I'm extremely interested in Nen abilities.

Can't you just focus?

Jingyang shook his head and suddenly noticed that strange images were spreading around Xiaodi, like a hazy halo floating around her.

Like bubbles of dreams or memories, images of the Ferris wheel, the night sky, and Jingyang himself laughing and talking emerge...

If these are memories, then it's been more than half a year, yet Xiao Di still remembers them so clearly.

If these were dream scenes, then Jingyang truly never expected that Xiaodi would dream of their memories at Ghost Island Amusement Park...

"Is it like this in me too?" Jingyang suddenly wondered. "What images are popping into my head?"

It can't be the scene from when he possessed the crow and was single-mindedly trying to lift up Shizuku's sweater, can it...?

The zombie-like crowd wandered across the grass, slowly making their way toward the peach tree swaying in the wind ahead.

Jingyang mingled among them, wandering around the unconscious droplets, recalling once again what had happened before he appeared here.

"Xiao Di and I... are chatting in the pavilion in the villa's garden!"

As if a bubble had been popped, Jingyang suddenly woke up as if he were rising to the surface of the water—his eyes flickered, and he immediately saw himself and Xiaodi in the pavilion.

He and Little Drop were snuggled together, head to head, and were fast asleep.

Little Di, in particular, slept soundly. Meanwhile, my eyelids kept twitching…

"I'm watching myself and Xiao Shi, so who am I?"

Jing Yang was stunned for half a second, and then a questioning "Chirp?" sounded in his mind, and he instantly realized what was happening.

I've now activated Taliyah's star icon and am controlling it from a first-person perspective. Through Taliyah's eyes, I'm observing myself and Shizuku in the pavilion.

"When did Xiaodi and I fall asleep?"

The "Jingyan Que" flapped its wings and gently landed on the pavilion railing, turning its head to observe itself.

Birds have their eyes on the sides of their heads, so they can only turn their heads to look at people with one eye at a time, which he really couldn't get used to.

He only remembered practicing "circle" with Xiaodi at the mountain resort hotel, eating dinner brought by the waiter, and then taking a walk together in the garden... The only thing he could be roughly sure of was that the reason he was able to stay awake in that strange "dream world" was probably only because of his "star".

"Jingyan Que" turned its head and looked with one eye at the back of its own neck, which was closed and furrowed in sleep.

Thumping...

The "Jingyan Sparrow" flapped its wings and flew into the air, circling the villa garden. It saw the other martial artists who had traveled with it on the garden benches, and sure enough, they were also sitting there asleep with their heads down.

"So, we were pulled into a dream world by some kind of manipulation-type ability user?"

"But that's not right. What if the opponent is a piloting type..."

Jing Yang was puzzled. As his consciousness shifted, he looked around at the strange grassland plain, the dense crowd that seemed to be wandering like a group of walking corpses, and the peach tree that the group was slowly heading towards.

Many peach petals drifted in the night sky with the wind...

Jingyang glanced at Xiaodi beside him, and with a thought, activated the star mark on her.

Xiao Di's lifeless eyes immediately lit up, becoming slightly more lively. She looked a little lost, then noticed her surroundings, finally fixing her gaze on Jing Yang.

"Don't act rashly." Through the moon marker, Jingyang's voice appeared directly in Xiaodi's mind. "We fell asleep in the pavilion sometime during the night. This place seems to be some kind of collective dream space... I'm probably able to stay awake because the other person has a manipulation-type ability."

At the same time, Jingyang noticed that the bizarre and fantastical dream images on Xiaodi's body were also receding like the tide.

Of course, the images did not completely disappear. Those fragments of what seemed to be Meteor City would occasionally appear in a blurry way... After all, strictly speaking, Jingyang and Xiaodi were not "awakened" yet, but were just having a very lucid "lucid dream." The images in the dream had become fewer, less rich, and less disjointed.

Jingyang and Xiaodi both saw each other's bodies as blurry and uncertain, like a ghostly shadow. Occasionally, glimpses of each other would flash by.

The two followed the "zombie horde" towards the source of the petals drifting in the wind, lingering on the peach tree on the plain... Along the way, Jingyang and Xiaodi observed left and right. The one shrouded in mist, appearing to move swiftly up the Ascension Steps, was clearly one of the martial artists they had climbed the mountain with that afternoon; the one whose image drew cheers from the audience, raising both fists high on the arena—oh, it was Zhehao...

