20demayo Chapter 51 Two Abilities Acquired
Chapter 51 Two Abilities Acquired
Lucius paused his work and looked at the two worktables next to him.
Thomas held the piece of raw iron ore that Felix had given him in his hand and tapped it lightly with his fingers.
His perception was still at the level of a blacksmith's apprentice, relying on touch and tapping feedback to judge the texture of metal. He had not yet grasped the key to operations that required extraordinary intuition, such as "perceiving primal desires".
The same was true for Catherine, and her tapping rhythm became noticeably more rapid, producing a series of chaotic sounds.
They were both so focused on the materials in their hands that they didn't notice the commotion Lucius had just made.
He looked away, took a deep breath, and picked up the second dagger.
He refocused his perception on the dagger, seeing the distribution of desires within it.
The base phase of this dagger is thinner than that of the first one, but the chaotic phase attached to the handle is exceptionally dense.
Lucius did not rush to use the power of the cup to corrupt it, but instead allowed the power of the cup to slowly and evenly cover the surface of the dagger, letting it repeatedly interact with the desire within in the areas of the blade and the handle.
He needs to carefully perceive their color, intensity, distribution, and specific resistance to the intrusion of the cup phase forces.
Failed... Try again... Failed again...
The second dagger became increasingly damaged in Lucius's hands, but he gradually grasped the key points of equipment enchanting.
"Perception, decomposition, reconstruction... I see."
The most important thing is perception; the remaining two steps are based on perception.
So-called perception means knowing the internal structure and desires of matter, so that one can guide and change the nature of matter accordingly, rather than forcibly submitting.
After several attempts, Lucius finally managed to craft the third dagger to a level that could barely be considered an enchanted item.
This time, he spent a long time perceiving the face. Every time he broke down a layer of desire, he would stop and re-perceive it to make sure there were no remnants or that it had affected the adjacent layers of desire before continuing to move forward.
This also resulted in the blade of the dagger being nicked all over, and the surface being covered with traces of melting and solidification.
"This is my first enchanted item?" Lucius looked at the broken dagger in his hand, feeling both amused and exasperated.
Just then, Felix stepped down from the podium and looked at the dented dagger in Lucius's hand.
"The physical results are relatively stable." He first affirmed the most basic point, then pointed out without reservation:
"But the control of phase force is very poor. The casting phase residues here have not been completely removed, and the thickness of the cup phase contamination is also uneven."
More practice in perceiving facial features is needed to enhance the ability to perceive sexuality. When reconstructing, attention must also be paid to the details of physical structure.
Felix pointed out the problems one by one, and then walked over to Thomas's worktable.
…………
At noon, Lucius had lunch in the dining hall of St. Odelli's Church, and then returned to the Splin Detective Agency through the church's Scar Gate.
As I pushed open the door to the reception room, the familiar aroma of coffee wafted out.
Oliver stood in front of the tea cabinet. Today it was a new variety, dark in color, with a hint of citrus in the aroma.
Next to the coffee table was a small iron cage that Lucius had never seen before. Inside the cage, a white mouse was fiddling with the latch.
"Good afternoon, Oliver." Lucius took the coffee handed to him, took a sip, pointed to the cage, and asked, "Is this little white mouse related to today's lesson?"
"That's right," Oliver said, lifting the cage. The little white mouse spun around, its whiskers trembling.
"In previous courses on dream development, we talked about dream creation, constructing a complete dream scene in another person's consciousness. Today, this is the last lesson on dream control, which will cover another technique: sleepwalking."
He tapped his finger on the iron door of the cage, and the little white mouse paused for a moment before falling silent.
"Sleepwalking is a very interesting and practical skill," Oliver began to explain.
"The person in the 'light sequence' first pulls the other person into an extremely realistic deep dream, at which point the other person's consciousness is not completely asleep."
His body still retains basic motor and responsiveness, but his consciousness has entered a dream state.
Using this sleepwalking state, the sequencer can guide their behavior in dreams, and will treat the instructions received in the dream as thoughts in their own mind, executing them in reality in the same way.
Upon hearing this, Lucius almost immediately recalled everything that had happened in that enclosed carriage last Saturday noon.
He shared this association with the text.
"That's right." Oliver confirmed his guess. "Marcus used the same technique on the coachman that day."
"Sleepwalking control is very covert because the other person is awake the whole time and has no idea that they are being controlled."
In contrast, if you directly use dream manipulation to completely overwrite the other person's consciousness, they will usually vaguely remember having a strange dream upon waking. Experienced sequencers can even deduce the manipulator's identity from the dream's content.
After he finished speaking, he held the cage on his left palm and opened the cage door.
Guided by Oliver, the mouse walked out along his palm, climbed up his arm to his shoulder, and then climbed back into the cage following the direction of his fingers.
Oliver closed the cage door and snapped his fingers.
The white mouse shuddered suddenly, its whiskers began to tremble again, and it fiddled with the latches on the iron fence with its front paws, completely unaware of what had just happened.
"Terrifying manipulation ability," Lucius commented.
Oliver handed the cage to Lucius and smiled.
"You can try it too, but remember the precautions I mentioned before for creating dreams: don't let the target feel terrified in the dream, otherwise he will wake up immediately."
Lucius took the cage, placed it on the coffee table, and stared at the little white mouse inside for a moment.
He first conceived a simple dream framework in his mind, then activated his dream-entering ability, injecting a wisp of lamplight power from his fingertips into the white mouse's body.
The moment Lucius entered the white mouse's dream, he was shocked to find that it was pitch black. He then realized that even humans don't dream every day, let alone mice.
He steadied himself and began to fabricate the Splin Detective Agency in the darkness. Once the space stabilized, the white mouse began to appear in the dream.
It circled the living room floor twice, then wandered between the coffee table and the sofa.
At this moment, Lucius placed a piece of ordinary cheese next to the coffee table in the dream.
The white mouse stopped and then ran towards the piece of cheese without hesitation.
In the waking world, Lucius watched the white mouse walk from its cage into his palm, and he smiled at Oliver.