Broken Dream

Biodata

Power Progression

Background

Broken Dream existed at least twenty thousand years before Jiang Xia’s awakening. Shi Nian used it during an assassination attempt against Tang San, but was countered by the Purple Demon Eyes. Knowing this history, Jiang Xia initially rejected an illusion-centered combat path and instead sought to construct a genuine realm within his dreamscape 1.

The era’s virtual worlds gave Jiang Xia a practical route toward that goal. Han Tianyi, an illusion specialist involved in Spirit Ascension Platform research, accepted him as a disciple and investigated Broken Dream’s connection mechanisms. Although Han Tianyi demonstrated that illusions were more formidable than Jiang Xia had assumed, Jiang Xia retained his emphasis on simulation, virtual-space construction, and eventual interference with reality 1 2 4.

Nature and Manifestation

• Formless dreamscape: Broken Dream initially has neither a fixed shape nor a physical structure; it changes with mental activity 1 29.
• Connection-based “incompleteness”: Its “broken” nature is not damage. Jiang Xia understands it as a dreamscape whose completeness is measured against the whole formed by connecting with another consciousness 1.
• Spiritual tendrils: Connections appear as tendrils reaching into a person’s spiritual world or a metal’s spiritual domain 3 8.
• Acquired structure: Absorbing an illusory space gives the dreamscape a framework, making it more substantial and easier to integrate with other virtual spaces 29.
• Different interaction with reality and simulation: Before mastering illusion-to-reality conversion, Broken Dream merely overlays real space. Within the Spirit Ascension Platform, it can genuinely merge with the virtual environment 29.

Abilities & Skills

Spiritual Connections and Burden Sharing

Broken Dream links Jiang Xia’s consciousness to other mental wills, providing both a channel of communication and a means of distributing spiritual strain 3 7.

• Soul Spirit fusion support: An assisting person can share the mental burden, allowing Jiang Xia to attempt fusion beyond what his own spiritual-power realm would normally permit 7 12.
• Soul Spirit bridging: Connects the Ice Fire Silkworm and Mutated Evil Eye during their experimental fusion 16 17.
• Metal spirituality: Can reach and influence the spirituality of spirit-bearing metals. In the heavy-silver test, Zhen Hua deliberately facilitates the tendrils’ entry into the metal’s spiritual domain 8.
• Restricted access: A connection does not automatically expose every thought. Gu Yue initially permits access only to the shallowest layer of her mental will 23.

Illusions and Mental Interference

Its instinctive access to mental wills makes Broken Dream well suited to inserting dream experiences into another person’s consciousness 3 23.

• Reproduces convincing Soul Ring appearances and pressure through Illusory Dream Imitation; these remain a facade rather than genuine higher-level rings 12.
• Conceals Jiang Xia’s actual Soul Rings within the dreamscape 24.
• Uses remembered examples of Han Tianyi’s illusions to render Zhang Yangzi unconscious 23.
• Subtly directs Wu Zhangkong’s attention toward Jiang Xia’s concealed rings rather than attempting a full illusion against him 25.
• Does not make Jiang Xia a trained illusion specialist: he acknowledges that he has not systematically studied Han Tianyi’s illusion arts 23 25.

Spirit Detection Integration

Broken Dream extends, records, and distributes the information gathered by Spirit Detection 13 40.

• Spirit Detection itself does not supply Huo Yuhao’s computer-like analysis. Broken Dream compensates by preserving and sharing the detected scene 40.
• Alternating expansion can push perception beyond its usual ceiling, but does not eliminate Soul Power expenditure 13.

External-Brain Support

Broken Dream can perform familiar mental operations on behalf of a linked user. Gu Yue supplies the intended elemental parameters while the dreamscape handles transformations Jiang Xia already understands 23 28.

• Elemental efficiency: Saves Gu Yue more than half the thought required for basic elemental control, effectively doubling her capabilities in the early demonstrations 23.
• Complex attacks: Helps manage the elemental operations behind her Four-Element Vortex 26.
• Knowledge-dependent assistance: Cannot automate transformations Jiang Xia has not mastered; Gu Yue must handle those herself 28.
• No automatic affinity increase: The benefit comes from reduced mental workload and improved execution, not a change to Gu Yue’s elemental affinity 23.

