Nightmare Authority

For some reason, Xu Jiu felt a little uneasy, a little numb, under the gaze of the tiny human before him.

The size of this dream crystal-wall bubble clearly marked him as the weakest Junior Wizard Apprentice.

He couldn't even break through a toad's hide! What was there to fear?

"So what if he's Zero-Ring! Aren't you the same?"

Xu Jiu snorted coldly, and the terrifying shadows shrouding his body rapidly spread.

The black wheel of condensed tentacles shot out in an instant, like countless tongues sealing off Yin Ming.

"Zero-Ring! Then I can rest easy!"

Yin Ming let out a breath, channeling spiritual power and magic power into the metal sphere. The intricate true-name runes engraved across its surface lit up.

A Lava Troll more than ten meters tall, wreathed in terrifying flames, seemed to crawl out from an Abyss volcano. Its scarlet eyes were cold and aloof as it looked down upon Xu Jiu from on high.

Dozens of dark, sinister shadow tentacles were twisted apart and dispersed by the blazing flames surrounding the Lava Troll before they could even touch it.

Black smoke billowed above its head, carrying a pungent sulfurous stench. The scorching heat warped the air, and crimson magma flowed from it like water. It was like a living humanoid volcano that could erupt at any moment.

"A warlock? How is that possible?"

"This is clearly a spiritual world. We don't even have bodies... You're cheating..."

A demon warlock?

He could still use a warlock's methods without a body?

That made no sense.

Bodies were the Void Spirits' privilege within dreams.

Xu Jiu's bulging toad eyes widened as he stared up at the savage black-and-red giant form of the lava demon.

His first reaction was not fear, but shame and fury as he began cursing.

"Pfft..."

Before he could finish speaking!

The Lava Troll's mountain-like fist came crashing down.

The disgusting bumps on Xu Jiu's back secreted transparent gelatinous slime, rapidly condensing into a shield.

The terrifying heat clinging to the Lava Troll's fist instantly melted the transparent gelatinous shield. Xu Jiu's bloated toad body was slapped away like a punctured ball, leaving a horrific burn across his entire body.

"First Ring: Twisted Treant. First Ring: Winged Serpent."

Even a lion used its full strength to hunt a rabbit. Infinite spiritual power and magic power could not be wasted.

With a light tap of Yin Ming's finger, the outer cores of two metal spheres rotated. Two invisible energy links were successfully constructed, and the rune patterns on the outer cores lit up one after another. Three translucent phantoms emerged behind him.

The savage Lava Troll!

The Twisted Treant with the face of a vile ghost!

A giant azure-scaled python with a pair of dark gray wings!

As the three giant phantoms manifested, Yin Ming, the shared true-blood source of the Magic Beasts, overlapped with the Lava Troll's feet, the Twisted Treant's roots, and the Winged Serpent's tail.

The dharma form behind Yin Ming resembled a terrifying three-headed monster stitched together by some deranged scientist. Its intimidation had increased by far more than several times.

"Gulp... Respected Wizard, I am willing to offer up knowledge in exchange for my life."

Three pairs of lantern-sized eyes glimmered faintly as they stared at him. And you called this a Zero-Ring Wizard Apprentice area?

Xu Jiu's arrogance vanished without a trace. He lay trembling on the ground.

Before absolute power, he could not even muster the slightest thought of resistance.

His two toad eyes rolled ceaselessly as he stared at the weakest point of the dream bubble. The salivary glands in his mouth kept secreting, accumulating slime meant to corrode the crystal wall.

Damn it! Commanding three First-Ring extraordinary Magic Beasts at once—shouldn't a wizard like this be in the One-Ring Wizard area? Staying in the Zero-Ring Wizard Apprentice area, wasn't this purely setting a trap for spirits?

In his heart, Xu Jiu cursed the other Void Spirits from head to toe.

What invincible Nightmare Spirit within its region?

Wizards were merely insects that wandered about at will!

That only applied to those weak, ordinary wizards.

There would always be one or two exceptions. If a Junior Wizard Apprentice dream bubble could possess the strength of a One-Ring Wizard, then wouldn't powerful Senior Wizard Apprentices be even more monstrous?

"No need! I prefer it when you call me—little wizard."

Yin Ming knew nothing about the dream world, nor did he understand the giant toad's abilities.

