Chapter 319 : Chapter 319

Chapter 319: The Breakthrough Found in the Nightmare

“Are you feeling any better?”

“Why aren’t ordinary healing spells working here at all?”

At this moment, a group of students gathered in a special medical room were anxiously trying various methods.

This was the residence provided for the outsiders in Ninglan New City.

Because the number of outsiders was increasing, the Ninglan Xiang Hotel could no longer accommodate so many of them, even if it wasn't open for business, it was a bit overwhelming, so they were moved to another place.

And this was a medical room in a residence provided for the witches.

Many people were gathered here, mostly friends or classmates of Tan Han, as well as ordinary students who had been affected by the Sleeping Curse.

Minian, Su Ningmu, or Hedi James, were all comrades who had participated in the exchange competition with Tan Han.

They had just experienced a battle not long ago, not with others, but with the Nightmare Demon.

This was the first time Tan Han and the others had truly fought the Nightmare Demon, and before that, they had only heard of it once.

After paying such a heavy price, Tan Han also learned information about the Nightmare Demon from the city lord.

But it was clear that Tan Han was not satisfied at this moment, because the price of obtaining this information was too high, and it came too late.

“Big Sis Tan Han, you’re back?”

“Yes, how is Lan Baihui?”

Tan Han nodded and looked at Lan Baihui lying on the bed, her eyes showing a hint of concern.

“Not good… the healing spells don’t seem to be very effective,” Minian stood up and said, then took out Tan Han’s numerous healing spellbooks and returned them.

“That’s right… the place we are in is clearly not reality. No… the key is not that… it’s that Nightmare Demon. It absorbs a person’s soul-substance. This is already beyond the scope of ordinary healing spells,” Tan Han shook her head and said.

At this moment, she recalled what Little Han had said to her.

The Nightmare Demon was the main culprit for causing death.

Was that what it meant?

But unfortunately, she understood it too late.

If only… if only she had contacted the city lord earlier to get the relevant information, she wouldn’t have been caught so off guard by that Nightmare Demon.

She could clearly feel that she had encountered considerable resistance when she met with the city lord.

She somewhat regretted why she hadn’t violently gone to get the information in the first place.

After all, those city guards couldn’t stop her.

But if she ignored the rules to find the city lord, he probably wouldn’t have cooperated and told her that information.

After all, to that city lord, outsiders were a threat.

If she acted unscrupulously, how could he possibly tell them anything?

The blame was on that Nightmare Demon for coming at such an inopportune time.

“Then what should we do next? Just let Lan Baihui lie here like this?”

“This is the only way for now. The other option is to eliminate all the Nightmares and go back to the Witch Academy to see if the teachers have any solutions,” Tan Han said in a deep voice.

Before she could find out more information, she really had no way to salvage the current situation.

“But those Nightmares are too hard to kill, right? They don’t have a specific form, and even if a small part escapes, it can gather the power of emotions and grow again.”

“And our biggest enemy is not just those Nightmares.”

“I understand. This is a bad start for us. By the way, have you found any other students from the academy in the city?”

Tan Han nodded and then asked again.

After all, this was why they had come.

“I’m sorry, Big Sis Tan Han. Ninglan New City is too big. We can’t be sure if we’ve found all the areas where outsiders are settled. But the number of people we’ve found and checked against our previous statistics of those under the Sleeping Curse doesn’t match… there’s still… a significant gap.”

“They should be in the ruins outside the city. I’m afraid they haven’t found the location of Ninglan New City. How about we split up and search outside the city?”

“That’s right, the mutated beasts outside the city can’t threaten us.”

“No… we can’t disperse our forces anymore. Besides, are the only threats outside the city those mutated beasts? Not necessarily. There are also those Nightmares and the Nightmare Demon.”

“But those outside the city…”

“Although it’s a bit harsh to say, we can’t force ourselves to do things we can’t do. We need to get our priorities straight. If we can’t even defeat the enemy, what’s the point of finding those people?”

Tan Han said in a deep voice.

After she made this decision, the girls fell silent.

It wasn’t that they couldn’t understand this approach, but they understood that at this moment, they seemed to have no choice.

They themselves should have had nothing to do with the Sleeping Curse.

The reason everyone could gather here was mostly because they had their own reasons or persistence, but this didn't mean that they were all prepared to face the unknown.

They had experienced an unknown trial, they had come to a world they had never been to before, witnessed a battlefield full of ruins, experienced the confusion of a brief separation, and then gained the joy of reunion.

