After Acheron left, Stelle turned to Pei Guang expectantly. "So what do we do next? How do we reach a deeper layer of the dream?"
Pei Guang thought for a moment. "I do have an idea. Since this is a dream world where basically anything's possible… what if we just dig? Upward or downward—if the dream layers are nested within one another, then if we keep digging in one direction, we'll eventually reach a deeper layer."
As the thought formed, Pei Guang realized it actually made sense.
After all, these were just maps within a dream, open-world ones at that. So digging from one dream map into another didn't sound that impossible.
And even if it was impossible… so what? They could try first, think later.
What if it worked?
Everyone had expected Pei Guang to come up with something profound, but when they heard this, Sparkle couldn't help laughing. "Pfft~ If it were that easy, wouldn't everyone have already found the Watchmaker's legacy by now?"
Pei Guang looked at her seriously. "Why not? Have you tried digging through a dream?"
That question shut Sparkle up—because no, she hadn't.
"Wait, wait! That's not right! How could a dream even be dug through?"
"Have you tried?" Pei Guang pressed again.
"That's a waste of time!"
"Have you tried?"
"!!!!"
At that moment, Sparkle genuinely wanted to curse him out.
Traveling with Pei Guang was undeniably fun, but watching him stubbornly insist on digging through a dream made her head buzz.
Sparkle sighed. "If you really want to enter a deeper dream layer, I can help you, you know~ No need to dig through the dream."
If she'd said that before Pei Guang got his "digging" idea, he would've gladly accepted her help. But now that the thought had taken root, he couldn't suppress his excitement: he pulled out his weapon with a gleam in his eyes.
Seeing his sudden stubbornness, Firefly leaned over to Stelle and whispered, "Can't you talk some sense into him? You can't reach deeper dreams this way."
Stelle turned to her. "Have you tried?"
"I…"
Now it was Firefly's turn to feel what Sparkle had just felt.
She didn't know how to respond. In truth, not even a Dreammaster had ever dug through a dream before.
If anyone else had said something like that, she'd think they were just bragging, but looking at Pei Guang's confident face, and Stelle already brandishing her weapon beside him, eyes sparkling as they began digging at the ground… Firefly couldn't help but feel that maybe, just maybe, digging through Penacony wasn't entirely impossible.
She wanted to stop them, and so did Sparkle, but that one line from Pei Guang, "Have you tried?", shut them both down completely.
Pei Guang and Stelle exchanged determined looks.
Pei Guang: "Let's dig through Penacony!"
Stelle: "Yeah! But wait, isn't there a void underneath? How do we dig that?"
Pei Guang pondered for a moment. "It's not a big problem. If we can't dig through, worst case, I'll go borrow a few Abominations of Abundance's heads from the Xianzhou Alliance and offer them as a sacrifice: maybe we can summon an Aeon of Hunt strike.
I figure a single Hunt strike should be able to pierce through the dream, right? Summon an Aeon inside a dream, blow up Penacony, and hopefully blast open a passage to a deeper layer of the dream?"
Stelle: "Would that even work??"
Pei Guang: "We tried sacrifices back in the Luofu, didn't we? They worked, and there are plenty of offerings that would appeal to an Aeon. Surely we can manage to bring one down. What I'm wondering is: can an Aeon even shoot an arrow through a dream from inside it?
Like, if I use a dream version of an Abomination of Abundance's head as the sacrifice, can I summon the dream version of the Hunt's bow and arrow? If I can, then I'll admit Penacony's dream world really can do anything. If I can't, then we've found something that even dreams can't accomplish!
And hey, what if it works? We'll instantly level up, and anyone ahead of us will get cleared out in one go."
Stelle: "But here's the problem—what about friendly fire? I remember Aeons hit really hard."
Pei Guang: "It's fine. We can just leave the dream before the summoning starts. Once we're out, we summon the Aeon inside the dream. Besides, everyone says you can't die in a dream, right? So even if an Aeon blows us up in here, we shouldn't actually die. That's just how dream mechanics work, and I doubt even an Aeon can break that."
That was the peculiar logic of a player's mind. No matter how lofty the world's setting was, a mechanic was still a mechanic.
At that moment, it was not just Sparkle and Firefly: even the Clockie and Misha, who had been watching nearby, were stunned.
Pei Guang's reasoning sounded completely absurd, but somehow it was impossible to refute.
How do you know you can't dig down? Have you tried? Summoning an Aeon's strike? Even if that were possible, wouldn't that wipe out everyone in Penacony?!
And yet, summoning an Aeon in a dream… well, he had a point. If you could do that, then the dream really did have no limits; if you couldn't, then that was proof there were limits.
It was the kind of "breaking the game logic" mindset only a player could have mastered.
Would an Aeon appear in a dream? Definitely. But could one be summoned to attack inside a dream?
That was… unknown.
Clockie and Misha exchanged glances. They both knew what had to be done: this was their moment to protect Penacony. No matter what, they couldn't let Pei Guang try something like that.
If it didn't work, fine. But if it did work? For anyone else, that possibility wouldn't even exist, but for Pei Guang, they could feel that it just might.
For Penacony's future, the two resolved to stop him and steer him in the right direction.
Neither Clockie nor Misha could understand how Pei Guang managed to go from a normal conversation one second to plotting how to "go big" in Penacony the next.
Whatever went on in his head, though—they had to stop it.
And besides, Pei Guang's logic wasn't even that hard to break. ù
Sure, player thinking could get weirdly extreme, but Clockie had learned a few tricks for dealing with players by now.
He'd been quietly studying Pei Guang ever since Cocona. Sparkle couldn't stop him, but that was just because she wasn't doing it right.
Clockie was confident: he had his own special way to win Pei Guang over.