Nick had no idea whether magic beasts could be scholars or higher but he thought that he might as well try to find out. Nick felt that most of the magic beasts that he had seen within the 'dreams' had to at least have been rank 6. Rank 6 and higher was usually the ranks that humans would become scholars of a path so Nick naturally had a reason to test whether he could achieve higher attainment levels using dreams.
(As for why I chose blade path, it is because blade path specializes purely in battle. If my attainment in blade path became scholar, my battle strength would probably rise greatly after a period of spell making.)
Nick cancelled Warrior Armor, then picked up the first vial with red and silver spotted blood and placed a drop of the blood onto his right index finger tip with his left hand. Nick then cast Manifest Soul on the blood and it began to glow with white light. The blood sample then rose into the air, becoming a marble sized orb of glowing white matter. Nick remained sitting on his bed as he cast Read Soul on the pseudo-soul.
Nick's vision then went completely dark. A few moments later, Nick's vision returned and he found himself in a pile of small magic beasts that seemed similar to wolf pups. Nick observed his body and found that he was also a wolf pup during this dream. The wolf pups huddled together for warmth at the corner of some kind of cave that had solid, black rock walls. There were about eight pups in all and they each had a mix of silver and grey fur.
Nick quickly moved to escape the huddle and find his way out of the cave. Although the cave was dark, the wolf pup could see through the dark. Nick ran on four short legs through the only path leading away from where he started. The surrounding space within the cave was massive and seemed to Nick to be able to fit several oil tankers side-by-side and the height of the cave was probably about fourteen meters.
Nick ran for almost two hours before he was able to find the cave entrance. From the outside, the sound of heavy rain pelting the ground could be heard. Nick ran out of the cave into the pouring rain anyway. No sooner than he had made his exit, did he realize that the body of a gigantic wolf like magic beast laid over ten meters away from the cave's entrance.
The wolf similarly had silver and grey fur like the wolf pups and its eyes glowed with a flickering grey light. Nick moved slowly around the body of the magic beast, inspecting it; since this was a dream, he was not going to hesitate. The seemingly dying wolf noticed his presence and glanced at him before using the last bit of its strength to lightly cover Nick with its large and menacing paw, blocking him from its view.
Nick was not satisfied with the situation and so he tried to get from under the paw through a gap between the ground and the paw. Before Nick moved through the gap, however, he witnessed as a black robed Magician, who had a hood covering their head and face, decapitated the giant wolf with one swing of an ordinary looking metallic-grey, double edged sword. The large wolf's head laid motionlessly on the ground while blood flowed from the stump of its neck, soon creating a large puddle of steaming blood that was then cooled by the rain.
The wolf's red and silver spotted blood visibly evaporated from the sword's blade thereafter and the Magician sheathed it with practised efficiency. Nick watched silently as the Magician silently made their way into the cave where Nick had come from. After the Magician disappeared into the darkness of the cave, Nick emerged from under the paw of the now dead magic beast.
Understanding that the magic beast had protected him and what the Magician probably went inside the cave to do, Nick ran away into the surrounding forest as the rain soaked his small body. The eyes on the decapitated head of the large wolf seemed to follow Nick as he ran. Nick fled without having a destination.
He ran for seemingly hours and passed at least a few hundred trees without getting tired but by the time it stopped raining, Nick felt an insatiable hunger and he was forced to stop by an old, broken tree that seemed to have been struck by lightning. Nick's hunger was so intolerable by this time that his eyes watered.
Not long after Nick had stopped running, a magic beast that seemed similar to a fox appeared in front of him from behind a group of trees. This magic beast had very long legs and seemed to be the size of a pickup truck. It stared at Nick using its ruby-red eyes that seemed to be filled with pure malice and walked slowly towards his position, savoring the meal that was to come.
Nick froze up at around this time but after the other magic beast came within five meters of him, courage suddenly welled up within Nick and his throat became incomparably itchy. Nick opened his mouth and tried to let out a cough to sooth the intense itching but instead, an ear piercing howl emerged that caused the other magic beast to shrink back.
Not long after the magic beast shrunk back, its body, beginning at its head and going down its spinal column, was cut in half. Two pieces of its carcass fell to the ground, creating a grotesque sight. While the image viscerally disturbed Nick, the smell of the blood from the carcass enticed him and as if on instinct, he moved to devour what he could of the carcass until he was satisfied.
