The mont I used {Dream of Hunger}, the world seed to dissolve into utter madness. The first thing I noticed was the trees. The creepy, dead trees of the forest dissolved into foggy, wispy outlines of whites and greys. Instead of well defined shapes, the trees now looked like they were made of incomprehensibly shaped clouds.
The trees weren’t the only thing that changed in the dream world. The ground itself faded away, as did the light of the sun overhead. In seconds, the world transitioned from a well lit creepy forest to a lightless world of darkness and fog.
The next thing I noticed was space. I could feel that the way space interacted with was wrong, sohow. Instead of regular shapes, it felt more like everything in this world was an expression of will. Things here didn’t have a physical aspect to them - they were solely defined by their minds, their thoughts, and their beliefs. Rather than a dreamscape, I felt as if I had fallen into a sort of mind-scape, where shape, space, and physicality were poorly defined.
A mont later, I felt as if sothing had implanted a certain set of instincts into my mind. It didn’t feel invasive - it was more as if soone were sharing a basic understanding of the world with . It was a welco boost to my understanding of this world, with its poorly defined physical shapes and its emphasis on the mind.
It only took a mont to guess where this new set of instincts had co from. An item that was almost impossible for users to make effective use of wouldn’t be very popular in the Market. Thus, the item itself probably had so kind of built-in assistance feature for users.
I opened the item description again, and fell into thought.
Item: Dream of Hunger (nonphysical item)
Effects: Once per lifeti, you may enter a dream of ‘hunger.’ This will allow you to drag a single creature from anywhere into the world into your dream in a greatly weakened form. (note - this is a dream-related magic item, so creatures which have resistances against this type of effect may be able to resist it. Creatures above Heroic Grade also have considerably stronger bonds between their soul and their body, aning it is almost impossible to separate their soul and drag it into a dream.)
(To activate this item, you must have so sort of dium related to the target. It is best to use things like blood, hair, or saliva - but other things, such as scales, straw from a nest, or other things can also be used. The more related the dium is to the target, the better the effect of this item).
Maintenance cost - 40.7 Achievent per reconstruction.
This item description had made think that I would fall asleep, along with whatever creature I was targeting - essentially, I had imagined so sort of ‘war of minds’ happening in another plane of reality, one constructed entirely via souls and dreams. I had also envisioned my own body falling helplessly onto the ground when I used this item. In fact, that was why had gone to such effort to remove any other summons from this area before I activated the item - I didn’t want a monster to co kill while I was laying helplessly on the ground and my mind was locked into a dream battle.
This was not how the item worked - at least, not entirely.
As the item fed more instincts related to the dreamscape and the way the item worked, I realized that I was mistaken. My enemy, the chira I had dragged into this world, was indeed now asleep on the ground. Its body and its soul were separated from each other, as if the item had simply scooped its soul out and dropped it in here. However, my body was present in the dreamscape.
In other words, I didn’t have to worry about my undefended physical body being torn apart by so unseen threat in the wilderness - I only had to worry about my presence in this world. My physical shape in this dreamscape also offered a level of real-ness that other things in this world lacked. That would make it cheaper for to do things that other creatures would struggle with. The chira would need to spend essence every second, simply to maintain its mind and a connection to its body. If it stopped paying either essence cost, it would die. anwhile, since I was now physically present in the dreamscape, I didn’t need to spend any essence to stay in the dreamscape, or to maintain it. I was regenerating essence, just like usual.
The item also sent a vague warning that the dreamscape itself would only be maintained for an hour. After that, it would collapse. In short, this item had excellent protection for the user, while making the target as vulnerable as possible. The item worked to maintain every single advantage for the user that it could. I could already imagine how useful this would be in the future - when I was fighting with my friends, I could blast an enemy with an extinguish, then drag it into the dreamscape while my friends attacked its helpless body. It was an incredible boon to our fighting abilities as a whole.
After I finished understanding how the item and the real world interacted with each other, I focused my attention on the dreamscape again. I couldn’t see anything - after all, there was no light at all in this world. However, I wanted to find the chira. I only had an hour, and the essence drain on the creature wouldn’t be that significant. I wanted to get a better feel for how this item worked, so that I could change my strategy if needed.
