Could He Be...?

Sean was experiencing Entering Dream for the first time.

It felt completely different from ordinary dreaming or meditation, more like watching a movie.

The Dream Potion Connie had specially concocted had a powerful awakening effect. Combined with the guidance of the spell "Dream Awakening," it let Sean experience a lucid dream far more vivid than an ordinary one. It was as if he had been pulled out of the story, and he and Connie had become two "spectators," standing on a bustling, lively street.

Busy figures came and went, chatting and laughing, but no one ever noticed them.

He and Connie seemed like two invisible people. They were in this world, yet nothing that happened in it had anything to do with them.

"We can talk to each other?"

"Yes."

Sean tentatively spoke to Connie beside him and got an affirmative answer from the young woman.

"This dream was built from the memories buried deep in your heart. Let's wait for it to stabilize, then we can try adjusting the timeline and look for the memories you want."

"Mr. Sean, just be careful not to think of anything that goes beyond the rules of this dream."

Connie explained the precautions for lucid dreaming.

Though she had built this dream, it was still, at its core, Sean's mental world. The ultimate control remained in his hands. With a single thought, he could change anything in the dream, as omnipotent as a creator.

But, in turn, strong subjective thoughts could also alter the dream's contents. In more serious cases, they might even cause it to collapse, making it impossible to observe his innermost, truest memories.

"Understood." Sean smiled. "I'll leave the rest to you, Miss Connie."

"Mm-hmm." Connie smiled sweetly. "Don't worry, Mr. Sean. I'll do my best to help you recover your memories."

As they walked along the street, Sean could clearly tell that the scene before him was somewhat distorted, like an old television. Every so often it crackled, and snowy speckles appeared. The dream probably hadn't stabilized yet.

Apart from that, the street felt familiar.

Kewat Mall, the police station in Foer District, Biggs Apartment...

"Is this Holkodo?" Sean asked.

"If it looks like it to you, then it probably is," Connie replied.

She had never been to Holkodo, only heard of it and knew it existed. But everything before them was a projection of Sean's inner world. The people and buildings alike came from things Sean had experienced himself. If he said this was Holkodo, then it most likely was.

Still, something about it was strange.

Connie touched a finger to her lips and pondered. "Holkodo is a city from this era. You shouldn't have been there in your previous life..."

Although the technology of the Scholar Era was no worse than modern technology—and might even have surpassed it—there was no reason for all the buildings, or even their names, to be identical. The Scholar Era might have had a capital much like Holkodo, but it couldn't possibly have been exactly the same... Could it be a coincidence?

Sean, however, became more and more certain that it wasn't a coincidence. This was Holkodo.

Because he had seen a familiar face he hadn't seen in a long time—Conina.

Conina had just returned from outside. When she saw a truck parked at the entrance to the apartment complex, with workers carrying furniture inside, she realized that the new tenant was moving into her own building. Out of curiosity, she chatted with the workers as they rode the elevator, and found out that her next-door neighbor had a new tenant.

When the elevator reached their floor, the male tenant happened to come out of his apartment.

And then Sean saw himself.

This was a scene from a few years earlier, when he had first moved into Biggs Apartment.

Conina had looked younger and prettier back then, and more reserved, too. After all, they were meeting for the first time, and Conina still had the image of an innocent newlywed. Sean, on the other hand, seemed untouched by the passing years. He looked almost exactly the same now as he had a few years ago.

This wasn't his previous life. It was this life.

"Have you ever come across anything like this before?" Sean asked Connie.

Connie furrowed her brow and pressed her lips together, shaking her head. "No."

There were no real-world cases, and in theory it shouldn't be possible, either.

She had clearly built the dream from the memory fragments buried deepest in Sean's mind. How could it possibly be from this life?

Unless Sean wasn't a Reshaper, but simply an ordinary Awakened One.

The knowledge an ordinary person gained through awakening didn't count as their own memories, so it couldn't be captured.

But if Sean really was an Awakened One, how had he reached Tier Two only half a month after becoming a wizard, and earned the approval of Lord Black's statue?