Now full of energy, Nick ran away from the carcass and left the area. Nick kept running for a long time, often having to face much bigger magic beasts but he managed to kill them in the same way that he killed the fox like magic beast. Nick just kept running as if the black robed Magician that he saw was continuously chasing him.
After what felt like a long time, Nick had killed hundreds, maybe even thousands of magic beasts. He was much bigger now, having a height of seven meters and the length of his body was now about fifteen meters. When he sometimes rubbed his body on the trees, they would immediately be cut to pieces somehow.
Even though Nick was now taller than many of the trees that he ran past, it seemed that he would never overshadow the tallest ones that seemed to reach the clouds. One day, when Nick became fed up with running and never staying still, he stood on a large mound and howled towards the sun, following which a large amount of forest around him was cleared as the surrounding trees within a six-hundred-meter radius were minced to pieces and fell to the ground soon thereafter.
Tears uncontrollably welled up in Nick's eyes for some reason and as they fell to the ground like draining buckets, a black robed Magician with a sword holstered and sheathed to his left side appeared floating in midair over twelve meters away from Nick.
Nick had run for a long time but he had clearly not run far enough. Nick fought back his tears and opened his mouth so that he could howl at the Magician. Before any sound emerged, however, the Magician only drew his sword at supernatural speed and with a flash of black light, Nick's head fell towards the ground and his body soon followed. Nick's vision went dark as soon as his head hit the pieces of minced trees on the ground.
Nick's body jolted up from his lying position as sweat poured from his face. He looked around and found himself within his small room on board the ship that was taking him to the inter-academy competition sight. Nick looked out of his port window and saw many waves as the ship moved along on the lake.
He palmed his face, trying to calm down but his breathing was ragged at this time.
(That 'dream' felt so real. What was up with that black robed Magician? The wolf magic beast had to have been at least rank 6 but the Magician cut its head off with one swing of his sword.)
After a while, Nick finally calmed down and assessed his gains from exploring the dream.
(Hmmm...my attainment has increased but I am still only a blade path master. That's what my intuition indicates.)
Nick did not waste any time and moved on to the next vial of blood. This blood had a mix of dull-grey and green hues. Nick used Manifest Soul to create a floating pseudo-soul using the blood and cast Read Soul on the pseudo-soul. Nick's vision became filled with darkness once again.
When light next filled his eyes, heat from the surroundings instantly parched his mouth. Most of what Nick could see was a room that was set on fire. He stood with a short sword in his right hand that was about 0.5 meter in length and had a plain, black hilt and a grey, double-edged blade. Nick observed his body and realized that he was wearing cloth armor and that most of his body was humanoid except that he had dark-grey skin.
Nick observed the burning room closer and realized that there were three dead children sprawled onto the floor, two teenage boys and one younger girl, with blade wounds spread across their necks. Nick was alarmed.
(What the hell is this?)
Since the flames were getting too intense, Nick jumped through a nearby glass window to escape the room but unfortunately for him, the room was on the first floor so he fell about three meters to the ground outside the apparently burning house. Nick quickly picked himself up and ran away from the house which was a part of a bigger settlement.
By the time that Nick ran a few meters away from the house, people appeared on the streets and screamed in Valteese in response to seeing him:
"What the hell is a goblin doing in town?"
"Help! Where are the Magicians?"
"Doctor Druid's house is burning. Oh no, he has three children and his sick wife at home."
...
While the people came out of their own brick walled, wooden roofed houses and scrambled to deal with the fire, Nick soon found his way out of town which was easy enough since it was not surrounded by walls and the town seemed to just be a small gathering of buildings connected by poorly built streets.
Nick observed the black smoke that rose from where the house that he had escaped from was burning and felt a headache coming on.
(Someone shouted out that I was a goblin. Is that really what I am?)
Nick felt around his body but his features seemed human until he touched his nose and teeth.
(Oh, my teeth are pointed sharp and my nose is elongated. Yeah...those are possibly features of goblins. I better leave before the people in that town chase after me.)
