Chapter 531

Chapter 531: The Grand Scholar Awakens

Lucretia tore herself out of the dream in a sudden jolt. Even so, she spent several seconds calming her thoughts before opening her eyes. Only then did she let out a long breath, open her eyes on the chair, and slowly look around the room to check the “hint items” she had set up in advance in the laboratory.

The first thing to do after waking from a strange dream was never to jump up at once. One had to calm the mind first and confirm the details of the Mortal Realm, to avoid being trapped inside a double dream.

After a short while, she confirmed the details of the Mortal Realm and that she had completely left that dream. At the same time, she confirmed that Master Taran Ael had woken up as well.

The elven Grand Scholar was in a sorry state. Several ropes tied him to a nearby pillar, and a lump had risen on his head. The clockwork doll Lunie stood next to him with a sharp kitchen knife in hand, watching him with full attention.

“Lady Lucretia, you’re finally awake!” The Grand Scholar cried out for help the moment he saw the Sea Witch open her eyes. “Your servant tied me up! I don’t know what I did wrong…”

Lucretia frowned at once: “Lunie, what is this about?”

“He suddenly started yelling in his sleep,” Lunie reported, still gripping the kitchen knife and looking very serious. “After he woke up, he jumped off the bed and hit his head on your workbench. I judged that he had been corrupted by a nightmare, so I tied him up to prevent secondary injuries.”

The Grand Scholar protested loudly: “How many times have I told you, you wooden head! I was only scared in a dream! I saw Duncan Abnomar! As a normal, sane ordinary person, am I not allowed to wake up in fright when I see him in a dream?”

Listening to the “two people” in front of her, Lucretia’s expression twisted a little. She had also just been frightened awake. She pressed her lips together and rose from the chair: “Lunie, put down the knife and untie the scholar. He is telling the truth.”

“Yes, Mistress.” The clockwork doll bowed her head at once. With a clean downward swing of the knife, she cut through the ropes on Taran Ael’s body. Then she flipped her wrist, and the cold, gleaming blade disappeared into some hidden compartment inside her.

Free again, Taran Ael stumbled forward two steps before he finally found his balance. He could not help turning to glare at the stiff doll: “You wooden head!”

The clockwork doll paid no attention at all to the Grand Scholar’s anger. She simply stepped to her Mistress’s side and asked curiously: “Has the old Master arrived?”

“He… ‘arrived’, in every sense of the word,” Lucretia said, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly, her tone a bit hesitant. Then she waved one hand. A chair floated out from the corner of the room and landed in front of her. “Mr. Taran Ael, sit down. I have some things I need to ask.”

Taran Ael stretched his sore arms, grumbling as he walked over to sit in front of the Sea Witch. He muttered to himself: “If he’s coming, then he’s coming. It’s not as if he could get here in an instant anyway…”

Lucretia listened to his muttering in silence and said nothing. She only reached toward a low cabinet at her side, felt around deep inside, and took out a bottle of potion, which she set on top of the cabinet.

Taran Ael watched her movement with curiosity: “What is that?”

“This is a ‘witch’s potion’ we’ll use in a bit,” Lucretia said casually, clearly not intending to answer him directly. She moved on at once: “About the time when the Sun went out, and about the dream just now, there are things I want to ask. I know we already spoke briefly in the dreamscape, but dreams block parts of the subconscious. There may be things you didn’t notice then. Now I need you to recall everything again while fully awake.”

Hearing the seriousness in the Lady’s voice, Taran Ael’s expression quickly turned serious as well. The bearing of a scholar returned to him. “All right, ask whatever you wish. My head already feels much clearer now.”

“You observed the surface of Vision 001 while the Sun was out. This is the sketch you left,” Lucretia said without ceremony. She pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper and handed it to him. “Is this it?”

“Yes, I drew that.”

“I’ve already checked. The drawing itself doesn’t carry any mental corruption. But the content is disturbing. On the surface of that ‘sphere’, you drew these messy, branch?like lines. From my analysis, many of these lines seem to have been added near the end, in a rush, to cover the original, clearer pattern. Do you remember that?”

Taran Ael’s brows furrowed at once.

He took the paper from Lucretia and stared at the spherical image covered in chaotic lines. The more he looked, the more tightly his brows knitted, and his mind sank into thought and memory.

