Three years after Xiao was sealed, his dream world had spread throughout the entire Kingdom, even covering some border regions of neighboring countries.
However, a huge crisis quietly descended.
The dream world had become so wonderful that most people in the entire Kingdom immersed themselves in it day and night, unwilling to leave.
Many people even directly abandoned reality; aside from obtaining the necessities needed to survive, they chose to live permanently within the dream world.
The reason was simple: in dreams, they could have everything they desired.
Within their own dreams, they became supreme gods.
While in reality, they were nothing more than beasts of burden oppressed by nobles and employers.
This enormous psychological contrast made them unwilling to return to the real world.
Both the King and the noble lords were deeply troubled by this situation.
As people abandoned real life and chose dreams instead, a large number of job vacancies appeared, and the Kingdom's development came to a standstill.
The Kingdom's tax revenue fell to an unprecedented low.
Even more terrifying, the birth rate over the past three years had dropped to only five percent of what it had been before.
Evidently, compared to flawed partners in reality who constantly argued and complained, people were far more easily addicted to the perfect companions within their dreams.
After all, those were obedient gods and goddesses perfectly tailored to their personal preferences.
Therefore, the King and the Magic Council convened all of the Kingdom's high-ranking officials.
Even Xiao, who had gradually let go of managing the dream world and devoted himself entirely to researching magic, was summoned.
Together, they prepared to discuss how to solve the problem of the public becoming excessively addicted to dreams.
After two and a half days of nonstop discussion, everyone finally reached a consensus.
However, the plan was essentially to let the people suffer while Xiao took all the blame.
Specifically, they decided to raise the cost of entering the dream world, making it impossible for ordinary people to remain inside for extended periods, forcing them to return to reality and work during the day.
Upon hearing this decision—
Xiao: "I thank your ancestors for eight generations!"
...
...
After the meeting, Xiao issued an announcement to every resident of the dream world.
According to the joint decision of the Kingdom and the Magic Council, the dream world would undergo major changes.
1. Starting at 00:00 on May 7, X783, Dream Licenses will no longer grant permanent residency.
Instead, they will adopt a prepaid point-card system.
Based on real-world time, staying in the dream world will cost 100 J per hour.
This pricing immediately shocked and enraged countless people.
100 J for one hour.
2,400 J for one day.
24,000 J for ten days.
72,000 J for one month.
One should know that an ordinary healthy laborer only earned around 50,000 J per month.
Even if they neither ate nor drank for an entire month, they still couldn't afford to remain in the dream world.
This was clearly forcing them to leave.
2. At the same time, various facilities would also adopt a paid service model, as follows:
(Click to expand...)
When everyone saw the lengthy list of new charges, their expressions became even gloomier.
Not only was there now an hourly point-card fee, but many services that had previously been free now required additional payment.
Even many mannequins and clothing sets that had once been available free of charge now required payment.
This undoubtedly placed even greater pressure on residents who were already struggling financially.
It is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but difficult to return from luxury to frugality.
Some people, after reading the updated regulations, even fell into despair, feeling that they could no longer survive in this world.
Fortunately, all the updated regulations were directly implanted into their minds, forcing them to finish reading them and giving them one final glimmer of hope.
3. The number of monsters in public areas will be significantly increased.
Story Mode, interactive NPCs, and quest templates will all be added.
At the same time, every dream resident's power level will be reset to zero.
Residents may redesign their own race and abilities within the dream world.
They can obtain strength and magical equipment by defeating monsters in public areas, thereby continuously increasing their power inside the dream.
Simultaneously, a dream currency and real-world currency exchange system will be opened, allowing direct transactions through the Dream Bank.
In this way, even lower-class people with little money could earn Dream Points by working for wealthy nobles and merchants or by hunting monsters within the dream world.
Although this also meant they effectively became playthings for nobles and wealthy merchants, and the dream world was no longer their personal paradise,
at least they would not lose everything they had built there.
As long as they worked hard enough—or were a little luckier—they could still preserve their personal dream worlds.
After the three new regulations took effect, countless residents were forcibly ejected from the dream world because they could no longer afford the Dream Point fees.
The moment these people were expelled, they immediately gathered with resentful expressions outside the local lords' mansions.
They attempted to pressure the nobles in this manner.
After all, the announcement clearly stated that these policies had been jointly decided by the Kingdom's nobles and the Magicians.
However, poor people simply had no ability to learn magic.
Although this world possessed an abundance of magical elements, learning magic remained something only the wealthy could truly afford.
Take Harujion, the Xiao family's fief, for example.
It was a town with a population of over one hundred thousand people, yet fewer than ten percent could use magic.
The noble Magic Academy established by Xiao didn't even allow commoners through its gates.
Both magic and power had barriers.
Commoners who couldn't even use magic stood no chance in an era where great personal power belonged to Magicians.
Any Magician guard could easily suppress them.
Therefore, the troublemakers who gathered were all severely beaten by the local lord's guards.
Not only had they been kicked out of the dream world by Xiao because they were poor,
they were also beaten for causing trouble.
These people dared not direct their anger toward their own lords.
Instead, they launched wave after wave of attacks against Xiao, the master of dreams.
People began to complain, believing Xiao had abandoned his original ideals.
When he first lured everyone into using the dream world, he had never said anything about charging such fees.
Now that he had become wealthy, become a Magic Council member, and risen to the rank of a great noble,
he had begun exploiting his own people—and the exploitation only grew worse.
An enormous amount of resentment toward Xiao began to gather.
All of it flowed into the dream world through the marks Xiao had engraved upon their bodies.
Under the overwhelming torrent of resentment, the dream world, which had once resembled a fairy tale, was transformed almost instantly into a gloomy hell.
Dark clouds covered the sky.
Cracks split the earth as lava erupted from below.
The air became filled with the smell of sulfur.
The forests twisted into lands overgrown with thorny vines.
The once cheerful background music became eerie and terrifying.
Countless resentments transformed into Nightmares, surging like a tidal wave and wandering freely throughout the dream world, as though they intended to drown the entire realm.
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