The town was surrounded by woods consisting of well-spaced apart trees so Nick made his escape. Nick had not noticed before but he was apparently barefoot but that did not hamper his running speed. He ran for a few minutes before he tripped over a tree root that stuck out of the ground.
By the time he raised himself up, a tall man wearing a white magician's robe stood three meters away from him. The man angrily spoke in Valteese:
"You wicked thing. You killed three young children and a sick woman. You deserve to die!"
The apparent Magician pointed his right index finger at Nick and three chains made of light emerged from the ground and wrapped around his body, restraining him to his spot. The Magician was about to cast an additional spell when suddenly, the upper half of his body fell to the ground without warning. The man's lower half spurted blood like a fountain for a while before it too fell onto the ground next to the body's upper half.
Nick was shocked but then relieved as the chains of light dissipated from his body but when he realized that someone was resting on a tree branch only a few meters from his left flank, Nick grew nervous. He spoke in Valteese without thinking:
"Don't kill me!"
The man resting on the branch that was positioned about eight meters above ground looked at Nick with a bit of surprise, speaking in Valteese:
"Oh, so you are a mutant blade goblin. Looks like I've got myself a very rare find indeed. Tell me, why did that Light Magician chase after you?"
Nick spoke as if on instinct and he could not determine the words coming from his mouth:
"I killed a family in the town nearby but that was because the man who lived in the house killed my entire brood with his smelly poison magic."
The man in the tree laughed heartily, following which he jumped down to the ground, seeming weightless as he did. The man wore a set of black, cloth pants and short sleeved shirt along with white cloth shoes; he had dirty-brown hair and eerie, dark eyes. He carried a small knife within his right grip which he sheathed as soon as he landed onto the ground.
The man spoke to Nick in fake earnestness as he walked towards him:
"It looks like you have delivered justice on the evil and unreasonable. I'll tell you what, since you seem to hate evil as much as I do, why don't you become my little disciple? That short sword in your hands, do you know how to use it?"
Nick nervously replied:
"Yes, I do."
Nick childishly swung the sword within his right grip to display his skill.
The man laughed and replied:
"You'll do fine then. My name is Douglas Malice. What is your name?"
Nick replied with a blank expression on his face:
"Name? I don't have name."
Douglas put on a thoughtful expression and soon said:
"Then your name will be Mickel Goblisse. Great, right?"
Nick replied with childish excitement:
"Mickel Goblisse. I have name now!"
Douglas laughed heartily and Nick's vision went dark. After a seemingly long time, light returned to his eyes as a familiar scene played out in front of him.
Nick was now standing high above a large city with walls that were at least forty meters high. The city was burning at every area, nothing was spared as orange-red flames rampaged and ravaged. Nick observed his body and discovered that he now wore an ash-grey colored magician's robe and held an almost 0.9-meter length, double-edged sword in his right hand that had the symbols of a mystical language that he could not understand imprinted all along the blade's gold surface.
Nick held the sword firmly and many negative emotions welled up with himself for some reason. At that point, a man wearing a dark-red magician's robe appeared standing in midair to Nick's right side. Nick turned his head slightly to see a much older Douglas Malice, who had visible wrinkles and a few scars spread over his face; the latter's hair had become completely white. He spoke to Nick with a great amount of familiarity:
"So, this is what happens when a rank 8 duke angers the great archmage, Mikel Goblisse. Old friend, you did well. Now we can move on to dealing with that insufferable King that keeps trying to take our benefits."
The negative emotions within Nick's mind surged after Douglas spoke and along with losing control of his body, he replied with no emotion within his tone:
"No, I am done with this human nonsense. Too long have I been your tool for murder and disaster."
Douglas frowned and spoke while turning to his longtime companion:
"Mickel, what the fuck are you saying?"
Mickel answered Douglas's question with action. A black streak suddenly appeared across Douglas's neck, following which the black streak instantly erupted with flames. Douglas Malice's neck and head were immediately enveloped with a blast of flames that rose upward by ten meters before dissipating. What remained of Douglas's neck was a blade wound that appeared smoothly made, as if there had been no flames, however the blood left within the corpse evaporated from the wound as vapor, presumably because of the heat of the flames.
Douglas's corpse then fell towards the burning city to join the ruins. Nick's sword's gold blade was now slightly glowing with a red aura which dissipated within the next second, following which Nick sheathed the sword to his left side and muttered:
"Time to rebuild my brood."
