been staying in this laboratory for a while now.
Although they stayed under the pretext of coming here to sponge off the lab, in reality, they were mostly helping us.
During this period, Mentor Belica and the others helped us a lot, including but not limited to spellbook production, professional knowledge explanations, and so on.
Yi Rui and her group had even developed a bit of a dependency.
However, that was precisely one of the reasons they chose to leave.
They didn't want the students they were leading to become too dependent on them.
Of course, a bigger reason was that they had learned from me that the difficulties and thresholds for the Self-generating Magic Power project were nearly resolved, so they had no reason to stay here anymore.
As for sponging off the lab?
A witch could hand-craft alchemical items even while staying in their bedroom; was a laboratory really necessary?
It wasn't a must.
Having one just saved a lot of trouble, but this ultimately wasn't their laboratory.
“Yes, it’s indeed time to leave. We’ve stayed here sponging off the place with thick faces for a long time.”
“Actually, Big Sis Belica, you all could stay forever.”
“Xiao Han, you should know why. I won't over-explain with unnecessary words.”
“Alright… but Yi Rui and the others…”
I nodded to express my understanding.
However, compared to my understanding, Yi Rui and the others seemed very reluctant to let go.
After I finished speaking, the figures of Yi Rui and the others appeared over here.
I silently stepped back to give them some space.
Although from their age, Yi Rui and her group were mature adults, as long as they remained at the Witch Academy, they were still students, looking forward to the guidance of their mentors.
What’s more, girls' outward expressions were naturally very emotional.
Even if they knew the mentors weren't abandoning them, having spent so much time together in one place would inevitably create dependency.
“Alright, alright, what’s with those expressions on every one of you? We’re just not staying in the laboratory anymore.”
“We’re just a bit reluctant… when the time comes, if we encounter another difficult problem, I’ll have to run a long way to find you, Mentor.”
“When you encounter a problem, first find a way to solve it yourself. Do you really think I’m your problem-solving machine? Asking about whatever you don't know? You should also learn to be a bit more independent like Xiao Han. Handling problems independently is something developed through training, so you all……”
After Mentor Belica mentioned my name, I silently left the area.
I feared most when others used me as a standard for comparison like that.
Although I knew she was educating Yi Rui and the others, Yi Rui and her group were also among the most outstanding students in the Witch Academy.
After putting some distance between us, I returned to my dedicated experimental cubicle in this laboratory.
This place was already the default experimental zone belonging to me.
Entering here, several petite figures quickly appeared before me.
The three little Fool's Dream creatures before my eyes were precisely Fool's Blue, Fool's Luck, and Fool's Fruit.
I had used the Dream State projection method to have them shed their original shells and come here.
Fool's Dream were essentially dream creatures, so their understanding of a shell was merely a body for action in material reality.
Therefore, the damage or inactivation of a body could not be considered “death” for a Fool's Dream, because they weren't even “lives” to begin with.
“Sigh.”
I sighed, then randomly picked up a Fool's Dream—specifically Fool's Blue, who was the first to run up to me.
“You guys shouldn't run around so excitedly when you’re in the laboratory. This place is considered a formal laboratory after all; it can't be compared to the laboratory at the villa.”
“Ugh… I was wrong, Big Sis Xiao Han.”
“I’m not trying to blame you. Just pay attention next time.”
“Mm, I understand.”
“Big Sis Xiao Han, speaking of which, when will we start trying to perform that so-called life metamorphosis?”
Fool's Luck inquired from the side with great anticipation.
They had been here for many days already, but I hadn't formally performed Soul Depiction on them yet.
One reason was that I was using my spare time to perfect this skill.
The other was that I was making preparations in advance.
The first issue was the raw materials—for example, Soul-substance, and specifically a large amount of Soul-substance.
This required me to ask Millian for help in preparing.
The Transcendent material known as Soul-substance was very scarce in the Main World.
If it hadn't been for the opening of the Expansion Realm development last semester, there would be no source for Soul Crystals.
As for killing people to collect Soul-substance, or privately mining Soul-substance from the natural Earth Vein soul-substance cycle in the Main World, those were absolutely prohibited matters.
The former involved wantonly erasing life, which was morally unacceptable in the Main World; even Transcendents had agreed not to carry out large-scale slaughter in the Main World.
And the latter… would be destroying the world cycle of the Main World, which was also not allowed.
