Is this the best day of my life?

When you have an inseparable God virus in your body like I do, dreaming can go one of two ways. Either the virus reacts to the dream as it would react to conscious behavior, or it will be aware that its host is dreaming and attempt to interfere. I thought about it and found more than enough reasons to believe in the latter theory. But that raised another question — in what way will it interfere?

A) Because dreams are a side effect to a natural brain activity during REM sleep, the virus will remove that side effect, preventing me from dreaming.

B) The virus will try to communicate with me, or vice versa.

C) The virus will give me lucid control over the dream, and since the virus is going to be involved, the experience will be somehow more exceptional than regular lucid dreaming.

Analyzing these theories any further would be a waste of time, so I decided to put it in practice. But in the unlikely event that the virus is going to burn down the kingdom while I'm asleep, I knew I had to take measures to avoid that.

So, I stopped by the inn after reverting the color of my hair and eyes. Yes, I mean 'stopped by' because I wasn't going to do something dangerous like 'sleeping' in my own room, that would be crazy. You see, I had another destination in mind. It's just that some preparations were in order before I headed there.

The blanket we had on our bed was the first thing I took, securing a fairly comfortable surface to sleep on. I folded it and tucked it away in an empty leather bag. I also needed a rope, which I couldn't find in the room. 'I guess I'll just buy one on the way,' I said to myself and resumed packing. Next set of items were a blank notebook, a quill and a bottle of ink. Because, in case my dreams end up being completely ordinary, I wanted to take notes of what I could recollect after waking up; since dreams are normally easy to forget.

For the last item I needed, I began preparing some UU enchantments. If you remember, UU enchantments are based on magnetically coded instructions electronically translated and converted into magic skills. Therefore, it doesn't require the 'enchanter' to have an associated enchantment skill. Basically, I was manually encoding binary instructions into magnetic disks.

Knock! Knock!

"I have brought you tea, lord Zenith," the innkeeper's muffled voice came through the closed door. She apparently saw me enter the inn and prioritized on preparing me tea.

"Come in," I replied loud enough for her to hear. I remained occupied with coding, as she opened the door and walked up to the coffee table behind me. "Leave it here," I said, referring to the study table by which I was working. Obediently, she brought it to my side and poured the tea from the kettle into the cup.

"Lord Zenith, as you requested, the rumors about non-believers and ill-intended people being smitten by the one true God is being spread around. It was just as you predicted. We all received the news about the giant apple tree in the Kullu district, and now this whole city is talking about it in relation with the rumors."

"Very good," I didn't take my eyes away from the task I was doing.

She set the tea cup and coaster off the tray and comfortably within my reach on the table. "I shall take your leave then," she said and proceeded out.

Before she got to the door, I called out to her. "Oh and could you bring me two sets of ropes? Maybe also something sharp to cut it with."

…

I boarded a shared carriage to get to my destination. I wanted to board a private one, but they were all pre-booked. The shared carriage was not too bad though, especially because I paid the coachman for an extra seat. You see, with shared carriages, you have to wait until a certain amount of time or a certain number of passengers to occupy the seats before departure. When I boarded, the coachman needed one more person to board, so I offered, "I'll pay for two people if we start now." Unsurprisingly, money speaks louder than patience.

On the ride, I continued working on encoding the enchantment instructions. Okay, I'll admit that I couldn't finish it at the inn like I thought I would, but in my defense, coding in raw binary language is a pain. So there I was, mashing buttons on a peculiar apparatus with every other passenger staring at me and it.

The magnetic disk was inside a disk reader the size of a toaster, and it was connected to an input device with 3 main components; two for reading data and one for writing. On the left, there was a numeric keypad. This was to set the pointer on a specific memory location on the disk. Right above the keypad was an analogue screen with all the data readable in binary form. The device can read up to 8000 bits of data, the pointer starting from 0 to 7999, which is too much to fit on a still screen. So to its side, there was a rotator to scroll through the screen. Last but not least, on the right, there were two buttons representing '0' and '1' used to write data.

Just to be clear, this apparatus was engineered fairly recently. When we initially made the UU enchantments, data was encoded manually by hand. After the demo, I designed this apparatus and Devon engineered it, making it easy thereon.