Nick's vision immediately went dark and soon light returned as he looked at the ceiling of his room from his lying position on his bed. Nick's heart was pounding but he remained calm enough to notice that his attainment level rose by a little but he was still at the master level in blade path.
(My attainment level didn't rise above master this time either. Douglas Malice and Mickel Goblisse...does this dream suggest that three rank 2 magic beast whose DNA that I derived the blood from was descended from a World Class Magician that also happened to be a blade goblin? That's...interesting.)
Nick did not think that he would be exposed to such interesting memories within the dreams but the new experiences fueled his hunger to experience more. Nick soon grew concerned, however:
(If Mickel Goblisse was a rank 8 Magician, wouldn't that suggest that he was at least a scholar; Douglas even called him a great archmage within the dream. If the goblin was a scholar or better and I completed his dream but didn't receive a corresponding increase in attainment level, do I assume that these dreams cannot make you any more than a master at a particular path?)
Nick felt like it was better to do one more dream exploration before he made a final judgement. Before he reached for the last vial of blood, Nick looked out his port window and saw that it had become night time. He watched the darkened waters for some time while thinking:
(Many of the magic beasts' emotions within the dreams felt visceral and complex, they clearly had their own stories to tell. Both the wolf like magic beast and the blade goblin became extremely powerful but tragedy seemed to follow them on their way to their full potential. Is that what I should also expect - tragedy?)
Thinking back on his own troubled past, Nick felt a sort of sympathy for the magic beasts whose dreams he had explored but he soon shook his head, saying:
"Why the hell am I taking these dreams so seriously? I don't even know if they represent real events."
Nick decided to stop wasting his time and retrieved the last vial of pure-purple blood. Nick used the blood to create a pseudo-soul by casting Manifest Soul and then cast Read Soul on the pseudo soul. His vision went dark once again and when light returned, he found himself submerged inside a glass chamber.
Nick shifted his eyes as that is all he could manage to do while a breathing apparatus clutched tightly to his face. The glass chamber that he was in was about the size of a forty-gallon water tank and was saturated with a clear liquid that kept him in place. Nick's own naked body had a humanoid torso, two arms and two legs but no obvious reproductive organ.
The tube leading away from the breathing apparatus that was connected to his face was attached to a vent like fixture positioned on the ceiling of the chamber while at the other end of it was a clamp that kept the tube firmly in place as the clamp covered most of Nick's lower face.
Nick could not move his arms or legs, presumably because they were so gaunt that they seemed only to consist of skin and bones and contained no muscle whatsoever. His skin had a pale-grey hue and his body radiated with a strange, formless magic power that left him feeling persistently cold.
Nick could clearly see the outside of his glass prison and it seemed to be some kind of primitive laboratory with metal desks and chairs positioned far apart and magic materials grouped into large glass bottles and jars on cabinets positioned with their bases at least two meters above the floor.
The floor seemed to be made of grey concrete with no paint applied and the walls were made of cobbled, brown and black stone with no paint applied on them either. Soon, a thick door that seemed to be made of some kind of red colored metal opened.
A man walked through the door and closed it behind him. This man seemed to be in his early thirties and had a head full of short, grey hair, he had noticeably sharp eyebrows and dull-grey eyes. The man wore a pair of white cloth pants along with a pair of white cloth shoes and wore no shirt on his upper-body which was very well toned; the man seemed to be of European descent but his skin was a tanned, olive color.
The man immediately went over to observe Nick and he did so for close to thirty minutes. At the end of that time, he spoke aloud with a deep but clear voice, seeming to be talking to himself in Valteese:
"I found this magic beast barely alive within the True Rapids realm but I don't know what it is exactly or what path it has an affinity for. It is still too weak and malnourished to do anything but at the very least, I would like to raise it back to health so that I can document it. I will kill it afterwards."
The man spoke those words and then stared at Nick as if he was waiting for something. He then sighed and remarked:
"You don't even respond to structured information or the fact that I said that I would kill you. I assume that those pitch-black eyes of yours work since you have been following my movements since I arrived in the room. If you can understand me, blink once."
