Chapter 46: Wait, What Happened to the Dark Magic?!

The difficulty of learning nightmare magic was even higher than Levert had imagined.

It was not until he had persisted for more than two hours and fallen asleep four or five times that he finally understood the helplessness felt by generations of members of the Somrnour family.

The practice of this magic was simply too rigorous.

The very first step alone was enough to make most people back down.

Because to practice nightmare magic, the primary prerequisite was to remain conscious within your dreams...

What did it mean to be conscious in a dream?

It meant that while you were dreaming, you realized you were dreaming, and then, while remaining lucid within the dream, you tried to control and master your own dreamscape!

Anyone who had ever dreamed knew that when people were asleep, it was extremely difficult to perceive that they were dreaming.

Those who could realize they were dreaming while fast asleep were already fewer than one in a hundred.

Let alone maintaining lucidity after waking up within the dream, and then going on to manipulate the dream itself.

Even if one realized they were dreaming, the very act of maintaining consciousness in the dream often caused the dream to shatter and wake them up...

Therefore, the rigid requirement that practicing nightmare magic demanded powerful soul strength was truly not just empty talk.

"Toby, what time is it now?" Levert asked, rubbing his eyes.

He had already fallen asleep several times, and each time he would just barely realize he was dreaming only to immediately wake up, failing at the very last hurdle...

"Master Ved, it is currently four-twenty-one in the afternoon," Toby's voice came from the second floor.

He was in the second-floor kitchen, brewing afternoon tea and preparing pastries for Levert.

"Almost half-past four, then... I can still squeeze in one more nap!"

With that, Levert picked up the old wand beside him and pointed it at his own head once more.

"Slumber Deep!"

White mist drifted from the wand, and Levert rolled his eyes and fell right back asleep...

Fortunately, aided by the incantation, this kind of sleep guaranteed the presence of dreams.

Otherwise, merely falling asleep without dreaming would make this magic even harder to practice.

Levert began dreaming the moment he dozed off.

Within the dream, Levert was leisurely seated in a beautiful garden, sipping afternoon tea and reading a book, feeling exceptionally pleasant.

Thanks to his previous understanding of magic principles while researching Occlumency, as well as his multiple practice sessions with this spell, Levert once again quickly perceived his true state.

Levert sighed, somewhat reluctantly putting down his teacup and book.

Compared to his previous few dreams, this one could actually be considered a sweet dream...

The moment Levert realized he was dreaming, the fragrant tea lost its taste, and the pages of the interesting book turned completely blank.

Just like the endings of his previous few dreams, as his lucidity grew, the entire dreamscape began to collapse...

The once-beautiful garden seemed draped in a black-and-white filter, draining away all color.

Suddenly, the collapse of the surrounding environment halted.

Meanwhile, just outside the garden wall, countless wisps of white mist suddenly appeared, slowly creeping over the wall and spreading into the garden...

Upon seeing the mist, Levert hurriedly began to retreat.

He had witnessed this exact scene in his previous dreams as well.

The moment he came into contact with this mist, he would instantly wake up.

In Levert's understanding, this mist was likely a materialized warning provided to him by his magical power.

Otherwise, deeply trapped within a dream, Levert would have no way of knowing precisely when he was about to wake up.

By this time, Levert had retreated from the table in the middle of the garden all the way to the wall.

The creeping white mist was now less than a meter away from him.

Levert couldn't help but sigh; the threshold for this magic was simply too difficult.

From gaining lucidity, to the collapse of the dream, and finally to the white mist encroaching upon him, there was a window of merely a dozen seconds or so.

In such an emergency, Levert felt he had no time to do anything at all!

As the white mist closed in further, Levert felt his back press against a cold wall.

This was the garden wall; at this point, he had nowhere left to retreat.

"This wall is certainly sturdy... If only I could use my wand in a dream, then I could just blast the wall right open..."

Before Levert could finish his muttered words, he froze in place.

For he discovered that a wand had somehow appeared in his hand!

"Why do I have a wand? Am I not dreaming? How did the wand get brought into the dream?"

Seeing that the mist was about to touch his toes, Levert had no time for deep thought. He turned his head and pointed his wand directly at the wall.

"Reducto!"

"Boom!"

The sturdy wall collapsed with a deafening crash, as if struck by a cannonball!

Levert eagerly prepared to charge out, but the moment his body lunged forward, he stopped dead in his tracks.

Because he discovered that outside the wall, there was absolutely nothing at all! The surroundings were nothing but a vast expanse of white nothingness!

And the entire garden was suspended right in the middle of this boundless void!

Had he been even a single second slower to notice, he would have plummeted straight into the void!

Levert felt deeply frustrated. He had almost managed to escape the white mist, only to find there was no road ahead.

"Tch, if only there were a path..."

The moment the words left his mouth, a small white path materialized, winding and stretching infinitely into the distance!

Seeing this, Levert widened his eyes in astonishment.

"Is this... manipulating the dream? Of course! Once I stay lucid, I'm supposed to manipulate the dream! What on earth was I just doing?! Why didn't I do anything, just standing there in a daze?"

Levert understood instantly. He had thought he was lucid in the dream just now, but in reality, he wasn't.

He had only been half-asleep and half-awake!

For although he realized he was dreaming, it had never crossed his mind that he was supposed to try manipulating the dream!

It wasn't until just now, when he unintentionally voiced a desire in his heart and was granted a wand, that a sense of awareness was triggered within him.

Finally, when his wish for a path was once again fulfilled, he could truly be considered fully awake!

He finally remembered what he had actually come to the dream to do!

The moment Levert remembered everything, those patches of white mist instantly froze in place, and then slowly dissipated into the air, as if having completed some mission...

Levert took a deep breath.

"Change!"

As the word fell, the entire dream world underwent earth-shaking changes!

After a brief moment, Levert found himself standing on a street in London.

The street was bustling with heavy traffic and surging crowds.

However, the farther away things were from Levert, the more illusory the street scenery became, until it dissolved into an endless void...

Levert wasn't truly in London; the London scenery before him was conjured by his manipulation of the dreamscape.

For now, he could only simulate a corner of a street scene, and anything more was beyond him...

Beyond this patch of street scenery, the outside remained an endless void.

Even so, this proved one crucial point: Levert had successfully altered his dream!

Just as Levert prepared to alter the dream once more and change the scene to something else, he suddenly felt a wave of sharp pain pierce through his head.

Immediately afterward, the world spun upside down...

Levert snapped his eyes open, staring blankly at his surroundings in a daze.

As it turned out, he had already woken up from the dream.

At this moment, having just regained consciousness, Levert felt a tidal wave of sleepiness crash over him, leaving him entirely devoid of energy...

Levert forced himself to reach into his robe and pull out another vial of invigorating potion, gulping it down in one go!

After resting for a good long while longer, Levert finally recovered.

Manipulating the dream and conjuring the London street scene had consumed a massive amount of his soul power and mental energy, leaving him utterly exhausted.

However, as he gradually recovered, Levert was pleasantly surprised to find that his soul strength had actually grown noticeably stronger!

In other words... this nightmare magic, while temporarily impossible to sustain for long, could actually temper his soul strength and enhance his mental power?

A piece of black magic that didn't inflict negative status effects on the caster, but instead gave buffs? Was this reasonable?

"Wait... What happened to this being black magic?!"