I Refuse to Believe We Can't Catch Him!

"Entering Dream."

This was a method of dreaming that Sean had once discussed with Charles. In plain, underworld slang, it was also called "Soul Searching."

Unlike making the target dream on their own, Entering Dream required the caster to enter the target's dream and search for fragments of memory buried deep in their heart, then use them to weave a new, complete dream.

Although it was called "Soul Searching," Entering Dream wasn't actually as severe as Soul Searching. After all, it wasn't an evil art, but a legitimate branch of Dreamology, one of the twelve most powerful magical disciplines of the post-Scholar Era. As long as the caster had good intentions, it wouldn't cause the target any negative effects beyond normal symptoms like mental fatigue.

There was just one thing about it that was rather frightening.

People who wanted to construct a dream this way were often looking for old memories sealed away by time. Usually, these were unpleasant experiences they hadn't wanted to think about before and had chosen to selectively forget. These were deeply personal things, the kind that could be called "secrets." Since a dream witch had to delve into the target's dream to construct one, she would inevitably learn these "secrets." In other words, choosing to let a dream witch enter your dream was tantamount to giving her permission to pry into your psychological privacy.

And the "secret" you wanted to find was only one of the things she might uncover. There were plenty of other side effects.

The memory fragments a dream witch searched for were snippets, like short videos. There was no way they would contain only what you wanted. It was like losing some important files on your phone and taking it to a shop for recovery. The person helping you wouldn't just find your files; they might also recover your browsing history and all kinds of videos.

It would expose your habits, personality, personal interests, even whether you preferred black or white stockings, or liked bunny girls or bikinis.

So during the Scholar Era, those who entered dreams would prepare a bottle of "Forgetfulness Potion" in advance and drink it on the spot after completing their employer's task, to show that they would forget everything.

Like alchemists, they were a polite and elegant bunch.

But for that very reason, Entering Dream was usually extremely expensive.

Elegance aside, you couldn't expect them to pay for the Forgetfulness Potion themselves.

That wouldn't be very elegant.

Even today, some alchemists still made Forgetfulness Potion. For example, Charles's teacher, the "Witch," had almost mastered every potion recipe kept in the library on the Temple's second floor. Forgetfulness Potion was one of them.

However, even though the procedures required for the profession of dream construction were quite well established, employers still ran the risk of having their secrets leaked.

That was because Forgetfulness Potion wasn't always genuine, and even a genuine potion wasn't necessarily effective. It depended on the dream witch's professional ethics and the alchemist's skill at potion-making.

The most famous case of this was Edison Chen. The relevant magical footage was still preserved in memory crystals to this day, displayed in the museum on the Temple's first floor.

This was the only thing Sean needed to worry about.

Could he really trust this master and disciple?

Actually, when Sopea had just explained dreamology to them and Elvily had worried that he might not recover his memories, Sean hadn't taken it to heart. He knew Sopea must have a way. The old man was deliberately emphasizing how difficult it was to show off his own expertise, so Sean's focus was completely different from Elvily's.

Elvily was thinking about how he had lost so many dreams.

Sean, meanwhile, was thinking that according to Sopea, all the dreams he could currently remember amounted to less than one percent of his total memories. That was already enough to fill a long novel. Wouldn't his complete life story be even more exciting than the History of Imperial Development?

Sean was a little excited.

If Kate had been here, she definitely would have said, "Good. You've successfully piqued my interest, man."

So Sean looked at Elvily.

He wasn't close with Sopea or Connie. Although the master and disciple didn't seem like bad people, he'd been fooled several times already and wasn't about to trust strangers so easily again.

Unless Elvily told him they could be trusted.

He trusted his sister-in-law.

Elvily gave Sean a look that said they could be trusted.

But the most important thing was what Sean himself thought.

As Sopea had said, Entering Dream meant letting outsiders peer into your past. Even with Forgetfulness Potion, it couldn't change the fact that someone else would learn your secrets. Even if they only knew them for one second, they still knew them. Many people just couldn't get past that psychologically. So Sean had to be willing and prepared.

"How about tomorrow night or the night after?" Sean didn't think there was much he needed to prepare.

The ones who needed to prepare were the esteemed Mr. Sopea and his beloved disciple, Miss Connie.

He simply didn't want to reveal his identity. It wasn't that his identity was shameful.

Sean really wanted to see the look on the face of the arrogant Mr. Sopea, who kept bringing up the Temple's third floor, when he discovered that Sean was Lord Black—the man whose efforts and piety had moved him enough to grant him permission to go upstairs.

Was that a little mean-spirited?

A little wicked.

But Sean liked it.

It wasn't as though he was a good person anyway.

Sopea had no idea what Sean was thinking. When Sean asked whether, since this was Entering Dream and was harder than ordinary dream construction, Sopea needed to handle it personally, he maintained his usual air of utter calm and haughty detachment as he replied, "Connie is more than capable."

Why should he personally handle such a trivial matter?

To put it bluntly, if Sean hadn't been one of the Flame Crows, he wouldn't have bothered with him at all.

So what if he was Tier Two and could enter the Temple's second floor?

There had never been a shortage of geniuses in this world, let alone fallen geniuses.

Until they had truly grown and stepped onto the third floor, even the most gifted were nothing special in his eyes. Hmph.

The matter was settled. Connie would help Sean construct a dream and recover his memories at the church tomorrow night.

"Mr. Sean, please rest assured. I'm very good at keeping secrets," Connie said jokingly with a blink. Her two dimples made her quite likable.

Sean smiled too. "I trust you, Miss Connie."

Once his business was settled, Iris brought the conversation back to the theft. She looked at Sopea and asked one final question: "Mr. Sopea, what do you plan to do next?"

The missing book did no one any good. If Sopea needed anything, the Dawn Council would do its best to cooperate and help recover the book as soon as possible.

"It's simple." Sopea said just one word: "Wait."

He had already thought of a plan.

The thief had taken the book because they were interested in the knowledge inside. Whether they wanted to keep it for themselves was another matter, but as long as they were interested, they would come back. The library's third-floor collection contained far more books than the ones that had been taken. They couldn't take everything in one visit, or even a hundred.

"So far, I've only told you and a few friends that I can enter the Temple's third floor. That person probably doesn't know yet." Sopea's eyes gleamed. "Starting today, I'll wait for them on the library's third floor. I'm not going anywhere. I refuse to believe we can't catch them!"