Ignoring the curious stares of my co-passengers, I finished overwriting the old code with the new one. I ejected the disk from the disk reader, and pulled out the enchantment device out of my leather bag. Then I connected the disk to the input mechanism of it, and hoped for the best. Seventh time's the charm. I snapped my fingers in the air and the sound was heard by everyone in the carriage. Following that, I released a little mana to be processed by the enchantment. And snapped my fingers again near the enchantment's output.

Voila! There was no sound this time. I didn't hear it, and neither did the other confused passengers. My soundproofing enchantment was finally working. I put the device into my bag, and pulled out another disk to code the instructions for the second enchantment I needed. Fortunately, this one was simple. Because, what I needed was electrical insulation and I've already developed the binary code for that in the 'lightning resistance' enchantment that is among our line of products. It's the equivalent of copy-pasting from stack overflow, except I'm the one who wrote the code in the first place.

Anyway, I was done with all the preparations by the time I reached my destination, or rather close to it. I was dropped off about 3 kilometers away upon being stopped by government officials who prohibited entry past that point into the perimeter. Moreover, people who lived in that area were being evacuated on priority due to dangerous levels of electrical currents.

Amidst this orderly confusion, I paid the coachman what I promised, and set my eyes back on the scene, specifically on the monster that was impossible to miss — the tree that penetrated the clouds and was generating several gigawatts of power every second. Imagine spotting a skyscraper from 3 kilometers away and it still manages to look breathtakingly massive, that pretty much sums up what I was seeing.

Even as people were primarily focused on evacuation, there were still plenty who just stood and marveled at the tree. I overheard one of them, a lady, saying, "Did you hear? They are saying that this was an act of our one true God, smiting upon evildoers that were doing something bad in that place."

"Really? What were they doing?" asked the curious person to whom the lady gossiped.

"I don't know. But whatever it is, the city guards must be aware of it and are not telling us."

Surprisingly, the rumors have managed to spread so far in less than 10 hours; I suppose I underestimated my own followers. It looks like they are going to soon find out about the red mages who held captives for slave trading. And when they do… Needless to say, matters are moving in my favor.

Anyway, on to dreaming. I moved away from the crowd, and found a secluded spot where I settled down. I made sure no city guards or civilians were in sight, and began focusing on developing a much needed skill at the moment — flight. There are plenty of ways to fly using magic. Despite that, not many were ideal for me in the current situation. For example, I can use some sort of gaseous ignition to initiate thrust, but that's going to end up burning all the items I was carrying. As for flight methods that are not a fire hazard, I would need better mana control to perform.

Not to worry though. I spent the whole carriage ride here, thinking of a solution. And the solution is simply brute force, by which I don't mean jumping up, exerting force on the ground. That would be disastrous. I would be using pure mana as particles to carry me through the air. For anyone else, including the immortals, this would be a terrible method of transportation because it continuously consumes ridiculous amounts of mana. It's a good thing my mana pool is a bottomless pit.

> Skillset: … 3D Space Navigation (Complexity - C)

Based on its complexity, you could probably tell that this is a stupidly simple skill. I basically just need to input the 3-dimensional points in space (latitude, longitude, and altitude) and my mana will carry me to that point. Also, this was a really slow mode of transportation, so I activated my camouflage skill before performing it.

I felt my feet lifting up along with my body, and the ground beneath me getting further away. This is the part where you would expect me to use a metaphor linking the ability to fly with freedom. Unfortunately, it was not a comfortable flight. You see, with the mana literally carrying me up, the force exerted on my body from below, including on the crotch region, felt nothing like freedom. I was waiting for the ride to be over.

15 uncomfortable minutes later, I reached the branches of the tree. I was defended against the electrical currents by the virus, as was my leather bag which I held closely to my chest. I landed, stepping on a huge branch. The width of that branch was as big as a sidewalk, and did I mention that the trunk of the tree is 15 meters wide? Looking down from where I stood, I saw thunderclouds, and past that, the humans were practically just a bunch of ants.

I didn't waste much time admiring the view. I unpacked the enchantment tools and set them down between my legs. I pulled out the blanket and the rope and started crafting a hammock. The difficult thing was to ensure none of my items got knocked off by the altitude winds or lightning. Apart from that, things went not so badly. Although a bit crooked because I couldn't find a perfectly straight branch, the hammock was set up with both the prepared enchantment attributed to it.

