Chapter 66: Magic Net!

Chapter 66: The Nightmare Web!

After destroying the core of a second-rank nightmare, Li Wei rested briefly in the room.

Once his condition had recovered, he stepped out from the safehouse once more.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The moment he stepped outside, several streaks of light shot past before his eyes.

Li Wei focused—arrows. One missed its mark, but the rest struck true, piercing a nightmare orc on the opposite side of the street.

He turned toward the direction the arrows came from and saw the silhouettes of Lana and Lisa.

Li Wei was slightly surprised—they were still alive in this dream.

Throughout the dreamscape of Hansha City roamed first- and second-rank nightmares.

For two people of their strength to have survived until now was nothing short of astonishing.

Still, after a moment’s thought, Li Wei chose not to interfere with their dreams.

Experiencing nightmares carried both benefits and drawbacks.

The downside was obvious—terrible dreams that left one mentally drained upon waking.

Ordinary people would blame poor sleep, unaware that part of their essence had been devoured by nightmares.

Yet there was an upside: the subconscious retained fragments of combat experience from the dream.

Though ordinary folk forgot the details upon waking, when faced with similar situations later, they’d feel an inexplicable sense of déjà vu—a strange familiarity.

They might think: I’ve been here before… I’ve done this… I’ve seen this person…

In battle, it manifested as instinctive reactions—an intuitive sense of how to move, how to strike.

Since mastering the Great Dreamwalking Art, Li Wei’s combat experience had skyrocketed.

He never forgot his dreams, so none of that hard-won knowledge was ever lost.

He didn’t rely on flashes of inspiration or gut feelings—he remembered everything.

As he walked, Li Wei dispatched isolated nightmares with small fireballs.

His perfected small fireball spell, doubled in power, was more than enough to threaten low- to mid-tier first-rank nightmares.

Only against high-tier first-rank nightmares did he need full fireballs—or charged fireballs.

"Nightmares themselves are relatively fragile," he mused. "Among monsters of the same rank, they’re rather weak."

"In reality, nightmares are dangerous because they possess living bodies, stealing the host’s strength."

"But in dreams, though they lose the ability to possess, they gain terrifying regenerative powers."

"Each has its strengths."

As he hunted, Li Wei reflected, gathering insights.

"Master Wens?"

He looked up and saw a familiar figure.

Wens was locked in fierce combat with two nightmare orcs—both high-tier first-rank.

They pressed him hard.

"Vine Bind!"

The ground cracked. Thick vines erupted, coiling around the orcs.

The beasts swung their weapons, hacking through the vines, breaking free.

Wens seized the chance to launch an offensive spell.

"Spiked Thorns!"

A massive, thorny serpent burst from the earth, wrapping tightly around both orcs.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Their armor shattered under the crushing force, dissolving into gray mist.

Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!

The mist slipped through gaps in the thorn-serpent’s coils, swirling around Wens and reforming into the orcs behind him.

To Wens, it was horrifying—one moment, the enemies were dead; the next, they stood right behind him, whole again.

Cold sweat drenched his back.

Ordinary people couldn’t see the gray mist clinging to nightmares.

Boom!

An orc’s weapon slammed into Wens’ magical shield.

He snapped back to reality, retreating desperately, trying to cast another control spell.

Thud!

A spiked club crashed into his shield, knocking him sideways, his incantation forcibly disrupted.

Now cornered, Wens took blow after blow, unable to fight back.

He couldn’t create distance—the orcs were far faster.

Li Wei watched from the side, brow furrowed.

He pondered how to counter such a situation.

This was every mage’s nightmare—overwhelmed by melee foes, unable to complete a single spell.

Bang!

Wens tore open a scroll. A blast of icy wind exploded outward, freezing both orcs solid.

"Alright," Li Wei thought. "Using magical items is a decent solution."

Finally, Wens had an opening.

"Spiked Thorns!"

The thorn-serpent crushed the frozen orcs. The ice shattered, the gray mist drifting away, then slowly reassembling nearby.

Li Wei shook his head. Wens’ plant-based magic was utterly countered by nightmares.

It could neither bind them permanently nor kill them.

He could watch no longer. He stepped forward—and hurled a charged fireball.

Boom! Roar!

A colossal flame engulfed Vince and the two orcish figures, swallowing them whole. In their place remained only a gaping crater.

Li Wei picked up the fragmented memories of Vince and destroyed the two nightmare cores.

Then he vanished into invisibility, walking down the road, gripping the memory shards, absorbing their contents.

"Hmm? So this is how the Weave functions?"

He had not obtained any spell patterns from Vince’s memories—because Circle Mages mastered their spells at the most rudimentary level: just enough to make them work.

Only a rare few Circle Mages ever devoted time to refining their craft or achieving deeper mastery over spell structures.

By now, Li Wei had more or less grasped the pattern.

A spell pattern could only be fully preserved in memory if its owner had cultivated it to at least the "minor perfection" stage.

Clearly, Vince had never achieved minor perfection in any spell.

His magic was weaker than that of many traditional mages.

Though no new spells were learned, Li Wei gained knowledge of the Weave—its nature and how to access it.

And he felt the harvest was substantial.

The Weave existed upon magical elements; in theory, any region containing magical elements was permeated by it.

Yet the flow of information within the Weave depended on the movement of those elements.

Thus, if a place sealed off its magical elements, preventing exchange with the outside, the Weave could not penetrate.

Only after viewing Vince’s memories did Li Wei understand: the rift between Circle Mages and traditional mages wasn’t as deep as imagined.

Or rather, the Goddess of Magic made no distinction between them.

All mages could enter the Weave.

Circle Mages could, and so could traditional mages.

But it was the use of the Weave’s power that drew the dividing line.

Traditional mages could only transmit information through the Weave—they couldn’t channel its energy to cast spells.

Circle Mages, through devotion to the Goddess of Magic, received higher-level access rights. These permissions corresponded directly to their rank-based casting abilities.

An apprentice Circle Mage unlocked only zeroth-tier casting rights, able to wield only zeroth-tier spells through the Weave.

A first-tier Circle Mage accessed only first-tier rights, limited to first-tier spells.

And so on.

Within the Weave system, each mage’s power was rigidly fixed, unbreakable.

Unlike traditional mages, who—if they could learn the spell—might see a novice cast a first-tier spell, or a first-tier mage even unleash a second-tier one.

But the barrier to learning such spells was insurmountable for countless aspirants.

Hence why so many chose the path of the Circle Mage.

From Vince’s memories, Li Wei acquired the method to enter the Weave.

And he learned one more thing:

The wizard tower of Maple City had long possessed the means to access the Weave—and to become a Circle Mage.

Alan had once told Vince that he occasionally chatted with the mage Marina within the Weave.

Before challenging the tower, he’d even sent Martin a declaration of challenge through the Weave—though Martin never replied.

Elrond never used the Weave, firmly believing it brought negative consequences.

(End of Chapter)