"Damn it! I knew this would happen! %#@￥*%!"
While cursing, Xiao frantically tried to eliminate the Grudge Nightmares, but he discovered that they multiplied endlessly.
Therefore, he had no choice but to issue an emergency order, requesting all Magicians to enter the Dream World and work together to eliminate the Grudge Nightmares.
Those damned Magicians, afraid of taking responsibility and being criticized, had shifted all the blame onto Xiao, making him the target of public outrage.
Now that the overwhelming resentment had directly manifested through dreams, if these Grudge Nightmares were allowed to spread on a large scale and invade other people's dreams,
Everyone would suffer. For the next several months, everyone would be plagued by nightmares and unable to get a good night's sleep.
Thus, Xiao decided to fight fire with fire and shift the blame right back.
He directly opened the Dream Gate and threw the newly born Grudge Nightmares into the personal dreams of all the nobles and Magic Council members who had shifted the blame onto him, letting them experience the torment of nightmares themselves.
However, the public's resentment continued to arise without end, making the task of eliminating the Grudge Nightmares exceptionally difficult.
The Grudge Nightmare crisis lasted for a full three months, preventing people from sleeping peacefully, tormenting them with nightmares day and night, and severely affecting their mental health.
Everyone in the Kingdom was exhausted by this nightmare disaster. Whether it was the noble lords, into whose dreams Xiao had dumped countless nightmares, or the common people, all were plunged into endless suffering.
Because of this, the nobles from every region had no choice but to step forward to provide psychological counseling for the people and sacrifice a few scapegoats, finally calming public resentment and restoring the Dream World to its original state.
After the incident, to ensure they would never again be plagued by such nightmares, His Majesty the King directly issued a noble attendance decree.
If the number of nightmares born within any territory exceeded the designated threshold and resulted in a large-scale nightmare outbreak, the local noble would have their title revoked and be demoted to a commoner.
...
...
After the nightmare invasion ended, peace finally returned to the Dream World, allowing everyone to breathe a sigh of relief.
Amid everyone's cheers, Xiao began distributing rewards.
His rewards were not precious treasures but items produced entirely within the Dream World itself.
Most consisted of money and game point cards, along with equipment, templates, pets, titles, and similar rewards.
Although these rewards were not particularly valuable, they were extremely useful to players, allowing them to enjoy the game even more.
The world returned to peace, but as time passed, living only within dreams and acting through a thought-body gradually became boring for Xiao.
He began to miss the physical body he once possessed, longing for genuine touch and sensation instead of relying solely on dream simulations.
Most importantly, he felt his desires gradually fading.
Desire originates from hormones within the body, but from the moment his physical body was sealed inside the amber crystal, time for that body had stopped, causing his desires to slowly diminish.
If this continued, he feared he would gradually lose even more desires and emotions, eventually becoming nothing more than the Heavenly Dao that governed the Dream World.
That was not what Xiao wanted.
However, Xiao knew that his body had been permanently sealed within the deepest part of the Magic Council, and unless he became a god, he would never escape that crystal.
Even so, Xiao refused to give up hope.
Instead, he used the higher-tier version of Ancient Writing Magic—Super Ancient Writing Magic—to synchronize with the entire continent in reality, searching for magic capable of allowing him to regain a physical body.
Eventually, Xiao found it.
In Earth-land, there existed a unique monster known as a Valken.
A Valken resembles a giant ape, standing between two and five meters tall, with a huge single horn on its head and ears much longer than those of ordinary apes.
Furthermore, it can alter its appearance according to its environment.
Thus, different regions may contain Snow Mountain Valkens, Forest Valkens, Desert Valkens, and many other variants.
Valkens are naturally extremely lustful and especially enjoy capturing beautiful women as prisoners.
They are also powerful and troublesome monsters unique to Earth-land.
Not only do they possess intelligence comparable to humans, but each one also possesses strength on par with a Celestial Spirit.
They possess a unique magic that allows them to receive humans, invade the target's body, and transform the target into another Valken.
Its name is Human Reception Magic.
This magic is extremely powerful and is one of the primary reasons why these dangerous monsters, the Valkens, can never be completely eradicated.
They only need to hide in the shadows and receive ordinary humans to rapidly expand their population.
Therefore, although there appear to be many different Valken tribes, in reality, every Valken throughout Earth-land is fundamentally a single existence rather than an actual race.
Their consciousness and forms all originate from the very first Valken.
This makes Valkens exceptionally troublesome enemies, as they can share information and power with one another, forming a massive collective consciousness.
What Xiao valued was precisely the Valkens' Human Reception Magic.
As long as he could research this magic, he would be able to project his consciousness into another person's body and transform that body into himself.
After learning of the Valkens' existence, Xiao immediately began spending money lavishly, commissioning requests through the Magic Council and various Magic Guilds to capture a live Valken.
The request was immediately classified as an A-Rank mission, with a minimum reward of 50,000 J for a single live Valken.
For most people, this was an enormous sum.
But for Xiao, as long as he could obtain Human Reception Magic, this amount of money was insignificant.
He earned far more than that every minute.
However, finding a Valken was far from easy.
Despite the generous reward, very few Magicians were willing to face such dangerous monsters.
After all, Valkens are not only powerful but also incredibly cunning, making them extremely difficult to capture.
A single mistake could result in being received by one and transformed into a new Valken.
If the victim was not rescued in time, even their personality would eventually disappear, leaving behind nothing but another Valken.
But money moves people's hearts.
As Xiao continuously increased the mission reward, some overconfident Magicians eventually accepted the request to capture Valkens.
However, Valkens are extremely cunning creatures.
The moment they sense danger, they abandon the human they are currently receiving and immediately flee.
As a result, capturing a Valken is far more difficult than simply killing one.
Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of Magicians ultimately returned empty-handed, while some were even caught in the Valkens' traps and transformed into Valkens themselves.
These overconfident Magicians had attempted to capture Valkens, but the result was the exact opposite of what they intended.
Not only did they fail to reduce the Valken population, they instead caused their numbers to increase dramatically.
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