Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 2929: Chapter 2930: Cognitive Interference

Luigi and the Rabbit Girl looked at Angel in shocked confusion.

Was Angel really not planning to discuss this at all?

Facing everyone’s gaze, Angel instead revealed a brilliant smile.

Even though he didn’t say anything, that smile still soothed everyone’s nerves.

Maybe Angel had his own methods?

Thinking of this, the Rabbit Girl turned to glance at Laplace and Glaipnir beside her. The two of them were completely calm and unmoved, as if Angel’s decision hadn’t stirred any ripples in them at all.

Seeing this, the Rabbit Girl felt even more at ease. Since the main body and the Astrologer were both this composed, Angel should be fine.

As for Laplace and Glaipnir, who were putting the Rabbit Girl at ease, they actually had doubts in their hearts as well. But they could also see that Angel wasn’t the type to act on impulse. For him to make such a decisive choice, he must be reasonably confident.

Under everyone’s expectant gazes, guided by the spotlight, Angel slowly descended to the ground... or rather, to the foot of the mountain.

This "black-and-white slum" was actually built into a small mountain; from the foot of the mountain all the way to the summit were black-and-white houses.

Although it was a city built into a mountain, the mountain itself wasn’t tall—more of a low hill. The top of the hill was only a few dozen meters above the ground, while the endpoint pointed to by the green light circle hovered a hundred meters high in the air. Even if you climbed to the summit, you still couldn’t reach the green circle. What’s more, even if the summit were a hundred meters high, its straight-line distance from the green circle would still be over a hundred meters. The two weren’t even in the same coordinate system, so there was no way they could intersect.

But right now, Angel was standing in the position of the red light circle, and the only path available at the moment was to enter the slum and head toward the mountaintop.

Yet the mountaintop didn’t line up with the green circle at all, so what was he supposed to do?

Everyone was racking their brains, even Glaipnir and Laplace were having a private discussion, but no matter how they thought about it, they couldn’t come up with an answer.

"Could there be some mechanisms inside the houses down there? Like something that creates an updraft of wind?" Luigi muttered.

Laplace and Glaipnir didn’t respond, but inwardly they tended to agree with Luigi’s guess.

It didn’t necessarily have to be an updraft—there could be other types of mechanisms.

Because the only place they couldn’t see was the interiors of the buildings, and maybe the key to clearing the stage really was hidden inside the rooms.

Angel could no longer hear their discussion right now. Even if he could, he wouldn’t care. For this track, he already had some guesses in his heart...

He looked up at the sky, where the glaring sunlight poured down.

The bright light shone on his body, his shadow outlining the contours of his features, and the shaded parts grew darker and more pronounced.

Angel chuckled lightly, stopped looking up at the sky, and turned his gaze to the front.

Directly in front of him was a black single-story house with no windows and pure black walls.

For now, he had two options.

One was to enter this black house. The house had no windows, but there was a large door. The door was open, yet inside was pitch-black, and nothing could be seen.

The second option was to climb onto the roof. There was a black wooden ladder mounted on the wall of this black house, and by following it he could climb up onto the high wall.

According to Laplace and the others’ way of thinking, Angel should be going into the house to take a look at this moment.

But Angel didn’t do that. He walked to the side and climbed up the wooden ladder to the flat roof.

There were no other paths on the rooftop, but he could see the surrounding layout.

Directly in front of the rooftop was another black house, separated by a passage about three meters wide. On the left side was also a black house, likewise separated by a three-meter-wide passage.

About six meters to the right was a white house, but this white house was three stories tall, and its second floor had no balcony or windows.

So, if Angel wanted to move on from this rooftop and go somewhere else, he would have to go either forward or to the left. Even though there was a three-meter gap, with some technique and a bit of momentum, he could still jump across.

However, Angel didn’t immediately make a choice. Instead, he turned around and pulled the wooden ladder he had climbed up on, hauling it onto the rooftop.

Seeing this, everyone suddenly understood: he was planning to use the ladder to reach other rooftops? That was actually a pretty good idea—at least it was easier than jumping three meters.

Only, Angel didn’t actually do that. After carrying the ladder around the rooftop once, he found a back wall, propped the ladder up, and simply left it standing upright on the roof.

No one else understood what Angel was trying to do; their heads were full of question marks... Was he planning to just climb higher to get a better view? If he really climbed up into thin air like that, wasn’t he worried the single ladder wouldn’t hold?

While everyone was confused, Angel abandoned the ladder and instead moved to the left side.