Nick did nothing. The man laughed heartily and said:
"It was worth a try. Now, since you're stuck in there for a while, why don't you watch me practise my sword technique? It's an intermediate technique called Cross Stream. It lets me move my sword like a raging stream flowing with many twists and loops. It's...special."
The man then proceeded to retrieve an old sword that Nick had not noticed before from the corner of the room. The sword seemed to have a wooden hilt where the guard was shaped like a rhombus and the blade had about half the width of a regular European sword, similar to a Japanese Katana.
Nick watched the man as he stood in a wide space away from the tables and chairs and just swung his sword at thin air. At first, Nick could hardly follow the swords movements since it seemed to flash haphazardly all over the place with light reflected off the blade's surface but soon he managed to see the first swing of the technique's iteration clearly. At that point, hours had passed and the man placed his sword down at the corner of the room before leaving.
Nick waited for a long time before the man came in again, dressed the same as he was the previous time and after speaking aimlessly with Nick for a few minutes, the man practised his sword technique again. Nick took only a few minutes to be able to follow the first swing of the man's sword this time but remained clueless as to the exact placement of the sword for the remainder of the technique's duration. After hours of practise, the man placed the sword at the corner of the room and left.
After a seemingly long time, the man came back through the door dressed in the same attire as before and after speaking with Nick and getting no response from him, the man began to practise his technique. This time, Nick managed to catch a glimpse of the placement of the sword at the second slash but still remained ignorant about the following sword placements. The man ended his practise after a few hours and left the room again.
The same cycle of the man returning, speaking to Nick, practising his sword technique then leaving again repeated many times. Nick lost count of how many times the man returned to the room after the eight hundredth instance and even after that, the man did the same thing over and over again for a long time.
Throughout the man's practising, Nick was eventually able to observe the exact placements of the sword during one iteration of the Cross Stream sword technique. In fact, after the seven hundred and fiftieth practise session, Nick had glimpsed all ninety-nine sword placements and a long time after that, Nick could consistently observe all ninety-nine sword placements clearly.
Nick watched the man practise a few thousand times and Nick only knew that estimation because apparently the man had been counting his sword practise sessions that he undertook in front of Nick and that he claimed to do once every day. By that time, Nick knew the sword placements involved in Cross Stream better than he knew his own bank account number.
During that time, Nick's body had changed from gaunt to well-nourished and fleshy. His form did look like that of a short human but his hands and feet had one-inch-thick, yellow claws, he had no hair on his body, his skin went from pale-grey to charcoal black, his ears were pointed and his nose had no rising cartilage.
One day, the man came in while wearing a white magician's robe with a sword holstered and sheathed at his left side; the sword had a black and gold hilt and a pure-black sheath. The man walked up to Nick and spoke grimly:
"Bad news, friend. I was able to find out what kind of magic beast you are. Apparently, you are a minor blade demon and here I was showing you my sword technique for all these years. It's a damn good thing that I didn't show you any of my advanced techniques. Now, why don't you stop pretending to be an invalid and come out to face me? Let me test my skills."
Nick suddenly lost control of his eye movements and just watched as the magic beast moved quicker than a cannon ball, breaking out of the glass chamber and positioning itself on the wall, near to the room's ceiling a few meters away from the man's right flank. The man laughed heartily while drawing his sword from its sheath with his right hand and wielding it with both hands, saying:
"Come!"
The blade of the man's sword shone with a crystal like luster, clearly of far better quality than the sword that the man had been practising with. Suddenly, Nick reached out his right hand towards the sword that was resting in the corner of the room and he sensed as it broke down into dust before flowing into his right grip within milliseconds and reforming as a complete sword.
The man then proceeded to slash down once with his sword, casting a powerful spell towards the minor blade demon:
(Flash Butcher Sword)
Nick only saw the man's arms become a blur as a silver flash appeared. The minor blade demon moved quickly by jumping on the adjacent wall to its right then to the wall behind the man, all done at speeds impossible to follow with the naked eye. Nick observed the aftermath of the man's spell only to see that one half of the building had somehow silently vanished, resulting in the remaining area of the two standing walls and ceiling where apparent cuts were made being as smooth as glass. There was also a heavy cloud of dust flowing near the rest of the building.
