I alone have my own laws; I start by fabricating myths and legends of mountains and seas.

Chapter 9 Mountain and Sea Realm

Chen Yang's message exploded in the group chat, followed by a series of close-ups of the Bai Ze statue from various angles, filled with piety and a touch of chuunibyou (adolescent delusions of grandeur).

Su Fan: "Interesting. Your statue has finally arrived."

Wang Ge (Wang Jianguo) from the construction site: "Xiao Chen did a pretty good job. As long as you're happy."

Tranquility leads to far-reaching influence (Li Bowen): "Respect without flattery, admiration without blind faith. In ancient times, people would worship as if the gods were present, emphasizing the sincerity and reverence of one's heart. As long as your heart is sincere, that is enough."

Jiang Yuhe (Jiang He): "Offering is a matter of personal freedom, but I must remind you that some of our current understanding comes entirely from a collective dream experience of unknown nature. Please be sure to maintain the distance of a rational observer."

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "Sister Jiang, I understand! It's a scientific attitude! But I call this 'practice makes perfect'! Sincerity works, what if? In my dreams, the Great God Bai Ze is so kind and wise! I worship him to express my gratitude and longing, and by the way... hehe, adding a little luck buff isn't too much to ask, right? Don't worry, I won't go mad!"

Jiang Yuhe (Jiang He): "@Everyone. Everyone, I've been organizing my thoughts these past few days and have a preliminary observation and conjecture. Please check it against me."

This news immediately grabbed everyone's attention.

Jiang Yuhe (Jiang He): "After our first shared dream, we both experienced significant mental exhaustion for the next three days."

"The second time we shared a dream was ten days after the first. Similarly, I felt tired in the following three days."

Jiang Yuhe (Jiang He): "I noticed a possible time pattern: the interval between two dreams is exactly ten days. And each dream is followed by a three-day period of mental fatigue."

"So I have a hypothesis: Is it possible that we are being guided by some unknown mechanism or pattern, or simply put, a 'dream event' with a potential cycle of 'ten days' and a fixed follow-up effect of 'three days of fatigue'?"

This message caused a brief silence in the group. Jiang He's deduction was clear and calm, directly pointing to the core issue of "regularity," which was both comforting and unsettling.

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "Holy crap! Sister Jiang is awesome! Now that you mention it... it seems so! Once every ten days? Three days of debuff? This sounds more like some kind of... system rule? Or check-in mechanism? Could it be that we've really been 'marked' by something, and are periodically pulled into 'meetings' or 'trials'?"

Jiang Yuhe (Jiang He): "This is just a preliminary guess based on two sets of data, and it is far from being a conclusion. We need more verification and we also need to consider the possibility of chance. Everyone should not over-interpret it, and even less should they have unnecessary expectations or anxieties. Just keep observing."

At this point, Wang Jianguo interjected, focusing on more specific issues, which aptly shifted the conversation from the abstract concept of "cycles" to a more personal experience:

Wang Ge (Wang Jianguo) from the construction site: "I can't figure out whether there's a pattern or not. It's just that Teacher Jiang mentioned it, and the situation in our dream last time was different from the first time."

Once he started talking, it was with a touch of simple confusion and a willingness to share:

Wang Ge (Wang Jianguo) from the construction site: "I was taken away by that big turtle. It felt really heavy, like I'd grown into the mountains and the land. Xiao Chen, what about you? You seemed to have been carried away by some fierce guy with red eyebrows and green eyes?"

Su Fan: "The creatures we encountered in our dreams are probably not ordinary beasts, but rather some 'divine beasts' or 'auspicious beasts' with a distinguished background. The one that took Uncle Wang away last time was probably a Bixi. Dragons have nine sons, none of whom became dragons, and each has their own preferences. One of them is called Bixi, which resembles a tortoise and is good at carrying heavy loads. It is usually used in stone carvings to carry steles."

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "So what I encountered was a dragon's head and a leopard's body... This doesn't sound like an ordinary animal! Brother Su! Brother Su, don't you like reading those strange and supernatural ancient books?"

Su Fan: "Chen Yang, there's a high chance that the one you encountered was Ya Zi. He's also one of the dragon's sons, with a leopard's body and a dragon's head. He has a fierce personality and is brave and skilled in battle. In ancient times, people often carved his image on the hilts of knives and swords, symbolizing sharpness and invincibility."

Su Fan: "As for what Teacher Li encountered, it might be a medicinal beast, and what Jiang He encountered was probably a silverfish."

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "Wow! Brother Su, you're a walking encyclopedia! Bixi, Yazi, medicinal beast, silverfish... they all sound so exciting! But speaking of which..."

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "I fought that Ya Zi for eight hundred rounds, to a draw. Although I was screaming in pain and felt like my body was going to fall apart, when I woke up... guess what?"

Master Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "I seem to...become a bit more powerful! It's not like my muscles have become stronger, I learned grappling in physical education class, and some of my power-generating skills have always been unsatisfactory, but now it seems that I suddenly got the idea! Is this...a blessing in disguise? Being beaten in a dream, an upgrade in reality?"

Su Fan looked at Chen Yang's description of "fighting eight hundred rounds without a clear winner" and shook his head with amusement—in the dream, he was clearly unilaterally crushed hundreds of times.

