Dreams

The North, Sea Dragon Point, Flint's Finger Castle, night.

No matter the world, night was always associated with horror and the uncanny. In a daze, Eddard emerged from some narrow, dark corner of his castle, but for some reason, the corridor seemed particularly long that day, as though it had no end.

And as Eddard ventured farther in, the scenery and surroundings gradually changed. All manner of strangely shaped roots and vines appeared along either side of the passage, as though he were inside some terrifying monster's gullet.

"No... this isn't right. Wasn't I supposed to be resting in my bedroom? How did this happen?"

In his daze, Eddard seemed to notice something was wrong, so he began mustering his mind and consciousness to struggle desperately, just as he usually did when dealing with nightmares.

Everyone dreamed, and some people could control parts of their dreams through their thoughts. In his previous life on Blue Star, Eddard had experimented with this. After reading some guides online, he had begun trying to control his dreams. Later on, he could even incorporate certain scenes or people into his dreams by memorizing them beforehand.

So, after realizing he might be dreaming, Eddard tried to wake quickly as usual. Yet the familiar sensation of his mind controlling his body never entered his awareness.

Instead, Eddard felt his body sink into some kind of emptiness and mire. After a sustained sensation of weightlessness, he appeared in his "bedroom." Looking at the unfamiliar surroundings, tinged with traces of familiarity, Eddard was rather bewildered.

But after a spell of complicated thinking and adjustment, Eddard gradually calmed down. He began sorting through that trace of memory hidden deep within his soul and piecing together his memories of the scenes before he went to rest.

After a round of trickery and bluffing to hoodwink Maester Albert, Eddard had spent the entire evening organizing documents in the workshop of his small tower. Throughout that process, he had kept the Glass Candle, which gave off an eerie light, beside him.

Perhaps Maester Albert saw the Glass Candle as a symbol of chaos and terror, but to Eddard, it was merely a somewhat crudely made piece of craftsmanship.

Although Eddard was not quite sure whether his rebirth had anything to do with this piece of glass, after the visual bombardment of all kinds of horror films in his previous life, he was not particularly afraid of such occult things. On the contrary, he very much hoped to use this opportunity to come into contact with such mystical powers.

Thus, after finishing the miserable drafting work whose results were painful to look at, Eddard had taken his Glass Candle to his bedroom and gone straight to sleep holding it.

Eddard's Glass Candle had not come from the Citadel. It had been given to him by his mentor, "Marwyn the Mage." Archmaester Marwyn was the only maester in the Citadel to have attained the rank of archmaester in occult studies.

Unfortunately, occult studies were not a mainstream discipline in the Citadel. Certain powers seemed unwilling to see magic reappear in Westeros. Under their influence, compounded by covert instigation from those with an agenda, occult studies had long been mocked by many maesters and archmaesters.

Had the Citadel's founder, Prince Peremore "the Twisted," not once expressed the view that "knowledge has no boundaries," occult studies and its books probably would not even have survived in written records. As for Marwyn, he had become an archmaester entirely because he had written a book called "The Book of Lost Books."

To study magic, Archmaester Marwyn had spent eight years in the distant east. During that time, he had drawn maps, searched for lost books, and visited legendary sorcerers and Shadowbinders. After pouring all his efforts into it, he had organized and summarized magical knowledge in a systematic fashion.

It was out of consideration for Marwyn's years of arduous research that the Citadel's Conclave of the time

had granted him the title of archmaester. Since Valyrian steel was precious and unavailable even to those who could afford it, Archmaester Marwyn's mask and rod, symbols of his honor as an archmaester, were merely inlaid with a few token pieces of Valyrian steel. The Citadel's rules stipulated that if a maester's knowledge in a particular field qualified him as an "expert," the Conclave would award him a ring, rod, and mask corresponding to that field, along with the honored title of archmaester, in recognition of his expertise.

The Glass Candle Eddard now possessed was something Archmaester Marwyn had obtained during his travels through Essos in the east. It looked about as long as an adult's arm, resembling twisted pinewood. It looked somewhat like black crystal, but close inspection revealed a fluid-like black substance inside it, with threads of bloodlike red matter running through that black substance.

When Eddard first saw it, he had thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. Only after studying it for a long time had he realized that this strange crystal column truly contained things he could not understand.

After sorting out all his thoughts, Eddard steadied his somewhat disordered mind, closed his eyes, and began imagining the Glass Candle's appearance. Immediately afterward, a sensation somewhere between real and unreal appeared in his right hand.

When Eddard opened his eyes, he was so startled that he nearly threw away what he was holding, because what had appeared in his hand was a strange, creature-like mass.

It looked like an amalgamation of black crystal and flesh. The cold touch of crystal and the soft touch of living flesh registered distinctly in Eddard's senses. In principle, this feeling and texture should not have existed, yet they presented themselves unmistakably to his perception, as though some power and rule were forcing him to acknowledge the sensation.

Moreover, as Eddard's thoughts and mind gradually stabilized, sensation began returning to his present body. Although this state between dream and reality was exceedingly strange, to understand the abnormalities here and discover where he was, Eddard could only steel himself and keep exploring.

So Eddard endured his nausea and discomfort and carefully examined the strange creature in his hand. Though it looked bizarre, a closer look revealed that it seemed close to losing its life.

For the thing now resembled a shriveled fruit. It was shaped somewhat like a bamboo shoot, with thin sheets of crystal overlapping in layers around the central crystal column. Because it had shriveled, the layers of crystal wrapped around its exterior had already lost their vitality.

