Chapter 523

Chapter 523: An Unexpected Meeting

Heidi admitted that, in her many years as a doctor, she had run into more tricky situations than she could count—but none had ever been as awkward as this.

However, just when she was so embarrassed that she almost pressed fingerprints into the golden awl in her hand, Taran Ael suddenly laughed.

“Even so, I still think you are telling the truth.”

Heidi looked surprised at once.

“The golden awl you use carries a very special emblem,” Taran Ael said with a smile, pointing at the “weapon” that was also a medical tool in Heidi’s hand. “Even in this dream, you still reproduced that emblem exactly. That shows you care about it a lot—Miss Heidi, you are an outstanding graduate of Truth Academy. This emblem has only ten spots each year. It is given only to the most excellent young apprentices, and it is engraved, as they wish, on one of their belongings.”

Heidi froze for a moment. Her gaze followed his finger to the end of the awl’s handle. There, an Eye of Wisdom emblem surrounded by tiny light points was carved.

An ordinary person would easily mix this emblem up with the common symbol of the God of Wisdom. Only people who truly understood the various marks of Truth Academy could tell the difference between this emblem and a regular Eye of Wisdom.

Only then did a sudden idea flash through Heidi’s mind. She stared at the elf scholar in front of her who called himself “Taran Ael.” Some rough impressions in her mind finally began to piece together.

A member of Truth Academy. An elf. The old family name “Ael.” Someone who would, when Visions 001 went out, do something as shocking as observe the Sun’s surface…

“Taran Ael… Wait, are you that ‘Mr. Taran Ael’ of Lightwind Harbor?!” Heidi’s eyes went wide. “The master who studies borders and hidden knowledge…”

“I don’t really deserve to be called a master. I am just a researcher who stays busy all day,” Taran Ael said with a wave of his hand and a smile. He was humble in words, but clearly pleased at being recognized. Then he looked a little puzzled. “You have heard of me? That is rare… I don’t show my face much. I do have some fame, but only in Lightwind Harbor and among elves. How did a human from far away like you hear about me?”

“I heard about you from my father,” Heidi answered at once. “I have heard about you since I was small!”

“Your father?” Taran Ael frowned.

“His name is Morris,” Heidi said with a hint of pride. “Morris Underwood. When he was young, he studied at the main campus of Truth Academy, and he also studied abroad in Lightwind Harbor…”

The name felt a bit familiar to Taran Ael. After he heard Heidi’s words, he remembered at once. “Ah! That young man! I remember him. He was a very gifted young man… and you are his daughter?!”

The elf Grand Scholar stared in surprise. He looked Heidi up and down several times, clicking his tongue in wonder. “Then he married and had a daughter very early…”

Heidi’s expression grew strange. She hesitated and said: “…Father was almost forty when he had me. That was already very, very late…”

“For…” Taran Ael opened his mouth, then slapped his own forehead. “Oh, sorry. I forgot I should use human standards. Sorry, I can be careless like this sometimes.”

Heidi could only give an awkward smile. She could see now that this elf scholar, whom her father praised so much, could be frighteningly thick at times…

After a brief, quiet pause, Taran Ael could not help asking with some expectation: “How did your father talk about me?”

Heidi answered without thinking: “He said that, as an elf, it was truly awe?inspiring that you managed to give yourself neck pain and frozen shoulder purely through the power of your work schedule…”

Taran Ael: “…”

Heidi: “…”

“No need to apologize,” the elf Grand Scholar said, waving his hand and cutting off the now?flustered Miss Psychiatrist. It was clear he had long grown used to similar comments. “We have chatted enough, Miss Heidi. Now it is time for you to use your professional skills and find a way to get me out of this dream.”

This perfectly timed change of topic cleared Heidi’s awkwardness at once. She quickly fixed her expression and mood and began to think about how to undo this dream.

But just as she started to recall the “professional knowledge” she had learned, Taran Ael spoke beside her: “I need to remind you first, Miss Heidi. I have already tried the Falling Method, the Suffocation Method, the Interrogation Method, and reverse hypnosis. None of them worked. All these ways could not wake me up from here. They only made me more and more awake inside the dream.”

Heidi froze for a moment and her expression changed. “More awake inside the dream?!”