To increase the chances of successfully entering the dream, Connie had specifically asked Iris about Sean's recent progress. Her thinking matched Elvily's: she believed Sean's previous life must have been that of an exceptionally powerful Archmage, and that this was why he had such astonishing talent and potential after reincarnating as a Reshaper.

But the dream's contents had now disproved her theory.

Connie found it hard to imagine how an ordinary mortal could make such rapid progress after awakening by chance.

Could Sean be a genius?

"Could the timeline be wrong?"

Sean didn't understand the master and student's theories about dreams very well, so he could only guess at what might have gone wrong.

Connie wasn't sure either.

But they could try.

The dream had stabilized, and Connie began trying to turn the timeline back.

She closed her eyes and clasped her hands in front of her chest. Countless tiny threads of light curled around her fingertips, as if she were unraveling the entire world.

The scene before Sean's eyes suddenly blurred, and the light dimmed. It felt as though he had suddenly boarded a speeding train, with the scenery rushing past outside. In the streaking light and shadow, he saw stations, fields, an endless sea, and a vast, boundless grassland gone yellow with age...

These were all places he had visited in this life. He should have remembered them at a glance, but for some reason, the world that had felt so familiar only seconds ago suddenly seemed terribly strange. It was as though all his past experiences were false, as though they had never truly happened. A bewildered look crept into Sean's eyes, and his head began to ache.

Then the "train" reached its destination.

Sean's vision cleared again.

He and Connie had gone from the city center to a hospital.

Sean instinctively looked up and saw a sign hanging on the wall.

[Obstetrics and Gynecology]

"Quick, quick, the baby's coming! Get the nutrient solution ready..."

Several masked nurses pushed a pregnant woman rapidly into the delivery room.

"Do you remember this hospital?" Connie asked.

Sean looked at the family members waiting anxiously outside the door and shook his head. "I don't recognize it at all."

"Maybe you never came back after you grew up," Connie said.

Just like her, she couldn't remember what the hospital where she was born had looked like.

"Are you saying this is a scene from when I was born?" Sean asked.

"Mm." Connie nodded, then added, "More precisely, it's a scene simulated from the memories in your mind."

Before a person was born, they couldn't see where they were. The only way Sean could know anything about this hospital was through what his parents had told him. But more than twenty years had passed, and he had forgotten about it. He hadn't been back to the hospital in all that time, either, so he didn't recognize it.

"No, when I say I don't recognize it, I don't just mean the hospital. I mean the people, too," Sean said.

In theory, the people waiting outside the delivery room should all be the pregnant woman's family—in other words, his father, his paternal grandparents, and his maternal grandparents. But Sean felt like they were strangers. Even though he and Connie stood behind the family and couldn't see their faces, Sean was still certain of one thing—

"They're not my family."

Something felt wrong. He didn't feel that blood-bound closeness.

And that wasn't the point.

The point was that he and Connie were still in this life.

Connie, however, had a different opinion. She told Sean with absolute certainty, "I just turned the timeline back five hundred years."

"Five hundred years?" Sean blinked. "Then why are we in a hospital?"

"Because your memories end here, Mr. Sean," Connie replied.

Five hundred years was just a number she had used to adjust the timeline. Its importance wasn't in the specific year, but in how far the dream's builder, Connie, had managed to wind time back. It had finally stopped at this hospital, which meant Sean had no earlier memories. This was where his life began.

The facts were right in front of her. Even though Connie found it unbelievable, she had no choice but to accept that Sean really was just an ordinary Awakened One. He had no so-called previous life. His rapid rise in rank and the statue's approval were all thanks to his own talent and potential.

He really was a genius.

It was undeniably high praise.

Though he came from an ordinary background, he cultivated faster than even a Reshaper. The news would make plenty of wizards' eyes pop.

But Sean still felt that something was wrong.

If he really had no previous life and wasn't Karl Black, then why could he control the statue?

And why hadn't the Temple of Truth placed any restrictions on him?

It didn't make sense.

Sean looked around the hospital and asked the young woman, "Are you sure this is a memory you pulled from my mind?"

Connie was certain. "There are no other factors mixed in."

To ensure the dream remained pure and its authenticity wasn't affected, she had even sealed away the memories buried deep within her own mind.

