Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei Returns from the Elden Ring

Zero didn't light the white candles, but simply turned on the lights on the ceiling of the restaurant.

Four sets of cutlery were laid out on the table: ceramic plates paired with rose gold knives, forks, and chopsticks. The meal consisted of borscht, mashed potatoes with mushroom stew, and braised beef in a pot—a rather lavish meal for a late-night snack.

Chapter 74 Hypnosis

Kassel College, Department of Special Psychology.

Finger lay in a specially designed seat, with counselor Masashi Tomiyama sitting across from him. Chopin's Nocturne in B major, Op. 32 No. 1, played from a stereo in the corner of the room. The nocturne's theme was introduced by gentle arpeggios, then unfolded by the melody in the right hand, as if the player were telling a moving story.

Masashi Toyama held a pocket watch in his hand. On the engraved enamel dial, the silver-blue hands were moving backward, ticking away, second by second.

Fingel stared at it for a while, and felt as if the engraved patterns on the plate were moving, like blooming flowers, or like thousands of gears turning in a huge machine. He was already feeling drowsy, and in this relaxed, focused, and associative state, he immediately fell into a deep state of numbness and hallucination.

Masashi Toyama was still chanting softly, "Word of Power: Hypnos."

Hypnos is the name of the Greek god of sleep. This spell can guide the target into a deep sleep, and the effect will be better with the help of props.

To facilitate this operation, the vice principal temporarily removed the Word of Power and Commandments.

This special psychology research room is divided into two parts, separated by a one-way transparent glass. One side is a well-lit monitoring room, while the other side is a dark monitoring room. The two sides of this glass have completely different physical properties. The front side has a reflectivity of 92% for visible light and a light transmittance of only 5%, making it almost like a mirror. The reverse side is the opposite, with low reflectivity and high light transmittance, thus enabling one-way vision.

There were only two people in the monitoring room, Angers and Passy.

They were watching Masashi Tomiyama ask Fingel, who was fast asleep, questions that had been pre-planned and concerned the Panhandle Plateau incident.

"What's your name?" Masafumi Tomiyama asked softly, starting with a simple question to guide Fingel's subconscious thinking. "What's your role in Project Sword of Victory?"

“I am Fingel von Frings, an ‘F’ class student,” Fingel answered smoothly in his sleep. “I don’t have any identity at all. At first, I thought it was just a meet-up with Lu Mingfei’s online friends. I went because I heard that I could travel for free and someone would treat me to a meal. But it was all a conspiracy by Lu Mingfei, the principal, and Guderian. They knew about the plan all along, but only told me after I was registered on the action list by the Executive Department.”

"When and where did you meet Ronald Don?"

“In the evening, at the subway station in the airport, he picked up Lu Mingfei by holding up a sign with his name on it.”

Did he exhibit dragon-like characteristics at that time?

"No, what dragon would wear Amazon's discounted clothes? That shirt is even too big for its size."

"You spent two days on a bus with Ronald Don, and even stayed at his house for one night before that. Did he show any unusual behavior during that time?"

"No, he's just a bachelor with a little money, but not much. His living space consists of nothing but his bed and computer, and you can't even tell if he has any other hobbies."

Masashi Tomiyama is currently asking about what Fingel wrote in the summary report, and it's basically confirmed to be correct. The next step is to dig out the truth from the depths of his mind.

"Is the final stage of the operation going smoothly?"

"It went smoothly at first. The guy was naive and easy to fool, and he clearly didn't have many friends. With a little guidance, he agreed to get off at Amarillo. Then, in the taxi sent by the executive department, he showed some unease. That was entirely because of the desolate environment along the way. Anyone would feel uneasy if a driver took them to a place like that. Later, after arriving at the hotel, he muttered that he wanted to buy some beer."

Masashi Tomiyama nodded; Fingel's answer was completely consistent with the report.

"So what happened after you entered the Alchemy Matrix?"

“After we went in, Ronald Tang seemed to be frightened. It was Lu Mingfei who forcibly brought him into the Matrix.” A crack appeared on Fingel’s calm expression, as if something was tormenting him in his memory. His brows furrowed and his breathing became rapid, like someone drowning in a dream.

In the monitoring room, Fingel's heart rate on the screen gradually increased, eventually reaching 160 beats per minute.

Masashi Tomiyama realized that Fingel was struggling for control of his nightmare, so he gently patted his arm and whispered reassuringly, "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, you're safe now. What did you see?"

Unlike his previous fluent answers, Fingel's description here was hesitant and stammering, as if he were in pain.

