Chapter 373 - 362: The Lighthouse Only You Can See
Chapter 373: Chapter 362: The Lighthouse Only You Can See
Finding a single person across the vast expanse of planes isn’t necessarily difficult.
As long as they aren’t deliberately hiding or inside a special region that blocks perception, a Wizard always has a way.
The most conventional method is to pay a hefty fee to an organization specializing in divination, curses, or intelligence, using the target’s bloodline, soul aura, or even their true name to locate them.
But Allen had no intention of doing so.
It was too slow, too expensive, and it would attract too much attention.
He had a better option.
Allen opened his personal terminal and connected to a hidden port—the Spiritual Thought Network.
This secret society, built by Mind Mages of the Mind School, specialized in running a black market for information on the spiritual plane, trafficking in memories and intelligence.
Allen paid one hundred Mid-Level Magic Stones for a piece of basic information.
A few seconds later, an encrypted message returned: [Lina, First-level Wizard, last known activity: Plane #897, ’The Land of Clamor’.]
The information ended there.
A more precise location would cost several thousand Magic Stones and require waiting for their intelligence agents to conduct an on-site investigation.
Allen closed the port immediately.
He already had the general coordinates—a commercial Plane slightly inferior to Hub City. That was enough.
He didn’t need to post missing person notices all over the world, nor did he need those information brokers to startle her.
Since Lina’s talents were "Dream Fragment Weaving" and "Emotion Perception," the most precise "missing person notice" would be to drop a unique signal bomb directly into the domain where she was most sensitive.
Allen immediately set off for the Plane known as the Land of Clamor and rented a Meditation Room in its most prosperous district.
He sat cross-legged, and his Spiritual Power flowed out like liquid mercury. It did not explore the material world, but instead sank into a deeper, more ethereal dimension.
The Sea of the Collective Unconscious.
In every Plane inhabited by intelligent life, this was the spiritual ocean formed from the accumulated thoughts, emotions, and dream fragments that had dissipated from billions of beings over countless ages.
This was a sacred ground for the practice of Mind Mages of the Mind School, and also the nexus where the dreams of ordinary creatures converged.
After advancing to an Official Wizard, one’s soul solidifies, allowing them to resist the unconscious erosion of the Sea of the Collective Unconscious. They no longer have the chaotic, disorderly dreams of mortals.
Unless they chose to dive in.
Allen’s consciousness, like a submarine, silently entered this phantasmagorical ocean.
He was surrounded by a multicolored chaos, filled with countless swirling torrents of weeping and laughing emotions. There were also many fragmented memories—the bizarre scenes from the dreams of mortals.
’This is a good place. A lot of hidden knowledge is buried here, and it can also rapidly increase one’s Spiritual Power.’
Since the Sea of the Collective Unconscious was so wonderful for Wizards, it naturally attracted the covetous eyes of the powerful.
Rumor had it that four Moonlight Level Mind Mages had completely abandoned their physical bodies to merge with it, becoming the so-called "Four Gods of Chaos." These heavyweights frequently waged destructive turf wars, turning this treasured training ground for the Mind School into a treacherous, high-risk zone.
There were even rumors that the big shot behind the Spiritual Thought Network was one of them.
An ordinary Wizard who entered could easily lose themselves and go mad with the slightest misstep.
But Allen was different. His Mechanical Mind displayed its immense power here, preventing his will from manifesting in a humanoid form within the Sea of the Collective Unconscious.
Instead, it appeared as an astrolabe, a slowly rotating orb intricately woven from countless streams of silver data.
Absolute order, ultimate calm, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.
In this chaotic ocean of emotion, it was like an iceberg adrift in a tropical rainforest—dissonant, yet possessing a kind of cold beauty.
Allen didn’t construct any meaningful dream-story. He did only one thing.
Centered on his manifested "astrolabe," an invisible, faint ripple of Spiritual Power silently spread outward.
It carried only a single piece of information: Lina’s name.