Holding on to my bag which still had the book, quill, and ink bottle inside, I laid on the hammock and released my mana for the enchantments to work. Slowly, the noises of thunder faded away and electrical current was getting nowhere near me. I spent a solid 5 minutes consistently releasing my mana to make it an involuntary process as I fell asleep.

For the purpose of lucid dreaming, I maintained a strong conscious awareness that I was going to be dreaming. You can try this out yourself. As long as your conscious is aware that you're in a dream, you'll have lucid control over it. Admittedly, it's easier said than done since it's not easy to maintain conscious awareness when you're in REM sleep. The trick is to slowly adapt to it and you'll eventually be able to do it consistently.

The reason I'm telling you this is to make it clear that prior experiences with dreams significantly helps with lucid dreaming. With that being said, I had never experienced a dream before, at least as far as I was aware. I didn't have a clue about what a dream looks or feels like, I just knew the theory behind it. So unless the virus interferes, I should not be able to lucid dream.

Now, what do you think happened? Did the virus interfere? Did it help me lucid dream? Yes, and yes. But, what I experienced was far beyond anything I predicted. To say it was extraordinary would be a laughable understatement.

First thing I remember was me standing on the same tree branch, staring on to the planet's horizon. This was my first experience with dreaming, and my conscious was not aware of it. It's like suddenly being spawned in a place with no clues or context — you have no idea how you got there, but you don't have the ability to question it either. Another thing about regular dreams is that it's annoyingly difficult to recollect, and if I try to explain it, it's going to sound weird. So, bear with me while I do.

An apple dangled before me all of a sudden. It was not a golden apple. Or maybe it was. But I remember the color red, so I'll go with the bright red apple for the sake of this explanation. I poked it repeatedly for some reason, and it broke. And from it, a creature emerged. It was either a crow or a rat, let's go with the crow. It immediately fled, and I ran after it. It led me to a more dark and bleak environment where I saw the first group of red mages I consciously murdered in the eastern forest. They had apple trees grown through their bodies and poking out of their faces, just like I remembered. I approached closer, and they silently crumbled down into fragments of charcoal.

That's the extent to which I remember that dream. The thing to note here is that this dream was completely natural, like any human beings would experience. Right after that dream ended, I remember blackness surrounding me. When I say 'remember', I don't mean vaguely. I vividly remember myself standing in the middle of absolute blackness where I was the only visible entity. And then this information popped up in my head.

> Level: INFINITE

> Mana Capacity: INFINITE

> Mana Control: POSITIVE

> Skillset: … Seal (Complexity - S , ???) …

> Character Trait: Logical, Malevolent, Opportunistic, Calculating

> State of Mind: Lucid Dreaming

Either I accidentally activated my analysis skill in my sleep, or as per my theory (2-C) the virus interfered to give me lucid control over the dream. If it was a case of the former, then that doesn't explain my level, mana capacity and control. So yeah, this was the virus' interference.

With my consciousness restored, I decided to start testing out the limits of this lucid dream. I recollected the events of the battle with Heath. And sure enough, the blackness that surrounded me transformed into the wasteland under the night sky. The scene was exactly how I remembered it to be, to the point where the details were astonishing.

"So, it was you," I heard Heath speak the words I remembered. He was wearing his white and gold cloak that he introduced himself with. "You're the one responsible for killing our people in the eastern forest. I'm glad you showed up as I hoped, it's nice to meet you…" Meanwhile, the dream version of me stood behind a regular apple tree with overgrown branches, without responding. The scene was going exactly how it actually happened, and I was watching it all from a third person POV.

That's when I noticed something odd. I walked towards the scene, getting closer and closer to the characters. The sicko was standing on the sidelines, incapable of doing anything as the battle raged on between Edith and Heath. It was around the time when Edith shoved a punch to Heath's face and broke his nose, the sicko just ran off. Away from the warehouse and away from the battle. Nobody noticed him fleeing, which is what I found odd.

Back at the estate, when I tried to recollect whether the sicko had survived the battle or not, I couldn't find him in my memory. But now I was seeing every step he took as he was fleeing. 'Pause,' I spoke through thought, and the scene froze with Edith's fireball hanging midway between her and her target with the handlebar mustache.

