Lex furrowed his brow, and then read through the notes once again. The Dream realm was unlike any other realm in the sense that it was in a state of constant flux, like a dream. Moreover, space did not exist within the Dream realm. Instead, it was an endless mesh of all the consciousnesses that existed within the realm, constantly clashing against one another, affecting each other’s dreams, creating one endless dream.
As if that was not confusing enough, the laws of dreams, whether they referred to literal, metaphorical, philosophical dreams, or anything else, were highly exaggerated within the realm to the point where it was difficult to distinguish between what was real, and what was a dream.
Yet that was merely the beginning of the absolute horror that was the Dream realm. While the Dream realm had many natives that lived in the form of spirits that could take any shape or form depending on the dream around them, the dreams themselves within the Dream realm could come to life by interacting with visitors.
While that didn’t sound so sinister, the actual threat lay in the fact that the dreams could only truly come to life by absorbing the life of the visitor they interacted with. Moreover, this interaction could take many forms. Even fighting and trying to kill the dream counted as interaction.
To actually fight off these dreams, a number of techniques had been created and compiled in ancient times. While Velma included some common ones in her report, whether or not they were still effective was entirely unknown.
Was all of that enough to properly encapsulate the horrors of the Dream realm? No, not in the slightest. While the dreams were a threat to mortals and immortals, they could not affect Dao Lords so easily. So then why were Dao Lords also so wary of the realm? It was because of the Sandmen!
The Sandmen were a race unique to the Dream realm, and while they were not so powerful on their own, they had a unique power which allowed them to put anyone into a deep sleep. A sufficiently powerful Sandman could even put a Dao Lord to sleep. While that didn’t sound so dangerous, the problem was that if they were asleep, and lost inside the Dream realm, who would bring them out? Who could even find them?
The answer, in this case, was that likely no one would be able to help them. Since the Dream realm had no space, and existed as one continuous but ever changing dream, finding specific people within the Dream realm became nigh impossible.
To now, it was speculated that dozens of Dao Lords, and possibly hundreds of trillions of immortals were still asleep somewhere within the Dream realm, all the way from ancient times.
"Oh, is that all?" Lex asked sarcastically as he quickly spread his awareness towards the tavern. Unfortunately, what he discovered was an empty building, devoid of all his staff. Instead, a thick smoke filled the entire tavern, somehow blocking Lex’s omnipotent view of the tavern. Perhaps it was that very smoke that prevented him from detecting what had happened in the tavern to begin with.
"Mary, are you familiar with the Dream realm at all?" Lex asked out loud as he contemplated his options.
Mary appeared in front of Lex, wearing a white, linen pajama set, complete with a pointed hand, and a white teddy bear.
"Not really," she said with a shrug. "That was before my time. I’ve heard all the usual rumors though. It was a highly annoying place, and very difficult to deal with. Of course, back then it didn’t kidnap people en masse like it just did now. But maybe that’s because of how long it’s been sealed."
Lex frowned, and then diverted his attention towards his system.
"Don’t tell me the system doesn’t have anything for this? Since it’s supposed to be an Inn for the entire universe, shouldn’t it have some services or facilities that can allow me to deal with the Dream realm? Or the guests from the Dream realm? Anything at all, really."
Lex half expected to get a quest the very moment he said those words, but nothing happened. It was almost as if the system didn’t recognize the Dream realm at all - or was too weak to do anything about it. That would explain why even his own guests were kidnapped without being detected. Perhaps in its broken state, it was no match for the Dream realm.
Mary rubbed her chin for a moment, as if lost in thought.
"Well, I can’t find anything in my directives," she said. "The system is behaving oddly regarding the realm. Reminds me of a rumor I heard once. It’s said that the Dream realm is a realm born from the Dream of an unbelievably powerful being. It makes sense, except that this universe officially is currently capped at the Dao Lord realm, and Dao Lords definitely can’t achieve that. Maybe it’s the Dream of a being stronger than the Dao Lord realm, but I find even that slightly unbelievable."
Lex groaned. He himself could not go to the Dream realm to rescue his workers, Z was busy, and Gerard was lost. While he had some workers at the Inn who were theoretically stronger, Lex couldn’t see them solving his problem for him.
He was in the midst of his internal struggle about what to do when he got a report from Anita, who was supposed to be on maternity leave. She had contacted the Inn via the Henali portal.
Qawain and Almira were both gone, and she strongly suspected that they had been sent to the Dream realm. Anita was requesting the Innkeeper’s help, mainly because she didn’t know what else she could do.
Lex paused, and his expression turned serious. He sent Anita a message to reach a tavern and come to the Midnight Inn as soon as possible.
At the same time, Lex immediately took out the Universe-wide System Shop token and crushed it without hesitation. Originally he was keeping it for a rainy day, in case he needed it for an emergency. Now, he could not wait anymore.
Maybe Lex was displaying a little too much favoritism, but so what if he was? If anyone had an issue with that, they could take it up with the dungeon Luthor had built. As Almira’s favorite uncle, he was not about to just ignore her disappearance.
As soon as he crushed the token, a new, deep blue colored interface appeared in front of him with tens of thousands of categories. He could buy anything from any system across the universe, which was helpful. But the limitation was that he could only buy one item! As if that was not enough, he needed to pay for it as well.
While at the moment he had a lot of dough, including 12 ME (Midnight Emblems), a single glance was enough to show him that 12 ME was not as much money as he thought.
There were entire realms for sale in currencies Lex could not even see. He could buy the fate of several races, whatever that meant. He could buy a treasure which carried the defensive ability of a Dao Lord, as well as weapons which contained actual attacks of actual Dao Lords.
All of these things cost currencies Lex had not even unlocked, which is why he didn’t even know if it was just one currency, or more.
That didn’t matter for now. Currently, Lex needed to buy something that could help him with the Dream realm. The problem was, he didn’t know what that thing was, so he needed to go through countless options.
This was going to take a while, especially since he was currently limited to 1% of his mental capacity. While that seemed like plenty considering he was at the peak of the Heaven Immortal realm, in truth that 1% was exaggerated.
The exhaustion and drain he felt from learning the Masterless technique bled over into that 1% as well, making it much less. There were hours of the day where he could perform better, but the rest of the day he would be worn out.
For now, though, whether he was worn out or not didn’t matter. He needed to go through the entire shop, and find something to help him out.
Several hours passed, and while going through the shop, he even encountered Taro’s fertilizer, and came to realize that Taro was a Dao Lord based on the description of the item. To be specific, he was the universe’s foremost expert in all things related to realms.
Lex focused on that, and searched for the term Taro. If he was an expert on realms, maybe he had something that could help Lex with the Dream realm.
While Lex searched, somewhere inside the Midnight Inn, Liz looked at Levi Bear with a great reluctance in her eyes.
"Do you have to go?" she asked. Over the past few years, they had become really good friends, to the point where even Nemo enjoyed her company.
"I must," Levi responded with a serious expression that only made her look cuter. "I have been called upon. The Dream realm is spreading chaos and havoc across the universe, and the Path of Order must contain it. This is a duty I cannot shirk."