Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

“Hmm, not found.” Alice nodded slowly. “The experts can only conclude that the change in the shield’s nature is an unnatural, artificial phenomenon. But who did it, and by what means and for what reason, remains a mystery. The information released so far only confirms that the person belongs to the mortal faction, and no one knows anything else about ‘him’.”

It turned out to be the case.

Lin Xi breathed a slight sigh of relief. Clearly, he couldn't possibly be an A-level enhancement user. What he experienced at that time was more likely a delirium than a real sensation—the one who truly turned the tide was probably someone else. So…

"What about the losses?"

“Very large,” Alice replied calmly. “The Independence Day mothership appeared simultaneously above thirty-six major cities around the world. Except for the newly formed city you are in, all the other cities were destroyed by the enemy's macro cannons. The winning methods in the movies don't apply here, because this world is completely different from the world of Independence Day.”

"different……?"

“Yes, different.” Alice nodded. “In the Independence Day world, all of East America’s modern electronic technology originated from reverse engineering of similar alien spaceships. The calculator language mastered by the humans there is simply the classical programming method of the other civilization. Therefore, the humans there were able to write electronic viruses that were effective against alien spaceships because they were on the same technological tree from the very beginning.”

"But it won't work here. The technology here is completely different from theirs. Mortals can't create viruses that are effective against alien spaceships. Nor can they destroy the enemy's macro cannons while they're firing, like in the movies. So, mortals suffered heavy defeats in their initial encounters, except here. Things only started to improve after special personnel found them and successfully obtained the technological entity that targets energy shields through a partnership."

"Then now..."

“Solved,” Alice replied. “The decapitation tactic involved a large-scale armored force providing fire support, allowing A-level special personnel carrying shield-breaking devices to approach the mothership in captured alien spacecraft. The rest was relatively simple: break the shield, infiltrate, and attack from both inside and outside—that was all. Although the enemy possessed information-sharing technology, so we paid a heavy price starting from the third attempt. After the fifteenth attempt, even a newly promoted B-level special personnel like myself had to be added to the infiltration operations as a reserve force. But in any case, the ultimate victors were still mortals.”

It turned out to be the case.

Lin Xi nodded inwardly. She didn't find any injuries on Alice's body, just as she couldn't tell the difference between a CC-level Alice and a B-level Alice—how could an ant tell the difference between a cat and a tiger? But apart from that, she finally understood the current situation.

She didn't ask for the specific figures of the losses, but it was obvious they must have been a horrific number. And after this, the formation of a world government would likely be inevitable.

Ha, it's interesting. I'm just an ordinary citizen, yet I always seem to fuss over such important national affairs.

She clenched her fist and silently exhaled a breath of stale air. After receiving this news, she felt a sudden sense of relaxation, both physically and mentally. This gave her time to think about other random things.

She remembered her earlier dream. That strange dream about 'Rhode Island Pharmaceuticals'. And she thought that talking to Miss Alice about the dream might help bring them closer.

For example...

“Miss Margot Royd…”

"Ok?"

Have you ever heard of... Andromeda?

With a 'snap', the apple in Alice's hand was cut in half.

“I’ve heard of it.” She cut the two halves of the apple into four slices, and then divided the four slices into six pieces.

Is there something wrong with her?

Section 41 - Programming Setting

"I had... a dream. A dream that felt very real."

"Ok?"

"In my dream, I woke up in a hospital bed like this. And then... I saw a strange person. A medical worker with cat-like ears, wearing an off-the-shoulder dress... Ah, and strange crystals were growing on her shoulders. It might be some kind of illness."

"What's her name?"—As Alice asked, a slice of apple was placed near Lin Xi's lips. She thanked her softly, then opened her mouth and slowly chewed and swallowed. The sweet and slightly sour flesh invigorated her.

“I don’t know…” Lin Xi shook her head. “I’ve never heard her mention her name. But she mentioned two… three people. One is named Warfarin, one is named Ceylon, and the other is Andromeda, whom I just mentioned…”

"Did you see them?" Alice asked, handing her another slice of apple.

"No, I woke up very soon after that. And when I woke up, I found myself on the battlefield."

“I see.” Alice nodded, a subtle thought flickering in her sky-blue eyes. “Some kind of mental illusion, like a precognitive dream?... Why are you telling me? Shouldn’t you report this directly to the higher-ups and experts?”

Lin Xi paused slightly.