(No...the other half of the building hasn't vanished. That dust on the outside doesn't seem natural since the ground is concrete. Are you telling me that he turned half of the building to dust with one swing and one sword path spell. No, that wasn't one swing. That was...Cross Stream. He applied the sword technique along with his spell!)
The man quickly turned around, his face grim but his grey eyes sparkling with battle intent. The minor blade demon lunged at the man from its position on the wall and swung its sword at him ruthlessly with one hand. Nick wanted to see the battle play out but his vision became dark as the minor blade demon reached half way towards the man and when light returned to his eyes, he found himself lying in his bed, on his back.
Nick quickly raised himself off his bed and stood firmly on his two feet. Nick was about to stretch his muscles when, he felt something flow from both his nostrils. Nick immediately wiped at his nose with his right hand and when he took a look at his hand, he realized that he had bled from both of his nostrils.
(Why am I bleeding?)
Nick did a thorough self-check, using his magic sense and discovered that his soul was slightly damaged as its size had noticeably decreased and its silver glow had dimmed.
(Huh? Did my exploration of the dreams damage my soul? I should heal myself first before I get to the bottom of this.)
Nick summoned a dozen soul healing scrolls from his space band and used them one by one to heal the damage to his soul; the successful use of each scroll resulted in it turning to ash. By the tenth scroll, his soul had returned to its original size and its silver luster regained its full intensity. Nick stored the remaining two scrolls and mused:
(The soul healing scrolls are top quality goods. No wonder Carla is making record profits off them after years of running the Magic Scroll Company. The healing is still effective despite the higher quality of my soul relative to a normal Magician at rank 2. The ease of use just complements the already convenient effect...)
After Nick spent some time internally critiquing his own invention, he got back to the matter at hand. Nick checked his blade path attainment and it was still at master but it had been raised by a slight amount.
(I guess that basically confirms that I cannot raise my attainment levels beyond master by using magic beast dream exploration. Not only that, it seems that dream exploration harms my soul. I might not have noticed before because the damage was miniscule but after a few dreams explorations, the damage accumulated. The first two dreams did result in me feeling a lot of negative emotions and the last one basically forced me to follow intense sword cultivation for who knows how long.)
Nick looked at his cell phone and realized that it had been almost five days since he had boarded the ship and it was about time that the ship reached its destination.
(That's convenient...)
Nick's mind soon wandered as he thought about all the training sessions within the third dream where he saw the Magician practise the sword technique, Cross Stream, over and over again. Nick started moving his right arm like how he remembered the Magician from the dream do it.
Nick soon developed a blank expression as he practised hand and arm movements as if he were holding a real sword, trying to remember the movements and sword placements involved in an iteration of Cross Stream.
Nick spent hours waving his hands around, correcting his own form and movement intensity along the way. By the time that Nick's expression returned to his usual focused and indifferent one, almost an entire day had passed and he heard a knock at his door. Thompson Varrow commanded from the other side of the door:
"Rascal, get your ass out here and follow the rest of us off the ship. We have reached our destination. Don't make me wait more than five seconds before you get out here."
Nick quickly opened his door and came face to face with Varrow who still wore a pale-green magician's robe. The other nine competitors representing Richter Order Academy had already been gathered by this time and Nick seemed to be the only one left. Varrow nodded once and motioned Nick to follow him as he turned to walk to the departure ramp at the side of the ship.
The other competitors looked at Nick weirdly because he somehow had a different air to him compared to when they first came on board the ship. William Rollins observed Nick and thought:
(He seems somehow more...experienced in his movements.)
Unbeknownst to Nick, his exploration of the dream realms had changed him slightly. Nick followed Varrow but his mind mostly focused on the Cross Stream sword technique, so much so, that he did not even remember to greet his other competitors and remained silent the whole time.
Other competitor groups and their supervisors walked towards the departure ramp as well. Before Nick and his group could leave the ship, however, a stern remark was directed at Jessie Auburn:
"Hey you, I've got a message from Lewis Nefari for you. It's: 'Watch your back!'."
Someone apparently threw something at Jessie but Jessie, being the alert man that he was, dodged it without too much effort. Nick, on the other hand, was too lost in thought to realize the presence of the projectile until he received a warning via Spatial Awareness.
Nick instinctively cast one of his spells:
(Dominion Field.)