They saw him make a light leap and land on the black rooftop on the other side.

Immediately after, Angel found another ladder on this black rooftop and continued to climb higher, reaching an even higher spot.

As before, he picked up the ladder and set it upright. Once it was placed, Angel moved on.

The whole way, Angel never once went inside a building. He moved only over the rooftops, occasionally propping up ladders, or placing wooden planks as screens in certain spots.

Throughout the process, Luigi and the Rabbit Girl were completely baffled. It was Laplace and Glaipnir who, when Angel raised the fourth ladder and lined it up with a distant tower, finally saw a faint hint of what he was doing.

Was he... stacking shadows?

Yes, stacking shadows.

The shadows of these ladders looked scattered—some here, some there—but there was nothing blocking them in front or behind. Once the sunlight hit a certain angle, these shadows would overlap.

And once they overlapped, the combined shadow would point directly toward the place where they were currently sitting.

So Angel was planning to use stacked shadows to reach the endpoint—the green light circle?

But even if the shadow reached the light circle, what good would that do? It’s not like Angel could transform into a shadow and travel inside it, right?

If Angel heard the guesses in Laplace and Glaipnir’s hearts, he might well applaud.

Their guess wasn’t wrong.

He really was stacking shadows, using various ladders, planks, as well as the shadows of towers and the houses themselves, to piece together a shadow path that led straight to the green light circle.

Yet Angel didn’t need to transform into a shadow, nor did he need any ability to travel through shadows.

He could step directly onto the shadows—and without borrowing any external force.

Because that was exactly how this track’s mechanism worked.

The moment Angel first laid eyes on the track, the mobile game "Monument Valley" had popped into his mind.

Later, when the host talked about this track, it sounded like some sort of incredible creative gameplay, and as for the source of that creativity, the host had mentioned "a gift from the heavens."

And when "a gift from the heavens" was mentioned, Angel naturally recalled the mechanism in Wonderland of Dreams that had once given him a sense of déjà vu.

All that "plot kill," "hidden storyline," "clearance reward"... and so on, this whole series actually exists in a corner of his own mind.

If it were just one or two of them, Angel would think it was a coincidence, but when they all show up at once, Angel can’t help but feel that... could this Wonderland of Dreams actually be affected by his own thoughts?

Although the idea that thought can influence Authority is a bit hard to wrap his head around, the Ability Tree itself is rooted deep in his mind, and there’s no reason his mental fluctuations couldn’t affect an Authority.

Just like Sanders’ and Sumishe’s Nightmare Realms—their thoughts can also affect the Transmutation of their Nightmare Realms.

Including Angel’s own Luxury Nightmare Realm, which can also be influenced by his thoughts.

Although the Wilderness of Dreams and the Crystal Origin of Dreams are also Nightmare Realms, they’re far too large in scale, and it’s difficult for Angel to affect them with thought alone. So up to now, Angel had never even considered using his mind to influence the Wilderness of Dreams.

But the overwhelming déjà vu he’s getting from the Wonderland of Dreams right now is just too suspicious.

It makes Angel suspect that perhaps his thoughts really can affect a Nightmare Realm... as for the reason, it may lie in the fact that he now possesses the Ability Tree as his Core Authority.

With this in mind, when Angel looks back at the "heaven-sent ingenuity" the host mentioned, he comes up with some new ideas.

Perhaps this so-called heaven-sent ingenuity is actually the Wonderland of Dreams, based on Angel’s mental framework, modifying the Dream Creator’s dream to create the "ingenuity" in front of him.

If this guess is correct, then the Black-and-White Slums borrowing the "gameplay" of Monument Valley would be entirely possible.

To verify his thoughts, Angel entered this track.

Monument Valley has a very interesting gameplay mechanic: using visual misalignment to create a path.

And the "Magic Track" had given a hint earlier: the core of this track is "black-and-white and light-and-shadow."

Combining this with the current situation, Angel came up with the idea of using misaligned shadows to form a path.

After some testing, a single shadow couldn’t form a path, but if two—or simply multiple—shadows overlapped, the overlapping shadows would produce a kind of magical misdirection, forming a path invisible to the naked eye yet actually walkable.

However, although shadows can overlap, forming a perfectly straight road of shadow that reaches the green halo in the sky is extremely difficult. To reach the green halo high above, the shadow path will inevitably need to turn somewhere along the way.

And how do you create turns?

This is where the houses come into play.

Pure black houses can act as shadows to form paths; the shadows of white houses can also become walkable paths.

