Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
What? What did you say? Was the immortal big sister joking? Whatever it was, this entire thing was becoming out-of-hand, wasn’t it?
Although I felt like this was not just a dream—to make such a leap all of a sudden… made everything seem more ridiculous than dreaming!
However, the glowing body standing opposite me did not even give me time to express my doubts. Instead, she seemed to be minding her own business as she continued, “The world’s arbitration organ has already given the most appropriate judgment regarding your identity and your corresponding authority. According to our latest database… something out-of-the-ordinary happened to the individual with the highest authority. The pan-spatial link was disturbed… attempts to recalibrate the link failed… I apologize, Emperor. We are too far apart. The void connection is breaking off… We will… go to… #@#%…¥¥#¥%…”
The hologram in front of me began to flicker intensely. It looked like a television signal being seriously disturbed. At the same time, the person’s voice began to sound incoherent. This scared me. I shouted, “Hey! What’s going on? Are you broken?”
No one replied to me. I just felt my head hurt again, and then the entire world turned to darkness.
“Ah Jun? What happened?”
An anxious voice next to my ear suddenly pulled me back to reality. I shook my head and found myself standing at the school gate. Students around me noticed that I seemed to be self-combusting. They quickly flew into a panic and fought to take pictures with me so that they could keep memories of this. Qianqian, who was standing beside me, was shaking me and calling out my name in a panic.
Once she saw me regain my composure, she heaved a sigh of relief and asked, “Ah Jun, what happened? Why did you suddenly black out? Why didn’t you respond when I called out to you?”
“Oh, it’s nothing… I suddenly zoned out…”
“Zoned out? You zoned out so intensely?” It was obvious that Qianqian did not believe my explanation, but she did not ask anything more. Instead, she pulled me back into the school. “Let’s go. If we stay here, we’ll be late. I hardly remember what that form teacher of ours who only appears during morning reading looks like.”
I followed Qianqian into the school, but thoughts were flying through my head at the same time.
It was obvious that although a lot of time passed while I was in the dream—in reality, only a second passed. There was nothing strange about this. I was more concerned about the contents of that dream.
The world in the dream had a name: Xyrin Empire. What’s more, after listening to what the mysterious woman had to say to me, I was one big step closer to finding out about that dream world. However, in reality, I still had many questions. I kept asking myself what that dream world was for. What was this entire Xyrin Empire about? What was that attack today? A superpower? A supernatural event? Everything was becoming a blur, and it was all terribly confusing.
At a time like this, I could no longer look at that world as a simple dream realm.
The day in school seemed to pass by in a blur. This was the umpteenth time in my life that I did not process whatever I learned in school.
“Ah Jun, what is the matter with you? Why do you look out-of-sorts today?” On the way home, Qianqian asked me worriedly.
“It’s nothing,” I replied, grinning brightly. “You know that I’m always daydreaming.”
“Are you really just daydreaming?” Qianqian asked suspiciously. “Are you sure you’re not thinking about some beautiful woman?”
“… Let’s talk about something else.”
“Oh, next topic: what’s the name of that beautiful woman?”
“Xu Qianqian. Are you happy now?”
“Hmph, at least you’re smart!”
This was all very weird. These conversations usually only happened between couples. However, it did not feel out of place when we had them. Could it be because we were too familiar with each other? Was that the reason why we always felt like we were closer than most couples?
My sister had to stay behind in the office today to finish some work, and she predicted that she would be home late. After having dinner on my own, I returned to my room to continue thinking about what happened today.
After thinking for half a day, I still felt as confused as ever. I decided to try and summon that ‘dream’ realm again.
Perhaps because this had happened several times already, the connection I had with that world seemed to be slightly stronger. This time, the process went quite smoothly. Soon, I felt the slight link with that world.
The first thing I did when I established the connection was ask about the Xyrin Empire.
“Xyrin Empire’s Home-Star receiving external instructions… authorization confirmed… entering long-distance instructive mode… uploading summary of instructions.”