The feeling was extraordinarily peculiar. On the surface, it clearly was not a living thing, yet Eddard's senses told him plainly that it was dying.

Eddard examined it all over again but found no structures resembling a mouth or eyes. Yet he could vaguely sense that the thing in his hand was still alive.

Recalling the changes he had just experienced, Eddard began trying to think, imagine, and control. He tried to follow the thoughts in his mind and bring the monster in his hand back to life.

For Eddard guessed that the place, or rather the space, he currently occupied was probably sustained by his thoughts and ideas. Moreover, to some degree, this area could also be influenced by him.

After Eddard had thought for a while, the monster in his hand began to change. But his consciousness and body changed along with it. Under some strange pull, Eddard's consciousness and perception began moving toward his right hand, as though being drawn into a whirlpool.

Eddard now discovered that his body seemed to have shrunk somewhat, and his consciousness and body were beginning to blur. That initial dreamlike feeling returned to him. He felt as though he was about to "wake up," but now he no longer had that initial, impatient urge to awaken.

This dreamlike place had deeply captivated Eddard. He wanted to understand it, to know whether it had any connection to him, and, even more, to know whether it had anything to do with magic.

Mystical power was something most transmigrators wanted to master. Whether it was flying on a sword or conjuring fireballs, Eddard did not want to give up anything with even the slightest connection to the mystical, because this was the childhood dream of many boys. Moreover, it might well determine whether Eddard could truly reach the pinnacle of this world.

Among Eddard's plans were two approaches. One took magic as its premise. At the time, he had wanted to use the original owner's memories to continue the unfinished magical research and incorporate those magical powers into the development of his domain.

The other approach involved no magical assistance. This plan could not take Eddard to the pinnacle; it could only allow him to accumulate wealth quickly. His idea was to establish a powerful fleet in the North, then follow the example of Corlys Velaryon, the "Sea Snake," and send his fleet to the eastern continent in search of resources and treasure. With the wealth and resources he subsequently obtained, he would turn this domain into an immensely powerful commercial empire.

Perhaps sensing Eddard's desire not to awaken, his body suddenly erupted with a strange light. It was a light composed of black matter, almost as though it were alive.

Before long, this strange matter enveloped Eddard and the peculiar creature in his hand. As it continued to contract, Eddard's figure gradually emerged.

For a time, sensations of cold and searing heat began colliding incessantly inside Eddard's body. Faintly, he seemed to sense the roar of some terrifying creature. That dreadful consciousness, a mixture of flame and destruction, frightened him deeply. It was a terrifying pressure that reached into his soul, a feeling he had never experienced before.

As time passed, Eddard's body and consciousness gradually returned to normal under the ravages of that ice and fire. As his consciousness recovered, he also regained control of his body.

It was an exceedingly peculiar sensation. During the torment just now, Eddard had seemed to be a bystander, yet the soul-deep pain and trembling had registered solidly in his senses, making him suffer terribly.

Once Eddard had fully recovered, he discovered that his left and right hands had undergone some terrifying changes. On the left was a scaled arm resembling that of some cold-blooded animal, while the right had some kind of crystalline structure. Although both arms still vaguely resembled human arms, Eddard could clearly feel the violent energy contained within them.

But this was not the most frightening part. Eddard could now clearly feel two powerful consciousnesses lurking in his arms. These two consciousnesses had just wreaked havoc inside his body, so naturally he knew them very well. Now that they had fallen quiet, that sensation was even clearer.

Only now, they had completely lost their initial violence and seemed to have formed some subtle balance within Eddard's body. Just as he breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to try controlling his body,

faint strains of singing entered Eddard's perception. Or perhaps he should not have used the word "singing" to describe this rhythm. It was a natural, harmonious cadence, a strange rhythm like wind, like rain, like thunder. It seemed to originate in nature, yet transcend it.

With the appearance of this rhythm, Eddard's surroundings began to undergo a strange transformation. The walls, fireplace, carpet, and bed-all these sights, both familiar and unfamiliar to him-vanished like grains of sand.

Then Eddard's surroundings fell into silence and darkness. Under the influence of some unknown power, the two terrifying consciousnesses dwelling in his left and right hands erupted. In an instant, Eddard's body and consciousness once again returned to that bystander-like state.

Boom...

After a terrifying, explosion-like sound and tremor, Eddard's body returned once again to the scene where he had first appeared. Only then did he realize that the place he occupied was actually among the roots of an enormous tree, though he could not make out the tree's complete outline at all.

Immediately afterward, wisps of pale green mist rose from those roots. These mistlike substances swirled around Eddard's body. His senses told him with perfect clarity that these mistlike things seemed to contain some kind of consciousness-or rather, multiple consciousnesses.

For a little while, Eddard could even hear their murmurs. That dreamlike rhythm was intoxicating, and without realizing it, he began to feel as though some strange power within his body was awakening.

Boom...

That sensation, like the explosion of a universe, instantly blurred Eddard's perception. Then his body and senses entered an utterly mysterious state. It seemed to be some strange stream of consciousness. All manner of scenes and fragments flashed repeatedly through his perception, as though he were watching a film at a hundred times its normal speed.

"Aah..."

A howl of pain erupted from the depths of Eddard's soul. Compared with this, the double torment of ice and fire just now had been worlds apart. This was an indescribable agony, so painful that Eddard could only release it through howling.

At that instant, everything in this world seemed to freeze. Then, after a terrifying explosion, Eddard's body and senses began gradually recovering.