Sean actually believed Connie. She had no reason to lie to him. Still, something about the hospital felt strange.

"Because you think they're not your family?" Connie tilted her head and offered the most hurtful guess with the cutest expression. "Could it be that you weren't actually born to your parents, Mr. Sean?"

Sean: "?"

Connie continued, "For some reason, your real family had no choice but to give you to someone else to raise. Your adoptive parents didn't want you to be upset, so they hid the truth and made up a kind lie, telling you that you were born in this hospital. That's why this hospital appears in your memories."

Then everything made sense.

Sean: "..."

He had to admit that the young woman was quite clever. She had found a reasonable explanation in such a short time. She was quick-witted.

But he rejected that explanation.

"But there aren't any other possibilities," Connie said. She wasn't trying to hurt Sean; she was making a serious analysis. "Otherwise, tell me: what do you imagine your family to be like?"

As soon as she finished speaking, the lights in the corridor went out.

The entire hospital plunged into darkness. Only the sign marking the emergency exit at the corner remained lit, casting a dim green glow.

Connie jumped in fright and asked Sean nervously, "Did you turn off the lights?"

"It wasn't me." Sean was startled by the sudden change, too. The lights had gone out so abruptly that it had given him a fright.

Connie patted her chest, calming her racing heart. "Maybe the power went out."

Sean hadn't controlled the dream, and neither had she. That meant this was something that had "really happened" when he was born, according to his parents.

"No. Something's wrong."

The unease in Sean's heart grew. He asked, "Did you hear anyone scream?"

Connie listened carefully. "I don't think so?"

"That's exactly why it's wrong." Sean frowned. "In a hospital this big, with so many patients, how could no one panic or call for help when the power suddenly went out?"

Connie froze. Only after hearing Sean say it did she realize that it wasn't just the power that had gone out. The sound had vanished, too.

The hospital was eerily quiet. By the faint light of the sign, they could see that the family members outside the delivery room were still waiting anxiously, as if nothing had happened. They were still encouraging and comforting one another, but Connie couldn't hear a single sound.

For no reason, Connie felt a chill creep over her.

A strange, absurd feeling suddenly came over her.

She and Sean couldn't hear the people in the dream speak. But could the people in the dream hear her and Sean?

In that moment, it was as if the roles of the observers entering the dream and the people being observed had been reversed. It was as though it wasn't the hospital that had lost its power, but her and Sean.

Beneath Connie's sleeves, goose bumps rose one by one along her arms.

It seemed the dream had sensed her thoughts. The next second—

The family members outside the delivery room suddenly stopped talking and slowly turned around.

In the sign's dim green light, five flat, blank faces stared back at them—without eyes, noses, or mouths, like sheets of paper.

Connie: "!!!"

She screamed in terror. "Mr. Sean!"

Sean hadn't been all that frightened at first, but her shout made him break out in a cold sweat, too.

Feeling the young woman clutch his arm tightly, he forced himself to stay calm. "Don't panic. Maybe you picked up the wrong Dream Potion."

She must have taken a Nightmare Potion instead of a Natural Dream Potion.

Connie wanted to tell Sean that she might be young, but she was already a seasoned dreamweaver. She wouldn't make such a basic mistake. But if she hadn't picked up the wrong potion, then why had something so terrifying happened?

Please don't tell her Sean's adoptive parents really looked like that!

Connie didn't yet know that something even stranger was about to happen.

While she and Sean were considering every possible explanation, the delivery room door opened.

A nurse came out holding a baby. Her face was full of relief as she said to the family, "Congratulations, congratulations. It's a healthy boy."

The faceless family members turned toward her.

The lights in the corridor came back on, and the sounds of a busy hospital returned to their ears.

The dream world, which had seemed close to spiraling out of control, appeared normal again.

Just as Connie was about to breathe a sigh of relief, she followed the family's gaze from the corner of her eye. Her eyes widened, and her heart seemed to skip a beat.

The nurse had indeed brought out a baby boy, and he was healthy.

But the face on the baby was Sean's face as he looked now!

As if sensing Connie's gaze, the baby opened his eyes, curled his lips, and smiled at her.

Connie: "!!!"

Help!