Kelly had always laughed at the idea of dreams coming true. If anyone ever asked whether he believed in them, his answer was always the same, a hearty laugh, followed by a firm no. Dreams were too abstract, too fragile to be taken seriously. And yet, he knew the irony well, nearly eight percent of a human life is spent inside a world built entirely by the brain itself. A false world, yet one that felt real.
There were countless theories about dreams. Some claimed they existed to prepare humans for danger: the sensation of falling, the fear of being chased, the panic of helplessness. Others drifted into the realm of the absurd premonition dreams, visions of the future meant to warn and prepare. Coincidence, Kelly had always thought.
Cultures across history believed dreams were more than illusions. Some claimed the soul left the body while dreaming. Lucid dreams were described as conscious journeys beyond the flesh. Mythologies spoke of gods whispering through sleep. Norse legends told of prophetic visions, Egyptian beliefs of the soul wandering freely, and in the Epic of Gilgamesh, dreams arrived as warnings sent by divine hands. Kelly never believed any of it.
Yet, for reasons he could never quite explain, some scriptures had always lingered in his mind. They did not obsess over interpreting dreams as omens or messages. Instead, they asked a quieter, more unsettling question using dreams not to predict the future, but to challenge reality itself.
'If dreams feel real while dreaming…'
The wind screamed in his ears.
The ground below was gone. The abyss swallowed light itself, stretching endlessly beneath him as his body plunged downward, weightless and burning all at once. His heartbeat thundered louder than his thoughts. Fear clawed at his chest, raw and undeniable. He held Kei tightly across his chest, and it all felt real.
'…how certain are you that waking life is not another dream?'
"If this was a dream…then when will i wake up…"
Kelly muttered, just moments earlier, as the ground gave way beneath his feet, he had accepted his death with disturbing ease. After all, this was a world where he could summon lightning with mana and call forth companions through magic. Compared to that, questioning the idea of seeing his own death in a dream seems almost trivial.
Through his extensive research in the kingdom's library, Kelly had discovered something unsettling, there existed people with an affinity for dream magic, Individuals capable of entering another's dreams, influencing thoughts, emotions, even actions, all without the target ever realizing it a kind of Subconscious control.
Of course, that only worked if the victim lacked sufficient strength. Kelly understood this better than anyone. This new world did not respect knowledge, morality, or logic. It just respected strength plain and simple. No, it worshipped it. Laws, rules, science, none of them mattered if someone was strong enough to ignore them. What was the value of knowing the oxygen composition of the atmosphere when someone with a high wind affinity could create it, erase it, or bend it to their will.
And yet…Now, suspended upside down in empty space, Kei's unconscious body still clutched tightly in his arms, Kelly felt something deeply wrong.
He wasn't falling.
He wasn't dying.
He was just present, Darkness surrounded him, endless and silent, and again Kelly exhaled shakily and muttered to himself,
"…Is this a dream?"
The question escaped Kelly's lips before he could stop it.
For a moment, there was nothing, only the oppressive silence of the abyss. Then, to his surprise, something answered.
"No"
The voice was calm. Neutral. Cold. Neither male nor female, more like the response of a machine than that of a living being.
Kelly's breath caught in his throat. He twisted his head, eyes darting through the darkness, however in answer to his fears he got nothing just oppressive silence in return.
He, didn't know from where the voice came, he didn't know what was real or was anything real anymore, was he dead or was he alive again he didn't know.
The only thing that convinced him this wasn't an illusion was the heartbeat and warmth he could feel in his arms. Kei was still there. Unconscious, but real.
Time passed. Or maybe it didn't. Minutes, hours, Kelly had no way of knowing. Suspended there in the void, he eventually stopped struggling and accepted his situation, whatever it was. Finally, breaking the silence once more, he spoke.
"…Who are you?"
"The Trial," the entity replied and continued "User mental stability confirmed. Resuming suspended process."
"Scanning."
"Scanning."
"Scanning."
"Scan complete. User biological structure and DNA exhibit a 99.9% congruence with records archived prior to universal interference. Genetic lineage verified. Match confirmed with the genealogy of the #######. All prerequisite conditions for Trial initialization have been satisfied."
"Data acquisition in progress."
"Data acquisition in progress."
"Huh…" Kelly stared blankly at the blue screen as lines of information continued to populate and refresh in real time. Data tied to both him and Kei appeared, updating at a speed that made his head spin. Parameters he didn't even know could be quantified were being measured, analysed, and recorded without pause.
At first, the display showed their essential status, the same baseline information they could normally access through their own status panels. But it didn't stop there.
The data began to branch outward. Layer after layer unfolded into something far more invasive, a complete physical analysis. Skeletal integrity, muscular density, neural activity, circulatory efficiency, values shifting dynamically as if the entity were observing them down to the smallest unit. Even their genetic structure was laid bare, long chains of unfamiliar symbols scrolling past his vision.
More unsettling were the comparative readouts. There were records of what his body used to be, a reference state from before he arrived in this world and alongside it, a continuously updating model showing how exposure to mana had altered him since. Cellular adaptation, Structural reinforcement, Abnormal energy assimilation pathways. Changes that could no longer be called purely human. Kei's data followed the same pattern this wasn't just observation. It felt like the system was tracking their evolution.