The druids had prepared a lavish banquet, and the food suited Catherine's tastes quite well.

But no banquet could last forever. In the end, Brandir never found a chance to speak with Catherine, and could only watch helplessly as the goddess of his heart returned to her delicate treehouse castle.

The moment Catherine returned to her room, she eagerly took out the gift Ambrose had given her.

It was a small wooden box with a satisfying weight to it, wrapped rather carefully.

Inside the box lay an exquisite hourglass, along with a ciphered letter.

Catherine quickly retrieved the latest issue of Legendary Spellcraft from her pouch. Using it as the codebook, she began matching each character one by one, painstakingly translating the encoded letter.

The contents of the deciphered letter shocked her.

She had never expected that the artifact would contain the heroic spirit of Arthur Lyon himself. However, he was currently extremely weak and had fallen into a deep slumber.

Catherine carefully lifted the hourglass with both hands and placed it respectfully on the table. "Naomi, this is the time dragon's artifact. I'll leave it in your care. Ambrose said you should familiarize yourself with it as soon as possible. Perhaps you'll be able to sense traces of the time dragon within it to complete your transformation."

Naomi immediately grabbed the hourglass and began studying it with intense focus.

But that was only the first matter Ambrose had mentioned in his letter. There was another task: one far more important and far more dangerous.

At midnight tonight, Catherine needed to create a major disturbance to draw the druids' attention.

Ambrose had not explained why. He had only instructed her to make as much trouble as possible, the bigger the better.

Causing trouble wasn't her specialty. She would have to attract the druids' attention without going too far and causing problems for the elves as well. That kind of balancing act was hardly trivial.

Catherine complained, "What a pain. How am I supposed to draw the druids' attention? I'll have to figure out something myself."

There was still some time before midnight. Catherine could only try to recall her time with Ambrose and think about how the lich usually handled things.

Time continued to pass. Ambrose sat quietly in his own room, waiting for midnight to arrive.

Whether Catherine succeeded or not, he had no intention of wasting any more time.

To Ambrose's surprise, quite some time before midnight, a terrifying dragon's roar echoed in the distance.

A dragon? On this continent?

No—a druid must have transformed into a dragon.

That single roar shook the entire Emerald Dreamwood. Even the remote tribe where Ambrose was staying was thrown into alarm.

Sares came rushing out of his house again, red-faced and disheveled. But this time, he had no one else to blame. He needed to calm the tribe immediately and organize people to keep watch over the envoys from the Ragetide Kingdom.

No one knew what had happened, but the situation was clearly serious. It might not have anything to do with the Ragetide envoys, but placing them under supervision was certainly a safe precaution.

This was the moment Ambrose had been waiting for. He stepped out of his room and found Sares.

"What was that dragon's roar?" Ambrose asked, pretending to be panicked. "Did Lyon attack?"

Sares naturally had no idea. He could only reassure him. "Don't panic. With the Dreamveil Barrier in place, Lyon cannot possibly invade us. Perhaps some accident occurred, but I'm sure the elder druids can handle it. There's no need to worry. Return to your room and wait calmly. We'll ensure your safety."

Ambrose replied uneasily, "I certainly hope you keep that promise. Please send a druid to guard my room, someone strong. I'd like to guarantee that I'm safe."

Sares looked at Ambrose with a trace of contempt. Was he really a general of the Ragetide Kingdom? Was he not afraid the Lord of Storms might strike him dead for such disgraceful cowardice?

Still, it suited Sares perfectly. He had been worried Ambrose might wander around. If the man was willing to be watched, all the better.

Sares selected a young druid from the tribe to "protect" Ambrose and had him accompany Ambrose back into the room.

The moment they entered, Ambrose locked the door.

The young druid cast him a disdainful glance. Such cowardice was indeed worthy of contempt.

But Ambrose seemed not to notice the druid's hostility at all. Smiling pleasantly, he asked, "Young man, what's your name?"

"Tarlind," the druid replied.

Ambrose tested the waters. "Elder Sares mentioned that only especially talented druids are qualified to enter the natural dreamscape. Do you happen to have that qualification? I wouldn't want to run into danger later and find you unable to handle it."

Tarlind lifted his chin proudly. "Of course I'm qualified. I'm the strongest druid in this tribe."

"Good, good..." Ambrose murmured. Then, suddenly Tarlind felt his head spin, as if he were in a drunken stupor.

He tried hard to shake off the strange dizziness, but before he could cast a spell to dispel it, the sensation vanished just as abruptly. Ambrose stood still before him as though nothing had happened.

