"So tired, so tired, so tired…"
"Paimon, try to look on the bright side. We haven't even started collecting the Dendroculi in Sumeru yet," Lumine said kindly.
"Ahhh, don't mention that yet! We need to rest!"
Shaking her head in agony, Paimon complained, "The fall of the former sages, the hidden dangers accumulated from five hundred years of Akademiya rule, and the impact of shutting down the Akasha—I didn't expect it to be this huge… Just that one time helping Cyno after the Sabzeruz Festival, we arrested over three hundred people. Who knows how many of them were Akademiya scholars? I really didn't expect that besides the Grand Sage… there were still bad guys hiding inside the Akademiya."
"Those people smuggled canned knowledge purely for their own benefit, and for their own desires they instigated Murtada to research the Court of Desolation. That led to him being personally arrested by his father Taj, and in rage and despair, he committed suicide in prison. After that, those people actually tried to exploit Taj's guilt toward Murtada to drag him into their ranks."
Just recounting this mess made Lumine furious. Combined with days of exhaustion and pent-up morning irritation, she clenched her fists and said, "What those people did might be even worse than the Grand Sage. Honestly, it's a good thing Cyno caught them instead of letting them run into me."
Paimon sighed as well. "It's just a shame that someone as upright as Taj disappeared together with the Court of Desolation. Not even Victor Wang could persuade him…"
"Taj no longer cared about his own life. He only wanted to expose the mastermind and destroy the Court of Desolation. He lived his entire life worthy of the name of a Matra. In the end, all he wanted was to be a good father, so he chose to leave together with Murtada's wish."
"By the way, if the Akasha is shut down, why are people still trading canned knowledge?"
"The Akasha just can't be used to interact with knowledge through Akasha Terminals anymore. Using canned knowledge is a built-in function of every Akasha device—it doesn't require the Akasha Terminal to work."
"So that means Mo—Moze…"
"Moseis," Lumine corrected.
"Right! So, after Moseis uploaded his consciousness into the Akasha, he didn't die immediately when it shut down. Instead, he got trapped in the Akasha network he built himself… Suddenly having his consciousness trapped, unable to return to his body—just looking at that experience alone, he's actually kind of pitiful."
"But he made the wrong choice. He could have sought help from others through dreams, yet he indulged in them—indulged in the dream where his deceased lover still lived, indulged in the power of being the master of dreams who controlled everything. So, he used everyone's dreams as fuel to sustain his own, and used false sweet dreams to lure people into dreaming endlessly. His actions seriously affected real life. He's no different from the Grand Sage."
"Thankfully we had Nahida. When it comes to controlling dreams, no one can surpass her! That Moseis should've already returned to reality and received proper punishment by now… but all the running around and investigations we did beforehand were very real. Just thinking about it makes me feel exhausted again."
"Then why are we digging all this up again?" Lumine questioned.
"Because it's all over now, isn't it? Think of it as saying goodbye to an exhausting yesterday. I refuse to believe we'll run into anything this tiring again."
"You said the same thing a few days ago," Lumine shook her head helplessly, "and then we really did run into something similar again."
"You mean Siraj's 'Hive' consciousness collective? It really was kind of similar to Moseis's dream… Both integrated the power of many people and put it under the control of a single person, except the consciousness collective operated while everyone was awake."
"And that's exactly why its collapse was inevitable. When everyone is awake, it works as long as their thoughts are aligned—but the moment someone's thoughts fall into chaos, the entire collective collapses. Unless, as Alhaitham said, you erase all humanity from the subordinate consciousnesses and have them single-mindedly support the core consciousness."
Paimon hurriedly waved her hands. "Don't follow Alhaitham and say something so terrifying! Erasing other people's humanity—that's something only someone without humanity could do…"
"But didn't Alhaitham also say, 'A human who has lost their humanity can no longer be called human'?"
"Do you remember how Victor answered when Alhaitham asked him afterward? 'Gathering the wisdom of many people into one—doesn't that just make it the Akasha?' Heh, what a pity Victor Wang didn't enter the consciousness collective with us. I really wanted to see what Siraj's face would look like after hearing that."
Lumine couldn't help nodding. "The Akasha really was a near-perfect collective consciousness. In critical moments, it could draw on everyone's wisdom. In everyday use, it could continuously accumulate experience to solve existing problems. It truly achieved collective thinking without stripping people of their ability to think independently. Its flaws were that it couldn't dream—and that it could be exploited by those with ill intent."
"Yeah. If it weren't for the Grand Sage and [Doctor] using the Akasha to do evil, it wouldn't have been shut down… And so many people went to Siraj's consciousness collective precisely because the Akasha was shut down, and their research projects couldn't proceed normally…"
"They were just too dependent on the Akasha. With it, they could conduct experiments quickly without putting in the hard work of deep research. That's no different from overreliance on canned knowledge. Excessive convenience is the Akasha's strength—and also its weakness."
"So, among our friends in the Akademiya—Cyno, Nahida, Alhaitham—each of them stirred up major incidents due to the Akademiya's changes. I think things should finally calm down now, because there aren't any other friends left," Paimon said confidently. "This time, we really can rest."
Paimon stretched lazily, and Lumine stretched as well. The sunlight was already shining onto the bed—it was impossible to sleep in any longer.
"Let's ignore everything today, take a good stroll around Sumeru City, and eat some delicious food!"
"As if we don't eat delicious food every meal…"
"Then today we'll eat even more delicious food! Huh, there's a flyer here… when did it get placed on the windowsill outside?"
"It's probably just more trash ads for product promotions or dream fortune-telling…"
Lumine tidied her hair in front of the mirror and put on accessories, showing no interest in the flyer at all.
But Paimon only glanced at it—and was instantly hooked.
"The Second Teyvat Bubble-Blowing Competition is now open for enthusiastic registration!
"Participate to receive free bubble gum! Pass the preliminaries and you're guaranteed at least 10,000 Mora. The top twenty-five will receive 500,000 Mora. The top five will earn high-value prizes and gain the right to designate the flavor of the next generation of bubble gum. First place wins an exclusive grand prize of 10,000,000 Mora and the title of the Second 'Bubble King'—
"All this only requires a little bit of time, and one perfect bubble. Don't just think—take action! What are you waiting for? Sign up now~
"Registration has already been open for twenty days! It's all because we were so busy lately—we didn't even notice. The registration deadline is… is… isn't it today?!
"Oh no, oh no—we haven't signed up yet!"
===BREAK===
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