Lucretia’s voice came again from across from him: “A very important question is this—do you truly remember all the details from the moment you finished observing the Sun’s surface to the moment you fell asleep? From the looks of it, you’re as puzzled by these tangled lines as I am…”

“I… am indeed a little confused,” Taran Ael said slowly. “This really does look like obvious smearing, but I don’t remember why I covered the earlier details… It seems…”

He suddenly stopped. After chewing over his words, he went on hesitantly: “Perhaps I saw something extremely terrible. Or a truth that should not be made public. I drew it without control. But just before I operated the express dispatch, I suddenly woke up to myself, so I hurried to cover it… Yet for some reason, I still wanted to send it out…”

Even though things were still somewhat muddled and there were clear breaks in his memory, Taran Ael’s reason and logic as a seasoned scholar still took the lead. He analyzed what had happened to him, then his expression grew grave. “How many people have seen this paper so far?”

“A small number of senior scholars at Truth Academy,” Lucretia said with a nod. “The original is still with me. They only saw the smeared version. I’ve already warned them. And the fact that you fell into deep sleep is a warning in itself, so you don’t have to worry about anyone secretly studying this sketch and trying to restore what you saw. But the Boundless Sea is very large. We can’t rule out the chance that some other ‘brave soul’ did something just as bold as you.”

Taran Ael nodded thoughtfully. Then he heard the Witch continue: “About that dream—what else do you remember? How did you do the dreamwalking? Did your mind ever sink down to its true ‘last layer’?”

“I only remember that when I woke up, I was already standing in that ‘forest’,” Taran Ael said, thinking back as he spoke. “Just like in some old books—an endless, dense forest, the place where the elves came from… My thoughts in that dream felt very slow. The voices I heard, the information I sensed, and my reactions to the outside world all seemed to pass through a thick barrier…”

He spoke while recalling, then suddenly frowned.

“But there was one very strange part. Not long after you appeared, my thoughts did sink for a moment, but not to the last layer of the dream. Instead, it was like a place between one ‘layer’ and another. Many chaotic lights and shadows tangled together there, as if several very different dreams were overlapping and projecting into each other. And in that chaotic region, there were many hazy figures gathered around me…”

“Many hazy figures?” Lucretia interrupted him at once. “Explain clearly. Were they illusions inside the dream, or ‘dreamers’ like you?”

“I don’t know. At that time my thoughts were almost frozen. I could only feel that they were there and could not clearly describe what they were. But one thing is certain… They were not illusions,” Taran Ael said, his face serious. “They truly existed. Even if they weren’t other dreamers, they were other ‘mental entities’ contained in that dream.”

“I see.” Lucretia nodded, her expression calm. She let out a small breath. “That really is… vital information.”

“I hope it can be of use,” Taran Ael said earnestly. Then he glanced down at the sketch in his hand. “Then about this drawing…”

“I now think it’s best not to let ordinary scholars come into contact with it. Whatever you ‘smeared out’ is clearly harmful to normal minds,” Lucretia said, pulling the sketch out of his hand. “I’ll let Father take a look later. Maybe he’ll think of something.”

Taran Ael blinked, took a second to react, then nodded: “Oh, right. Captain Duncan certainly won’t be afraid of whatever’s hidden in this drawing. Then we’ll wait until he arrives. I’m in no hurry…”

“Ah, that’s the other thing I wanted to tell you,” Lucretia said, leisurely shifting her posture as she looked into Taran Ael’s eyes. “My Father has already arrived at Lightwind Harbor.”

Taran Ael’s eyes went wide, and his expression froze at once.

“Maybe because of the special influence of the Sun going out, the Vanished reached its destination in an instant,” Lucretia said with a small nod. “He should be very interested in speaking with you face to face, or inviting you to his ship. He cares a great deal about the Sun’s extinction.”

Taran Ael stayed dazed for a few more seconds. Then his eyes suddenly focused, as if he had sobered in an instant. He drew in a sharp breath and leaned backward—

Lucretia watched him without any change in her expression. She calmly picked up the potion bottle she had set on the low cabinet and handed it to Lunie: “Pour this into Mr. Taran Ael.”

Lunie gave a soft “oh” and took the potion to carry out her Mistress’s order. Lucretia watched the Grand Scholar being dosed and nodded in satisfaction.

“See? It came in handy.”

Today, the Sea Witch once again successfully stopped Master Taran Ael from dropping dead on her ship.