Even I was no exception to these two rules.
So the only current channel was the Soul Crystals stockpiled after the resource mining in the Expansion Realm earlier.
However, after communicating with Millian, I realized that even relying on the support group, it would be difficult for her to help me obtain a large amount of Soul Crystals.
After all, this stuff was also very scarce in the Expansion Realm.
Even I hadn't seen too much Soul-substance.
Moreover, there were a large number of dream creatures in the Expansion Realm that would also absorb Soul-substance, so Soul Crystals were truly a rarity.
Even those who obtained them mostly chose to use them for themselves to raise their own life level.
But… collecting just the amount of Soul Crystals needed for experiments was actually no problem.
With that, the issue of Soul-substance was roughly resolved.
In this preparation stage, preparing the Soul-substance was already very troublesome, and there was even more trouble ahead.
Shaping reality-based meaning for “dream creatures” that originally had nothing.
First, one thing that could be confirmed was that dream creatures all had their own consciousness, and consciousness was the only concept dream creatures possessed.
Even the Fool's Dream were no exception.
According to my current definition of life, I needed to prepare many things for the Fool's Dream.
For example, Soul Depiction, to shape the essence of soul life for the Fool's Dream.
Then, for example, Wisdom Bestowal, to shape the Seed of Wisdom for them, using the soul as soil and using consciousness and memory to shape the foundation of wisdom.
Furthermore, shaping the species concept and bloodline information for the Fool's Dream; these were also concepts that existed upon the essence of soul life.
Therefore, Soul Depiction was what I considered the foundation of creating life.
But… this was merely the foundation.
The second step, Wisdom Bestowal, required raw materials to create the Seed of Wisdom for the Fool's Dream: “Consciousness” and “Memory.”
The Fool's Dream lacked “Memory.”
Or rather, everything the Fool's Dream remembered wasn't a memory belonging to the Fool's Dream, but rather materials from the Primal Dream State.
As dream creatures of the Primal Dream State, their outward manifestation appeared as “confused memories,” or rather, they were forgetful.
Even the Fool's Dream were like this.
However, the Fool's Dream could now live normally, which forced me to explain the uniqueness of the Fool's Dream.
At the very beginning, the Fool's Dream were still within the Witch's Secret Realm.
At that time, the memory of a Fool's Dream was called physical memory—meaning one copy of memory was kept by the body, and one copy was collected by the Primal Dream State materials.
Therefore, after the Fool's Dream died at that time, or rather, after they were dragged back to the dream state by their other half, the Nightmare, they would basically lose their original memories.
Later, after the Fool's Dream followed me, I used the Great Wisdom Enlightenment Spell to bestow them with a foundation, and memories were retained in another way that I hadn't paid attention to before.
But now, the memories of the Fool's Dream had been deliberately retained by me using the Seed of Great Knowledge.
Every Fool's Dream had a Seed of Great Knowledge; this was the most basic protection I gave them.
At this point, their memories could barely be considered to exist.
However, this memory information, retained in the form of data, also needed specialized processing if it were to be transformed into “memory materials” for shaping the Seed of Wisdom.
So this would take a long time to work on.
As for shaping the species concept and bloodline information of the Fool's Dream… this was likewise a difficult point.
Of course, this was also the simplest part, which was to interpret the definition of the Fool's Dream upon the shaped essence of soul life.
What was the definition of a Fool's Dream?
No one knew.
They were dream creatures, but since they were to undergo a metamorphosis into living beings, they couldn't be meaningless dream creatures.
This kind of interpretation could not be expressed through the essence of soul life alone.
So the simplest interpretation was: a Fool's Dream is a Fool's Dream.
Just like a human is a human.
And bloodline information, understood simply, was what defined the species nature and appearance of the Fool's Dream.
So… what a Fool's Dream was… was not a question that required seeking an answer, but rather a will and choice to be made by me as the creator.
The preliminary answer I gave was… they are a group of “Sapient Life” based on my cognitive definition of wisdom.
After all, I had added Wisdom Bestowal for them, so wisdom was the first “power” that would completely belong to them after they achieved life!
Helping the Fool's Dream complete the metamorphosis of life was not a simple matter of using Soul Depiction on them.
Soul Depiction was a skill, not a spell that would solve everything once released.
