The Dream Engine was dead. Its components had worn down until a critical fault caused a cascade of failures. For the first time in over thirty years, no human in the entire multiverse was receiving dreams. And due to the Dream Engine being viewed as an utter failure, another would never be built. An era had ended.

At least that was the version of events he managed to extract from Riley over their late dinner. She saw news clips while laundering linens, a task she was often assigned. Her news was two days old, but still featured every night due to its massive impact.

Sensing that he was bringing down the mood, Hector began asking questions. Things he'd never thought to wonder about before. And he learned a lot about Riley's daily life. She did a lot of housekeeping because those tasks fell to the lower earning girls. She also skipped breakfast every day because she was trying to accrue less debt. She had three roommates that were nice to her most of the time – though if someone had a bad experience with a client, they might take it out on her.

Because of her debt, she couldn't directly hold any credits. That meant she couldn't actually buy anything. Only the brothel could grant her goods or services in exchange for adding to her debt. And their rates were at a premium. The girls who didn't have debt would buy all their food at neighborhood cafeterias, meaning better quality for cheaper prices.

The things Riley desired were so very modest. She wanted to go on outings to see more than glimpses of the city outside her building. She wanted to impress the other girls. She wanted her debt gone so she could eat at cafeterias. She wanted to avoid the types of men who got off on beating up a tiny Xian woman. Such simple wants.

"What if your debt was paid off and your contract terminated?"

Riley stared down at the small plates of food scattered between them on the table. "Girls without a contract don't get as big of a share from the house."

"Without a contract, you don't have to work there, Riley."

"Hector… for someone who knows so many things, you really don't understand."

"I could help set you up with housing. Find you a new job."

"Girls get married to regulars sometimes. That's how we leave the house. Or our contract ends and we go to live in a charity park. I don't want my contract to terminate."

Maybe he needed to work some more on his humility, but the life she described didn't seem worth holding onto. What did she plan to do when she eventually aged out of her role? Be an old woman on the streets?

He couldn't fix her. That wasn't the job he signed up for. The extent of his involvement was making Riley strong enough to deal with the challenges she faced due to becoming a Xian against her will. The girl would need to figure out the rest of her life on her own.

They caught another air taxi back to the area of the brothel, then went to a nearby music venue. Riley hopped around the dance floor in frenetic celebration of her freedom while Hector planted himself at a table to cultivate. Hours passed and the dance floor began to empty.

Riley stumbled over to him. "Hector, I'm very tired and my feet hurt."

"Then let's get you back home."

"Hector? Why don't you wear shoes? The other girls think it's weird."

"Because shoes explode off my feet every time I fly."

She jerked around so fast to look at him that she almost fell to the ground. "We can fly?"

"It's a lot of fun. But it takes a lot of cosmic energy to do." He paused in front of the brothel's entrance. "Here you are."

"See you tomorrow, Hector! Oh! It's already tomorrow!"

Then Hector lifted into the air and flew to the building where he'd rented a locker to hold his things. Judging by the cheers, Riley enjoyed the show. When the taxi dropped him off at home, the sun was beginning to rise. Hector felt ready to sleep, but he had a couple of new purchases from Master Sirius to try out.

Inside his capsule, Hector ate the psychedelic honey pill. The results were not so intense this time. He managed to remain tethered to reality even as his perceptions became strange and fractal. He just noted to himself that his brain was doing weird things due to the drugs and focused on shuffling energy from his brain into his mind.

The operation proved a success and soon after he was able to see the results for himself.

Survey Results

Type: Xian

Level: 5

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Body: 4

Mind: 3.9

Aura: 2.9

Domain: 2.6

Energy Reserves: 92%

Hector's mind statistic had improved from three point six to three point nine. He was almost at four with his mind. It was time to turn his attention back to his domain. His main method of attack was the weakest aspect of his soul by far.

He then ate the other honey pill – the pumpkin spice ball. It was as detestable to him as every other 'pumpkin spice' product he'd ever tried. There was something pleasantly nostalgic about getting to despise a flavor from back home. Since he hadn't given any of the concentrated cherry juice to Riley, Hector drank down the bottle himself.

It was too sweet and also too sour, but Hector was determined not to be a wuss. Five minutes later, waves of energy rose from his body into his soul. Hector absorbed it over the next hour, then took a nap, waking in time for a late lunch. He cultivated, visited Riley for a lesson, then returned home for dinner and early bed.

The day after that he did another fast dungeon run to restore his funds. It went extremely well and he didn't have to fight a single monster on that trip. Hector spent the next few days concentrating more on his cultivation to bring his energy reserves up to a hundred percent.