However, the changes in physical reactions mentioned by Chen Yang do indeed confirm Su Fan's observation: dream experiences can be "imprinted" on the physical and mental aspects of reality in some way.

Therefore, the dream world of [Shared Dream Pillow] can serve as a training room to some extent.

Jiang Yuhe (Jiang He): "The improvement in physical coordination mentioned by Chen Yang is noteworthy. It may support the hypothesis that 'deeply immersive experiences may have a potential impact on neuromuscular memory,' although its mechanism goes far beyond the scope of conventional psychology."

Jiang Yuhe (Jiang He): "Personally, after experiencing the information overload from 'bookworms,' I tried to systematically sort out the remaining fragments in my mind. I gained some knowledge!"

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "Knowledge?! Sister Jiang, what kind of knowledge exactly? Cultivation techniques? Or high technology?" Chen Yang's imagination immediately ran wild, filled with the feeling of various fantasy novels.

Jiang Yuhe (Jiang He): "It's not that kind of concrete 'knowledge'."

Jiang Yuhe (Jiang He): "Many things are not systematic, they are fragmented, and some are even contradictory."

Jiang Yuhe (Jiang He): "So, it's more like some... very twisted 'thinking tools' that might spark some new ideas."

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "Are there any specific examples, Sister Jiang? Like, suddenly you can play chess? Or you can understand particularly complex blueprints?"

Jiang Yuhe (Jiang He): "There wasn't any direct, specific skill improvement. If I had to say... for example, I've recently been researching a model about the decay and distortion of information in social networks. The conventional approach is to start with the propagation nodes and content characteristics. But there's a strange 'perspective' in those fragments; it doesn't focus on the nodes, but rather on a different perspective of the entire propagation network. This perspective itself cannot be directly calculated, but it made me subconsciously pay attention to factors that are easily overlooked in conventional models, and I discovered some abnormal data correlations that I hadn't noticed before."

Construction Site Brother Wang (Wang Jianguo): "Hearing this, Teacher Jiang, your 'experienced eye' is somewhat similar to that of our veteran construction workers, but not quite the same. Veteran workers have been doing this for a long time; they can tell at a glance which beam is not functioning properly. You... have some strange 'look' forced into your head?"

Su Fan felt that the dream world could also be a viable medium for knowledge transmission.

Su Fan: "I obtained some information from Bai Ze last time, which may be helpful to everyone. The dream world may be called the world of mountains and seas. We can temporarily regard it as a 'gap' or 'fragment' that has some connection with the mythological worlds described in ancient books such as the Classic of Mountains and Seas."

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "The World of Mountains and Seas?! It really is the one from the Classic of Mountains and Seas?! Brother Su! What else did the Great God Bai Ze say?! Did he mention how to cultivate? How to obtain magic treasures? Have we traveled to a mythological dimension?!"

Chen Yang's excitement almost burst through the screen. A barrage of questions bombarded him, his words filled with the ecstasy of his fantasy coming true and countless imaginative ideas waiting to be filled.

Tranquility Leads to Far-Reaching Vision (Li Bowen): "So, it's as if I glimpsed a part of the lingering charm of mountains and seas in a dream?"

Construction site worker Wang (Wang Jianguo): "So, we went to another world in our dreams?"

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "Yes, yes, yes! Brother Wang's summary is spot on! It's another world! A real entrance to a mythical dimension! We've been transported to a mythical world."

This message seemed to ignite the last vestige of doubt in Chen Yang's mind, and his excitement and youthful exuberance blazed fiercely. In his mind at that moment, the fragmented clues finally pieced together a complete picture.

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "Brothers! Case solved! Case solved!"

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "We're not just having some strange dream; we're the real 'souls transported to the Mountain and Sea Realm,' the chosen ones of heaven!"

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "Think about it, why the five of us of us? Why did each of us encounter something different? Why did we all bring something back with us when we woke up?"

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "This is the inheritance! The inheritance of divine beasts! Based on our inherent qualities and temperament, different ancient divine beasts have been assigned to 'transfer power' to us!"

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "Uncle Wang, you've received the 'Stability' mantra from the Great God Bixi! I've received the true meaning of 'War' from the Great God Yazi! Grandpa Li, that's the 'Life' blessing from the medicinal beast! Sister Jiang, it's the 'Wisdom' root given by the bookworm... uh, perhaps some ancient god who governs 'knowledge' or 'information' laws! Brother Su might have received some kind of 'prophecy'!"

Bai Ze's most loyal servant (Chen Yang): "We've embarked on a transcendent path of evolution! We're no longer life forms on the same 'dimensional level' as those ordinary people who work nine-to-five and deal with the mundane details of daily life!"

He became more and more excited as he spoke, and then changed the chat group name to "Mountain and Sea Realm".

Ya Zi (Chen Yang): "Therefore, our group's fate is already bound to that world. We are 'Walking the Mountains and Seas' and 'Descendants of Divine Beasts' walking in modern society!"

Ya Zi (Chen Yang): "Let's not hide our nicknames anymore, let's use the names of our inherited mythical beasts! From now on, I'll be—'Ya Zi'! How awesome is that! Uncle Wang, you'll be called 'Bi Xi,' as steady as Mount Tai! Grandpa Li will be called 'Medicine Beast'! Sister Jiang… uh, 'Silkworm'? Brother Su will definitely be 'Bai Ze'!"