Chapter 26: Destination
Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Destination
Entering Time Stop.
All was silent; everything froze in place.
Fang Chen swept his gaze over the Ghost Shadows and tentacles, which were similarly solidified within this domain.
He didn’t waste time on these monsters. The most pressing matter was to find the source—Ji Kai.
"Ji Kai is from Class 4. I’ve dealt with him a few times. He’s a coward who bullies the weak and fears the strong," Fang Chen quickly recalled.
"His ability’s range must be limited, just like my Time Stop Domain. Furthermore, the dreamscapes described by the victims are all in the school, so he is highly likely to be on campus himself!
"Zhu Hao said he couldn’t find him, which means he isn’t in the classroom. Where could he be?
"Where is a place where no one can find him?"
"No, I need to look at this from a different angle." Fang Chen immediately rejected his previous train of thought.
"If Ji Kai wants to maintain the dreamscape, he has to stay asleep. But where in the school can someone remain asleep without being disturbed? The restroom? No, anyone who could sleep in that environment would be a god. The rooftop? Or maybe..." He rapidly thought through all the possibilities.
"To remain undisturbed, sleeping there must look perfectly reasonable. And the only place in the entire school where it’s normal to sleep is... the infirmary!
"Yes! The infirmary!"
As long as he found a suitable excuse, he could legitimately lie on a hospital bed. Sleeping for an hour or two would be completely normal.
"But the infirmary is on the third floor, next to Class 9... Oh no, could it be..."
At this thought, Fang Chen sprang into action, sprinting directly up the stairs near Class 8 to the third floor.
Even in Time Stop, the pervasive black smoke and dust could be seen frozen in the air, resembling a dark veil that severely obstructed his vision.
Only after he passed did the disturbed smoke resume its swirling motion.
He then passed through the smoke and slipped into the infirmary.
Most of the beds were empty; evidently, the occupants had evacuated during the panic.
Only on the innermost bed was there still someone lying down.
Fang Chen walked closer to take a look.
Ah!
Sure enough, it was him—Ji Kai!
He lay on the innermost bed, looking pained, his face covered in ash and grime.
"Was he asphyxiated by the smoke?"
Fang Chen couldn’t check for vital signs during Time Stop, but judging by his ashen complexion and the smoke at the scene, if he had been trapped in the fire for this long, he most likely hadn’t survived.
"Does this mean Ji Kai’s side effect wasn’t that the dreamscape would go out of control, but rather that he couldn’t be woken up normally while in a dream? Or perhaps he needed a specific amount of time to wake up?" Fang Chen quickly deduced. "And what truly caused the dreamscape to spiral out of control was Ji Kai’s death?"
Fang Chen sorted out the clues.
At first, Ji Kai pulled girls into his dreamscape to abuse them, until Tian Menglian was pulled in. Feeling humiliated, she intended to detonate herself to drag him down with her.
As a result, she didn’t explode in the dreamscape, but rather exploded in reality.
This caused an explosion in Class 7 that spread to Classes 8 and 9, followed by a fire. The infirmary staff likely shouted a few times in a panic, and the regular patients evacuated along with the medical personnel.
Only Ji Kai remained lying here. Because of the side effect, he couldn’t be awakened. He was ultimately asphyxiated by the smoke, leading to the dreamscape invading reality.
The timeline matched as well. A short while after the fire broke out, the dreamscape went out of control.
"Ji Kai brought this upon himself. In the end, Tian Menglian got her revenge, though it’s a pity for all those innocent people who died in vain."
Fang Chen had no time to mourn. Since Ji Kai was most likely dead, making the dream monsters disappear by waking him up was no longer realistic. He needed a long-term plan.
Fang Chen took a few bottles of disinfectant, anti-inflammatory medicine, and some bandages from the infirmary’s medicine cabinet.
His arm and shoulder were injured. If such puncture wounds weren’t treated promptly, there was a risk they would worsen later on.