Indeed, this kind of thing, this phenomenon... whether she really came into contact with something extraordinary or suffered some kind of mental breakdown, Lin Xi should have told her direct superior directly. Or she should have simply kept it a secret. But why... did she choose Alice as the person she confided in?

Very strange.

What's even stranger is that Alice would actually ask that question.

Lin Xi lowered her head and hummed a few times. She was surprised to find that she didn't actually have any reliable answers in her mind. It was as if it were some kind of instinct. She inexplicably felt that Alice Margot Lloyd was trustworthy and worthy of entrusting her with something. And then, she herself revealed this secret information.

It's amazing.

She shook her head in distress, and finally managed to squeeze out four indistinct words from her nose.

"I have no idea……"

Then the third slice of apple was brought to her lips—she took a bite instinctively, but unexpectedly, this slice of apple was surprisingly sour and refreshing!

So sour!

Her eyebrows and nose furrowed, and her delicate little face looked strangely sunken.

“Miss Margot Lloyd!” she couldn’t help but mutter a complaint under her breath.

However, the response she received was a soft chuckle from Alice. And the words that followed the chuckle immediately pulled her back to normal from this minor annoyance.

“I know what’s going on.” She saw Alice reach out and beckon paper and pen from the bedside table. “You’re just so stressed that you’re seeing hallucinations created by your subconscious mind—in short, you’re just dreaming.”

"A dream?" Lin Xi's eyes widened.

Was it just a dream? Ah… that's certainly possible. After all, it was something I saw while I was asleep—what I saw in my sleep, isn't that a dream? But…

...If it was a dream, then it was far too real. Because she found herself remembering every tiny detail of the dream. She remembered the face of the unfamiliar doctor in the dream!

She studied psychology and is a psychologist.

She knew that it was impossible for a person to dream of a complete stranger they had never met before—if they did, the stranger's facial features would be a composite of multiple faces from the dreamer's memory. And this was like the so-called dream goddess; what a person could obtain in their dreams was only an illusory beauty.

Because the goddess of dreams doesn't exist. It's merely a patchwork of imagined colors. Aside from a few individuals with inherently unusual mental states, everyone's dream goddess or god is destined to be a hazy, indistinct image. The brain cannot construct entirely unknown events from memory; it can only piece them together, rearrange them, and at most add a filter or two to make it appear beautiful!

The goddess in a dream doesn't exist; she's merely a mixture of fragmented memories superimposed on the dream. She's like the 'perfect child'—there's no tangible entity she represents. Instead, she's a construct of a collection of virtues from real, exceptional children. Therefore, with very few exceptions, it's impossible for a complete stranger to appear in a dream.

Yet, that person appeared in Lin Xi's dream—she was certain she had never seen that combination of short green hair, feline ears, an off-the-shoulder top, and crystallization symptoms before. Because she was extremely confident in her memory, she knew perfectly well that her recollections and understanding could never reconstruct such a clear image in a dream!

"...I don't think it was a dream." Her thoughts raced for a long time, but in reality, it was only a fleeting moment. Lin Xi cast a serious gaze at the blonde girl before her. Her tone was gentle, yet unwavering.

As a result, the fourth slice of apple was stuffed into her mouth.

Her lips twitched. She wanted to refuse, but the words caught in her throat—she ultimately took a small, gentle bite on the edge. The unexpected sweetness made her eyes widen.

This apple... is delicious!

“If a hypothesis isn’t verified personally, then relying solely on existing knowledge to infer and speculate, and treating it as a given, is not a rational choice.” She struggled to swallow the sweet apple slice, never imagining that the same apple could offer so many different flavors. She swallowed the fruit forcefully, her eyes narrowing in bliss. Then, she saw Alice place a glass of water on the armrest beside her.

She took a big gulp.

"Like this apple, it's the same fruit, yet it has three different flavors: bland, sour, and sweet. In the past, this would have been a very rare and special case. However, here, it's just an ordinary fruit. It's just that it underwent a special fruit-growing method before being harvested."

She put down her water glass and saw Alice place the fruit plate and knife beside her. Those sky-blue eyes were fixed on her, their clear reflection mirroring her image.

"Just like this apple... it is the way it is because it is not an ordinary man-made product, but is influenced by the big sphere of light above. Similarly, your dream should be like this."

"You mean..." Lin Xi's lips parted slightly in surprise. A certain guess surfaced in her mind.

“Yes, your guess is correct, Miss Lin Xi.” Alice’s answer immediately confirmed the idea that had just taken shape in her mind. “You have talent, Miss Lin Xi. Your mental strength… your perception is exceptionally strong. And this strength allows you to instinctively capture free-floating information and energy in the air, just like a software animal, and these elements combine to form the situation you are facing now.”