Finally, they came to this city built on the ruins.

The atmosphere in the city immediately lowered their vigilance against the unknown.

When they truly encountered danger and saw the person next to them lying in front of them unable to wake up, they finally completely dispelled that playful mentality in their hearts.

“Then… by the way, Big Sis Little Han! Big Sis Tan Han, didn't you say you were going to find Big Sis Little Han before? What was the result? Did you find her?”

When faced with such a situation, they subconsciously thought of relying on or finding a strong person to lead them.

“I found her, but unfortunately, she didn't agree to come with us,” Tan Han sighed and said.

“Huh? Why? Big Sis Little Han also came in voluntarily, right? Shouldn’t we be stronger if we stick together?”

“That’s right, doing things like fighting alone…”

Suddenly, this group of young girls became confused and expressed their incomprehension.

“Alright, although I don’t know what Little Han is thinking, she is different from us. She should also be fighting those dangers in her own way at this moment.”

“This… doesn’t sound very reliable…”

“I don’t expect you to understand Little Han, but I also don’t want you to misunderstand her. Her abilities are beyond your imagination, and her abilities are also beyond your comprehension.”

At this moment, Tan Han’s gaze swept over everyone.

Here were her friends, partners, and classmates, but it was precisely because of this that she felt it was necessary to make such a statement.

“While we were wasting time meaninglessly, she had already entered a day ahead of us. Before we had even discovered Ninglan New City, she had already joined forces with the city guards of Ninglan New City to kill a Nightmare Demon, obtaining information for us in advance, so that we wouldn't be attacked by such an enemy without even knowing what kind of existence the enemy was.”

“Phew… I’m sorry, I’m not saying that everyone didn’t work hard. The fact that you all could accompany me regardless of your own safety is the greatest help to me.”

“At first, I didn’t understand why Little Han acted so unsociably. It wasn’t until she proved her decisions with facts time and time again that I could see the meaning behind her unsociability.”

Tan Han’s words once again silenced everyone.

Perhaps Tan Han’s words were too euphemistic, but she was almost rubbing their incompetence in their faces.

“Then… is the Witch Academy just going to ignore us like this?”

At this moment, those ordinary students who had been innocently dragged into this finally spoke up.

They didn’t care who was how powerful, nor did they want to know how capable that Little Han was.

They just wanted to leave this place as soon as possible.

For them, the Witch Academy was the last trump card they could rely on.

They didn’t want the ones coming to save them to be first-year students like them.

Even if that first-year student was one of the most powerful, it still couldn’t bring them a sense of security.

Hearing the question raised by this student, the girls fell silent.

Although the academy had said they were trying hard, they had come here on their own accord, and had even implicated Teacher Lina.

But up to now, they really hadn't seen any of the transcendent mentors, which really shouldn't be the case… After a fruitless discussion, everything could only remain as it was.

“Alright, in any case, we need to get moving first. Discussing here won’t lead to any results. At least if we get moving, we can go and learn about the various intelligence in the city. Even if it's just the ordinary people who were attacked by the Nightmare, asking them about the situation can also give us some information we don’t know.”

“And I will continue to contact that city lord to see if I can get any other information. By the way, if there is another Nightmare attack in the city, don’t act rashly. First, notify the city guards, and then wait for us to act together. Also, leave a few people to take care of the wounded and those with no direct combat ability.”

Finally, Tan Han, as the backbone of the group of young girls, put an end to this exchange.

It was just as Tan Han had said.

If they did nothing, then there would be no gains or progress.

---

And at this moment, at the extraordinary research base in the underground city.

The research project on the Nightmare had officially begun.

But what was different this time was that there were more scholars around me who were researching with me.

I also understood the difference between researching alone and researching with multiple people.

Before, it was just one-sided teaching and answering questions about Runology.

But now, the focus was on the distribution of work.

I could no longer just focus on myself and ignore the roles of others.

Even if they didn't have the ability to research an existence like the Nightmare at this moment, they could at least do the most basic things.

I hadn’t forgotten my original intention for catching the Nightmare, which was naturally to use the Nightmare’s ability to find a way back, at least to find the connection between my current consciousness and my main body.

But what I wanted to research was too abstract for the people in the base.

Consciousness, dream state, main body, information—there were too many fields here that they had never come into contact with before.

But they were tirelessly working on the tasks I assigned them.

Even if they didn't know what I was asking them to do, they just needed to rely on their own knowledge and do their part.

And after saving a lot of trivial matters, the problem left for me was the most crucial and core thing, which was to use Spirit Vision to cheat.

