The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

"Dude, what are you spacing out for?"

Upon hearing this, Lin De finally snapped out of his daze.

At this moment, Lin Li was pointing and gesturing in front of him.

"If you want to sleep, you can wait until you get on the plane. I won't take care of you if you fall asleep at the airport."

Lin De then remembered that he and several colleagues had participated in a school-organized trip—no, I mean an academic exchange—and were currently waiting for their flight at the airport. Lin Li had come to see him off.

For some reason, seeing Lin Li's arrogant yet somewhat disdainful face, Lin De suddenly felt a sense of nostalgia.

The sounds of airport announcements, the balding calculus teacher Wang talking on the phone with his wife, and even the sound of his phone playing on speakerphone all evoked a deep sense of nostalgia in Lin De.

Upon hearing the boarding announcement, Lin De instinctively headed towards the boarding gate, but Lin Li pulled him back.

"Hey bro, where's your girlfriend?"

"My girlfriend?!"

Linde asked in surprise.

Am I not a lifelong single? Where did this girlfriend come from?

But Lin Li looked incredulous and said, "Weren't you two always together before? When she heard that you were going on a trip, or rather, an academic exchange, she even bought her own plane ticket to go with you."

Just then, a voice came from the noisy crowd: "Sorry I'm late, but I'm not late, am I?"

A blonde, blue-eyed girl ran and waved to Lind.

Linde seemed to remember something; Lena was indeed his girlfriend, and the two of them did spend every day together.

Lin Li, with a mischievous grin, nudged Lin De with her elbow and whispered, "Where did you find such a beautiful woman as your sister-in-law? No wonder you haven't been home lately."

Lin De was speechless. Wasn't it because he was busy with work lately, rushing to finish his thesis for his professional title evaluation? But when did he meet Lena? He couldn't quite remember.

Lena finally ran up to Lind and asked, "I'm sorry, darling, I'm late. Are you alright?"

Lin Li immediately replied, "No, no, sister-in-law, you've come at the perfect time."

But then Linde paused, grabbed Lena's hand, and asked, "What did you just call me?"

"Honey? Are you alright?"

Lena waved her hand in front of Lind's eyes and asked him with concern.

"Shouldn't you call me brother?"

For some reason, Linde blurted out those words.

Lin Li, who was standing nearby, laughed loudly: "Who calls their boyfriend 'brother'? Bro, are you out of your mind from working on your thesis?"

In an instant, the complete memories flowed into Linde's mind.

"I've been a bit tired lately, let's go board the plane first."

Lind regained his composure and, holding Lena's hand, walked towards the boarding gate.

"Have fun, bro. Don't forget my local specialties."

Lin Li was still waving behind him, but Lin De was already sweating profusely—if only he could sweat in his dreams.

It was a dream, Lind was 100% certain. If Lena hadn't suddenly appeared, Lind might have really thought he was confused from rushing to finish his thesis.

Not only that, Linde noticed a nun not far from him who seemed out of place with her surroundings. She was holding a lantern and curiously looking around at her surroundings, but the passersby seemed not to see this nun who looked like she had just come from a comic convention.

Once Linde boarded the plane, the strange nun ignored the security check and followed him onto the plane a short distance behind.

Linde carefully considered the current situation. He knew he was in a dream, but for some reason, the dream had turned into a lucid dream.

A strange outsider also seemed to appear in his dream.

Are they enemies? Is there any strange magic related to dreams in this world? I don't recall any.

Linde dared not make any rash moves and could only wait patiently for the plane to take off, following the plot of his dream.

"It's incredible. What era of technology is this? How could humans reach such high altitudes?"

Just as Lind was trying to figure out what he could do in his dream, the nun with the lantern was excitedly looking out the window.

Still, no one noticed the strange nun, letting her climb up and down the plane.

"Isn't this giant bird controlled by magic? How can it break through the limits of magic and reach such a high altitude? If this is all it takes to reach the sky, then what's the point of mages building towers?"

The nuns, dressed in slit-hemmed habit, kept exclaiming in amazement.

The plane flew smoothly in the stratosphere, and the nun kept inspecting the cabin.

Linde had no choice but to pretend he didn't see it, and while Lena was asleep with her head on his shoulder, he pretended to doze off and observed her.

Based on current observations, it can be seen that although the nun does not seem to be a person from this dream world, and no one except Lind is aware of her existence, she is also affected by Lind's dream.

