“I… am… sorry.” Hannah pronounced with a heavy tone of regret which only truly manifested after leaving her father’s office and after telling her mother that she had, in fact, not listened to her advice about increasing her Logic Stat to alleviate the pain throbbing inside her head.
“It's fine, honey.” Hailey added before rubbing her daughter's head and hair alike. Deep down, however, she was a bit irked by the fact that fifteen years of nurturing and worrying about her daughter were easily swept aside by just a few moments with her father. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on one's predispositions about life, Hailey was familiar with how children looked up to their male role models at the best of times when they are constantly in a child's life, but when the ghost of a dead parent returned to tell and advise the child of something, it was hard to for an ordinary run-of-the-mill mother to beat that.
“I won't be the one feeling the aftereffects of your choice.”
Even without being reminded of it verbally, Hannah knew that because of some of those very aftereffects she was feeling right this very moment because her father’s ghost had not ceased sharing things that her mind was not quite ready to process.
“So… Have you affirmed your choice? Will you follow your father's advice and make that monster your pet, or a version of it, I guess.” Hailey, stated when her eyes settled on a rough approximation of the drawing her daughter had received while sleeping. “I mean, if I compared this adorable thing to that monstrosity, even I would be compelled to consider taking it, and I am not the one being offered the choice.”
“I… am!” Hannah replied with caution in her tone.
“You are? You sure?”
“...” Hannah’s lips opened up to say something but her words failed to leave her throat.
“I see… It's not that you're taking it, but more like you are leaning toward it. Right?”
“Hnng.”
“Alright.” Hailey added before once again, unconsciously, of course, reaching out for the top of her daughter's head and rubbing it. “If you are truly taking the third choice, then know this, I am very proud of you for not taking the easy way out, but instead choosing to face your monster head-on.”
“Really?”
“Yes… How about this?” Hailey said. “If you succeed and completely fix your nightly problem, we can make it a celebratory day or night, thus forever marking the either as something special that you and I will celebrate every year from now on, with cake and everything.”
“Like a birthday party?” Hannah quizzes her mother.
“Sure why not.” Hailey responded. “Though it will be between the two of us since I doubt anybody else will believe you if you even told them the reason for the party. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Hannah said and nodded.
That very night, after setting on a celebratory day or night before it had even been confirmed, Hannah found herself back in her father’s office.
On the desk office, she saw the three big white sheets of paper holding the imaginative forms of her future pet, though, now that she was about to step beyond to make that point a certainty, Hannah noticed a strange sensation in her stomach.
A sensation where it seemed as if something was wiggling within it and yet not at the same time.
A feeling that caused her to feel anxious on top of being nervous.
It was a sensation that spawned a possible cause within her mind, but it was not one she was familiar with or had been for the last seven years.
Either way, while it distracted her for a while, in the end, she still overcame it and tapped the floating multicolored Dream Gem in the center of the office. When she did, her father’s recorded image flickered before coming alive.
“It seems, my dear daughter, you have made your choice.” Hannah heard her father say. “I will ask you one more time for confirmation as there will be no going back after this.
Are you a hundred percent sure that you chose the Hybrid Path? Tap five times on the Dream Gem if you are.”
Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap
“Excellent.” The man said with a jubilation tone to his voice. “Excellent indeed. Prepare for a few days filled with glorious headaches since you don't have the Stats to buffer the Logic for you.
At least, that is what you imagined, right? Don't worry, my dear darling, we can make the process easier for you by splitting the load over a few sessions.
The first session, meaning today's session, will be about the Awakening process in general. That is also when you will input your Ability Potential Assessment through a carefully coded input/output system, such that I can guide your Awakening properly and efficiently.
In the second session, you will learn exactly what you will go through, how you will go through it, and just why yours will go the way you need it to go. Additionally, the third session will be the least intensive as the final preparations will be executed for your Awakening.
Namely in the form of material components and how to include them with your Awakening to improve the quality of your Dream since your goal is the fabled S-Rank.
As such, prepare yourself, my daughter, for a week of mild headaches.”
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Despite her daughter undergoing whatever she was undergoing, Hailey had no true excuse to not leave for her work every night, and thought her current employers might not be the greatest sorts of people to mingle with, they were not the worst either.
Hence, if she truly had an emergency she would be given a short leave, however, it would come at the cost of delaying the debt further.
Either way, returning home after another day of goading the egos of powerful men, and women sometimes, Hailey found her daughter up again as she gazed at sheets of papers filled with squiggly that she had a hard time identifying without actually walking closer and paying more attention to them.
