From the Ship of Fools to Earl of Wugang

In addition to its union building, which features a color television and a games room, the dockworkers' union at Twilight Harbor also operates a bowling alley to accommodate the night shift workers.

The stadium's entrance is sandwiched between a union clinic and a restaurant that's open all night; at any given time, people are drinking and playing sports in the lobby.

Workers with rolled-up sleeves took turns standing in front of the fairway and throwing the heavy wooden ball to the end.

The wooden ball rolled down the waxed lane and then knocked over the pins. The sounds of rolling, crashing, and cheering were enough to drown out any normal-volume conversation.

As Edmund stepped through the door, a familiar face greeted him.

Rick, wearing a gray shirt, raised an eyebrow at him, a cold smile appearing on his thin face. Edmund felt that this man's looks were no less than Lane Hall's.

He followed Rick through the front hall and up the narrow staircase to the second floor.

Rick walked through a hallway piled with folding chairs and cardboard boxes and opened a door.

"Come in. The soundproofing here is terrible, but the downstairs staff took care of it for us."

Several metal shelves lined the wall of the room, piled high with bottles and jars, arranged much more neatly than Rick's booth at the trade fair.

The windows were covered with thick cloth, and the only lighting was provided by an adjustable table lamp on the worktable.

Edmund looked at a map of Dusk Harbor on the wall, while Rick went to the side, poured himself half a glass of dark liquor, and slowly smelled it a few times.

"Want a drink?"

Edmund coughed. "I'm not in the mood for drinking tonight."

"Wise," Rick said, putting the bottle back. "I can't really drink anyway."

He gently swirled his glass: "Well, I have a troublesome condition, and alcohol makes it worse."

Rick didn't seem prepared to explain; he pulled over two wooden chairs.

"Then, let's talk about knowledge first. How much do you actually know about the spirit world?"

"I'd say I'm self-taught." Edmund had already prepared his answers on the way here. After giving a brief introduction, he took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket.

"This is my problem."

Rick took the book and glanced at it. The questions covered the formation of the spiritual path, the bringing of matter back to reality, the classification of spiritual beings, the possible effects of dream rituals, and the hierarchy of the spiritual realm.

"Interesting. It's clear they're not all complete beginners, and not entirely incompetent either." He flicked a page with his finger. "But 'self-taught' has definitely caused harm."

Edmund nodded calmly, and Rick placed the question sheet on the table.

"You saved me once, and I'm repaying that favor with roughly two-thirds of the questions here. The parts involving specific secret techniques, recipes, and advanced knowledge will be calculated separately. Is that fair?"

"fair enough."

A series of crashing sounds came from downstairs; ten bottles had fallen down almost simultaneously. Rick waited until the sounds subsided before beginning his explanation of the most basic structure of the Dream Realm.

The dream realm overlaps with countless dreams in reality. Areas closer to reality are more easily influenced by mortal memories, and the same location may present drastically different buildings at different times.

"Where reality falters, dreams flow into a landscape large enough to contain themselves, where fear, nostalgia, and fleeting pleasure... these take on different forms."

Rick picked up a pencil and drew several overlapping circles on the back of the question sheet.

"Dreams are the main way to contact the spirit world, but as you go deeper into the dream world, there are all sorts of possibilities for 'returning to reality'."

Rick went on to explain that each time a dreamer travels back and forth, they leave behind a certain path trace.

"You can think of it as the muddy ground of a dock after the rain. If you walk on it more than ten times, even someone who isn't good at tracking will know where you came from."

This is one of the questions Edmund was concerned with: "What things track the road?"

"Predatory spirits, wandering spirits, anything that likes to collect secrets," Rick explained. "They may not be able to enter reality directly, but they are very likely to interfere with rituals or enter nearby dreams."

Compared to posts from dubious sources on the forum, Rick's knowledge directly solves the immediate problem. This one tip alone is worth a considerable amount of gold coins.

However, Edmund quickly thought of the Darklight Rat King: "Was that the Rat King there because of this?"

Rick picked up his glass of liquor and took a deep breath: "This probably has something to do with me."

"I guessed so. It was clearly more excited to see you than it was to see me."

"This is... perhaps a spiritual fluctuation generated from the battle; there are many possibilities." Rick looked somewhat uneasy.

"Fortunately, that was just a sign that the projection was about to form. A few dozen seconds later, we might have had to consider who to leave behind to buy time."

Judging from the other party's reaction, there must be other reasons behind this. However, Edmund didn't intend to delve into the details for the time being; he had other questions.

The conversation continued for a long time. Edmund continued to ask questions according to the question list, while Rick occasionally paused to think, but most of the time he was able to quickly provide well-structured answers.

This composure gradually convinced Edmund that the other party possessed far more knowledge than an alchemy apprentice who had learned on his own through trade fairs and underground forums.

"You've received a systematic education," Edmund said, finally revealing his true intentions just before he finished asking the question. "And the people who taught you were highly skilled."

Rick put down his pencil, and someone else threw a ball downstairs. The rolling sound passed under the floorboards, followed by applause and cheers.

"In that case, perhaps we should satisfy your curiosity."

Rick finally spoke about himself: "I was once apprenticed to an alchemy master in the Eastern Continent, and I did receive a good education back then."

He scratched his stubble-covered chin: "But all of that came to an end with a serious accident in the experiment I was involved in. I was injured and lost the trust of many people. Regardless of whether the responsibility was entirely mine, it was no longer appropriate for me to stay there."

Rick spoke in generalities, only mentioning that after leaving the Eastern Continent, he wandered to several places before ending up in Twilight Harbor.

He also explained why he continued to hunt creatures from the Dream Realm: the disease left by that accident could not be truly cured, and could only be suppressed by periodically extracting the spiritual essence of specific creatures from the Dream Realm.

In Edmund's eyes, the other party's information had already been updated.

Rick Fremont

[Currently 27 years old, an alchemy apprentice at the first stage of the "Path of Alchemy," formerly an apprentice of an academician of the Royal Academy of Sciences of the Holy Kingdom of Misnell.]

[He has sealed an item of extremely high status within his body using a special alchemy array, which requires a constant infusion of spiritual energy to maintain.]

He was highly skilled in alchemy, but an anomaly within his body caused his alchemical creations to be extremely unstable.

This explains why the Rat King appeared.

Edmund shrugged, thinking of the several deaths he had experienced. "I'm sorry, it certainly wasn't a pleasant memory."

Rick smiled, and the two did not press each other about their past.

As dawn approached, they also finalized the details of their future collaboration.

Edmund will hand over the biological materials he obtains in the spirit world to Rick for purchase. Rick will be responsible for material processing and equipment repair, and will allow Edmund to use his hunted animals to offset part of the price of knowledge and alchemical products.

If both parties are preparing to enter the same spiritual realm, they can exchange information in advance to avoid interfering with each other again.