In this way, only by combining black-and-white houses with light and shadow is there truly a way to construct a road that reaches the heavens.

This is essentially the core mechanism of this track.

After Angel unraveled this mechanism, he could basically confirm that this is a gameplay system similar to Monument Valley.

Then all his previous guesses might really be true. The Wonderland of Dreams is an Authority constructed by extracting certain mechanical ideas from his own thoughts and combining them with the Energy of the Mirror World, the Dream Realm, and the Nightmare Realm.

He felt a slight awkwardness in his heart about this.

After all, part of the Wonderland of Dreams’ mechanics comes from his own mind; no matter how he looks at it, it’s a bit displeasing.

If you really wanted to borrow them, you could at least discuss it in advance... But Angel also knows very well that the Wonderland of Dreams is an Authority without Spirit Intelligence. That it’s affected by his thoughts doesn’t mean it can communicate with him.

So when it comes to this already-established Authority, the Wonderland of Dreams, Angel can only accept it.

Still, this served as a reminder to Angel: since the Ability Tree resides within his mind, he needs to set up a thought barrier to isolate it. Otherwise, if all his Authorities end up being influenced by his thoughts, wouldn’t he have no secrets left?

Of course... Angel also knows that’s not very likely. Because although his thoughts can now influence Authorities, the degree of influence is extremely limited. If the autonomy of the Wonderland of Dreams’ mechanics is 100%, then Angel’s influence accounts for only 1%.

That’s really very, very little. Take Sanders’ "Black Tower Nightmare Realm" for example; if Sanders wants to interfere with it using his mind, he absolutely has a way to reach 100%. And he has absolute initiative, unlike Angel, whose interference is mostly passive.

Even so, Angel still decides to place a thought barrier around the Ability Tree.

In the future, when he’s no longer passively influencing Nightmare Realms but has absolute initiative instead, then he won’t need this barrier anymore.

That said, although Angel is somewhat dissatisfied that the Wonderland of Dreams "pried open" his thoughts without permission, he has to admit that the appearance of the Wonderland of Dreams has deepened his understanding of the Principal Body of the Nightmare Domain.

He had originally thought that the Authorities within the Principal Body of the Nightmare Domain would be much the same as the basic Laws of other worlds, but the emergence of the "Wonderland of Dreams" shattered that notion.

In fact, Authorities themselves are not rigidly fixed; they can be "customized."

Angel’s thinking had previously been limited to the few worlds he knew, so his understanding of Laws was only a handful of types. Now, discovering an Authority like the "Wonderland of Dreams" has really opened his eyes.

If he had to force it into a preconceived category, what type of Authority would "Wonderland of Dreams" be?

Puzzle-type? Illusionary Realm-type? Or instance-type?

Angel still doesn’t know the answer for now, but once he gains a deeper understanding of the Wonderland of Dreams in the future, he might be able to unravel these puzzles.

...

Since Angel already knew that this track borrowed the mechanics of Monument Valley, his puzzle-solving speed naturally ramped up.

Perhaps, according to the host’s estimate, Angel would have to stay in this track for a day or two before he could even get some idea.

And even after getting an idea, he’d still need an overview of the whole layout. Only after forming a grand picture in his mind could he construct the Road to the Heavens in the fastest way possible.

Undoubtedly, that would take a long time.

So the host had already prepared for the long haul.

But Angel completely overturned everyone’s expectations; he took barely half an hour to build the foundation of the Road to the Heavens.

Yes, only the foundation—that is, what you might call "geographical advantage and harmony among people."

To actually activate the Road to the Heavens and reach the green halo, he needed not only geographical advantage and human harmony, but also the right timing!

Only when a certain moment is reached, and the sun’s slanting rays just happen to line up with the Road to the Heavens, can the Road to the Heavens be opened.

The host knew this specific time... 2:45 in the afternoon.

And Angel had entered the track at 9:30 in the morning; the current time was 10:00 a.m.

Which meant Angel had already finished the challenge ahead of time, but he still had to wait. Only when 2:45 in the afternoon arrived would this track truly come to an end.

At this point, the host no longer knew what to say.

If Angel still hadn’t found a solution, he could crack a few jokes on the side, but now Angel had already completed all the foreplay and was only waiting for the moment of the end.

That left the host at a loss... Jokes wouldn’t be funny, he had no standing to mock, and there was no need to hype up the atmosphere.

Just as the host was racking his brain over how to get through the next four hours, Angel, inside the Magic Track, suddenly took to the air...