As the clock struck midnight and the eldest moon reached it’s zenith, I was sent into the dream, expecting the same feeling of having my lungs and throat be filled with water to come over me once again, but there was nothing.
Not nothing as in I closed my eyes and after a minute, reopened them to find that I was suddenly transported into the waiting room, but nothing as in I was still able to breathe, just at half capacity, like each breath I took only gave me half the usual amount of air. Though, I think I preferred the former sensation rather than this half drowning, half breathing limbo.
I likened it to the feeling brought on the moment before an important decision is revealed, where it’s unknown what will happen to you, akin to a transitionary period. I disliked that anticipation, as at least compared to if it was just solely good or solely bad, I would instinctively prepare for two separate outcomes and thus feel double the tension.
With such thoughts in my mind, my surrounding suddenly turned to all white and I keeled over, sputtering for breath even more severely than in my first outing, before forcibly calming and throwing my body back up.
The timer already down thirty seconds, I quickly ran to the floating display, immediately changing the default, 25% pain simulated to 100% for a two times multiplier before beginning to make further preparations.
Quickly putting on a white linen shirt, underpants, dark brown pants and leather boots, I grabbed a leather chestpiece and helmet with mask attached that looked like they would fit me.
Wearing the same satchel and quiver of bolts I had previously, I stuffed two cloth sacks of jerky, a flint firestarter and a knife inside, before throwing a one handed crossbow, small circle shield and a spear to the ground.
Looking down at the pile of armor and weapons, I quickly rushed to the items I had transferred in, throwing my short sword artifact down as well and carefully transferring the glass potion vials and Fire Shot scroll into my satchel.
However, as I reached for the 7th Compendium of Flora and Fauna, it was as if there was an invisible barrier blocking my way, as my hand was forcibly stopped and a red colored floating square suddenly appeared in midair.
Reading the white text on the floating square, I cursed, finally remembering how on the second day of the very first dream, after Abetra pushed me into the rapidly flowing stream, in my subsequent unconscious state, I had lost the Compendium in the water.
I would need to pay one hundred points in order for the Compendium to be restored and for me to use it in the dream again. One hundred points I now didn’t have.
Slumping my shoulders in defeat, I just sighed. This wasn’t a situation with loopholes I could somehow maneuver through to get what I wanted. The lost Compendium could only be used again on the sole condition that I paid an amount of points I didn’t have. I couldn’t do anything about it.
With nothing else to do, I just absentmindedly watched the timer count down, and before long, my surroundings abruptly changed back to the forest I remembered previously wandering around when the first dream ended.
Putting on all the weapons and armor I had thrown to the ground, I looked around, before reflexively scratching my head, a wave of panic coming over me as I did so, remembering how I had been hit on the head by something in the stream, only for the expected pain to never come.
Remembering Rat’s words about how as long as you weren’t killed, your body would be restored back to normal when the next dream started, I smacked my head in self derision, before beginning to make my way through the forest I was currently in.
As I continued wandering however, the consequences of no longer having the 7th Compendium quickly became apparent. I didn’t have any plant to search for and harvest, I didn’t know what monsters, other than the goblins and hobgoblin I knew about, could possibly call the forest home. I was completely and utterly devoid of direction, so full of fear at what could possibly be lying just out of my periphery.
I rapidly shook my head, thinking that if it came to it, I would just kill whatever lay just out of sight, and if I couldn’t, I’d just run away. The professors of Celestia were cruel, but it was more of a their wanting us to develop under pressure rather than a their just wanting to see us suffer for suffering’s sake. By that logic, that hobgoblin I had previously encountered would likely rank among the tougher opponents in the dream, and I was even able to run away from it while carrying a cripple on my back and before even having formed a magic circle and gained the subsequent physical benefits, so I had a healthy amount of confidence.
I began to walk back where I had come from, in the direction of the lake I had previously washed up on. I remembered entering a clearing of ghastly blue colored flowers that brought on a feeling of intense, horrid danger within me.
But now that I was of the first level, surely something would have changed?
As I continued walking directly back to the shoreline, I breathed in the scent of sticky with sap trees that the wind blew into my face, feeling a chill run down my spine, my skin becoming bumpy and a strange euphoria coming over me.
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Finally reaching the lake once again, my mood was ruined at the sight of the desecrated corpse of Abetra, nearly picked clean by the fish, with only a few scraps of flesh left, but somehow still floating on the surface.
It was a bizarre sight, the calmness of the surrounding forest, the leaves a beautiful green color, while the corpse of a boy one year my senior just floated there.
Walking along the shore to where I had originally washed up, I began to make my way into the forest once again.
As I continued walking however, the forest grew more and more desolate the closer I got. I had thought that I just misremembered how empty and quiet the area really was, chalking it up to be the result of newly obtained head trauma, but it quickly became apparent that despite my previously being unable to even walk straight I was so delirious, those memories were eerily accurate.