For example, the door to the captain's cabin was sealed shut, so the strange nun couldn't pass through the wall in Lind's dream to see what the captain's cabin looked like.

The other party will also be affected by physical forces, or rather, by physical forces within the dream.

Moreover, Linde seemed to gradually understand the feeling of lucid dreaming, and could even control some things in his dreams, such as turning the magazines on the plane into his own Switch, changing the bald hairstyle of his calculus teacher Wang, and even secretly changing the scenery outside the window, etc.

"That's strange. Did the Rom Empire ever have this kind of technology?"

The nun, carrying a lantern, abandoned her exploration inside the cabin. If the dream's owner didn't open those doors, she was helpless. Although the lantern-carrying dream could control other people's dreams to a certain extent, if she forcibly disrupted it, she feared that what lay behind the cabin doors was just an unloaded void, and it might even wake up the dream's owner.

Looking at these technologies that resembled those of the old empire, the nun felt a pang of regret and prepared to carry out her orders to eliminate Lind.

But soon, Lind, who was still pretending to be asleep, heard the nun scream: "Why can't I still fully access the dream?"

"No, this is impossible. The goddess's authority should be absolute. Where exactly is the dream going wrong?"

The nun fixed her gaze on Lind, who was pretending to be asleep in his dream.

Seeing that he had seemingly been exposed, and after confirming his control over the dream world, Linde stopped hiding it and slowly stood up, asking, "What? Aren't you going to introduce yourself when you get to someone else's house?"

During the conversation, the venue had already changed from inside the cabin to an open space.

Seeing that Lind remained conscious in his dream, the nun calmed down and actually introduced herself to Lind: "I am Sister Bernice, the Lamplighter of the Church of the Goddess of Light. It's a pleasure to meet you. I am a descendant of the Empire."

Lind shook his head: "I am not a descendant of the Empire."

Bernice smiled and said, "We originally thought that the identity of being a descendant of the empire was just a fabrication made up for you by the bard, but judging from the dream just now, you are indeed a true descendant of the empire."

“You don’t look like nuns from the Church of the Goddess of Light.”

Lind glanced at Bernice and noticed that although the nun's habit was similar, there were still some differences; the design seemed to be more unrestrained.

"No, we are the true orthodox Church of the Goddess of Light, and those sitting in the Vatican are the heretics. It's just that outsiders generally call us the Lantern Dream, labeling us as a cult."

Hearing this, Lin De was speechless. Isn't killing people in their dreams a cult? What upright church would do such a thing?

Ignoring Lind's expression, the nun said directly, "Since you can remain conscious even in your dreams, that's wonderful. For some reason, we are very curious about the technology of the Old Empire. If you can show us more of the Old Empire's technology in your dreams, we will be extremely grateful to you."

"So, I've shown you, are you still going to kill me?"

"Killing you is a decision made by the higher-ups. The specifics will be decided by them after I have recorded these techniques."

A typical working-class answer.

"What if I say no?"

"You have no right to refuse."

Suddenly, a chair appeared behind Bernice, and the nun with the lantern sat down.

"Although we cannot fully gain access to your dreams, we can still manipulate them. In dreams, the most important thing is imagination. It can be said that any magic or technique that we have seen or roughly understand the principles of can be freely cast in dreams."

Linde's eyes lit up. Did that mean he could conduct experiments in his dreams? With that thought, Linde immediately created a computer in front of him and input the spell model that was being dismantled in his territory. But Linde immediately felt his brain ignite in a physical sense.

It seems that even in a dream, one still doesn't know math. Perhaps those fancy spell effects can be cast infinitely without building spell models or using magic, but real calculations still consume computing power. Nevertheless, this still gave Linde a lot of ideas.

Seeing Linde fiddling with something, Bernice continued, "Don't think that the technology of the Old Empire can save you. All of us in Lantern Dream have been trained to use the high-level magic we have ever seen in dreams. Some of you can even use super-level spells. Not only that, we have also seen the goddess's kingdom in our prayers and can materialize the goddess's kingdom in dreams. Even if you are someone who has lived from the Old Empire to the present, you cannot match us in dreams."

"Humans cannot imagine what they have not seen, but what we have seen far exceeds the imagination of the world!"

Bernice spoke with immense pride, seemingly certain of victory.

Linde looked at the other person with an expression as if they were an idiot. Such a convenient and powerful dream ability, and the other person only used it to kill people. What a waste of talent. No wonder the technology tree of this world is so crooked.