There was no other way.

Spirit Vision was my tool for understanding the transcendent, and it was also the only means I currently had to touch the forefront of the transcendent field.

How could I not use it?

Time flew by, especially when focusing on certain things.

Although during this period, many scholars questioned what exactly had been researched for so long.

After all, although they had participated in the research on the Nightmare, they ended up finding that they had been helping with the research for so long, but didn’t know what they were busy with.

This feeling was really not good, as if they were being isolated.

But such voices were quickly suppressed.

The exploration of the unknown was not to be questioned.

This was also sacred to scholars who pursued extraordinary truth.

A true scholar is good at asking questions, and also good at finding the known from the unknown.

They saw a little bit of the truth from the research I gave them.

But it was precisely because they understood that it was not a field they could set foot in now that they didn’t ask some overconfident questions, but silently contributed their own part to this truth and accumulated their own knowledge.

With the integration of these few days, I also began to gradually get used to the skills of cooperating with others, and the efficiency was also constantly increasing.

Until… this moment.

“It seems… it’s a success.”

I slowly opened my eyes, and what met my eyes was a dense array of runes.

Rune Rituals were the means to drive the transcendent, the foundation for practicing transcendent theory.

“Really? It’s a success?”

The most prestigious scholars at the side also asked excitedly.

“Yes, record these primal rune rituals. The breakthrough has been found. Next, we will further develop it based on this,” I nodded and said with certainty.

“Scholar Little Han, can you briefly explain to us what has succeeded?”

At this moment, the scholars who were responsible for the most basic data trial and error in this research asked.

Although they didn’t know what stage the experiment had reached, they could be considered full participants.

Seeing the success, they were naturally happy along with it.

This full sense of accomplishment, although a bit inexplicable, was something that could be a brilliant stroke in their resumes!

After all, even scholars were divided into different levels, and their pursuits were also different.

“Using the Nightmare to achieve the intercommunication of information between the dream state and reality. This means that as long as the technology matures, we can use means to forcibly awaken the consciousness of people dragged into the dream state by the Nightmare, or forcibly compel the Nightmare to appear, and so on,” I briefly explained, and then did not explain any more, because it was not necessary.

Right now, all of this was just a glimmer, a breakthrough.

That's why I said it could only be done when the application technology matured.

Right now, all of this was still at the stage where only I could achieve one-way information intercommunication from the dream state to reality.

To truly have consciousness return to the body, there were still many difficulties to overcome.

But for me, many things were enough.

After these scholars became busy again, I also began to plan.

As my Memory Bookshelf Spellbook unfolded, many things were recorded inside, and among them was the dismantling of the spell rituals related to her spellbooks that I had discussed with Big Sis Bai.

In this special world, the power of spells was multiplied, and the gap between spellbooks and spells was also infinitely closed.

This meant that even if I didn’t have the spellbook for a certain spell, as long as I knew the spell ritual and rune ritual combination of that spell, I could cast it with my bare hands, as simple as casting a fireball with bare hands.

---

At this moment, at the Witch Academy infirmary outside.

The seniors taking care of those trapped in the Sleeping Curse had been replaced batch after batch.

Although the Sleeping Curse looked very intimidating, the part-time nurses here were very well paid, and seniors were rushing to come.

“We’re so lucky. Among the rooms assigned to us, there’s actually Little Han.”

In the infirmary, a pair of seniors responsible for taking care of the sleeping students started to chat idly after checking that everything was normal.

“Ugh… so boring. How much longer do we have to stay here… I’m about to get sick of the smell of this disinfectant.”

“Put on your mask. You don’t want to catch the Sleeping Curse, do you?”

“No way, let this damn curse hurry up and take me away too. I want to sleep and never wake up.”

“No… are you that desperate? If you’re bored, I can play with you.”

This senior’s tone suddenly changed, and she moved closer, placing a hand on the other’s shoulder.

“Huh? Is it okay to do it here?”

“Isn’t it more exciting here? Anyway, we’re the only two who are awake.”

“That’s true… Speaking of which, it’s been a while since I… wait! Wait!”

“Wh-what’s wrong?”

This senior was startled by the other’s movement and quickly looked in the direction she was pointing.

“That… that person! Her hand! Hand! It lifted up!”

“Don’t scare me. Who? Little Han? This… she’s not waking up, is she? Don’t be scary!”

“But! But she really lifted her hand and then put it back down!”

“Are you seeing things? Forget it. You really killed the mood.”