" The Dream Bureau... the Dream Management Department?"
Qin Ze remembered the reborn person mentioning it once.
The world has become like this, it seems, and it's all the fault of the Dream Management Department.
Judging from the name, it's an ability related to dreams.
Qin Ze had never encountered anything so interesting before.
Whether they were local natives or evil gods invading the world, their abilities were all remarkably similar.
Qin Ze jumped into the hole that the old men had widened with a diamond shovel the night before.
Because most of it collapsed, the space inside wasn't very large.
He ignored all the bottles and jars; Qin Ze wasn't an archaeologist, and he wasn't interested in foreign cultures.
On the only relatively intact wall, Qin Ze saw a decorative painting hanging on it.
The main subject of the painting is a tower, and behind the tower is a semi-transparent silhouette of a person sitting cross-legged.
Below the tower were a group of local natives, their faces filled with piety, as if listening to divine messages.
The scene was almost identical to that of Preacher, if not nearly so.
Qin Ze recalled what the long-armed man had told him: the witch was waiting for him in Tana.
Unsurprisingly, the shaman is the phantom figure in the painting that is the same height as the tower.
Judging from this picture alone, the two sides seemed to be getting along very well. How did it turn into this seemingly falling apart?
The evil god only needs to provide his followers with a vessel for rebirth to reap a continuous harvest of faith.
But He did not do that; instead, He protected the villagers to prevent them from being reborn by the Illusion Race.
Qin Ze continued to venture deeper inside; this place seemed to be the office of the Dream Management Department.
There was a row of broken bookshelves against the wall, and next to it were several wooden desks.
Qin Ze started by inspecting those tables.
This building had been buried underground for who knows how long before it saw the light of day again; a thick layer of dust had accumulated on the table.
The first few tables were covered with pebbles and fragments of strange ornaments.
On the last table, Qin Ze finally managed to find something.
It was a black square, about half the size of an A4 sheet of paper, less than half a centimeter thick, with a surface as smooth as a mirror.
Qin Ze held it in his hand and weighed it; it was very light, almost weightless.
"Do you recognize what this is?"
Miss Sword Case was equally confused. "It doesn't look like food."
Qin Ze twitched the corner of his mouth. "I don't think so either."
Even after being infused with qi, blood, and the Source of Life, the medicine tablets showed no reaction.
Immediately afterwards, Qin Ze injected another wisp of spiritual energy into it.
The next second, countless densely packed foreign characters appeared in his Spiritual Sea of Consciousness.
"It was a book."
Qin Ze was taken aback by this unique method of recording information.
You can input the information into the diamonds in advance using your mental energy, and simply activate it with your mental energy when you want to access it.
The advantage is that a small square piece of paper can record a massive amount of information, which is incomparable to written records.
However, the drawbacks are also quite obvious: only martial artists who have cultivated Spiritual Sea of Consciousness can access it.
The Key Translator immediately translated these Illusion Race characters into Spirit Language.
Qin Ze was somewhat disappointed; the diamonds didn't contain any confidential documents, but rather a list.
The first part reads, "List of candidates for the 57th batch of Spirit Walker ".
Qin Ze silently continued reading from the beginning, "As instructed by the clan elders, the Dream Management Department have thoroughly implemented the principle of prioritizing spiritual beings, adhered to Fairness, just, and transparent selection process every year, and are determined to win this crucial and protracted battle concerning the entire civilization. The preliminary list of the fifty-seventh batch of Spirit Walker is now being publicized as follows..."
Miss Sword Case muttered, "What does that mean?"
She understood each word Qin Ze said individually, but she didn't understand them when they were put together.
Those who understand, understand; if you don't, there's nothing I can do.
Miss Sword Case:???
Further on is a long list, recorded by name, gender, age, and place of origin.
In this fifty-seventh batch of Spirit Walker admissions list, Qin Ze calculated that there were a total of six thousand five hundred and twenty people.
If the previous batches also had similar numbers, the number of Illusion Race Spirit Walker has reached a terrifying figure.
Qin Ze was still unclear about the difference between Spirit Walker and a Warrior, and what the Illusion Race wanted to do by selecting so many Spirit Walker.
He glanced at the list again and suddenly noticed something strange.
These applicants came from different places, but they all shared one thing in common—eighteen years old.
Qin Ze suddenly remembered the message on the flowerpot.
Happy 18th birthday/death anniversary.
The birthday and death anniversary are both the birthday and the death anniversary.
These selected individuals are to die on the day they come of age.
In other words, this is a prerequisite for becoming Spirit Walker.
For some inexplicable reason, Qin Ze thought of the Sunflower Manual, as both of them had an extraordinary prerequisite for cultivation.
After the mental energy was extracted, all the text in the Spiritual Sea of Consciousness disappeared.
He examined the table in front of him again and found that it didn't contain any gravel, but rather small, square fragments.
Unfortunately, because it was so badly broken, the information recorded on it was also lost.
Qin Ze walked to the rickety bookshelf, where there were still a few relatively well-preserved diamonds.
He felt he hadn't yet found the accurate way to interpret the diamonds.
These squares are all very similar, with virtually no difference in appearance. Without injecting mental energy, one would have no idea what is recorded inside them.
If the Illusion Race's library is like this, then finding a book would be no less difficult than sending Tang Sanzang alone to the Western Paradise to obtain Buddhist scriptures.
As mental energy was injected, a massive amount of information once again flooded into Qin Ze's Spiritual Sea of Consciousness.
"The 57th God-Worshipping Ceremony will be held as scheduled, and the Dream God will appear in the world to personally bestow blessings upon the chosen children..."
Because this square piece was damaged in several places, some of the information within it was lost.
However, Qin Ze could still tell that this was a set of precautions and procedures for God-Worshipping Ceremony.
The text repeatedly mentions the Dream God, who is likely the evil god who invaded this world.
The 57th God-Worshipping Ceremony indicates that the evil god has been in this world for 57 years.
If this evil god hasn't converted all the Illusion Race into fanatics after all this time, he's just too useless.
It's worth noting that the Thousand Faces ' partner managed to conquer an entire world in just one month.
Judging from the process of this God-Worshipping Ceremony, the Spirit Walker and the Dream God are inextricably linked.
Qin Ze felt that the God-Worshipping Ceremony was more like a kind of sacrificial ritual, with the chosen Spirit Walker as the offerings. A strong sense of déjà vu for the Heaven-Reaching River boy and girl came to him.
Only fanatics could do something like this, wielding a knife to destroy the very roots of their own civilization.
These two square pieces reveal that Dream Management Department's business is very extensive.
They are responsible for both "talent selection" and communicating with the gods; all they lack is Law Enforcement power.
A moment later, Qin Ze picked up another broken square and infused it with his spiritual energy.
He was taken aback when he saw the titles of the recorded contents.
"The Eleventh Version of the World Overlord Hunting Program..."