On a night in Igwinte, in an apartment building on Nanyang Flower Street.
"Hey, Dorothy, did you have a good time in the city today?" In the living room, Grego, who had just finished dinner, leaned on the sofa and said to Dorothy on the other side.
"Hmm… I feel great. Igwinte is even bigger than I imagined, not something our village can compare to. Even Zishan Town is far behind. I went to the lower district today and will find a chance to visit other places later." Standing in front of the balcony, Dorothy responded to Grego while drinking a cup of hot milk. Hearing Dorothy's words, Grego frowned slightly.
"Lower district… the public order there isn't very good, Dorothy. You didn't encounter any danger, did you?" Grego said admonishingly, while Dorothy smiled and answered frankly.
"No~ I just bought some things, then played hide-and-seek with two dogs in the city, and finally read a book by the river for a while. It's fine."
"Played hide-and-seek with two dogs… and read a book by the river?" Listening to Dorothy's words, Grego, leaning on the sofa, couldn't help but be taken aback. After thinking for a while, he said with a smile.
"Haha, Dorothy, you're still the same as before, you like animals and reading."
"Pretty much, isn't that a good habit?…" While speaking, Dorothy put the empty cup back in the kitchen to wash it, then waved to Grego and said.
"Good night, Grego, see you tomorrow."
"Okay, get a good rest, Dorothy, I'm going to sleep too."
Entering her room, Dorothy immediately turned around, closed the door, and locked it. Then she sat down at her desk and took out an old book from her bag, placing it on top.
This was the secret transmission, dream records.
During the day, Dorothy had already finished reading the entire old book. This book wasn't much thicker than the previous Saint Body Dissection Technique remnant, so it could be finished in about an afternoon.
While reading, Dorothy was very careful to observe her mental changes, fearing being contaminated by the Spirit Sight she had heard about at the gathering, but she didn't feel anything unusual until the very end.
That so-called Spirit Sight seemed not to exist for Dorothy.
'Is the accumulated amount still too little? Or is it that not every secret transmission contains Spirit Sight? The ones I've read happen not to? Or perhaps…'
Regarding this phenomenon, countless thoughts surged in Dorothy's mind, but since they couldn't be verified for now, she stopped and didn't think deeply, instead turning to consider the more urgent issue at hand.
'First of all… I practiced dream records… The knowledge within it directly accumulated 3 points of 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment) Spirituality and 2 points of'Shadow' Spirituality for me.'
Looking at the old book on the desk, Dorothy thought, that's right, since the Book of Souls was full, she still couldn't exchange dream records for knowledge from other worlds. Therefore, she extracted and accumulated the Spirituality within dream records as before, seeking advancement.
And the Spirituality extracted from dream records was 3 points of "enlightenment" and 2 points of "Shadow".
What did this indicate?
She already knew before that all knowledge contains "enlightenment", but never much, not exceeding the theme of the secret transmission itself. For example, after practicing the Saint Body Dissection Technique remnant, Dorothy accumulated 5 points of "Cup" and 2 points of "enlightenment".
This was because the theme of the Saint Body Dissection Technique remnant was "Cup", primarily discussing the knowledge of "Cup", so there would be more "Cup". As for "enlightenment", it is due to the essence of knowledge; as long as one practices a secret transmission, regardless of its theme, it will definitely be present, but its content will be less than the main Spirituality of that secret transmission.
And what about this dream records? It actually extracted 3 points of "enlightenment" and 2 points of "Shadow", with "enlightenment" making up the majority.
Doesn't this prove that the theme of dream records is "enlightenment" and "Shadow"…
The "enlightenment" within this is also one of the themes, thus giving Dorothy extra "enlightenment" Spirituality…
Thinking a bit deeper, if a secret transmission describing dreams can have the two themes of "enlightenment" and "Shadow", doesn't that mean people's dreams are closely related to these two types of Spirituality?
Just like the relationship between flesh and blood and "Cup", Dorothy speculated that dreams have the dual attributes of "enlightenment" and "Shadow". After all… everything has Spirituality, and even dreams are no exception…
Shaking her head, Dorothy stopped thinking about such profound questions about the essence of the world and turned to the problem at hand.
Now she had accumulated three types of Spirituality: 5 points of "enlightenment", 5 points of "Cup", and 2 points of "Shadow". Based on the subsequent inquiries from her system, she knew that her current accumulation limit for all Spirituality was 10 points.
In other words, as long as she accumulates another 5 points of "enlightenment", gathering 10 points, she will meet the qualifications to be promoted to an Extraordinary of the Path of "enlightenment". Although she doesn't know the specific ritual yet, at least she has a goal. The first step is to work towards this, and the ritual can be found eventually with time.
After the promotion, her Book of Souls would also expand, allowing her to exchange for more knowledge from other worlds.
Although… Dorothy actually had quite a bit of "Cup" on her now, accumulating a bit more could also meet the conditions for being promoted to a Thirster, and the ritual was clearly known to the Holy Communion Society, so she could just find a way to get it from them. In a sense, it was clearly more convenient for Dorothy to be promoted to an Extraordinary of "Cup" now, but unfortunately, "Cup" really didn't fit her aesthetic, so she decisively refused.
"Phew… I won't think about this anymore for now. It's time for tonight's main business."
Letting out a long breath, Dorothy cleared her mind and then began preparing for tonight's main business.
Knowledge is not just for accumulating Spirituality, but also for practice. She had finished reading dream records, and now it was time to try entering dreams.
This dream records that Dorothy bought from Gray Hill was a secret transmission carried by fairy tale allegories. It recorded some fairy tales, all related to dreams.
The most typical was a story called 'The Thief and the Miser'.
The story told of a thief who, in his own dream, transformed into a bird using a spell, flew into the dream of a miser, and stole the secret of the miser's buried treasure from it. Finally, the thief went to the treasure location in reality and dug up the miser's treasure. However, he was not satisfied and repeatedly continued to steal the miser's wealth secrets. He was eventually discovered by the miser in the dream. The miser used another spell in the dream to turn into an eagle and ate the bird the thief had become.
Besides this story, there were other stories in the book, but they all had one thing in common: the protagonists in the stories transformed into various animals using spells in their dreams and accomplished various things.
If the entire book were filled with such stories, it would inevitably be difficult to understand, but fortunately, in addition to the stories, the book also contained annotations.
Before her, someone had studied this book and left various annotations on it to explain the content of the book.
While thinking, Dorothy opened dream records to the page about 'The Thief and the Miser'. In the blank space on that page, there were extensive annotations written on it.
Dorothy looked at the longest passage among them.
…
"So… entering a dream while conscious is easy, you just need to follow the few small techniques I summarized before, but entering the Dream World requires special operations.
"As you can see, the characters in the story transformed into animals using spells in their dreams. This is actually a metaphor for the method of entering the Dream World. I'll get straight to the conclusion: the spiritual bodies of mortals cannot directly enter the Dream World! Therefore, we must enter in a mimetic form, transforming a part of our soul into a creature within the Dream World to go in. This is also why the characters in the story always transformed into various animals.
"Those spells are mimetic spells. Recite the spell in a conscious dream, then mimic a creature of the Dream World, and you will immediately see the door to enter the Dream World. Go in, and then you can roam the Dream World in the form of an animal, and different spells can mimic different animals.
"Remember! Although the mimetic spells are the ones spoken by the characters in the book, reciting them in ordinary secular common language is ineffective. They need to be recited in mystical languages, such as Elvish… Wraith Tongue… Abyssal Language… Especially those key phrases, using different languages will result in greatly different effects for the mimetic spells.
"Therefore, you must choose the language carefully!"