Chapter 928: Turning False into True

At a glance, Franca realized that Star Dream General Store really did resemble an antique shop from the Northern Continent, with the addition of very obvious occult elements.

The only things inconsistent with this style were the shelves themselves and the phone and tablet the shopkeeper was using.

“Good morning, madam, we’re here to collect our letters,” Lu Mi said politely as he approached the counter.

The shopkeeper, dressed in a black dress and playing with her phone, pulled a letter from beneath the counter and placed it on the surface.

“Thank you,” Lu Mi said, reaching for it without opening it on the spot.

Franca pointed at the brass-bound book:

“Madam, may I flip through that book?”

“Of course,” the woman in black replied without looking up, offering no warning about handling the antique carefully.

Franca stepped lightly to the right shelf and picked up the book, its cover resembling forged brass.

The object’s cover was cold and hard—undoubtedly made of metal.

Franca flipped through it quickly and found the pages still blank.

Nothing special… Franca muttered inwardly.

Before she finished, she suddenly saw lines of text appear on the blank pages—but the words vanished instantly, too fast even for the “Witch’s” vision to catch their content.

Did I imagine it? Franca waited patiently for twenty to thirty seconds, then saw new text appear again on the brass book—but still, she couldn’t make out a single word before it disappeared.

Even “Dream Divination” couldn’t recover the exact images afterward.

Definitely strange… Franca thought, placing the brass book back where she found it.

At the same time, her peripheral vision caught a shadow of dark greenish-black flicker behind the shelf.

It was a snake with white feathers and small wings!

Franca startled, instinctively stepping back two paces and turning her body to warn the shopkeeper:

“Boss, there’s a snake in your shop!”

Be careful!

“Don’t be afraid,” the woman in black lifted her head, revealing a beautiful face. “That’s my pet.”

“Oh… I see,” Franca exhaled, then joined Nina and Anthony, who had been wandering the store, following Lu Mi out to the gray sedan parked nearby, using frost to forcibly lower the car’s overheated interior.

After settling into the driver’s seat, Franca frowned slightly:

“The snake I just saw looked a lot like the Feathered Serpent of the ‘Death’ Path—well, a shrunken, harmless version.”

“Could the shopkeeper be keeping a ‘Death’ Path mythic creature as a pet?”

A complete mythic creature represents an Angel-tier being!

Lu Mi, opening his letter, said calmly:

“It’s not impossible. Only true gods can enter dreams, unless they have special items or special connections.”

This… we just dealt with a true god? And she answered my question? Franca was stunned—then noticed a man carrying bags approaching the driver’s side and tapping on the window.

“What do you want?” Franca, wary, rolled down the window.

The man had an ordinary face and a forced smile; he held out what he was carrying toward Franca:

“Interested? Latest-model listening devices and pinhole cameras.”

“...” Franca’s lips twitched. “Bro, that’s illegal.”

The man tried to push further, but Franca hardened her expression and firmly refused.

After rolling up the window, Franca started the car, while Lu Mi examined the replies from the Major Arcana cards—the primary writer was the “Magician” lady.

At that moment, Franca suddenly froze:

“Wait, first check if anyone planted listening devices or pinhole cameras in the car.”

Under the suppression to Sequence 7, the Witch’s intuition and divination could effectively prevent occult eavesdropping and spying—but they’d completely ignored scientific methods!

Lu Mi and Nina understood what listening devices and pinhole cameras did; one used the “Hunter’s” observational ability to quickly search for anomalies, while the other confirmed the situation through “Mirror Divination” with her own intuition.

“No,” Nina gave her divination result.

“Good,” Franca sighed. “We must remember to watch out for scientific methods. Luckily, that guy selling contraband just reminded me—if we hadn’t, we might’ve been caught off guard someday! Uh…”

As she spoke, Franca turned her gaze to the rearview mirror.

She saw the man who’d sold the listening devices and pinhole cameras turn a corner down the street and vanish at the road’s end.

“Could he be an ally? Came here specifically to warn us?” Franca murmured sharply.

Lu Mi fell silent for a few seconds, then said:

“Probably.”

“Who could it be?” Franca stared ahead, focusing more on driving.

Soon, she pulled the car to a stop at a roadside parking spot opposite the police station.

Lu Mi conjured a medium-sized screen from frost and displayed the Major Arcana replies on it for easier viewing:

“Confirmed: the ‘Despair Witch’ Unique Item, related materials, and the special mirror-world fragment you acquired are genuine.”

“Don’t get excited—this doesn’t mean every occultist in the Dream City can extract a Unique Item; only those whose conscious selves directly entered the dream can.”

In other words, if you die in the Dream City, under the influence of ‘Deception,’ your real-world body will also die, releasing a Unique Item, which then gets ‘grafted’ to the recipient in the dream, achieving the effect of ‘false becoming true, true becoming false.’

