Chapter 180: Thought
“There is no invisible Collective Conscious Mind here. I am not the leader of the Collective Conscious Mind here. The consciousness here is scattered, chaotic, and bizarre.”
“If I must make an analogy, it is like individual dream worlds pieced together, rather than a unified collective dream. I have a strange premonition that if a unified, controllable dream could be formed, perhaps miraculous changes would occur, potentially even communicating with the embryonic Wizards’ Collective Subconscious Sea.”
The torch scratched its head in a somewhat human-like manner, pondering:
“Why do I have this premonition? Where does it come from? Is an unknown presence giving me a sign or a hint? Can I guess that it is a hint from the Collective Subconscious Sea?”
Torch Ace tried multiple times to unify the dreams but found it impossible. He could enter any apprentice’s dream, but he could not merge the many dreams into a single, complete great dream.
Just then, the entire bizarre space began to shake violently, as if the earth were crumbling!
“Host, the apprentices’ mental power is basically exhausted and hitting rock bottom! Please bring them back as soon as possible.” Ace, who was observing the bizarre dream from an angle, received the prompt from the mirror image.
The torch’s expression grew grave. A massive stream of information traveled through the spiritual chains. Boom!
The apprentices, immersed in their dreams, playing in the clouds one second, were kicked off the clouds by the massive information stream the next, rolling back into their bodies along the thick chains connecting soul and body.
After a long while, the apprentices opened their eyes, their expressions dazed.
They seemed to have had a very long dream, or perhaps engaged in activity for a long time. Their bodies ached all over, and their spirits were extremely listless.
Ollie looked annoyed and regretful. She huffily kicked Arno, who hadn’t yet woken from his dream.
Arno cried out, looking around for the sneak attacker. Upon discovering it was Ollie, he gave a sheepish smile.
Ancestar seemed to be recalling something. His expression held a longing, seemingly murmuring “Just one step away, just that one step.”
Ace looked at the listless crowd, exchanged a glance with the mirror image, and then looked at the darkening sky.
Today is not suitable for further experiments. We can only continue tomorrow, he thought.
He said to the apprentices somewhat wearily:
“Apprentices, night is approaching. After two links today, everyone’s spirit is somewhat listless. Being tired is not suitable for work because it only makes us more prone to mistakes.
Let us go back together, rest and recuperate, and conduct experiments again in a few days.”
A few days later, they conducted the Mental Network Link experiment again. The Half-Asleep state required hypnotizing everyone into a state between sleep and wakefulness, similar to lucid dreaming, where one is aware of dreaming while asleep and can control their consciousness relatively clearly.
The double-conical-hat-shaped mental link network formed in this state combined the effects of the previous two experiments. Not only did the soul resonance frequency increase significantly, but the information flow volume also increased greatly.
Simultaneously, every spirit consciousness node in the network formed its own dreamscape. Other consciousnesses could enter another person’s dreamscape with the owner’s permission to communicate and interact.
The dreamscape had certain effects of receiving, storing, generating, and transmitting mental information.
Everyone could also enter the largest central dreamscape—a Public Dreamscape formed by the fusion of the host body and the mirror image. Everyone could communicate here, practically forming a virtual dream network world!
However, limited by mental power, the size, richness, and duration of the dreamscape formed by each person varied.
Ace called this network, which combined the advantages of the previous two experiments, the Dream Link Network.
He subsequently experimented several times, finally confirming that if the number of people was less than 30, and there were fewer than four Mid-level Wizard Apprentices, the mental link network could not be successfully established.
Once established, the more people there were—especially the more Mid-level Wizard Apprentices—and the greater the stratification and depth of the network, the better the overall effect.
Simply put, the number and quality of Wizards were positively correlated with the various effects produced by the mental link network.
When the most basic conditions for forming a mental link network were met—namely, more than 30 people at Wizard Apprentice level or above, at least four Mid-level Apprentices, and at least one “Root Consciousness”—
The more Wizards participating in the entire network, the higher their quality, and the more complex the network formed, the stronger the mental link network’s wisdom analysis and deduction capabilities would be, and the better the effects of collective meditation and dream communication would be.
Two weeks had passed since the last mental link. Through multiple experiments, Ace had basically understood the function of the mental link network and how to achieve better results.
Because Ace was too busy, and fearing the apprentices would have nothing to do for the time being, he gave them several training objectives.
Without using the Grimoire: complete the meditation guidance within three seconds, activate the Lesser Magic Missile within one second, and activate the Lesser Mana-Crystal Shield within one second.
Anyone who passed the assessment would be qualified to freely share all Lesser Runes mastered by the Wizard collective!
This greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of all apprentices. If they could share all Lesser Runes, the cost of exchanging for Spell Models would be greatly reduced for them, and they could try combining new Spell Models themselves!
At night, in Ace’s residence, the mirror image continued to research Magic Items to resist the influence of the whispering, while Ace was writing furiously at his desk under the illumination of the bright Controllable Light Orb!
He wrote “Mental Network” on a scroll of magical parchment with Mana, followed by a small subtitle “Follow-up Research on the Bizarre Witness Covenant.”
“Through multiple experiments on the Wizards’ Surface Consciousness Network, investigate how to maximize the efficacy of the Wisdom Network’s judgment and deduction, the basic forms and influences of communication in the dream virtual space, and the possibility of promotion to Formal Wizard.”
“The inspiration for this experiment came from a bizarre Witness Covenant phenomenon. Through this bizarre Witness Covenant, all us Wizards seemed to arrive at an unknown place. The Spirit of the Book spoke a word: ‘Sea of Illusion and Reality.’”
“Therefore, we will first call this unknown place the ‘Sea of Illusion and Reality.’ Here, we seemed to be swept by a powerful force akin to truth, causing an instant mutation.
The embryonic form of the Subconscious Sea representing the Wizards’ collective subconscious was born. Here, we must pause and ask a few whys!”
“What is the ‘Sea of Illusion and Reality’? What is the force akin to truth? Why can this force cause mutation? What is the principle behind the mutation—that is, the principle behind the birth of the embryonic Subconscious Sea? Can it be replicated? Do other creatures have similar phenomena? If so, what are the similarities and differences between their Subconscious Sea and ours?”
Ace wrote a series of questions under the bright light of the the orb. This was the unknown, the incomprehensible, but one day, there would be answers.
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