Mage Manual
Chapter 348 - Chapter 348 Chapter 294 Family Dream

Chapter 348: Chapter 294: Family Dream Chapter 348: Chapter 294: Family Dream “Stimulants, euphoriants, Joy Potions, Genius Elixirs… Long ago, Alchemists had researched ways to reconcile with this reality, which lacked any sense of user experience,” Hanna spread her hands out. “However, usually, even if Mages were willing to grin and bear it, reality would only become more demanding and excessively harsh. The miracle substances they developed were either so difficult to obtain that only the Alchemist could use them or possessed strong toxic properties that even Medical Mages couldn’t resolve, leading to brain damage.”

“Then, does there exist a non-toxic alchemical potion that can be mass-produced and benefit everyone?” Hanna spread her hands out. “Indeed, there is. The special pheromones extracted from mermaid scent are absolutely safe euphoric components, non-toxic, non-addictive, and without side effects no matter the dosage. Therefore, various potions prepared from mermaid scent quickly spread throughout the whole Kingdom of Gospel, like Mr. Harvey, the cat grass smoke you’re holding.”

“How can there be such a convenient creation?” Igula furrowed his brows. “The Kingdom of Blood Moon simply does not have these fantasy-like miracle plants–”

Purple Moth smiled, “Of course they don’t, because it’s a miracle plant cultivated under the guidance of the Gospel Book, unique to the native species of the Kingdom of Gospel.”

The three of them were startled. The Gospel Book?

It was actually to be expected–as the Gospel Book that can answer all questions, how could it not be used in scientific research? Especially for experimental science, the guidance of the Gospel Book made progress twice as effective.

Before every experiment, they could consult the Gospel Book to eliminate all possible dangers; upon hitting a bottleneck, they could open the Gospel Book and know what to do next; when discovering an unknown component, asking the Gospel Book what purpose it served… Compared to the Magic Faction, basic science was the real beneficiary of the Gospel Book; in all likelihood, over these past thousand-plus years, the basic science of the Kingdom of Gospel had not experienced a single day of stagnation!

But at the same time, this also implied a problem…

Igula furrowed his brows, “Does the Gospel Book not prevent the production of Joy Potions?”

“Because it’s not as serious as you think,” Hanna said calmly. “In fact, the highest-grade Joy Potion commonly available to people is the cat grass smoke that Harvey holds, which includes a special component that increases the user’s aversion; even the strongest Beastman can only smoke one pack per day at most, which is not enough to increase their threshold.”

“The majority of Joy Potions are only sold to corporations; for instance, ‘rosemary’ that complements central air conditioning effectively increases the work efficiency of the entire company’s staff; like ‘Fourteen Spices’ specifically used in the food industry, which can provide diners with a more delightful experience during meals…”

“There is nothing that has only a harmful side and no benefits, especially since Joy Potions are the ‘Holy Blood’ Mages seek; how could they possibly discard it? If used prudently with a planned approach, Joy Potions are beneficial and harmless to society, and furthermore…”

“You also have the Gospel Book,” Ash said. “As long as the Gospel Book helps with regulation, the harmful effects of Joy Potions can be minimized to nearly zero.”

“Just as with Joy Potions, so it is with Beauty Mist,” Hanna continued. “Treated Beauty Mist can become nourishment for the City; naturally, Mages also considered whether the City could overindulge. Through the guidance of the Gospel Book and their own exploration, the Mages of Vatican Mura found a perfect path–the family-based Rebirth Dream system.”

Purple Moth turned to the Swindler, “Mr. Bokin, as a Spirit Mage, you should know there are miracles that can directly extract the target’s positive emotions, right?”

“Drawing positive emotions, increasing negative ones, is a rather common assassination method among Spirit Mages,” Igula said. “If the target happens to face a significant setback, it could even induce them to consider suicide.”

“Thank you for your answer,” Hanna acknowledged with a nod. “In the world of Mages, positive emotions can be viewed as a resource; you could even say that without this resource, one’s Spirit would quickly crumble.”

“But too much of this resource would drown oneself. The situation in Vatican Mura now is that everyone has an excess of emotional resources. The solution seems rather obvious.”

“Collect the positive emotions…?” Igula asked perplexedly. “But–I won’t mention how you collect them first, but to pry on emotions requires delving into the soul; you surely wouldn’t sneak into others’ minds like I do. It could only mean all the city’s citizens voluntarily exposing their souls, like opening their homes at night for everyone to see inside… That bears greater risks than bare nakedness!”

“Of course, you can’t do that among strangers.”

Leaning against the wall, Hanna spoke leisurely, “But what if it’s between family members?”

“The mother with her son, the daughter with her grandson, the sister with her nephew, the brother with his nephew… bound by bloodline, fortress of the family, everyone happily integrates into the collective, surrendering happiness, lowering thresholds.”

“Bloodline bond is a truly interesting concept; when it’s strong enough, personal will can be suppressed to an extreme.”

“What was once a fanciful notion has, through hundreds of years of development and the contributions of countless Mages, woven countless family members’ happiness into layers of dreams, eventually creating an indescribable bloodline miracle.”

“When family members close their eyes, they can sink into the dream at any time, where the dreamworld is woven from countless joyful emotions.”

