Chapter 663 – Dreamweaver World 1

At the moment, the only magical items Mo Lan had on her were the invisible ring-shaped wand on her finger and her spatial ring.

Beyond that, there was the inner pocket of the backpack on her back, which had been spatially expanded. Mo Lan had settled Zhizhi in there.

When people of the Dreamweaver World entered the dream realm, their bodies would remain in place. When the time came, Zhizhi would serve as her bodyguard while she was in the dream realm.

The rest of her outfit — vest, skirt, shoes, and socks — were all perfectly ordinary in both appearance and function, with no alchemical runes inscribed on them whatsoever.

Mo Lan had been using the Dietary Fortification Card for years. While her physical strength wasn’t quite on par with Vasida’s — who could go toe-to-toe with Dragon prodigies in hand-to-hand combat — beating an ordinary Advanced magical beast to death was no problem at all.

The humans on the material side of the Dreamweaver World, without having materialized abilities from the ethereal side, had physical strength roughly comparable to Earth humans. Even without defensive magical items, Mo Lan wasn’t worried about suffering any irreversible harm the instant she arrived in the Dreamweaver World.

After one final mental review of the information on the Dreamweaver World, Mo Lan came to the edge of the Well of the Sky and accepted the Dreamweaver World’s mission invitation.

The Dreamweaver World within the starry projection rapidly grew larger. Mo Lan knew this meant the Dreamweaver World was establishing a connection with her coordinates at the Well of the Sky.

When the Dreamweaver World appeared so close within the well that it seemed she could reach out and scoop it up, Mo Lan leaped down from the well’s edge.

At first, she could still see countless galaxies streaking past her on all sides. But soon, just like when her soul had wandered through the cosmos before, she lost consciousness.

She didn’t know how much time had passed before Mo Lan regained awareness. She found herself surrounded by dim light, the back of her head pressing against something hard. Beneath her was a damp, ice-cold floor, and a faint stench of decay filled her nostrils.

As she woke, the translucent protective barrier that the world consciousness had placed over her also vanished. Instantly, the smell intensified severalfold.

It was like a toxic miasma brewed from rotting food, excrement, and moldering matter. The stench was so overwhelming that she immediately held her breath, a sour bitterness rising in the back of her throat.

Mo Lan hurriedly scrambled to her feet, covering her nose as she surveyed her surroundings.

She appeared to be in an alley, and it was nighttime.

The alley was pitch-black. The only light source was a single streetlamp at the alley’s entrance, several dozen meters away.

The streetlamp had long fallen into disrepair. Its yellowish light could only illuminate the few bricks of ground directly beneath the pole.

A thick layer of dust had accumulated on the lamp shade. The filament sizzled intermittently, and its flickering light cast wavering shadows across the damp walls.

It was only thanks to the dark vision from Blood Magic — extracted by Lilith from Vampire blood — that Mo Lan could identify the source of the alley’s stench: a row of garbage bins overflowing with trash, and a dead rat in the corner.

The maggots squirming beside the garbage bins and the black beetles crawling all over the rat’s shriveled corpse were clearly visible.

The place was revolting, but at least the field of view was narrow, and there were clearly no humans in sight. Mo Lan breathed a sigh of relief, cast an invisibility spell on herself, and quickly walked out of the alley.

Humans of the Dreamweaver World did not dream before the age of fifteen. On the night of their fifteenth birthday, upon falling asleep, their spirits would enter the dream realm for the first time to adventure there. From then on, daytime belonged to the real world, and nighttime belonged to the dream realm.

The entrance to the dream realm only opened after nightfall. Because of this, nights in the real world here were always exceptionally quiet and exceptionally safe.

Mo Lan’s arrival in the Dreamweaver World at this hour was perfectly timed — she could take advantage of the darkness and her invisibility to quietly observe her surroundings.

The streets were completely deserted. Looking at the towering buildings all around her, Mo Lan felt as though she had returned to Earth before the apocalypse. But both the roads and the high-rises showed their age.

Mo Lan also noticed the tangled mess of electrical wires running exposed along the exterior of the buildings.

According to the briefing materials, the real world of the Dreamweaver World had a mineral called “electric stone.”

The humans of the Dreamweaver World had extracted electrical energy from these electric stones and used it to invent all manner of electrical devices.

Electric lamps for lighting, electrical grids for communication, electric trams for transportation… and electrical robots that performed basic production labor in place of humans.

The people of the Dreamweaver World had developed and applied electrical energy far more impressively than the humans of Earth.

At the very least, Mo Lan had never seen personal flying trams soaring through the sky, or robots that could farm, manufacture goods, and even handle household chores — not before Earth’s apocalypse arrived.

However, ever since the ethereal side’s dream realm of the Dreamweaver World had fully matured and established a connection with the material side — allowing humans to enter the dream realm in their sleep and bring some of their gains back to reality — the people of the Dreamweaver World had shifted more and more of their energy toward developing the dream realm.

From that point on, electrical technology had never made any significant breakthroughs.

The world consciousness was clearly content with this outcome. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have only issued missions to hunt Dream-Eating Tapirs to prevent the dream realm’s power from diminishing, while never once issuing a mission seeking outside help to rescue the real world’s electrical technology.

The aging roads and skyscrapers she saw now had likely been built during the heyday of electrical technology’s development. Signs of repair were visible everywhere.

The mottled concrete surfaces were covered in fine cracks, and the metal frameworks had turned dark rust-red from years of wind and rain.

Some of the repairs even showed faint traces of magical energy fluctuations. Mo Lan guessed they had used magical materials from the dream realm.

Those faintly glowing repair materials looked completely out of place against the original steel and concrete, yet they managed to maintain the structural integrity of the buildings surprisingly well.

Perhaps because this world had flying trams, the streets between the densely packed skyscrapers weren’t very popular.

The ground-level roads between buildings were in terrible disrepair. Weeds grew rampant through the cracked asphalt, and the occasional deep rut could be spotted.

The shops on either side were equally desolate. Thick dust coated the display windows, and the spiderwebs on the advertising signs told you all you needed to know about how business was going.

Faded signboards swayed gently in the breeze, emitting faint creaking sounds.

The more Mo Lan looked, the more something felt off. She pulled out her broomstick, straddled it with practiced ease, activated the invisibility shield, and flew skyward.

The higher she went, the more she realized that the lower floors near ground level were essentially empty — not a single trace of breathing could be detected. But in the upper floors, the occasional light shone through the windows, indicating inhabitants.

She didn’t stop until she reached the rooftop. From up there, Mo Lan gazed out over the city.

The Dreamweaver World had no moon. The night clouds emitted a faint pink glow. South of the rows of dilapidated skyscrapers stood a newer, more beautiful, and much larger district.

The buildings there were no more than three stories tall. The streets were wide, the streetlamps bright, and greenery was abundant — a stark contrast to the aging towers beneath her feet.