Ok?

Who is that two-meter-tall hunk with muscles bulging like granite and a golden ratio physique like cast iron?

He's even wearing glasses...

Yung Valley?

Jingyang looked on in surprise. The "dream" image that appeared on Yun Gu's body actually made him look like a walking muscle monster... Who would have thought that the gentle and easy-going Yun Gu actually had such a dream of a muscular man in his heart? Look at you, Auntie, you've really "harmed" people!

"But Jingyang, if this was done by a certain manipulation system, and it's ineffective against you, Jingyang, who is also a manipulation system," Xiaodi's voice appeared in Jingyang's mind, her tone slightly puzzled, "then why were you able to pull me into this dream space in the first place?"

[Coincidentally, I was thinking about the same thing.]

Jing Yang said, "[①We don't fully understand the theories related to the abilities of the manipulation system; ②The opponent is not actually a manipulation system user...]"

As he was speaking, his eyes suddenly narrowed.

Looking in that direction, Xiao Di saw a gray-scaled snake slowly swimming on the grass.

Seemingly noticing their gaze, the gray-scaled snake raised its head, flicking its gray tongue. Soon, one after another, similar gray-scaled heads emerged from the surrounding grass, countless pairs of snake eyes flicking their gray tongues, coldly staring at Jing Yang and Xiao Di, who were "filling in" within the "zombie horde"...

Chapter 123 Thus Have I Heard (Part 2)

what's the situation?

Jingyang looked at the swarm of gray-scaled snakes covering the ground and noticed that wherever he and Xiaodi went, the heads of the snakes, raised high and proud, would follow them...

Little Drop whispered: [Can animals also be pulled into this dream world?]

"[Look around, are there any rock finch nearby?]" Jing Yang maintained a similar leisurely pace to the surrounding "zombie horde," [These things probably don't eat birds...]

Besides, in our current state, can we even eat it?

The surrounding "horde of corpses" was densely packed, its numbers clearly exceeding those of the thirty-odd martial artists staying at the villa behind the mountain.

In other words, these many dreamlike "shadows" also include those attending the art exhibition on the front mountain... Jingyang and Xiaodi pretended to be among them while quietly moving through the "zombie horde." When they passed Cloud Valley, Xiaodi looked at them with confusion, clearly not recognizing who this person was; Jingyang glanced down and saw that even if Hart was dreaming, he was still practicing his punches meticulously. Even as an enhancement type, he was incredibly naive...

Speaking of which, Netero seems to be an Enhancer type as well. That old geezer is really wicked; how could he be innocent?

Jing Yang thought about it again. When Netero was young, he insisted on throwing 10,000 punches every day out of gratitude. His sincere heart eventually awakened, making him invincible. With this mentality and experience, one cannot deny his "naivety". At least on the path of becoming stronger in martial arts, he was extremely naive. So naive that even though he could have safely defeated the Ant King with team tactics, he was still willing to challenge the stronger one and fight the Ant King alone, not only to determine the winner but also to decide life and death.

Suddenly, Jing Yang, who had been drifting along the ground like a ghost, stopped, floated back a little, and looked at the person who had just passed by.

It's a bunny girl!

"The person you saw in the cave?" Xiao Di asked from the side, curiously observing the seemingly dreamlike and listless "Rabbit" Bi You.

The dreamlike style of Biyou is particularly different from that of others.

While others have strange and unusual dreams, what floats around her is like a series of web pages and pop-ups that open and close at lightning speed... When it comes to surfing the internet, Jingyang would call her the best.

Jingyang knew that the Rabbit (卯兔) resided at Xianshui Mountain. But that even a master like the Rabbit (卯兔) of the Twelve Earthly Branches would be drawn into this strange dream world was somewhat beyond Jingyang's expectations…

Jingyang and Xiaodi drifted away, avoiding the receding tide of gray-scaled snakes.

Unconsciously wandering forward, Biyou was surrounded by rapidly flashing web pages and pop-ups, which occasionally turned into lines of green code that rolled around her...

