Under the AI's guidance, Ivette spent the entire afternoon learning how to use this retro-style "art of wellness," completing the initial stage of entry.
But after putting it into practice, she also confirmed that the Meditation Method truly could not save her.
Once she left this dream, she would immediately face a survival crisis caused by food shortages, while the effects of the Meditation Method would only become apparent years later. By then, it would be far too late—what use would it be?
Then the time reached four or five in the afternoon.
At Dr. Tabitha's reminder, she had no choice but to take off the Vision Terminal and go with the doctor to the large cafeteria at the end of one of the floor's corridors.
"...Little girl, you're still growing. You need to eat more." In the cafeteria, the middle-aged man serving Ivette her food spoke warmly.
Glancing at his mechanical right arm, which had already been completely replaced with metal, Ivette gave him a sweet smile. "Thank you, Uncle."
After getting her food and finding an empty corner table to sit at, her smile immediately faded as she began to think.
From her interactions with the cafeteria worker, Dr. Tabitha, and the staff she had met along the way, she felt that everyone here was normal and friendly.
That made her somewhat doubt her "human experimentation theory."
After all, if they were really conducting human experiments, there was no need to treat these orphans so well. Private rooms, Vision Terminals, dedicated activity rooms, and such gentle attitudes... Wouldn't it save more budget to simply lock them up and provide basic food and water?
Still, she could not rule out the possibility that Dr. Tabitha and the others had been kept in the dark. If she had a chance to leave and survived, she could look for clues within the Ruined Base...
At that thought, another idea suddenly arose in Ivette's mind—what if this dream was self-sustaining?
Would she be trapped here for the rest of her life?
But...
She would be trapped outside, and she would be trapped inside. Of two evils, choose the lesser one. Staying in this dream somehow seemed better?
Over the following days, Ivette spent most of her time in the computer classroom. Besides studying Black Tide Language, she constantly borrowed the AI programs there to gather common knowledge and information about this world, searching for ways to survive at the limits once she left the dream.
Yet the AI's answers gradually made her heart sink.
—Being in the wilderness would have been fine; at worst, she could survive in the wild. But she was trapped in a sealed metal base. In a place where even cockroaches and rats could not survive, where was she supposed to find food?
Magic Light Vine might be beautiful, but it was full of toxic alkaloids. Even if eating it did not poison her to death, its indigestible cellulose would kill her through intestinal obstruction. It could not serve as emergency rations at all.
All things considered, the only path to survival was to remain in this dream and never leave!
Once she understood that, Ivette suddenly found it a little funny.
If a protagonist in a normal novel were trapped in such a strange dream, they would surely make every effort to escape. Yet she was the only one who not only did not want to leave, but was desperately trying to stay in the dream a little longer...
Obito had been right.
What was so bad about the world of illusions?
And so, with the contradictory mindset of struggling to survive while despairingly waiting for death, Ivette spent six months in the dream.
Late one night, as she watched the walls gradually begin to fade away, Ivette understood that she was finally about to leave.
Honestly, after staying in the dream for so long, she had thought it was self-sustaining. Unless she starved to death in the real world, she would never be able to leave.
Now, it seemed that was not the case. The dream had merely lasted a little longer.
With complicated feelings, she changed back into the white dress she had worn when she arrived. After an anxious wait, when all the scenery disappeared, deep darkness appeared before Ivette.
She slowly opened her eyes and saw the Ruined Base's tenth underground level, covered in Magic Light Vine.
She had finally awakened.
But unlike before she entered, all the mist around her had vanished, as though it had never existed.
Mm, just as the AI had said, magic also obeyed the conservation of energy. The mist had dispersed, which meant its energy had run out...
As for what exactly the mist was, the AI program in the dream had also offered a reasonable hypothesis. It believed that after a large number of people died, their spiritual bodies and memory bodies had failed to dissipate in time, becoming intertwined for some reason and eventually forming a magical energy field. It had even listed materials related to cult organizations researching necromantic technology, demonstrating the feasibility of such an occurrence.
Considering that this place had indeed suffered a massive disaster and many people had died here, Ivette decided to accept that explanation for the time being.
Then she stood up, brushed her skirt, and, feeling that her physical condition was fairly good, planned to search this floor for anything that could be salvaged and reused.
Suddenly, a small discovery brought her movements to an abrupt halt.
If she remembered correctly, before entering the dream, she had worn only a white dress and nothing else. But now, she had underwear, white tights, and clean little leather shoes on her feet—everything she had worn in the dream!
Who had put them on her?
But for them to match so perfectly, could she really have brought them out of the dream herself?
Ivette's heart began pounding violently. There were two possibilities now. The first was that a mysterious person was hiding here, able to spy on her dream and secretly dress her in extra clothes while she slept—but that was obviously absurd and could almost instantly be ruled out.
Then the second possibility was that this dream was more than just a dream. Perhaps it was a special method of traveling through time. Through this dream, she had truly returned to the past and brought things back with her!
Damn it, she should have brought some tools!
Ivette was filled with regret, but after a while, she suddenly realized something. She immediately took off her tights and began examining the soles of her feet—before entering the dream, she had always walked barefoot and gotten them covered in gray-black grime. On the first day of the dream, she had been thinking about it, so before sleeping, she had deliberately washed her toes clean.
If her feet were still clean now, it would mean she had truly traveled through time in the flesh. Otherwise, it was still only a dream.
A few seconds later, under the faint blue-green glow, Ivette's delicate brows furrowed slightly—they were still dirty. She had not traveled through time physically.
Then where had the extra clothes on her body come from?
Could someone really still be hiding here? Some kind of ghost or evil spirit? Had the dream she experienced actually been nothing more than an illusion created by an evil spirit?
At that thought, Ivette felt a chill rise from the depths of her heart. Even the surroundings became frightening, as though countless eyes were secretly watching her from the darkness.
Fortunately, as someone who valued logical thinking, she recovered quickly. After only a few deep breaths, she rejected that unlikely possibility.
Of course, the main reason was that she knew this kind of situation most forbade scaring oneself.
Before any external danger appeared, she might scare herself into a mental breakdown. Then the fake would become real.
So in the end, after thoroughly searching the tenth underground level and finding no clues, Ivette could only attribute this abnormal phenomenon to that strange Dream Mist.
And afterward...
Returning to the ninth underground level where she had lived in the dream for half a year, Ivette looked at the Magic Light Vine in the hall and could not help baring her teeth in helplessness.
Fuck it, I give up!
At worst, she would starve to death and start over!