At the same time, Hailey saw her daughter rub her forehead with her left hand while her right was busy writing stuff.
“I take it, there is no going back now?” Hailey posed the question, allowing Hannah a moment of reprieve from her current task.
“Hnng…” That was all Hannah said in reply, at least if one ignored the slight bend of her head indicating a nod.
“How is the head? Do you need another pill for migraines?” Hailey asked only to see her daughter shake her head. “So not too painful?”
“No…” Hannah finally replied. “Nothing compared to the first time because father split the process to avoid overflowing me with knowledge.”
“I see. And what are you writing down?”
“General information about Awakening.” Hannah answered.
“Oh… Mmm… Let me make some refreshments for us before I help you.” That said, Hailey quickly went to the sole bedroom to change into something comfortable before making tea as tea was the only thing cheap and easy to make because of their money issues. Once the tee was ready, Hailey sat down beside her daughter, of course only after placing the cups somewhat further away from all that fragile paper. “Ok… Where do I start.”
Shuffling through the papers for a second, Hannah picked one of the first ones she wrote down. “Here.”
Taking the paper, Hailey leafed through the words swiftly before finally getting an answer for one of the inconsistencies her daughter told her, namely what was a Dream and what was an Ability.
In simple terms, a Dream was a house and an Ability was a room within said house.
From there, however, Hailey realized, it quickly became complicated because not every room was compatible with all houses, and not all houses held the same amount of available space, hence why the differentiation between Dreams through the Ranks of E, D, C, B, A and the fabled S exist in the first place. Meaning, that E-Rank had no room for any Abilities to be slotted. From there, every upgrade got one Ability Slot, with D-Rank having one slot, C-Rank having two slots, B-Rank having three slots, A-Rank having four slots, and the last and most fabled, well... according to the notes, S-Rank had five slots.
Therefore, it was easy to correlate the facts that a Dream was a Cause and an Ability the Effect.
Regardless, what bothered Hailey was an inconsistency stemming from the number six that was heavily implied with everything her daughter had previously mentioned.
Namely, there were Six Stats and Six Ability Potential Assessments. Hence in her mind, Hailey had trouble understanding why there were only Five Abilities for the S-Rank instead of Six, as then things would line up perfectly and the lowest ranks of E and D would not appear to be the same.
Shaking her head, Hailey tossed the inconsistency to chill down inside the same group she had sent the Stat called Ego and Unique Potential Assessment.
There has to be a reason for being what it was. Hailey noted in her head since she hoped to fix the inconsistencies in case her daughter had truly imagined everything up. But in the case that it was not, Hailey desired to know the truth behind this hidden world her late husband had belonged to, after all, this hidden world had drawn her daughter right into it, and Hailey was clueless about what that truly meant.
Sigh…
Done sighing in her mind, Hailey sought the next piece of paper, which Hannah gladly gave to her, only this time there was more than one paper on top of being more visual with a few diagrams being present.
Similar to those occult rituals often depicted in books and the few movies Hailey had seen in the last few years.
Parsing through these… documents, Hailey vaguely understood the underlying Logic behind Awakening and Ability Manifestation, namely setting the foundation of the house which depended on a lot of factors, however, the ones that took Hailey’s attention were Trauma, Despair, and Hope.
With Trauma being the mechanism and the material, Despair being the Cause, and Hope the Effect.
Therefore, for a person to awaken a higher-ranked Dream, one first had to suffer without actually succumbing to a Nightmare, meaning death as far as Hailey understood.
Most importantly, though, without losing Hope.
Instead, one would stockpile said Hope until it burst and formed what was known as a Dream Gem, basically Hope in crystalline form.
With the Dream Gem in hand, and by using the Ability Principles as the base, one then gives form to an Ability, an Effect which then determines the theme of the Dream and the Cause of the Effect.
Almost like achieving success before enacting the actions required for said success, thus creating a Paradox of Existence that seeks to be filled and fulfilled. How one filled and fulfilled it was up to the user of the Dream, with the most common one being Leveling Up, whatever that truly meant since Hailey had just come into contact with the concept of Leveling Up, and even then one was from a game and one from her daughter's dreams/nightmares.
Naturally, the higher the rank of the Dream, the more there was to fill and fulfill, thereby translating into an actual conceivable goal of reaching the highest levels of a Dreamers existence, namely Level 99 for S-Ranked Dreams.