But it was somehow even worse now, with the previously fresh smell of nature taking on a certain fake, acrid quality, akin to a facade, nearly perfect but still with something undeniably wrong about it.
Tightening the straps of my small, round shield strapped to my forearm, I warily raised my crossbow, fingers on the lever, ready to fire at the slightest provocation.
I began to breathe from my mouth, no longer able to stomach the horrid smell, an impending sense of doom and foreboding slowly growing within me. Luckily enough however, the feeling wasn’t as strong as before, when I was barely even able to resist the urge to just run away.
The fake smell growing stronger and stronger to the point it even began to somewhat irritate my eyes and I began to tear up, I finally got a glimpse of those flowers.
Holding my crossbow with both hands, my right resting on the lever, my left holding the wooden part and positioned such that my shield would protect me from any enemy in front, I slowly crept forward, craning my neck left and right and over the shield. Even as a minute passed however, and I finally reached the clearing of flowers, I couldn’t spot any obvious threat.
But despite that, the feeling that I should immediately leave didn’t subside, instead seemingly being at it’s strongest and even continuing to grow as I stood there.
Lowering my arm slightly, I stared down at the flowers, thinking that bugs or some incredibly small monster could be the source of the fear I felt, but nothing. Somehow, I thought the flowers were incredibly beautiful, more so than anything I had ever seen before.
Thin white lines ran from the very center to the tips of the petals that were colored an enticing light blue. Those lines seemed to bend and dance in the sunlight the longer I stared at them, swirling around and comforting me. Calling out to me to get lost in them, an intense feeling of calm, that everything would be alright coming over me.
My body relaxing, I absentmindedly let my crossbow drop onto the ground, but I didn’t reach down to pick it back up.
I kneeled down, getting a closer look at the flower petals.
As I continued to stare, my pupils dilating, my heartbeat slowing, my breathing becoming more relaxed, the world around me suddenly became more beautiful as my hazy gaze lazily wandered around. The dull gray clouds in the sky were signs of rainfall, which would nourish the world, bring life to the plants that the living would use to fuel themselves. The once disgustingly artificial stench took on a more complex, nuanced quality, such that I could appreciate the smell for just how utterly unnatural it was. The dead, half rotten corpses that surrounded the clearing, they spoke of the cycle of nature, of the inevitability of the passage of time, how whether you be animal, monster, or man, you would die all the same.
And that thought calmed me. In the face of lady death, we were all made into infants, our eyes brightly shining with wonder at something never before seen or experienced.
Staying kneeled down on the dirt ground, the clouds that blotted out the sun finally moved and the clearing I was in lit up even brighter.
My eyes growing heavy, the weather and landscape beautifully beyond rational thought, as if they were personally molded by the goddess, the thought that I should continue staring for just a bit longer, let myself unwind for just a bit longer came over me. I had fought for so long, surely I could allow myself just a minute of rest?
Forcefully biting down on my tongue, it was as if I was forcefully woken up from a dream and returned back to reality, as the realization of what was going on finally came over me.
The feeling of danger I got, it wasn’t from any monster, it was from these flowers. Whatever they were, they were able to mentally destabilize even a level 1 cultivator. My heartbeat speeding up, I forcefully tore my gaze away from the clearing of flowers, a newfound sense of clarity coming over me as I looked away from the clearing of flowers at the remains of what must have been tens, no, hundreds of animals that were scattered around.
Whether they were a boar, deer, rabbit, bird, or even a massive heap of fur I surmised to be a bear, they were all dead. Some completely decomposed, leaving behind nothing but picked clean bones, while some were freshly deceased, the only trait they all shared in common being was that on their bodies, there was no visible cause of death.
But most horrifying of all, six dead humans were also around the clearing. Assuming that each of them were also from Celestia from how each wore the same white clothes that were offered in the dream waiting room, some were completely unarmored, some wore ill-fitting leathers and one even wore a full set of immaculate plate, but they were all kneeling down, beginning to rot. Each of their eye sockets already hollowed out, their skin tight over their bodies, some parts a horrible sickly gray color while others a pure white and beginning to flake off, I was unnerved, a chill coming over me.
Despite the signature, distinct scent of rot being completely missing, I was still being subjected to a complete frontal assault from my nasal passages, coming to the realization the grotesque fake smell of nature likely originated from the flowers to cover up the stench of their rotting prey.
Gritting my teeth, my breathing became strained, as it finally set in that I would’ve joined the dead around the clearing and wasted the second dream had I not so decisively bitten down on my tongue and forcibly snapped myself out of it.
Spitting a glob of blood onto the flowers, I began to rub my forehead, feeling a throbbing migraine coming on, before stopping and watching in horrified wonder as the patch of red I created slowly began to decrease in size.