Virtual-World Integration and Dream Stacking

Broken Dream can infiltrate virtual worlds and use their underlying transformations as models for simulation. These are easier for Jiang Xia to examine than equivalent changes in reality 13 27.

• Mediated fusion: Directly merging two illusory spaces can reduce his control. Keeping each connected through Broken Dream preserves control and improves his perception of their contents 29.
• Space absorption: The documented extraction method requires a Soul Spirit to act as the vessel for a new illusory space 30.
• Layered authority: Stacking strengthens command over elements through control of the overlapping space, rather than through elemental affinity 30.
• Four-layer spatial effects: Can briefly freeze a vast area of the platform and provides a sense of direct teleportation authority within a smaller domain. The freezing attempt exhausts Jiang Xia’s spiritual power and Soul Power 44.
• Simulated conditions: Creates a nighttime environment in the Spirit Ascension Platform that enables Xu Xiaoyan to use her Starwheel Ice Staff outside its usual nighttime restriction 46.

Simulation and Illusion-to-Reality Conversion

Broken Dream reproduces understood power structures, materials, and mechanisms. Manifesting them physically requires a separate, technically demanding conversion model 33 37 49.

• Elemental models: Accurately simulates primordial Qi changes and elemental techniques before Jiang Xia can use those techniques in reality 13 33.
• Blood essence training: Allows rehearsal of blood essence circulation and simulation of Blood Essence Power, using Mu Ye as a reference 33 45.
• Bloodline research: Reproduces mechanisms associated with the Bone Dragon King and Dark Demon Eagle. The Golden Dragon King remains beyond reach until the later breakthrough 46 50.
• Physical manifestation: With Han Tianyi’s assistance, converts a simulated Four-Element Vortex into a real attack and stimulates Jiang Xia’s own blood essence into genuine Blood Essence Power 48 49.
• Technical limits: Conversion depends on complex core arrays and knowledge spanning mecha design and manufacturing; it is not an automatic property of every dream 37.

Secondary-Profession Training

Broken Dream provides a low-consumption workshop for forging, mecha design, and mecha manufacturing 3 49.

• Designs can be constructed directly in dreams, and manufacturing procedures rehearsed before real production 3.
• Understood rare metals and soul tools can be simulated for experimentation with core arrays 37.
• Forging knowledge improves material simulation, allowing Battle Armor practice with little real material consumption or physical strain 49.
• Gu Yue uses the dreamscape to build models, test algorithms, and study virtual-space technology, exchanging newly developed Elemental Control techniques for access 43.

Limitations

• No innate physical enhancement: Broken Dream initially provides no direct boost to Jiang Xia’s physical attributes, leaving bodily conditioning as a separate requirement 8 20.
• Simulation requires understanding: Copying appearance or pressure does not reproduce an unknown Soul Skill’s principles 12.
• Early combat restrictions: Before illusion-to-reality conversion, Jiang Xia’s simulated elemental abilities remain usable within dreams and compatible virtual spaces, not directly in the physical world 22 33.
• High-layer dependence: The demonstrated fourth layer requires Gu Yue’s help with the formation and vessel burden. Supporting it leaves her exhausted 44.
• Unconfirmed thought-reading: Jiang Xia’s claim that he learned about Na’er by intercepting loose thoughts is explicitly presented as an improvised lie, not a demonstrated Broken Dream ability 38 41.

Users and Contributors

• Jiang Xia — Develops Broken Dream through simulation, space absorption, dream stacking, and illusion-to-reality conversion 1 30 49.
• Shi Nian — Historical wielder associated with an illusion-based assassination attempt against Tang San 1.
• Han Tianyi — Investigates burden sharing, teaches the conversion technology, and supplies spiritual support for major experiments 7 37 48.
• Gu Yue — Principal research partner and beneficiary of external-brain support; helps construct the fourth dream layer 23 43 44.
• Zhen Hua — Verifies Broken Dream’s interaction with metal spirituality, establishing its forging potential 8.
• Ling Yue — Oversees the Soul Spirit research during which Broken Dream absorbs its first illusory space 17.
• Xu Xiaoyan — Provides the Starwheel Ice Staff and its binding chains as subjects for environmental simulation and skill analysis 46.