Regardless, it was possible to reach Level 99 even with E or D-Ranked Dreams, you just had to have five of them instead of one, meaning one had to build five houses instead of one. However, that approach was not without downsides.
Just like A and S-Ranked Dreams had their own downside by requiring lots of initial Trauma to manifest, in exchange for lower initial difficulty, lower-ranked Dreams required a certain level of synchronicity between each Dream such that their Cause and Effects stack with one another instead of hindering each other.
This… Sounds reasonable so far. Hailey voiced in her head when she discovered a smaller note on the side of the paper, like an afterthought, telling her that it was more likely for somebody to acquire C and B-Ranked Dreams, hence it was much more common to witness two or three Dreams instead of four or five.
Guess, even Dreamers can't escape the law of the average.
----------------------------------------
Once she was done making sense of the basics, Hailey began leafing through the more advanced stuff, namely the process of awakening and for that, she needed to understand the various hexagonal charts her daughter had drawn.
Charts that had various lines indicating a Logic that she failed to understand at first glance, even though it looked fairly simple at first. For that, Hailey sought her daughter's help, who, in turn, eagerly helped, even if her face said otherwise.
In the end, Hailey gained an understanding.
An understanding of where an Ability needed all Five Ability Principles to function, namely; Enchantment, Evocation, Alteration, Domination, and Conjuration.
A few of those terms, Hailey had recently learned from the D&D game guidebook, like Enchantment being the school of magic where Magic was permanently scribed into items, Evocation where everything was about throwing Fireballs and other Magics at your enemies, Alteration where you Magically changed and transformed terrains, materials, and people.
The last term she was slightly familiar with was Conjuration, where one manifested Magic itself, permanently that is. The guidebook provided a prime example called Eternal Light, where a wizard summoned a floating ball of light that would shine for the caster.
With the obvious terms settled, Hailey settled her mind on Domination, still with a name like that, it was not that hard to figure out it had to do with control of some kind.
As such, there was only one thing left. “What about Unique, the Ability Potential tied to the Ego Stat?”
Hearing the question, Hannah faced her mother’s amber eyes and replied. “Father called it the Chaos Principle, or Random Factor, therefore best avoided if one desired as much control for one's Dream Awakening as possible. That… Plus, Father mentioned that very, very few people ever have Potential in that category, like one in a million or something.”
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“Ah… Understood.” Hailey voiced out before settling her eyes on the actual charts.
With the obvious out of the way, Hailey focused on the how, and though her eyes told her a simple story, she knew there was depth there, a depth that had to be studied to be understood.
Meaning, that since every Ability required all Five Ability Principles to exist, it was the hierarchical layering of those principles that mattered, namely which came first or which came last, and which took the second, third, and fourth place, thus establishing an order where an Ability had a base effect and a peek effect, with the in-between regulating the interaction between the base effect and the peek effect.
The base effect was dubbed Core Feature, while the intermediate and peak effects were dubbed Utility Features.
Nonetheless, as if a simple difference between them was not enough, the very same layer sequencing determined how many features an Ability possessed, with the base layer having six while the peak layer had two.
Blinking at what she just read, Hailey called on her daughter again. “Honey, why only two effects for the peak instead of one?”
“Peek of what?” Hannah inquired before she actually glanced at what her mother looked. “Oh, that… Count the number of features for each layer.”
Wondering where her daughter went with this, Hailey did as instructed. Let's see… The base layer has Six, the second has Five, the fourth has Four, the third has Three while the second has Two… which results in a total of twenty effects.
The number twenty reminded her of something, but it was just that tiny bit out of reach. So instead, she simply asked her daughter. “Is there something special about the number twenty?”
Thinking for a second, Hannah replied with a question for her mother. “How many Levels are there?”
“A Hundred.” Hailey instantly answered.
“What is the maximum number of available Abilities?” Hannah continued with her questioning, which forced her mother to think in a certain direction.
“Five… Ah… A Hundred divided by Five is Twenty.” Hailey murmured, causing her to nod alongside her daughter. “So… At Level 20, something happens that results in another Ability manifesting or a Dream if it is a low-ranked one? Correct?”
“Yes.” Hannah nodded slightly before reiterating the same explanation she had received from her father’s ghost. “Every Level Up grants One Stat Point and One Ability Point. The Stat is used on the Dreamer while the Ability Point on the Ability he or she wields until the Ability is fully charged, and that happens every twenty levels, meaning it only happens five times.
After an Ability is fully charged, Unique, the unused Chaos Principle, rears its head with the desire to be filled, however it can, and when it does, it goes where there is room to accept it.