"Lu Mingfei turned around and shouted for me to take Wang Wei and evacuate... Ronald Tang's golden eyes lit up... He seemed like a different person... No, someone was speaking through his body... He said... Human... I will grant you life!"

After saying his last sentence, Fingel took a deep breath, like a drowning person climbing ashore. He sprang up from his seat, almost bumping into Masashi Tomiyama's head.

“The hypnosis is over,” Masafumi Tomiyama said to Fingel, and also through the microphone to the people in the monitoring room. “Under guidance, you relived that memory, like a train traveling in your subconscious. Now that train has crashed, and that is the real point at which you fell into a coma.”

In the monitoring room, Passy took out the storage hard drive from the console, politely said goodbye to Angers, and left.

Before hypnotizing Fingel, "Wang Wei" had already been hypnotized. The two men's statements were basically the same, with some slight differences in details, which further confirmed the authenticity of the statements.

Fingel removed the electrode patch from his body that was connected to the electrocardiogram monitor, opened the door, and met Angers' gaze.

"Did I do a good job?"

“Great,” Angers said. “Your mission record will be excellent. You and Wang Wei have a week left on your vacation, so spend that time resting at school.”

"How's it going over the Three Gorges?" Fingel asked.

"Breaking news: the elemental turbulence has begun to subside."

......

Lu Mingfei woke up very early and sat alone in the empty living room.

This house was likely purchased along with its renovation and furniture. The renovation style is a minimalist modern style with cool tones. Apart from a sofa and a few decorative items, there are almost no other furnishings in the living room. A nearly 8-meter-high white sheer curtain blocks the view from the balcony, and a breeze occasionally blows in, revealing the distant mountains and fields under the morning sun.

After having a late-night snack last night, Lu Mingfei noticed that the girls were all tired, so he suggested that they pause their conversation and go to sleep first.

In just a few days, Lu Mingfei traveled from the United States to Nibelungen and then from Nibelungen to Lu Mingze's team's small base, receiving a lot of information, so he barely slept a wink all night.

Chapter 75 Orientation

Footsteps sounded upstairs, but they weren't Su Enxi and the other girls'—they were all wearing slippers.

The footsteps were made barefoot, with an inexplicable sense of stealth and suspicion. The footsteps stopped at the suspended staircase, followed by a low, muttered self-talk, "Is this thing... sturdy?"

The suspended staircase's steps were all made of translucent glass, secured by ropes hanging from the ceiling. It had a minimalist style and, according to Su Enxi, was worth approximately 40 yuan. When Lu Mingfei saw it, he thought that if Finger were here, he would definitely mutter a question about its sturdiness. Now, sure enough, another guy voiced his opinion.

After hesitating for a moment, the owner of the footsteps finally made up his mind and stepped onto the stairs that resembled a glass walkway.

A moment later, Lu Mingfei saw the sneaky guy at the corner of the stairs, and the guy saw him too.

Their eyes met, and the other person suddenly raised their hands in terror.

“Ronald Don?” Lu Mingfei asked with a smile.

"Yes, sir." Old Tang sat up straight, looking strangely comical.

He was originally hunched over with his toes on the ground, but now his center of gravity shifted to his heels, and he immediately felt the rough texture of the glass that made the surface of the waves. So his sincere expression of loyalty was immediately mixed with a bit of grimacing.

“Come down, I remember there are shoes in your room,” Lu Mingfei said.

"We thought we were kidnapped, so we didn't dare make a sound, Brother Lu... Brother Lu." Old Tang switched to walking on his tiptoes, and only relaxed when he stepped onto the flat floor. Then he immediately walked timidly to Lu Mingfei's side, bowing his head and bending over, his hands awkwardly unsure of where to put them, looking just like a student being reprimanded by the homeroom teacher for the first time.

"Sit down." Lu Mingfei patted the empty seat next to him helplessly.

Old Tang then carefully sat down—half of his buttocks dangling in the air, his back straight.

"Are you afraid of me?" Lu Mingfei asked.

"I'm afraid...no, I'm not afraid." Old Tang kept shaking his head.

Lu Mingfei felt that he might know something.

"Tell me, what have you seen since you left that hotel?"

Old Tang hesitated for a while, and after his lips moved for a long time, he finally managed to utter a weak sentence, "Don't disbelieve me when I tell you, and don't think I'm lying to you."

"Okay, I promise." Lu Mingfei sighed.

Old Tang then began to recount his story hesitantly.

"In that place that looked like a cult altar, all the scribbles around me suddenly came to life... I felt like I had jumped into a pool filled with worms, and then someone was crying in my ear, and someone was talking. I couldn't understand their language, and it gave me a headache. Then my headache got worse and worse, and everything went black. I was... I was in my childhood orphanage room."