“When you seek solitude, the dreamworld carves out a small world just for you. When you wish to share and express, you meet a family member ready to listen. When you seek answers, a wise family member waits under the tree. When you long for a passionate romance, perhaps the next person will spark love with you.”

“And all your actions consume your positive emotions. When those emotions are spent, you naturally leave the dream and return to reality.”

“In the process of consuming emotions, you slowly develop a belief in this merchant. You start to mistake your happiness as coming from your family, your joy from love; all your beautiful memories get branded with ‘love and family.’ You abandon your smaller self and entrust your spirit to the greater family.”

“The chronic illness brought by Beauty Mist will soon disappear because you’ve developed a more terrifying cancer: family love.”

“Wait!” Ash exclaimed in surprise, “Rebirth Dream sounds a lot like–”

“Like the Void Realm, right?” Hanna smiled and said, “I haven’t finished yet. Within the Spirit Faction, according to the amount of information stored, from smallest to largest, are ‘thought,’ ‘will,’ and ’emotion.'”

“A thought is just a small piece of memory, whereas will is a group of thoughts with a strong direction. As for emotion, it’s the unintended result of will colliding with memory.”

“Even if the positive emotions here are catalyzed by Beauty Mist and are of the lowest quality, they still contain a lot of information. When these emotions weave together into dreams, and a person actively merges into them, what do you think happens?”

“Past memory fragments get absorbed and digested by the present people…” Harvey shook his head, “Disgusting.”

Hanna nodded, “Exactly. In the dream, if you’re lucky–or perhaps unlucky–you might resonate with other memory fragments and absorb the knowledge and emotions within. As for digestion… hmph, it’s hard to say who’s digesting whom.”

“Qinna, a pureblooded political animal, is not a twisted species that reality could shape. I suspect she is like this because she inherited the dirtiest essence of the dozen or so previous Family Heads of Senheiser, which is why from her hair to her nails, she emits that stale, expired scent of an elf.”

Beauty Mist, family Rebirth Dream system… Ash and his companions felt like they’d been slapped in the face, their minds almost unable to cope with the influx of information.

This must be an exaggerated setting for a new volume’s main stage, right? Isn’t Vatican Mura taking it too far with such a bizarre sub-stage?

And fine, Beauty Mist is one thing, but to overcome it they’ve come up with the family Rebirth Dream system… It sounds like inventing a machine to transform shit into stir-fried beef noodles just to eat a mouthful of crap.

After all, the family Rebirth Dream system is far more important than Beauty Mist. It’s basically like creating a small Void Realm specifically for knowledge inheritance, and if the Rebirth Dream continues to expand, absorbing enough emotional nourishment, it might indeed become an exclusive Void Realm for the family–

“Actually, it’s not as great as missy describes,” Banjee said. “‘Knowledge rebirth’ isn’t unheard of, but it doesn’t happen even once a year, and the vast majority of people see the Rebirth Dream as a leisure place, where they release their excess happiness.”

The young housekeeper explained: “The most powerful aspect of the family Rebirth Dream system is not the rebirth, but the family itself. All the clan members who join the same dream, even if they’ve never seen each other in person, their blood ties and subconscious impressions will gradually deepen, eventually forming a nearly intuitive blood recognition.”

“You must be wondering why we were gawked at in the streets earlier, right? Because aside from us, everyone else belongs to ‘the same family.’ They look at each other with familiarity and closeness, even if they don’t know each other’s names, but they also know they are honest family members to each other.”

Ash and the others immediately understood–their earlier behavior walking through the streets was akin to barging into someone else’s private family banquet and defecating and urinating. It would’ve been strange if they weren’t stared at.

“So you’re saying,”

Igula, in charge of ‘the wise leading the wise,’ summarized, “Beauty Mist provides endless joy to the entire city’s inhabitants, thereby enhancing work efficiency, resident satisfaction, and establishing Evangelism’s outstanding public safety.”

“But to prevent the happiness from damaging the citizens’ spirits, mages created the family Rebirth Dream, where citizens could invest their excess happiness into the dreams. With the dream and the mage families growing over hundreds of years, they have completely taken over the city of Vatican Mura.”

“People living here almost all join this operating system, and outsiders are precisely identified by the locals.”

“Beauty Mist catalyzed the city’s happy citizens, Beauty Mist fostered a massive family, Beauty Mist isolated Vatican Mura from the Kingdom of Gospel.”

“Good summary,” Hanna said. “There was hardly any oversight.”

The Swindler was silent for a moment: “…So why did we come to this dangerous Demon Cave for tourism?”

“Hold on.” Ash raised his hand, “Aren’t you going to discuss why the Rebirth Dream is so similar to the Void Realm? Could it be that the Void Realm–”

Igula waved his hand in disdain, “It’s been proposed by mages that the Void Realm is a grand dream woven by all beings, which is widely known but nobody can confirm.”

Liss put her hand over her father’s mouth, and Ash tapped his daughter on the head.

“For outsiders, Vatican Mura is indeed quite dangerous,” Banjee said. “But missy is not an outsider.”

Everyone looked at Hanna, whose mouth twitched as if she had eaten a cockroach. After a moment of silence, she admitted with great reluctance, “I used to live in Vatican Mura for a while when I was a child.”