Like a drop of water merging with the ocean, this ripple silently seeped into the shallow subconscious of the billions of beings on the Plane of the Land of Clamor.
To an ordinary person, this ripple was meaningless, like an illogical geometric shape flashing through a dream, forgotten upon waking.
But for one specific person...
It was the only lighthouse lit for her in an endless night.
...
In West District 3, on a quiet commercial street.
At the entrance of an inconspicuous little shop hung a wooden sign:
[Emotion Soothing / Dream Guidance / Psychological Trauma Suturing / Mind Curse Purification. Fee: 100-1000 Low-Level Magic Stones per session.]
Inside the shop, a woman rested her chin in her hand, bored, watching the sparse pedestrians outside.
More than twenty years had passed, and Lina had also become a First-level Wizard.
Her rare, moon-white hair was casually tied back with a vine.
Time seemed to have left few marks on her face, but her eyes, once as brilliant as a kaleidoscope, now appeared somewhat dim.
Business was as dismal as ever.
In the Wizarding World, which prized destructive power and the pursuit of truth, her "support of support" and "logistics of logistics" abilities were simply not respectable.
Combat squads didn’t need her, as she had no offensive Witchcraft. Academic institutions needed her even less; the "Theory of Emotional Colors" she studied was considered a heretical path even at the Heart Image Tower.
She could only scrape by, offering psychological guidance to Wizard Apprentices who had run into trouble during Meditation or were afflicted by mind curses.
After paying rent and buying the most basic supplies for her practice, there were next to no Magic Stones left.
"Sigh..."
Lina let out a soft sigh, a faint, fragmented light flickering in her eyes.
She subconsciously activated her [Emotion Spectrum Vision].
Instantly, the monotonous street outside transformed before her eyes.
A hurried merchant emanated a greedy, greasy yellow.
A Mercenary, dejected from a failed mission, was shrouded in a deathly, decaying gray. A arguing couple—one radiated a blinding, furious crimson, while the other was a hurt, mottled blue...
Countless complex, chaotic, and dirty emotional colors churned in her vision like a boiling pot of paint.
’It’s nauseating.’
Lina wearily closed her eyes and leaned against the corner, trying to use a brief Meditation to clear away the emotional garbage that had stained her mind.
Her consciousness slowly sank,
drifting into that shallow ocean of the collective unconscious, a place both familiar to her and belonging to everyone.
And then it happened.
Lina’s body jolted violently!
In that chaotic ocean without direction or time, a sea made of countless disorganized, multicolored dream fragments and emotional trash, she "heard" a call.
Following the pull of a mystical connection, she "saw"...
a vast and silent astrolabe.
Within it was what looked like a blue ocean, where countless silver threads interlocked, wove together, and operated at high speed in a manner that defied natural law, yet was filled with a beautiful mathematical precision.
Like a machine without emotion, yet containing the ultimate principles of the universe.
Lina’s eyes flew open. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest, nearly leaping out of her throat.
’She would never, ever forget this feeling!’
Twenty-seven years ago, at the Seven Towers Alliance flight training grounds, during a dusk when everyone was radiating frenzied emotions, she had seen this impossible "harmony" for the first time!
The one-of-a-kind existence she had drawn in her notebook, represented by a deep blue background and silver threads!
"The blue sea... the silver threads..."
Lina murmured to herself, her breathing quickening as a flush rose to her cheeks.
’It wasn’t a hallucination!’
At the core of that blue sea and silver threads, an unmistakably clear coordinate for a material Plane was displayed!
’He’s calling for me.’
The thought exploded like a clap of thunder, instantly shattering all the confusion and melancholy she had felt for years.
Lina shot to her feet.
She glanced at her shabby little shop, which she had run for five years without earning many Magic Stones.
There wasn’t the slightest trace of attachment on her face.
She walked straight to the door without a hint of hesitation, strode into the crowded street, and hurried toward the source of the signal.