"An orphanage?" Lu Mingfei frowned.

“That’s right, I haven’t been back for many years, but I still recognize it.” Old Tang nodded. “Back then, we had five people in one room, five white-painted iron bunk beds lined up in a row, with white sheets and blankets. The south and east windows were open... I would lean out the window and look out, but there was only white light and no scenery.”

"I went out of the room and explored the corridor outside. Every room was empty, but the furnishings were exactly the same as in my childhood memories. Finally, I arrived at the activity room." Old Tang looked like he still had a lingering fear. "It was a very retro room. The four walls were covered with mint-colored dust-proof cloths, and the sofa was also covered with dust-proof cloths and pushed to the corner. Apart from the large cabinet in the corner, the other furniture was all wood products with peeling paint. The whole room was shrouded in dim light through the curtains. The furniture was clearly not dusty, but I always felt that dust that had accumulated for more than ten years was floating in the air."

After listening to Lao Tang's description, Lu Mingfei thought of the concept of spiritual vision.

According to records in the Norma database, most hybrids say they see chaotic lines, tangled snakes, and wildly growing plants, while only a very small number of people see scenes that are highly realistic.

Old Tang is like a mixture of these two.

"Is there anything else?" Lu Mingfei asked.

Old Tang hesitated again, but finally said it, "There's an old TV in the activity room. Before, every night before we went to bed, the aunties would show us pre-recorded cartoons. After watching them, we'd go back to our rooms to sleep... In this 'dream,' the only thing lit up in the whole room was that TV. It was a first-person perspective, and the 'protagonist' was... fighting with you. You were hacking at each other with knives in an endless bronze city, hacking and slashing until the world was destroyed, and then it was over."

After Old Tang finished speaking, he observed Lu Mingfei's expression.

He actually tended to believe it was true, because he was a bounty hunter who often went into ancient tombs or prehistoric ruins and had seen many strange things, such as... golden, glowing eyes.

Lu Mingfei's face remained expressionless. He knew that what Lao Tang said was not only true, but that the "protagonist" in that shooting position was someone he had personally killed.

He had a guess.

Perhaps when Norton awoke, he did indeed destroy Old Tang's consciousness, during the stage when his vision was filled with lines. That was a typical spiritual vision. The spiritual vision of a hybrid is the awakening of dragon blood, and Old Tang's spiritual vision was the awakening of the Dragon King.

Awakening the dragon blood inevitably squeezes out the corresponding human portion. When the human portion is completely lost, the hybrid becomes Deadpool. Norton, being the Dragon King, squeezed out all of Donald's blood the moment he awakened.

However, despite his seemingly cowardly appearance, Old Tang was surprisingly resilient, like a cockroach. He had created a protective shell for himself within the vast and boundless spiritual world of the Dragon King—the orphanage. The key to this was that he hadn't completely lost contact with the outside world; he could still see and hear news from the outside world—through the television.

If Norton had been the victor in that war, he might have had the energy to completely eradicate the reptiles in his mental world, but he failed.

And so Old Tang was resurrected.

"Do you know about dragons?" Lu Mingfei asked.

"Like the ones in Dungeons & Dragons?" Old Tang asked cautiously.

Lu Mingfei was certain that, apart from having witnessed the battle, the old Tang in front of him still possessed the understanding of the human old Tang.

"Then let me start by telling you about the Black Dragon..."

A dozen minutes later, Lu Mingfei gave Lao Tang a complete orientation session for Kassel College.

"Holy crap, so we're actually a hybrid of monkeys and reptiles..." Old Tang still looked incredulous after hearing this.

So Lu Mingfei stretched out one of his hands and demonstrated in front of Lao Tang. Dense, bluish-black downy hairs sprouted from his forearm and instantly turned into fine scales.

"Holy crap! Awesome." Old Tang leaned closer, his eyes glued to the screen.

He couldn't actually see it clearly on that old TV, so he thought that the "armor" Lu Mingfei conjured up was some kind of armor, and the transformation process was like a magical girl entering a four-dimensional space to put it on and then coming out, so it looked like it was conjured up instantly.

But the truth comes out from under the skin!

......

On the second floor, Su Enxi leaned over the railing, looking down at the living room with great interest.

Mai Shude, who had just come out of the room, came to her side and asked curiously, "What are you doing?"

Su Enxi's expression was strange. She pointed down and said, "Look at the two dragon kings discussing... dragon scale nail art? I doubt even Nidhogg has ever seen anything like this."