After returning to the detective agency, Quinn almost fell asleep on the sofa.
Ed thought something serious had happened, until he felt her quiet and steady breathing like a baby on the back of his hand and confirmed that he was fine.
The bone-deep wound on the arm was now covered with pink granulation, resembling plant callus.
He found a goose down pillow to put under her neck, then returned to his room and locked the doors and windows.
[It’s already two o’clock in the morning. You haven’t forgotten that you have an important date tonight, right? My dear good sir. 】
On the mirror, Sylvie wrote silver fire patterns.
"Of course, I have already prepared it."
He hung another inferior dream catcher on the bedside, lit a crow feather in the moonlight, and inserted it into the broken moonstone.
Just buying the broken moonstone from a jewelery shop cost him a pound and a half.
Every time he thought about the price of this stone, Ed couldn't help but feel a twinge of angina. It was almost one-fifth of his savings.
The flames burned the moonlight and ignited the moonstone, causing it to lose its non-existent skin. The air gradually became filled with a moist smell, like wet crow feathers.
Following Sylvie's instructions, Ed tied the silk handkerchief Catalina handed him on the carriage that night, and then entered the palace of thought.
The white flames in the dream instantly swallowed up and dissolved the handkerchief, eliminating the invisible form.
The network of dreams hidden in the depths of the world is vast, and dreamers call it the "Sea of Mayflies." Dreams are like bubbles floating on the sea, and the intersection of two bubbles is never easy.
"Souvenirs" that are always carried with you and often have special meanings like "handkerchiefs" often appear only in dreams. When the Keeper's program breaks it down into a bundle of codes, it can retrieve the only bubble with the same code in the sea.
However, such aimless search consumes a lot of time and computing power, and the search scope must be further narrowed.
The "ritual function" brought by the moonstone and the crow feather is equivalent to dyeing the foam blue. In this way, the secret keeper program only needs to search for the "blue" and "handkerchief" foam in the sea to find the coordinates of Catalina's dream.
Sylvie calls this method "addressing."
After decomposing the handkerchief into codes, Ed closed his eyes again and quickly entered a second dream.
During this dream meeting, in order to prevent being targeted by the Oakland family, he had to use a virtual identity——
Enter the second dream, use the Keeper program to construct a virtual mirror, and use this mirror to enter Catalina's dream.
He imagined a mirror and adjusted his own image according to the appearance of the "founding scholar" Johannitz van der Wyk on the cigarette card——
First, a big black burqa, no, it seems to be gray. Hmm... be a little tattered, the cuffs should be wider, and the hood should completely cover the face, leaving only a shadow...
alright! Just like that, he looked like a magician. Ed looked at himself in the mirror wearing a ragged robe——
To be honest, a bit like a beggar... maybe with a little more decoration, a crown? necklace? Or a scepter? Gold or silver?
After much thought, Ed added a slightly exaggerated eight-clawed crown made of black iron to the top of the burqa. The uneven and rough texture gave it a different kind of weirdness and mystery.
"I'm a little unsure. Do you think this looks like a magician?" Ed stretched out the metal claw under his robe and pinched his chin and asked.
[It’s so perfect, it looks like it came out of a fairy tale book. Add some tentacles and compound eyes, and you can scare that young lady into tears. 】
Ed ignored Sylvie's sarcasm. Although his artistic talent was not that outstanding, as long as this dress could bypass Catalina's subconscious protection mechanism, it was enough.
Judging from the fact that the other party regarded him as a big shot when he first came up, and the rhetoric like a knight's novel, he was convinced that the other party must be longing for a "miracle" subconsciously, and those seemingly innocent actions were just the external manifestations of the subconscious. .
In this case, as long as you play this "adventure" well, you can bypass the subconscious and get in touch with the other person's personality crystallization.
He picked up the card spit out from the machine - "Dream Beacon: Red Maple Manor"
"Then, let's start the show..."
…
A strand of maroon hair fell in front of her eyes, dividing the rouge-colored setting sun into two halves.
The training ground is as wide as a horse farm, with flags as green as a forest fluttering on it, and a long sword submerged in the canopy of the trees - the coat of arms of the Auckland family.
The opponent in front of him seemed to be made of silver. The armor as tall and thick as a mountain was polished like a mirror, shining like fire under the magnificent sunset in his dream, like a giant.
He was seen holding a blunt sword with his arms crossed, and the hilt of the sword was placed on his chest, parallel to the closed knight's helmet on his head. The entire blade of the sword seemed to be an extension of his arms, and the tip of the sword was pointed directly at Catalina - the "key style" posture.
Catalina chose a defensive posture, moved a small step back, lowered the weapon, and pointed the sword downward - "The Fool's Pose".
This is one of her secrets. In her dreams, she can practice swordsmanship with her guardian spirit without being affected by crystal malignancy.
Only in her dreams, Catalina could walk as fast as flying and be as powerful as a bamboo. Once she returns to reality, she will become that weak girl again.
The silver knight suddenly stepped forward and stabbed. Catalina raised her sword and attacked the opponent's extended arm. The opponent retreated and slashed with the sword. Katarina raised her sword upwards and blocked the blow with her sword.
Then she did not continue to fight with the opponent, but chose to quickly withdraw from the sword exchange, lowered her head and slashed at the opponent's knee.
Since he didn't use his full strength, the opponent's huge body became a disadvantage. The tip of the sword made a "ping" sound on the armor, and the sword body trembled slightly, but did not deflect - it hit the edge of the blade.
The knight patted his knee, seemingly satisfied, and motioned for her to continue.
Katarina danced the sword flower excitedly a few times, then switched to the "high hanging style" that was more inclined to attack. The knight switched to the "plow position" to protect his lower quadrant.
She couldn't wait to try to suppress the opponent's position with downward chops, forcing him to raise his sword to intercept her attack route, and enter the stage where she is best at wrapping the sword.
But the knight's defensive rhythm was extremely patient, driving away her tentative attacks with the smallest amplitude. It wasn't until Catalina pressed him into the corner that he finally switched to "Rhinoceros" and counterattacked forward.
Katarina parried one of his side slashes. She thought the next blow would be a vertical slash, so she raised her sword to block it. Unexpectedly, the opponent rotated his wrist, twisted the sword blade 360°, and struck her defenseless right wrist.
The sudden cold pain made Catalina grit her teeth. If it were a real sword in the real world, I'm afraid my hand would have been broken.
Compared to crystal malignancy, this pain is nothing. She took out a handkerchief and wiped the non-existent sweat on her forehead, comforting herself.
The Silver Knight put down his posture and signaled Catalina to rest before fighting again. So Catalina put down her sword and walked towards the manor.
The red leaves rinsed and fell, and the shattering sound of the fallen leaves absorbed the sound of her footsteps.
She suddenly remembered that the mysterious sage in the diary had said that he would meet her tonight. She had already ignited the moonstone and crow feathers, so why didn't the sage show up yet?
That's right, how could such a transcendent existence care about a mere mortal...
She lowered her head and kicked the fallen leaves on the ground glumly. The lifted maple leaves were stained with a wisp of white ash, floating past her eyes.
Then, an unknown wind blew, and the red leaves ignited one after another, rising and dancing like a tornado.
The smoky gray tattered robe fluttered in the wind, and the eight-clawed crown made of black iron pointed ferociously at the sky. Under the robe, there was endless darkness without a face...