Once there, the Chaos Principle roots itself to become a Seed, a Nightmare Seed.
That is why almost every Dreamer experiences a Nightmare Tribulation every twentieth level with the last one, the hundredth one, being an exception since very few reach it, and even fewer dare attempt the last or Sixth Nightmare Tribulation, if you count the very first one,.”
“Wait… That means you will once again have a monster stalking you in the future?” Hailey urgently voiced out.
“Yes.” Hannah quickly replied because that very point had scared her as well the moment she had heard her father’s ghost utter it out of its fake mouth. “But at that time, I won't be a helpless little girl like I am now.” Hannah pointed it out to her mother just like it had been pointed out to her. “Instead, I will be stronger, faster, smarter, and more insightful thanks to the Stat Point elevation.”
“Additionally, since it's not that easy to Level Up, it will take a lot of effort to reach Level 20, so I will have time to acquire Skills and train my… pet.” Stopping there, Hailey saw her daughter grin, if somewhat weakly. “Yes… Once I am done teaching it to obey me, it will also help me overcome the Second Nightmare Tribulation.”
“Still…” Hailey hesitated slightly in saying it. “Won't that mean that you have to suffer again or was I wrong with interpreting that fact as unavoidable?.”
“Yes…. No… For a new Dream, it is unavoidable because a Dream Gem will only ever form under certain conditions.” Hannah squinted her eyes at the thought since that was also something that had spooked her when she had heard it the very first time. “I, however, will have no need for a new Dream Gem since my own will transform into an S-Ranked Dream, and with the Dream already present, all I need to do to manifest the next Ability is to buffer the suffering process through Skills since their usage and development generates Trauma.
Or so I was told because I am not exactly sure what Father meant by buffering and generating Trauma since he was not specific on that topic. Although, he did say that I would understand the reason for the existence of Skills after my Dream and Ability manifest.”
“I see… Alright.” That was all Hailey said, but her mind just could not stop imagining her daughter going through something similar as she had in the last seven years.
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A moment of silence ensued between mother and daughter, where one was too preoccupied with knowledge and the other with worry to truly care about the brief silence.
After that moment of silence passed, Hailey returned to understanding her daughter's newfound knowledge, which either sprung from her now-dead husband who returned as a ghost, or from her daughter's imagination.
Both sounded equally improbable, since one bothered on the impossible, and the other came as a result of Hannah being medicated for the last seven years and that resulted in her stunted growth in that department.
Shaking away those thoughts, Hailey focused on the papers once again.
This time, her focus was spent on figuring out the layering mechanic behind an Ability, namely why one chooses one Ability Principle over the others.
It all had to do with the Core Feature of an Ability Principle.
A Core Feature was a base effect that could only be gained when it was chosen to be so, as such, her daughter had the choice between Tool and Summon. But even if one did not choose that as the starting point, at some point they would because a Core Feature could not be repeated across Abilities.
Instead, the starting point of each of the five max possible Abilities had to originate from one of the Five Ability Principles.
Meaning, at Level 20 her daughter would have to choose something other than Conjuration as the base of the next ability, with the same happening at Levels 40, 60, and 80. Thus, once more attaining a Balance between the Ability Principles.
As for what happened at Level 100, that was not mentioned in her daughter's notes.
A similar rule existed for the Utility Features of an Ability, but that one only applied if the following manifested Ability was centered around the same Dream.
As if variety was the key to being a Dreamer.
Even then, even if the following Ability came from the same Dream, it was highly advised to make the peak effect, namely the last Ability Principle used for the previously manifested Ability, the Core Feature of the next Ability such that a continuity gets established between all the Abilities originating from the same Dream.
Interesting. Hailey noted in her head that the word usage implied a divergence in the rule when different Dreams were concerned. However, there were no specifics mentioned and Hailey would not bother her daughter for something that minor.
At least, not right now.
Nonetheless, what piqued her attention was something else. “Honey… If every new Ability is awakened with a new Ability Principle as its core, would that not defeat the purpose of you becoming a Conjurer? I mean, if this happens five times, then what are you at the end?”
Listening to her mother, Hannah considered her newfound knowledge. “Not exactly. It's the Dream that makes the User what he or she is. The following Abilities conform to the Dream even though the Core Features may start from another Ability Principle.”
“Are you saying that even though your possible next Ability starts with something else it will still be a Tool, Summon, or both at its base?” Hailey asked her daughter.