He walked to a clean spot, washed his wounds, applied the medicine, and bandaged them. Now, all he had to do was wait for them to slowly heal.
After all, in this motionless domain, he had plenty of time.
Having tended to his injuries, Fang Chen returned to the sports field and once again cast his gaze toward the frozen black figures.
He walked up to a Ghost Shadow and pondered, "I wonder what form the Ghost Shadows take in the dreamscape? Are they complete illusions, or are they physical entities in some sense?"
He swung the steel sword in his hand, the blade slicing across the Ghost Shadow’s neck.
The sensation... was very peculiar.
In the real world, when his attacks landed on the Ghost Shadows, it was like slashing into flowing water—he could barely feel any resistance and couldn’t inflict effective damage.
But in this absolute Time Stop Domain, the tactile feedback from the blade felt like he was chopping into a block of jelly!
Although it still didn’t feel like cutting through flesh and blood, there was a distinct sense of resistance!
"Is it because Time Stop completely froze one of its attributes?"
Fang Chen looked at the part of the Ghost Shadow that had been sliced open by the blade.
The severed surface didn’t bleed, nor did the head fall off. Instead, much like the edges of burning black paper, it rapidly turned into countless minuscule black particles that directly drifted away.
This sight was completely different from when it had been dispersed by Ye Yuxuan’s Wind Blade in reality earlier.
Fang Chen remembered that in the real world, these Ghost Shadows simply vanished directly. He hadn’t seen any small black particles; they just disappeared with a POOF.
Fang Chen watched as the escaping black particles didn’t just dissipate into nothingness.
They seemed to have lost their guidance and were frozen in the air. Like suspended black dust, they slowly swirled around the Ghost Shadow, unable to leave.
Curious, Fang Chen reached out a finger and tried to touch one of the particles.
A sensation of nothingness came from his fingertip. There was no texture whatsoever, just like touching the air.
Immediately after, these wandering, rootless black particles seemed to be attracted to Fang Chen. They unconsciously and slowly began to gather and swirl around his body.
"Did they lose their way back?"
Fang Chen looked at the black particles dancing around him, finding it somewhat wondrous and slightly amusing.
"These things should be products of Ji Kai’s own imagination, right? They were never meant to exist in reality. Now look at them—they’ve been captured inside my Time Stop Space."
Just as he was wondering where these particles would eventually drift, he took an inadvertent breath, inhaling a small mouthful of air mixed with the black particles.
"Huh?"
Fang Chen grew a bit tense and immediately held his breath, terrified that this might be some harmful Spiritual Energy or curse.
But... he felt absolutely nothing.
The inhaled particles were like ordinary air, bringing no discomfort at all.
However, that single breath acted like a signal—a switch!
The black particles that had merely been swirling around him seemed to instantly find their home. No longer drifting aimlessly, they transformed into tiny streaks of black fireflies, frantically burrowing into the pores all over his body!
"What the—?!"
Fang Chen couldn’t dodge.
In just the span of a breath, every single black particle hovering around him sank into his body and vanished without a trace.
Fang Chen immediately sat cross-legged on the spot, sinking his Heart Spirit into his body to carefully inspect it.
True Qi circulated through his meridians. He acutely sensed through his Perception that the foreign intruders hadn’t dissipated. The place they ultimately converged was, astonishingly—his Dantian!
They resembled a small cluster of profound nebula, quietly floating within his Dantian. Though entirely distinct from his own pure True Qi, they didn’t seem to conflict with it.
Once this black nebula stabilized in his Dantian, he felt his mind clear and his Perception become even sharper. Even the mental fatigue brought on by the previous battles was significantly alleviated.
"This... this seems to be a special, pure form of Spiritual Energy?"
Fang Chen drew a preliminary conclusion. "It doesn’t look harmful at all. Instead, it feels like... a tonic? Something beneficial to Spiritual Power and Perception?"
A bold thought rose in his mind:
"I wonder... what would happen if I try Refining them with True Qi?"