That’s strange. It seemed like the voice was telling me something different this time. However, on second thought, I realized this was probably right. The world seemed to be awakening. It was only normal for me to receive different instructions as that world woke up, but…
The content of the messages I was receiving was a bit abnormal, wasn’t it?
The overhead long-range attacking system, I already had. Pass.
The Xyrin Corps Teleportation System… what was that?
The Passville Spirit could recharge the system… what did that mean?
The Xyrin Directional Astral Cannon? Hey, hey, hey. From its name alone, one could tell that this thing was illegal. What was going on?
The Pandora Corps Fortress… was this what a healthy and sane young man should be looking into?
A pan-spatial Ethereal-Oscillation Array… was there not a single thing I would be able to understand? Why did all of these things sound like they belonged to big-headed aliens in science-fiction movies?
However, as I kept receiving more and more information from this world, I slowly lost interest in the grotesque terms which seriously threatened social harmony and stability.
The huge torrent of information no longer entered my mind like a calm stream. Instead, they spiked in volume and began to pour into my head like a dike, making me feel like I was caught in a quagmire. All I could do was sit there helplessly as I became increasingly overwhelmed by the incoming messages. At the same time, I felt like I was caught in a storm, being tossed and turned by the strong winds of the messages.
Slowly, my brain gave up analyzing the incoming information. I just blindly absorbed them all. At the start, I felt jolts of sharp pain shooting through my body from my brain. Very quickly, however, numbness dominated my senses. As I continued to be tossed and turned by the waves of information, only one thought remained in my brain: if this was allowed to carry on, the rest of my life would be spent in Qingcheng Mountain Mental Hospital.
I did not know how long passed before the information finally stopped pouring in. My brain was on the brink of collapse.
There was a crazy amount of information. I felt like my brain had just been filled with all sorts of rubbish. I feared that I would not be able to remember anything else for the rest of my life.
I remained in a daze for a long time before I finally began to clear my crowded mind. I wanted to see exactly how much had been added to my memory bank. However, I quickly realized that all of this information had not been processed in the same way as memories were; they were not allowed to exist freely in my brain. Instead, they were categorized and sorted strictly and neatly put away in drawers in my brain. It was almost like I could pull them out any time I needed. This way of sorting felt almost like… creating document folders on a computer!
Forget it. My sanity had been put through many tests today. No matter what happened from now on, I did not think I could be shocked again.
I calmed myself down and realized that there were natural benefits to having information sorted this way in my brain. It was easy for me to look through them, and the process was reliable as well. At least, I would not forget or be confused about the information. However, the disadvantages of having information sorted in this way were obvious as well.
I had to first be sure that the information I needed existed in this bank before I would be able to make use of the documents in my head. Where I could depend on trains of thought or ‘light-bulb moments’ to dig up memories, I could not do the same for this information. In other words, unless I had a purpose for the information, I might never know the content of this information in my head!
It looked like I needed to conduct a more thorough investigation—or should I call it a full scan?—into the information I now had. Why did I feel like my brain had been transformed very mysteriously?
Fortunately, this was the way that the external information had been stored. The memories from my life had not been changed. At the very least, I did not have to worry about becoming a robot.
However, the sheer quantity of this information far exceeded my expectations. I just scanned through one-third of them before I lost interest in all the things that confused me. Thus, I turned my attention to the end of the pile of information: the last message that I received.
“Comprehensively analyzing the above reasons… It has been confirmed that the amount of instructions that remain inexecutable is 99.999999…”
Me, “…”
Who could tell me what I went through all that effort for? What was the use of all the information I had in my head now?! Was it just a list of scrap products?!
Could I claim compensation from that alien sister I saw earlier for giving me a list like that?
Alright, it seemed like there was nothing else to be done. The only connection between me and the Xyrin Empire was probably the projection in the dream. Apart from the energy that appeared momentarily at the school gate, the Xyrin Empire never appeared in the real world.
En? Speaking of the energy attack, it seemed like even that was in the list of inexecutable instructions I saw earlier.
… Alright, I submit…