“Yes. It is the most dangerous of all the dangers that follow a ‘trapped in a dream’ accident,” Taran Ael said, spreading his hands. “To grow more and more awake inside the dream and realize clearly that you are in a dream, yet still fail to wake up, means that my reason is being slowly merged into the base logic of the dream. Deep in my subconscious, I no longer believe I need to wake up. I even… subconsciously believe I already have.”

“Have you tried praying to Rahm?”

“What do you think?” Taran Ael replied with a bitter smile.

“…You are already so awake in this dream that you can even receive Rahm’s protection…” Heidi’s tone grew heavy. “So you have in fact already woken up. The terrible thing is that you ‘woke up inside the dream’… Regular mental guidance methods probably will not work.”

“How about… you try poking me with that awl again?” Taran Ael pointed at the golden awl in Heidi’s hand. “Give my subconscious a near?death hint. I can see if I can rely on the ‘Sudden?Death Method’ to go back to the Mortal Realm.”

Heidi stared for a moment, then quickly shook her head. “I don’t think that is a good idea…”

As soon as she finished speaking, a strange, slightly lazy female voice suddenly came from the side: “I also don’t think that’s a good idea, little young lady.”

Heidi jumped at the voice. She gripped the golden awl at once and looked toward the sound. A second later, a flurry of colored paper suddenly filled her vision. The falling colors swirled like snowflakes from the sky, and a graceful lady wrapped in an air of mystery stepped out from within them.

When Heidi instantly raised her guard and took a defensive stance, the mysterious lady did not even glance her way. She walked straight up to Taran Ael. “I mean it, Master Ael. Stop longing for your ‘Sudden?Death Method’. With your current health, if this Miss Psychiatrist stabs you once, you really will drop dead in the Mortal Realm.”

“Ah, Lady Lucretia!” Taran Ael’s face lit up with joy when he saw who it was. “You came to help. Well then, it seems my apprentices did not find a psychiatrist, but they did find a stronger helper. They brought the Sea Witch…”

Lucretia waved her hand. “I was the one who turned away the psychiatrist your apprentices went to find. They could not help you—right now you are in my laboratory.”

Heidi stared blankly at the scene before her. She first noticed that Taran Ael actually knew this mysterious lady. That surprised her. Then she heard the lady’s name.

Lucretia.

There might have been more than one person in the world called Lucretia, but there was only one who people called the “Sea Witch”!

Shocked, Heidi first felt a wave of tension and caution. She realized she had to say something, but when she opened her mouth, she only stammered: “You… you are…”

“Don’t be nervous, Miss. Witches don’t eat people,” Lucretia said with a laugh, as if she found the young human lady’s reaction very amusing. “How interesting. I did not expect Master Taran Ael’s dream to have another ‘guest’. For a ‘predicament’, this place is a bit too lively.”

She spoke with a gentle smile, but bit by bit the warmth faded from it. Her eyes still seemed to smile, yet deep inside they turned cold as ice and judging.

“What is your name, strange guest?”

Heidi did not even notice the change in the warmth of Lucretia’s smile.

But her mind suddenly rang with warning. A kind of “intuition” rooted in her Spiritual Insight gift made her tense up at once!

The “witch” in front of her was analyzing her soul and mind. Lucretia was treating her as the “corruption factor” inside this dream!

The instant Heidi realized this terrible fact, she tried to put mental protection on herself. But she found that she was cut off from all supernatural powers. Even the golden awl in her hand, which was usually the closest to her, suddenly felt like something that had nothing to do with her. Under the weight of her fear and tension, she could only fight to keep her mind steady. She forced herself to think and forced out her words: “My name is Heidi. I am a psychiatrist—I entered Mr. Taran Ael’s dream by mistake. The intruders are someone else, and some of them have already been dealt with by Mr. Taran Ael himse—”

The pressure that had made her Spiritual Insight gift scream warnings vanished at once.

Heidi let out a breath of relief, but at the same time felt very confused—

She had not even finished speaking.

She lifted her head in confusion. At some point, the purple crystal pendant hanging on her chest had started to grow warm again. She pressed one hand over the crystal pendant and looked in puzzlement at the “witch” across from her.

Lucretia only frowned tightly.

“Are you a follower of my father?”