The unknown meant danger. If he could kill it, he would kill it.

His movements did not pause in the slightest as he controlled the three dharma forms and unleashed their full power.

The massive consumption of spiritual power and magic power would have been enough to exhaust even a One-Ring Wizard in the real world before long.

[First-Ring Talent: Thorn Vines.]

The Twisted Treant grew countless thorn vines.

The Winged Serpent spat venom that turned into a poisonous mist, while magma overflowed from the Lava Troll and formed a domain of blazing fire.

In the real world, even maintaining a weakened dharma form would only last a brief ten seconds. As for skillfully controlling a dharma form, who knew whether he would have to wait until the year of the monkey and month of the horse?

A dream where neither spiritual power nor magic power was consumed—what a rare chance for experimentation! How could he possibly let it slip away?

[...]

[Wizard No. 864960259 has slain the Zero-Ring Void Spirit: Frog Spirit, and obtained Nightmare World: Zero-Ring Authority.]

A cold voice suddenly rang out in Yin Ming's mind.

He hurriedly controlled the dharma forms to stop attacking. The rolling black smoke within the dream bubble gradually dispersed.

Not even a scrap of flesh or bone remained of the toad. Only a gray, murky memory crystal was left behind.

"Who was that? What was that voice?"

Yin Ming looked around, but found no trace of anyone.

The mysterious voice did not sound again, yet the inscription rune between his brows had unknowingly undergone a subtle change.

With a slight sense of it, he learned that the inscription rune had gained a new function.

"The good news is that I have a body in the dream world. The bad news is that this body is an ugly toad."

Yin Ming did not transform into a Void Spirit. A toad body at the Zero-Ring limit was of little use to him. But Nightmare Authority was a good thing—it allowed him to sense the existence of surrounding dream bubbles.

Picking up the gray memory crystal and bringing it close to the rune pattern between his brows, he immediately saw two choices:

[Read extraordinary memories!]

[Read all memories!]

Yin Ming chose to read all memories.

All of Xu Jiu's memories instantly unfolded before his eyes. They contained not only Xu Jiu's inherited memories, but also those of several Wizard Apprentices he had devoured.

[...]

The Nightmare World was divided into seven regions, from Zero-Ring to Six-Ring, with clear boundaries between them.

Void Spirits were formed from the spiritual power that leaked out from countless shattered wizard dream bubbles and fused together.

Spiritual power of countless different kinds converged and mingled, forming a vast, murky torrent of spiritual power that continuously gathered toward the Void Abyss, forming a white egg. What ultimately hatched from it was—a Void Spirit.

Wizards had bodies in the real world. Upon entering dreams, they became illusory spiritual bodies.

Void Spirits were exactly the opposite. In dreams, they possessed bodies at the limit of the region's rank. Once they left the dream world, they could no longer exist.

The tragic part was that Void Spirits also knew the Nightmare World was illusory, and knew they themselves were phantoms that did not exist. Perhaps driven by envy toward living beings, Void Spirits fed upon wizard dream bubbles.

[...]

"The inscription rune's true name is the Nightmare Rune. It is actually a permanent rune."

This was Yin Ming's first time learning that wizardry also possessed permanent runes. Yet what they consumed was no longer spiritual power, but the spirit—namely, one's maximum spiritual power.

Inscribing the Nightmare Rune consumed seven points of spiritual power, but that included the losses from the inscription process. The Nightmare Rune itself required only four points of spiritual power, so Yin Ming's maximum spiritual power had fallen from twenty-five to twenty-one points.

In one morning, he had returned to the days before liberation. Breaking through to the third layer of Mirror Reef was now a distant prospect.

[...]

After a long while, Yin Ming awakened from the chaotic memories.

He had not obtained much extraordinary knowledge. Xu Jiu had only been born recently and had devoured just a few Junior Wizard Apprentices.

Most Wizard Apprentices, aside from cultivating meditation methods, only knew three of the most basic Zero-Ring wizardries.

After removing the repeated extraordinary knowledge, he was left with only: [Zero-Ring Wizardry: Shadow Touch.] [Zero-Ring Wizardry: Touch of Corrosion.] [Zero-Ring: Spiritwood Cultivation.] [First-Ring: Giant Spirit Meditation Method.]