Before I had prepared until it reached what I considered perfection, I would not conduct such irresponsible attempts on the Fool's Dream.
Although… I had already done many irresponsible things to the Fool's Dream before, such as using the Mimetic Soul technique to shape soul essence for them and so on…
After comforting the three little ones, I also began to continue my busy work.
Today was not the day Tan Han was coming over, so I needed to seize some time today.
If I had known that being busy would take up so much time, I wouldn't have changed the agreement with Tan Han; a frequency of once every two days seemed to be the optimal choice.
But… things being like this now wasn't impossible.
After all, I had long since grown used to daily life being tightly packed.
However, while organizing these things, I would occasionally empty my brain to take a shallow rest.
Occasionally I would comb through the information stockpiled within the Great Tree of Knowledge, and occasionally I would communicate with my clones to understand the outside situation of the academy, looking at the Witch Academy from another perspective.
And what I cared about most was none other than my Player avatar.
That Player avatar of mine had left after fooling the people of the Hawthorne Family that time, but that clone was still active within the territory of the Wizard Academy.
She had witnessed the Hawthorne Family crash down at a certain moment during these days.
The collapse of a family pillar brought along a series of chain reactions.
In the end, everyone pushed the falling wall, and the Hawthorne Family was completely wiped from the name list overnight.
This wasn't a story where some descendant escaped to somewhere and could rise again; it was merely the desperate delusion of a family in its final moments.
Not to mention… I had used Wisdom Wither on all the important figures of this family; they had completely lost the last possibility of a comeback.
The collapse of the Hawthorne Family was merely a small interlude to me.
I was more concerned about the intelligence obtained by the Player avatar.
Something had gone wrong with the Wizard Academy.
The problem was very large, large enough to affect the relationship between Players and wizards.
They had lost the channel established for communication with the Players, to the point where [Transcendent Knowledge] might not be delivered to the Players according to the established time.
After thinking about it for a bit, I locked onto a witch—or rather, an Anti-Witch.
Only that one could do such a thing.
That time the Anti-Witch appeared at the Wizard Academy and made the wizards break down, the communication channel was likely destroyed then.
However, this also gave me other thoughts.
That Anti-Witch was actually helping?
This was a bit different from the code of conduct for Anti-Witches that Big Sis Bai had described to me…
Could it be that I really was looking at Cheryl through tinted glasses?
Actually, Anti-Witches were just as Academy Head Mei Linde said back then; they were all good witches?
Then… Academy Head Mei Linde's nasty attitude toward this Anti-Witch didn't seem like an act.
As expected, the group known as Anti-Witches were only good witches when things had nothing to do with them.
Maybe this was a certain degree of ‘Lord Ye's Love for Dragons’?
While I was still busy, my cubicle was pushed open.
“Big Sis Xiao Han… the mentors really left… eh?”
“Next time you enter, remember to knock first, okay?”
I ignored the other party's words and spoke up to remind them.
“I understand… but, but this, Fool's Dream! Big Sis Xiao Han, why do you still have Fool's Dream here! Heavens! Big Sis Xiao Han, where did you kidnap them from?”
“Huh?”
I looked at the girl in confusion, feeling that the things she was focusing on were a bit wrong.
Furthermore, the emotional contrast before and after was too great.
“I’ve seen them in the Witch Cat Cafe! I wanted to take one home, but it wasn't allowed. It’s truly a pity. Big Sis Xiao Han, how did you manage it?”
“What’s the situation? Did I hear someone talking about Fool's Dream just now?”
At this time, another girl who heard the commotion also walked in.
“Because they were already following me. They are, in a sense, my experimental assistants.”
I explained.
“Big Sis Xiao Han, you actually have Fool's Dream as assistants? That’s too blissful! Why didn't I see them before?”
“I only brought them over recently. Alright… can you let go? You’re scaring the Fool's Dream.”
I reached out to remind her.
“Sorry, sorry… I was just too excited! There are actually Fool's Dream in the laboratory! So, can they mix Fool's Dream Drink for us? I really like that taste!”
“Speaking of which, didn't your mentors forbid you from eating or drinking in the laboratory?”
I reminded them once more.
“Ha… haha… that… so what! The mentors have already left! Now the laboratory is our world!”
“Wait… where did that sadness about the mentors leaving go when you just entered? You were faking it, weren't you?”
I complained from the side.
