Nightmare's Call

Ring... Ring...

The afterschool bell rang.

Lin Sheng quickly picked up his study materials and stuffed them into his bag.

The wide room that was capable of accommodating two hundred odd students only had forty plus students in it. That was the number of students in his class.

Clack.

The pen of a male student beside him dropped onto the ground and rolled away. The latter simply went ahead to pick it up himself.

No one bothered to help even if they say it. That was the mood of the class.

No one bothered to get to know each other, nor did they helped anyone out.

Everyone simply attended class, complete their homework, and only hang out with their own dorm mates. Aside from that, everyone was just minding their own business.

Most of the students of Yinglu Private Academy had part-time jobs, and did not have much time for themselves, much less to make friends.

And this atmosphere could only be described as, brutally realistic.

Lin Sheng’s arrival was nothing but a slightly new sideshow. No one paid any attention to him as if it was like a droplet falling into a lake, and very quickly it disappeared into it.

Lin Sheng picked up his back as he quickly made his way out of the classroom, through the corridor and down the stairs before running all the way to the library.

The academy’s library was three story high, and while the amount of books they have in collection was not impressive, they had many of the books Lin Sheng needed.

Such as materials for three or more ancient languages.

Lin Sheng was now very interested in ancient tongue, and the environment he encountered in the dream were all using ancient Rehn. This type of language seemed to have some mysterious function under certain circumstances.

Not to mention the arcane language like Deviltongue, and that too had some powerful effects.

So now he wanted to study which words and tone would have an effect, and hope to compile them together.

This was a massive undertaking, but once completed, he will be able to use this as the base structure of his own arcane writing system.

And ever since he had enrolled into the academy, aside from his usual classroom periods, he had been spending most of his time in the library, not even bothering to go back to his assigned dorm.

He quickly made his way to the second floor of the library and into the ancient language area on the right most corner before pulling out the Anier language teaching materials out from the shelf.

There were very few people inside the ancient language area. Aside from Lin Sheng, there were another two person.

One of them was a bespectacled boy that gave out a vibe of a bookworm. Another was a girl, also bespectacled. She wore black braids, and looking totally unassuming.

In comparison, Lin Sheng’s strong build and presence was particularly eye-catching.

But the moment he sat down every time, he was there for a few hours taking notes, the two students and the librarian soon got used to his presence.

After about half an hour, Lin Sheng found that the pen he had bought had dried up. He was using a ballpoint pen, a one-use item. Without a pen he could not do his notes.

Frowning, he closed the note book and went over to the librarian’s desk.

The librarian was a lazy bugger who only spent time reading novels and story books. He probably had an extra pen that he could borrow.

“Excuse me. Do you have any extra ballpoint pens that I can borrow? Mine ran out of ink.” Lin Sheng asked courteously. “I can buy it from you.”

“Nope. There’s only one for registration. Sorry can’t do.” The librarian simply answered without even lifting his head.

Lin Sheng went back to his seat with a frown. While it was a minor problem, but he preferred to not go out of school to buy one.

“I have an extra. Here, take it.” The bespectacled girl passed over a black ballpoint pen.

“Oh, thank you.” Lin Sheng looked at the latter, and nodded in thanks as he took the pen and tested it out. It was smooth writing.

“No need.” She answered.

The library returned to its original quiet, with only the sound of pen being written over paper was heard.

And time passed without him noticing, it was already dinner time.

Lin Sheng packed up his stuff and returned the pan to the girl, asking her name in the process before heading home.

The girl too had packed herself and carried a small back out of the library.

There were two other girls waiting outside there.

“Who is that, Oakney?” I saw you speaking to him.” A girl with curly blonde hair asked curiously.

She recalled that the youngest member of her dorm was usually rather absent-minded, and barely had any friends of the opposite gender.

“I don’t know him. His pen went dry, so I lent him mine.” The bespectacled girl was a little surprised as she did not understand why the question.

“He’s from Xilin!” Another girl whispered. “I heard that it’s in a state of war there right? It’s chaos all over there.”

“Yes. Seems like it.” Oakney nodded.

“There’s a few Xilin refugees near my house. All of them are very poor and ill-mannered. Oakney, you might want to stay away from them.” The blonde haired girl said.

“I just lent him a pen. There’s nothing more to that.” Oakney shook her head.

“Just stay away from them. Xilin is very backwards, and with so many refugees escaping their country. A destitute person will do anything to survive, and are very dangerous.” Her companion advised.

“I understand.” Oakney nodded.

...

...

Tick, tock, tick, tock...

The rhythmic ticking of the clock rang beside him as Lin Sheng slowly roused from the daze, and opened his eyes.

He was still standing inside the stone hall, and the moment he was awake, his holy power activated.

The stone statue in the center of the hall moved a little before turning to its original form. Clearly recognizing Lin Sheng’s aura.

“Still here?” Lin Sheng frowned. He had been in this stone hall for very long now. From Xilin, to the journey by sea, till now, a month had already passed, but he was still here.

“What is the rules behind the change of dreams?” Lin Sheng started wondered. He took up his sword and patrolled around the hall again. This time around, a few steps later, he fled the hall suddenly dimmed.

Wooooshh....

A faint noise was heard, akin to the sound of wind was getting closer and closer as his vision slowly darkened.

“It’s here.” Lin Sheng was elated. “It’s finally here.”

The change of the dream that he had waited for so long was finally here.

“Clearly, the change of the dream has something to do with the stability of my environment. As I was on a ship las time, and was constantly in the state of moving, so I wasn’t able to change the dream.”

“Now that I’ve settled down, the change took place immediately... but if only I could get a clearer picture of how it works.”

Lin Sheng opened his eyes wide as he observed everything before him.

His vision was slowly turning dark, and even the holy light radiating from the stone hall too had become blurry.

And not long after, his vision turned pitch black.