My physical eyes wouldn’t help locate the chira. Since that was the case, how could I…
A mont later, the item fed more information. I realized that I didn’t need to search for the enemy. Instead, I willed the dreamscape to find the enemy. I demanded that it recreate the scene of battle I had just exited.
Essence bled out of my body and into the dreamscape around , and reality changed. The endless darkness and glimrs of mist turned into a sunlit clearing in the forest, with broken trees in my surroundings. Most of the trees lacked the definition of a real, physical object - it was obvious that this clearing was created by my mories, and my mories were imperfect. However, I still knew that this was the sa area I had just been fighting the chira in. As I remodelled the world around , I understood. The dreamscape only worked off of essence and intent. Willpower, backed by essence, could do literally anything in the dreamscape. I could reshape the laws of reality to my whims. I could force an enemy to appear in front of , no matter how they fled. I could create storms, earthquakes, and tornadoes with a thought.
I just needed willpower and my imagination to fuel it all, along with a healthy dose of essence. The more willpower I had, the less sothing would cost.
As I demanded that the chira appear in front of , reality unwove itself and changed to match my demands. A mont later, I found that the chira had appeared in the middle of the forest clearing. However, there was a big difference. It was much smaller.
The physical chira was the size of a few cars on a train. This was part of what lent its charges such crushing, terrifying velocity and weight - it was in a completely different weight class compared to .
By contrast, the chira in the dream world was about one and a half tis as tall as . it was still larger than I was, but not overwhelmingly so. Its movents were also much slower than before. Previously, its strength and speed had both been significantly higher than mine. Now, it was a grade or two lower than I was. I grinned.
Then, I dashed forward. The chira tried to turn towards , but its movents were unbalanced and slow. Not only was the creature slower and weaker - it was totally unused to this environnt and its own body. It looked like a baby that could barely control its own limbs. Furthermore, I could sense the creature’s willpower and mind. I could feel the way the creature interacted with the dreamscape, since willpower and essence were the only things that were ‘real’ in this world.
The chira was a terrifying monster. Its physical stats and essence reserves were terrifying. But its mind? It was barely as smart as the average adult human. I wished for my umbrella to reappear in my hands. A mont later, I found that I was holding my umbrella again. A very small trace of alteration essence disappeared from my essence pool - but it was a minor expense. I smiled even more deeply.
Before the Chira had ti to adapt to its new body, I ramd the tip of my umbrella through one of its eyeballs. The creature screeched in pain and reeled back, and a blast of force tore out of the creature’s body towards . I willed space to bend, and instantly teleported out of the way of the blast. The chira’s essence reserves dropped as it tried to crush with another wave of force - and I teleported out of the way again. The chira lunged at , and the tip of my umbrella burst another one of its eyeballs. The chira bellowed in pain again, and I laughed as I confird sothing else.
Its ridiculous regeneration was gone. The chira wasn’t healing at all. I darted backwards as it swiped at with one of its human hands, and then wished for the spike at the tip of my umbrella to grow right as I buried my umbrella in the chira’s brain.
The creature reeled back, as essence dribbled out of its body. The creature tried to push back with another wave of force, but I teleported onto its back and continued stabbing the creature. I cut into its arms, abdon, back, and neck. With every single cut, the creature started leaking more and more essence, and its mind grew weaker and weaker as the creature flailed and struggled. However, unlike , it didn’t have any innate understanding of this world - it seed utterly confused by what was happening.
Two minutes of teleportation, stabbing, and cutting later, the chira ran out of essence. Instantly, its body crumbled into dust, and I was ejected from the dream. I felt a mont of disorientation as reality beca more… real again, before I glanced at the corpse of the chira.
In the real world, the chira was simply laying on the ground. It was dead. A System notification appeared in the corner of my vision, but I ignored it as I stared at the chira and smiled. {Dream of Hunger} was an incredibly potent item. It had single-handedly turned a difficult fight into a victory.
Now, it was ti to claim my main prize. I stepped back into the cave and started jogging towards the center, where the giant patchwork soul waited for .
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