"Young man, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell? Should I ask someone else to guard me instead? Are you really up to the job?"

The doubt in Ambrose's eyes irritated Tarlind. Agitated, he replied, "There's nothing wrong with me. Don't worry."

"Forget it. You look unreliable. Just stand guard outside," Ambrose said, driving him out the door.

Tarlind could only grumble under his breath as he took up position outside, shaking his head at Ambrose's strange temper. He had no idea that a dozen minutes had passed over the course of that short exchange.

Back inside the room, Ambrose allowed himself a smile. He had cast a charm spell on the young druid.

Druids possessed strong perception and decent resistance against mental manipulation, but that meant nothing to Ambrose. With the amplification of the Golden Throne, Tarlind had no choice but to submit.

The reason Ambrose had asked Catherine to create a disturbance was precisely this: to force Sares to place a dream-qualified druid alone in the same room with Ambrose.

Sares knew that Ambrose was blocked from casting magic, and would therefore pose no threat at all.

The oak ring Catherine had delivered solved that problem perfectly. Ambrose had hypnotized Tarlind, extracted the prayer for entering the dream ritual, and then altered the young druid's soul to erase that memory.

Poor Tarlind had no idea he had been manipulated so thoroughly.

Next, Ambrose summoned a tiny aberrant skeleton, an undead creature made from the bones of a mouse.

He slipped the bracelet that suppressed the Dreamveil Barrier onto the mouse skeleton, allowing it to remain awake, then issued a command.

In a moment, Ambrose would remove the oak ring and allow himself to fall asleep.

The little skeleton would hold the ring beside his hand. If anyone entered the room, the mouse skeleton would slip the oak ring back onto Ambrose's finger, waking him immediately.

Once everything was ready, Ambrose lay down on the bed and pulled the blanket over himself, covering the tiny skeleton as well. Then, beneath the blanket, he quietly removed the oak ring.

The instant the ring left his finger, an indescribable wave of drowsiness washed over him.

Ever since becoming a lich, sleep had vanished from his life entirely. He could hardly remember the last time he had felt such fatigue. Strangely, the sensation was comforting.

His soulfire dimmed. His consciousness sank into silence, until he softly recited the prayer praising the Oakfather.

In a dreamlike haze, Ambrose felt a gentle warmth and caught the fragrance of flowers.

By the time his vision cleared again, he found himself standing in a small valley filled with birdsong and blossoms.

What surprised him even more was that he had regained his human body.

His heart beat. His body was warm. His eyes saw colors again, instead of perceiving the world through the analytical perception of the soul. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

The long-lost sensation of being alive brought tears to Ambrose's eyes.

Only after having lost these senses did he realize just how precious they were: sight, smell, hearing, touch. Memories shaped by such sensations felt vivid and alive. A lich's memories, by contrast, were like long, tedious passages of narration, dry, cumbersome, and lifeless.

A sudden thought struck him. "If I could reproduce this barrier back home... wouldn't the side effects of becoming a lich disappear?"

The greatest problem of lichdom was the loss of sensation. Over time, that erosion stripped away one's humanity, leaving a being that wavered between extreme rationality and extreme obsession, either coldly emotionless or utterly mad.

But if he could occasionally experience the sensations of the living again, perhaps that side effect could be mitigated.

If so, becoming a lich might truly be the most profitable bargain imaginable.

Ambrose tried shaping the dream with his will. Soon, a round silvery-white slime appeared on the ground.

This was a living mercury slime, one of Ambrose's own creations.

He reached out and touched it. It felt just like the real thing.

With another thought, the mercury slime rapidly transformed into a massive silver dragon, vivid and lifelike.

Just as expected, the natural dreamscape could be used to manifest any creature. As long as Naomi could enter this dream and spend time interacting with a manifested dragon, transforming into one herself should not be difficult.

Confirming that the prayer worked was Ambrose's main objective. All he had to do next was teach the prayer to Naomi.

Though the dreamscape was enchanting, Ambrose possessed formidable willpower. He prepared to recite another prayer to exit the dream—only to discover, to his shock, that the prayer didn't work.

Ambrose frowned. "That can't be right. The entrance prayer worked. Why doesn't the exit prayer? Could I have missed some detail?"

Then, a familiar sensation crept over him. Something was watching Ambrose.

He turned his head. Behind him stood a mass of gray-black mist, within which two ghastly pale eyes glowed.

As Ambrose locked eyes with the apparition, the mist slowly began to shift and change, until it formed into a figure Ambrose knew all too well.