The "zombie horde" continued to linger and move towards the peach tree ahead. As the saying goes, "Looking at a mountain makes a horse run itself to death," but looking at a tree seems to make it run faster too. Jingyang gradually realized that the peach tree was indeed terrifyingly tall, easily forty or fifty meters high, its branches laden with peach blossoms that seemed like a dream, scattering with a sway in the wind and drifting towards the slowly approaching "zombie horde."

Is someone under the tree?

Jingyang and Xiaodi's voices rang in each other's minds at the same time, and they both looked up at the giant tree with its lush peach blossoms.

A stone statue, about one meter tall, sits quietly under the tree.

The stone statue sits in the lotus position, with extremely long earlobes that reach down to its shoulders... This is a stone Buddha statue.

The stone Buddha is devoid of compassion, anger, or joy, as if it has been sitting there since the beginning of time and will not move an inch until the end of the world.

The stone Buddha's eyes were half-closed, its gaze lowered as it quietly stared at the chessboard in front of it.

Jingyang and Xiaodi quietly looked at the unmoving stone Buddha, then at the chessboard opposite them, but there wasn't a single person in sight... Who were they playing chess with?

Everyone else is half real and half illusory, but this stone Buddha is truly real, just like the huge peach tree next to him, as if it were part of this dream world itself.

But the stone Buddha suddenly moved.

The stone Buddha flipped his hand, and a white piece was somehow picked up between his fingers and placed on the chessboard with a "thud".

clatter……

As the sound of pieces being placed echoed across the chessboard, it was like a gust of wind sweeping across the surroundings, passing by all the dreamy figures who lingered there.

“Netero…”

Jingyang seemed to hear a faint sound coming from somewhere.

He looked up and saw countless peach petals swept into the night sky by a gust of wind, spinning rapidly and converging into a huge outline, like the immeasurable true form of a Bodhisattva, looking down upon the world, raising a palm formed by countless petals, and slapping it down onto the grassland plain...

Is the stone Buddha Netero?

As the giant petal-shaped hand descended, Jingyang looked at the stone Buddha beneath the giant tree. The Buddha statue, cracked all over, turned its head with a snap, looked at Jingyang, and even managed a smile before finally collapsing with a deafening roar…

Boom! A giant peach petal-shaped hand descended upon the earth, engulfing everyone.

……

The "Jingyan Que" flew across the night sky and landed on the roof of a building on the front mountain. It turned its head and rubbed the feathers on its neck, feeling a little cold.

He twisted his head, spread his wings, and swooped down, soaring between the buildings on the front mountain, rushing through the glass doors in mid-air, and weaving through the empty exhibition halls... Wherever he passed, he saw people either dozing off on chairs in the corridors with their heads leaning against the walls, or asleep on the sofas in hotel rooms...

"So it's all Kogoro Mouri, huh? You all found your spots before you fell asleep?"

Jingyang controlled the little gray bird to fly out of the window, hovered in the air for a moment, and then flew towards the back mountain.

"It probably has the ability to correct memories..."

"When these people wake up, they probably won't remember how or when they fell asleep, or even wonder why they inexplicably dozed off..."

The "Jingyan Que" flew into the mountain villa behind the mountain.

"Is it an ability of a certain manipulation system? If so, why did I fall for it? If not, how do you explain that dream world? Is it a collective illusion? Or is it a real, existing alternate dimension?"

"Spatial abilities? But what about the forms I, Shizuku, and the others took in the dream world? At least it's certain that they weren't our real bodies..."

"And most importantly, where is the real entity of the guy who caused this commotion?"

"Or to put it more bluntly, what exactly is this so-called Sky Master from the same era as Netero doing, putting on this mystical act?"

A grand dream had drawn everyone atop Immortal Water Mountain into it all at once. Jing Yang couldn't fathom who, besides the so-called Sky Master, could have pulled off such an astonishing feat.

As the "Jingyan Que" was flying while deep in thought, it suddenly raised its head and tumbled several times due to the sudden stop during its rapid flight. It finally managed to come to a stop after flapping its wings.

Thanks to the fact that birds have their eyes on the side of their heads, he seemed to have seen something strange in one of the rooms when he flew past the hotel behind the mountain...

Thumping...