You should already understand my meaning: the resurrected corpse is roughly equivalent to a true consciousness entering.

Her name and origins—ask Ludwig. I’ll only say briefly: she was once effectively the Celestial’s puppet, and still is. Don’t ask why—don’t inquire into high-level matters of the ‘Fortune Teller’ and ‘Thief’ Paths. In short, through this connection, and Jiezhu the identity ‘The Fool’ wove for her in his subconscious, she entered this dream, received rebirth from the ‘Great Mother,’ and gained humanity and consciousness unlike a puppet’s.

Regarding the Unique Item: if you use it to brew a potion or perform a ritual in the Dream City and ascend to Semi-God, your real-world body will also become a Semi-God. Remember: under the influence of ‘Deception,’ false dreams may become true reality, or what you believe to be real may become false.

Moreover, the Dream City is currently restricted to Sequence 7; the spiritual effects of potions and the minimum requirements of rituals are also suppressed to this level. For example, a plague that originally required infecting thirty thousand people to bring them pain and despair might now only need to infect three hundred—perhaps a single trip to the lower levels of Mushi Hospital could complete the ritual.

Are you thinking, ‘Is this even possible?’ But I must tell you: every gift from fate has already been priced in secret. Ascending to ‘Despair Witch’ this way carries enormous risks; you’ll face immense difficulties afterward to truly qualify as a Sequence 4 Semi-God.

Think: in the Dream City, all the problems caused by consuming a Semi-God potion are suppressed to Sequence 7, so you can bear them more easily and use Sequence 7 rituals to assist your ascent. But once you leave the dream and return to reality, those suppressed problems will shed ‘Deception’ and instantly revert to Sequence 4 levels—then, the person involved will likely lose control immediately.

Of course, this isn’t unsolvable—just extremely difficult, no easier than performing a full ritual in reality.

The only solution we can currently conceive is to fully digest the Sequence 4 potion before leaving the dream, before this dream collapses—so the digestion grafts onto reality, resolving most of the suppressed hazards in advance. When you return to reality, you’ll be a healthy Sequence 4 Semi-God. Reality itself will have been truly deceived at that moment.

The difficulty lies in this: how long the dream lasts and when the Celestial will lock onto you and kick you out are beyond your control—full of unknown risks. Gaining a good opportunity and sufficient time to digest the potion is extremely, extremely hard.

Seeing this, Franca and Lu Mi and the others exchanged glances, speechless.

Can it really be done like this?

They’d thought their use of false Angel-tier status and sealed Angels to simulate and rapidly digest potions was already the extreme edge of exploiting loopholes—yet reading these words—‘Deception’ and ‘Graft’—they felt their own minds had been deceived.

You can truly ascend in the dream…

The potion was deceived, the ritual was deceived, the spirit was deceived, the boundary between false and real was deceived…

Or perhaps only they themselves were deceived—believing they’d truly ascended, truly become Semi-Gods, when in fact they’d just developed hysteria…

Hahaha, all of us were deceived! All of us were deceived! Franca couldn’t help laughing maniacally inside.

“Is this the terrifying nature of Great Beings?” Nina breathed softly.

Lu Mi gave a low chuckle:

“Many things we believe unbreakable, unchangeable—perhaps they’re merely playthings of the Great Beings.”

“Want to roll it into a ball? Roll it. Want to flatten it? Flatten it…” Franca muttered along.

Through this letter, they truly, concretely felt what a Great Being was.

They continued reading the letter displayed on the frost-screen:

“After reading the above, did you think:

“When ‘The Fool’ wakes, could we ask him to use a similar dream to lower ritual and ascent difficulty, helping those in need become Semi-Gods and granting them enough time to digest potions in the dream?”

“First, we must clarify: ‘The Fool’ alone cannot achieve this. Such a true dream—where Deception blurs false and real—originates from another realm.”

“Second, not every Semi-God can fully digest their potion; some will live their entire lives trapped in dreams. Moreover, if the dream’s cognition doesn’t recover to Sequence 4, their lifespan will be suppressed to that of a low-to-mid Sequence. But if the dream’s cognition does recover to Sequence 4, the hidden problems caused by Deception will erupt.”

“Third, to help one occultist ascend, must we make ‘The Fool’ sleep for years, decades, even centuries? Is that truly appropriate?”

“Finally, many potion performances lean toward evil. If we create a large-scale plague in ‘The Fool’s’ dream, not only will the Celestial easily notice, but ‘The Fool’ himself will kick you out first.”

I feel like the ‘Magician’ lady is subtly mocking me… I never even thought of that! This dream is as real as reality—it’s nothing like a game. How could I ever have anti-social thoughts? Even in games, I only stopped being a good player after I got bored of normal play… Franca muttered to herself.

(End of Chapter)