“Father wasn't very specific on that point either.” Hannah replied. “But something like that… Probably… Also, Father mentioned that at the higher Ranks, it is much harder to distinguish who is who and what their main specialization is because of that very point.”
“Mmm… Alright.”
The very next thing Hailey did was look for the Core Features for each Ability Principle.
The Conjuring Ability Principle she already understood with the Tool or Summon being about obtaining a permanent Item or Companion, or whatever terminology gets used in their place, nevertheless.
On the other hand, the Utility Features of the Conjuring Ability Principle were all about allowing an Ability to manifest for real in some shape or form, though only temporarily.
The Unique Ability Principle had barely anything written about it, but what had been there, her daughter had already mentioned it.
That being the case, Hailey focused on the Domination Ability Principle.
Dominators had only one Core Feature and it was dubbed Stigma.
Thankfully, a simple explanation was present, and it said that all Dreams possessed a singular but distinctive quirk of Logic unique to the Dream, and the Domination Ability Principle condenses that unique quirk of Logic into a mark of authority.
That mark of authority is then called a Stigma.
Said Stigma may appear in many shapes and forms, but its main purpose was, is, and always will be, to enact a Stigmata User’s Logic upon people, things, and the world at large.
Whether it be for good or evil, to empower or to deprive, to control or to deceive.
In the end, it was upon the Stigmata User to decide.
Regardless, the singular thing about the Stigmata Users was that they were not inherently tied to any preconceived notions, as if their Logic prevailed over everything. As a consequence of their freedom of action, they were highly dependent on the understanding of their Dream, and its Inherent Logic.
Meaning, that the better one understands one’s Dream and its Inherent Logic, the stronger a Stigmata User becomes.
Additionally, that increased understanding proves its worth during the Stat Conflict between Dreamers, where even a slight imbalance of Stats can determine if a Stigmata User wins or loses, hence why all Stigmata Users heavily depend on pure Stats and their subsequent elevations.
What she read did not surprise Hailey.
Not with the name Domination Ability Principle.
However, the following text told her what occurred when the Domination Ability Principle was used as a Utility Feature. In simple words, The Domination Ability Principle allowed for standardized conditional interactions between Abilities and their targets.
Ah… It allows somebody to set down ground rules that would always be in effect. Hailey realized. If I follow that Logic, then the fewer rules there are the more powerful they become.
Oh… the base and peak effect differentiation represents the paradigm of quantity vs quality.
I see… I see… Now it makes sense.
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The Core Feature of the Alteration Ability Principle was all about the embodiment of a Dream.
Meaning, if the core of a Dream was about Fire, then the Alteration Ability Principle demanded the User to become the Fire and everything it represented. If the Dream was about some kind of animal or beast, let's say a dragon, then the user would embody said dragon by becoming said dragon.
Therefore, the Core Feature of the Alteration Ability Principle was all about the transformation of the Self and the world around them into the Ideal that their Dream represented.
To Hailey, that sounded very powerful, only, apparently because of said power, its restrictions were also rather heavy. As such, rather than depending heavily on Stats, the Alteration Ability Principle depended heavily on what kind of Dream a User had access to. Mainly because of the transformation effect of the Dream as Bonus Stats are given to the User based on the form and utility of the transformation.
That is why Dreamers who establish their Dream by using the Alteration Ability Principle as the base are also called Shifters, which then gets further individualized based on the actual origin of the transformation.
With the Core Feature covered, Hailey read about the Utility Features for the Alteration Ability Principle. Only there, the transformation tone was toned down and instead focused more on altering something within the Ability instead of the User.
Naturally, all that was in theory, and practice could be completely different.
Done with Alteration, Hailey focused on the Evocation Ability Principle.
If Alteration was all about the transformation of the User or something within the Ability itself, then Evocation was all about the functionality of the User, or the functionality of the Ability itself. Namely the how and the why something occurred, and that very fact was easily noticeable within the Utility Features, where the Evocation Ability Principle helped an Ability do what it was supposed to do.
On the other hand, a Dream established with the Evocation Ability Principle, unlike all the other Ability Principles, has many variations, such that this very Ability Principle was extremely preferable for D and C-Ranked Dreams, with D being the most preferable option out of all the available ranks, because then, a Dreamer could fully customize the Evocation based Dream through hybridization, meaning the mixing of Evocation Core Features to create something more suited for themselves.
A similar situation applied to the B, A, and the rarely seen S-Ranked Evoker.