Which caused an interesting phenomenon. The roof of his soul held a realm externality. Volithur heard about creating a filter realm from the sergeant of his barracks in the fifth household, but he'd never actually learned how to use it in any way. It was an afterthought for the Xian, something easy to forget about because it didn't provide much obvious value. Except, with his soul filled to the brim, Hector felt the pressure against his realm.

It took him several hours to figure out how to flex that aperture. His body, mind, aura, and domain were all neatly tied to aspects of reality he could intuitively comprehend. An externality was harder, submerged within primordial chaos as it was. But Hector benefited from secondhand experience for all of that. He was diving into something completely unique with his realm.

What even was a realm? Jinn used them to slightly alter the rules of physics in their presence. Arahant did things like view the future and control flames. Hector decided to check the internet of Union Central. The subject did not have much information on it. That could mean it wasn't well understood by the people of this world or it could mean that the information was controlled.

He knew people, so a lack of public data wouldn't stop him. Hector staked out a spot in the cafeteria until he encountered one of his friends. Rodrick was happy to answer his questions, though his knowledge was not terribly helpful.

"My realm is a dream type. It's not very useful. I basically can watch it like a television. Only I get to direct everything that happens. It's fun. Young guys use them to play out fantasies, so Arahants don't talk about dream realms in polite company."

"What about realms like Conflagration's?"

"Encoding an insight into a realm? That's Sage stuff, Hector. Maybe ask Zelda."

Rodrick didn't have any concrete advice on exercises for manipulating a realm, it just automatically happened for an Arahant. He encountered Conrad next and the man cut through the game of a thousand questions to get at the heart of the matter.

"I doubt you're truly interested in how Jinn do things. Realms are used by the Xian lords to store cosmic energy like a bulky external battery. That's why they never seem to run out of energy when they fight. They have a second reserve."

"Thanks, Conrad. That's good information. Do you have any idea how I'd do that?"

"The specifics? I'm not sure how well this applies to your kind, but a Jinn inflates a realm using a combination of aperture manipulation and pressure from energy reserves. So you would fill your soul to capacity and then push. It's labor intensive. And Jinn don't wait until they're level five to start forming their realm, so I don't know if that will make it harder or easier for you."

Hector didn't know if he strictly needed a second energy reserve. The fact that he could cultivate rapidly using chaos on any world took away a lot of the strategic value of a realm. But if he completely ignored one of the apertures of his body, how was that any better than skipping leg day?

So he added a new item to his already packed daily routine. Working his realm aperture didn't come naturally to him, so the hours of effort invested into it did not result in an instant payoff. Indeed, the only result in the next month was that he could flex it better.

It was obvious that he would not be forming his realm into a functional second reservoir any time soon. His other major effort during that time was training his domain. He'd neglected its development for too long, its only training being combat in the dungeon. Hector bought a few bottles of wine from Master Sirius to ensure he could rapidly top up his energy levels after his intense training.

Then he saw his credits were dipping below the seventy thousand mark once more. Having discovered he could rapidly increase his wealth, Hector had stopped being quite so responsible with his money. He spent money on resources for himself and his student. He bought higher quality meals than he had before. He paid to see Riley, of course – occasionally he would book her for an eight hour night session and then leave shortly after their normal hour was up.

So Hector ran the dungeon once a day for a week. On a typical day, his hack provided him with easy money. The path the trio of swordsmen identified really saw very little monster activity. On some days, though, luck was not with him.

He barely survived his run on the sixth day after he jumped into the ravine to find it full of hyenas. He'd jumped into the air and flown like a bat out of hell to find the nearest exit. That flight drew every kind of flying monster imaginable towards him. Hector scrambled out of the dungeon with his clothes hanging from him as scraps. A stream of beasts followed him and he had to move forward at a crouch as the gun turrets at the exit opened fire, echoing thunder as they mowed down his pursuers.

Yet the next day the hyenas were no longer there – he looked before he leapt this time. He made it through the dungeon with a modest amount of fighting to emerge twenty thousand credits richer. His balance stood over two hundred thousand credits, which was the goal Hector set for himself. He took a small break from the dungeon runs at that point, which was necessary.

His energy reserves were below fifty percent. That was largely due to the time he had to fly and fight at the same time. Hector still tensed up when he thought about that disaster. Too much easy success had blinded him to the very real danger of the place. But the experience did make him realize that he did indeed want to have a secondary energy reserve.

So he once more began restoring his reserves to full capacity.

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