"You, you mean...?"

“You are indeed dreaming, but these are not ordinary dreams. Because these are not just dreams, but also the manifestation and resources for your spiritual growth and advancement—because your spirit captures external nourishment and pieces them together to construct strange scenes. In other words, your dreams are eating other people’s dreams.”

Lin Xi felt almost speechless. This unexpected turn of events was truly unimaginable to her. Her own dream devouring other people's dreams... but if that were really the case, then...

"You mean... I've also become a possessor of supernatural powers like you?"

“Your little brain can still work after all.” — Alice replied sarcastically, then gave her a clear answer.

“But you weren’t wrong. You can basically assume that. You have indeed begun to possess supernatural powers.” She nodded. “You have become one of my kind, Miss Lin Xi. What you see are physical dreamscapes generated by your mind capturing information from your surroundings. And I suspect you will come into contact with it more than once. And each time you come into contact with it, you will feel its scale become even larger.”

Is...is that so?

She picked up the paper and pen that she had prepared beforehand.

"If you don't believe me, then we can actually verify it."

....................................

Alice Margot Royd left fifteen minutes later. According to the blonde, she had some minor but necessary matters to attend to. Before leaving, she left Lin Xi a sketch.

The manuscript contained nothing strange, just ordinary paragraphs of text. Minutes earlier, she had created some settings for Lin Xi's dream world right in front of Lin Xi. And if those settings became reality in Lin Xi's dream, then her guess would be correct.

What did she set up?

It's nothing really.

She named the beast-eared medical worker, whose name Lin Xi didn't know, Kal'tsit. Then she assigned vampire and winged human attributes to Warfarin and Ceylon, whom she had never met. She designated the strange crystals as an important industrial resource called Originium and gave them a subtle infectious ability. And at the end of the notebook, she named the planet Terra.

Alice created these settings from scratch in front of Lin Xi. According to her theory, if Lin Xi were to re-enter that wondrous dream, she could determine from the dream's history whether it was an illusion or reality.

—This seems like a good idea.

But that's not enough.

The things within the script alone cannot prove anything, so Alice added a little bit of external variable at the end.

"When you return to that dream, you will encounter a girl who shows no signs of bestiality or Originium infection. Her name is Skadi, and she will stay by your side, becoming your protective force." — Alice, that was the initial concept.

This essentially eliminated the possibility of a lucky guess—Lin Xi checked online records afterward and, unsurprisingly, found no information related to 'Terra' or 'Originium' online at all. This satisfied her and fueled her interest and anticipation for the hypothesis.

Low risk, low return, but it effectively verifies all potential problems. Beyond that, the issue of the individual 'Andromeda' was completely absent from the conversation—a trivial matter that Lin Xi naturally didn't need to pay much attention to.

She quickly put the matter out of her mind.

She waits for the time limit of her future to arrive. She waits for the place where her dream will continue.

She believed that day would come soon.

................................................

Meanwhile, the civilized world continued its complex cycle of change as always. Numerous major and minor events unfolded in succession, making what was once a stable world noisy and unpredictable.

There were many minor issues, mainly conflicts arising from the mobilization of transportation capacity and resources during post-disaster reconstruction. These were merely a few newly opened surface battlefields. Following the Independence Day events, two more terrifying world-realizations of varying difficulty emerged on Earth. One was the less difficult Anaconda Plague, where mortals easily defeated the giant serpents, but their desire for the Blood Orchid nearly led to war. Several small countries and large concerns that wanted to take advantage of the chaos became a thing of the past, followed by an invisible battlefield with millions of casualties.

This is the first part, and its ending brings bloodstained orchids to several major powers. The very next day, many aged faces appearing on television regained their youthful appearance.

The other film, Jurassic Park, didn't generate much revenue. Although the dinosaurs were somewhat enhanced, they quickly became docile and obedient under the pressure of a large group of A-level enhanced individuals and a barrage of free artillery and missiles.

And so, that's the end of the minor part.

There were very few major events, only one. That was that mortals finally understood the reason for Independence Day and learned a crucial message conveyed by the sphere of light.

So this is the effect the light sphere was intended to have from the very beginning. From the start, the light sphere superimposed the horror world and the real world, creating battlefield after battlefield. In other words, the previous areas were all beginner zones. And now, it's time for the real battle to begin.

This is a big deal, but it's not actually big enough.

Because, after that, the light sphere revealed a new piece of information.