Even then, since the Evocation Ability Principle was tied to the Instinct Stat, it meant that, whatever a Dream was based on, whether a Martial Expert, a Caster Expert, or a Crafter Expert, Evokers always become some of the most skillful Dreamwalkers to ever exist simply because the speed at which they learned and mastered any field of expertise dwarfed the other Dreamwalkers.
As such, Evokers are some of the most desired individuals within the world of Dreamers, and also one of the most common, provided that they follow the more common Paths.
After learning about Evokers, Hailey had this strange notion in her mind.
She knew not where it came from, not why it reached her, but when it did, a strange sensation of remembrance surfaced at the forefront of her mind.
Almost like a Deja Vu moment, where one had this distinct feeling of having already done what one was already doing. Most of all, just like a Deja Vu, the current situation stuck with Hailey as if rooting itself within her, yet, just like a Deja Vu, her mind simply dismissed it a few moments later.
This stuff is heavier than I expected. Hailey voiced in her head. Then again, I was up all night.
The moment it was thought off, a brief yawn escaped Hailey’s mouth.
Noticing her tired disposition, Hailey quickly went over the last Ability Principle, namely the Enchantment Ability Principle.
Just like for the Evocation Ability Principle, the Utility Feature of the Enchantment Ability Principle was pretty straightforward since it allowed a User to integrate an Anchor into an Ability, a fixed slot upon which one can then embed a proto-function, a proto-feature, a proto-effect that in return will affect a Dream permanently.
The most common way this is done is by using external materials, a medium, during either Awakening. The more slots there are, the more materials could be added to a Dream to influence its Rank, Form, Core, and Utility Features.
Because of this, on average, Enchanters have some of the highest-ranked Dreams out of all Dreamwalkers, including the fabled S-Ranks.
As such, Dreams based on the Enchantment Ability Principle are some of the safest and most stable Dreams out of all Dreamwalkers, with very few choosing to go for the extremes instead of the already proven and tested Dreams. Nonetheless, what makes Enchanters special is the fact that Enchanters can upgrade their Dreams post-awakening unlike the other categories, hence what truly matters to an Enchanter is not the Rank of their Dream, but their ability to acquire the necessary medium to advance their Dreams up the rankings, therefore making Enchanters some of the most connected individuals within Dreamwalker society.
Additionally, because of the material component, Enchanters have some of the most flexible Dream Paths at their disposal, hence it was very easy to come across them in all walks of life, from entertainers to warfare specialists, from crafters to merchants, from nobles to peasants, from poor to rich.
At the end of the notes regarding Enchanters, Hailey read a footnote.
‘To be an Enchanter is to have the world roll out the red carpet for you, yet have to crawl your way across it.’
“How… familiar.” Hailey murmured as if recognizing her current life situation right within that paragraph because she was indeed mingling with powerful people, yet if she tried advancing her situation, she would indeed be crawling her way upward on all four appendages.
Either way, tossing it aside, Hailey focused on her daughter. “Honey, I am done. What else should I read?”
Taking away her brown eyes from the scribbles, Hannah answered. “That’s it for the most part. Everything else is me trying to make sense of what father… bestowed… yes, bestowed to me.”
“I see… Then there is no need for me to rush it and this stuff was heavier than I expected.” Hailey said. “Let me go take a quick nap before I take a look at your written musings.”
That said, Hailey slowly stood up and made her way to the sole bedroom in the apartment.
A few steps later, a big yawn escaped from her, only her mind somehow settled on something else.
“Say, honey.” Hailey voiced out just as she was about to enter the bedroom. “Has your father’s ghost told you of your first pathway? Or was that part set for your next session?”
“He did, but I won't know the specifics till the next session.” Hannah answered.
“Ah… Did you write it down?” Hailey inquired of her daughter who in return nodded and fished out one sheet of white paper before lifting and pointing it at her mother.
Glaring for a second, Hailey took note of the symbol and eagerly went to sleep.
Yet, even after she fell asleep within moments due to her tired body and mind, her dreams became restless as they began recalling, processing, and understanding what had been done since the last sleeping cycle.
Through those restless dreams, an unconscious part of Hailey’s awareness settled upon the very recently experienced Deja Vu, and when it did, information around it started bubbling up from the deepest depths of Hailey’s Dreams, to proliferate like a flower in bloom, spreading its spores so they could root themselves within the fertile soil that was the unconscious and subconscious part of Hailey’s mind before eventually new growth emerged to the surface that was her conscious mind.
Or was it old growth suffused with fresh new potential?
Nonetheless, regardless of whichever it was, it would take time for any results to appear.