Chapter 15

    In all his time, Arcius believed he had encountered every type of person there was to find. Not even his encounters with the people of the other segments (in other words, the other Dungeon Gods) had dissuade him of this notion. Until, that is, he encountered Lilia, or to put her in other terms: A. Sane. Dreamer.

    To put things into perspective, a quick lesson on how magic works is required. Basically, magicians and cultivators used magic through an act of will via a unique ‘twist’ in their nervous system. This ‘twist’, commonly called the Mana Node, creates a bridge of sorts between the signals of the nervous system and the Mana in the environment (including the caster), which is also why different types of magic are easier to cast in the related environment.

    However, these Nodes are small, and the connection they form to the Mana is actually quite weak, hence why magic was about more than simple imagination, although that forms the basis of magic, and instead also required unhindered concentration on the spell or action taking place. For small spells, like a simple lightning bolt, very little time is taken on the act, so your concentration is only focused on that task for a short amount of time.

    The longer the time that the caster’s magic is influencing the spell, the longer they need to concentrate on it. Phantom Shroud, for example, requires that the caster focus part of their attention constantly on the idea of the Shroud to prevent it from collapsing so long as it is used.

    This was also the reason so many magicians and even cultivators fell for the crutch of using ‘casting items’ such as wands, as well as hand signs and incantations for their magic, not because they are actually necessary, but because they are used as focusing tools. Casting spells and the like without the need for such things, as is the case with Arcius, is in fact a very high level technique, and usually requires a few decades of training to achieve, with Arcius only taking 17 years, only failing to beat the ‘record’ as it were by 7 months.

    This gives you a decent idea on magic, and how it is used. All of these rules listed above though? Dreamers break every single one of them. As was mentioned before, the limited size (and also complexity) of the Mana Nodes limits the abilities of magicians and cultivators to influence Mana. Many attempts to alter these Nodes have taken place, but all resulted in failure. The Dreamers could be considered nature’s exemption, however.

    Their Nodes are actually located within their brains, specifically within and connecting the occipital and parietal lobes. These ‘Dream Nodes’ are far larger than Mana Nodes, and many times more complex due to their location. Because of this, Dreamers are able to effortlessly create magic via simple thoughts and ideas. ‘Thought made manifest’ is a very real concept around them: if it can be done with Mana, and they are imagining it, it will be done. Unfortunately, however, this power comes at great cost.

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    Every Dreamer that Arcius has seen or heard of, save for now, has succumbed to the same fate: the complete inability to distinguish between dream and reality. To them, reality is but an illusion, and a poor one at that, and as such, they care little for the condition of that illusion. It is not uncommon, when they are found, to find Dreamers twisting entire civilizations into what are known as Dream-beasts, creatures created by the imaginations of Dreamers, which normally exist only within their minds. Dream-beasts are as such unique to every Dreamer. Most places Arcius visited had a kill-on-sight order for any Dreamer that appeared.

    Lilia was a notable exception to the rule of crazy however. For reasons even she herself does not know, she has managed to maintain her understanding of what is and is not real. And this in turn made her not only a truly unique individual in this universe, but also one of the most powerful, even without being a God. During their practice session, she continuously demonstrated as such, including one occasion when she actually created Earth-type Mana Gems from her power alone, a feat all but impossible to even a Dungeon God outside of their Dungeon.

    They proceeded to spend several hours training, including one incredibly short lived battle, in which Lilia inverted and magnified a thousand fold Arcius’ Life spell Shell of Spirits, turning it into a potent Death spell that near-instantly rotted his body to dust and bones, with the bones not far behind, all too fast for his new magic negating technique to even be considered for use.

    Needless to say, they both quickly agreed that further sparring was fairly pointless with such a great disparity in their respective abilities. That’s not to say the rest of their training was pointless, however. During their session, Arcius learnt several interesting new tricks to manipulating Mana without casting a spell. One such trick allowed him to complete a technique he had been working on for some time, but was never able to succeed at making.

    This technique was Mana Forging, creating weapons and armaments out of Mana without solid form. The issue he always had in the past was that a ridiculous amount of Mana was needed to forge a simple dagger, and it would dissipate shortly afterwards. However, by duplicating Lilia’s method of Mana manipulation, which involved a series of fractal vortex designs coupled with a triple helix shaped current flowing throughout, then although the price was still steep, the weapon would remain until its Mana was depleted through use, rather than with time.

    Experimenting with this, Arcius found that different types of Mana could and indeed did produce a great variety of unusual effects. A Fire Mana sword could simply be a sword on fire, or it could simply be really, really hot (surprisingly effective). It could also initiate fission upon contact with a target if used correctly. An Earth Mana shield could simply be very, very tough, or it could increase gravity massively directly in front of it to dissipate attacks from the front. All in all, very interesting, and definitely warranting further study.

    As it was, Arcius and Lilia chose to end their session here, and parted on quite amicable terms, albeit with a remnant of wariness from Arcius over her status as a Dreamer. Now it was time to return to the Dungeon, and progress once more.