I immediately realized what was going on, but it was technically only a theory. So, I decided to test it and confirm. I walked all the way up to Heath and resumed the scene. Obviously, none of the characters could see or react to me; I was practically non-existent as far as the scene was concerned.

Heath raised his hand to use his magic to counter Edith's fireball. 'Slow down,' I demanded of the dream, and everything was now in slow motion. Following that, I commanded, 'Make the mana visible to my eyes,' and white glowing particles clouded several areas of the battlefield, especially exuding out of the Edith and Heath. I further observed to see the flow of mana as Heath performed his cause and effect skill, whose functionality I was yet to understand.

Not only did I figure out how the skill worked, I also pretty much confirmed my theory — I wasn't in control of this dream. I mean, I was able to control the dream, but not directly. My commands were being executed by the virus instead. That's why I was able to see things like the sicko fleeing, which I never paid attention to during the battle. Moreover, the whole scene was extremely detailed like I mentioned earlier, which could be explained by the virus recreating this scene based on my command rather than my less detailed visualization.

As for Heath's skill, it turned out to be very close to what I assumed. He basically uses mana to scan and determine the cause and effect of any physical action, and replicate it on a target. Additionally he can control which of the causes and effects to replicate in what combination, and to what degree to amplify it based on mana input. For example, take the moment he threw an unexpected gust of wind at me and Edith. His mana determined the cause of my breathing, which is inflation and deflation of the lungs. He replicated that effect and targeted it at us after amplifying it like a million times by consuming a ton of his mana.

I took my sweet time analyzing the flow of mana to figure this all out, which made me rather annoyed to find out there was an instant way to acquire details about a skill. I just had to ask the virus for the skill's pseudocode. Well, there's no use pondering over it now. So, I shrugged it off and carried on dreaming.

You see, I wanted to first know the extent to which I could make use of this virus-assisted lucid dreaming. That way, I can plan for ways to farm benefits off of it, perhaps even learn to control my strength. And that's how I quickly realized the sheer extraordinariness of this dream. The so-called extent of this lucid dreaming was non-existent — there was simply no limit to the things I could do in there.

And how did I realize this? It started with me walking away from the battlefield where Heath and the dream version of me were fighting in slow motion. I walked further into Kullu district and soon found a neighborhood. Out of curiosity, I entered and checked the houses. Sure enough, there were people inside. Some were asleep, some were reading, and some were having sex. Don't label me as a creep just yet, I was checking the people out to see if I would recognize someone. And I did.

I recognized 3 of the people I found in this neighborhood from an hour ago when I was watching people evacuate with the assistance of the city guards. In other words, the people I was seeing in this lucid dream actually exist in the real world despite the fact that I haven't seen most of them. Furthermore, what I saw them doing is also accurate to what they were actually doing at that time. And yes, that means a couple was really having sex while I was battling Heath less than 2 kilometers away.

Are you seeing what's extraordinary about this lucid dream yet? If not, let me tell you one more thing I did in that neighborhood. I roamed around and found the bell that was for alerting its residents of an immediate crisis. I physically rang it, and the people within their homes came pouring out, confused by what was happening. Their expression of confusion and the panicked chattering all stopped when the thunder and lightning came. They saw the glowing tree with their jaws dropped as it grew and grew to the size I was familiar with.

This lucid dream wasn't merely a recreation of my past experience. Rather, it was the entire universe reconstructed at this specific point in time. So, I could go to the Andromeda galaxy and see whatever happened there during the time I was fighting Heath. If that wasn't incredible enough, I was also able to interfere with the simulation, triggering the butterfly effect. All of this was being done by the virus.

Naturally, I wasted no time to make use of this situation the best I could. And there were quite a few things I managed to pull off. If I were to start explaining each and every one of them, this chapter could go on for a while. So, I'll just give you a brief rundown.

1) I observed Edith and learned how to fight. Although, it wasn't simply observation that allowed me to master 27 styles of martial arts; that would have taken way too long. I actually made use of the virus, and commanded it to embed Edith's martial arts knowledge into me. It sounds like bullshit, but it worked. The instincts, muscle memory, techniques, and all else were cleanly transferred over to me.

However, it wasn't without problems. You see, all the muscle memory and instincts made me hypersensitive to potential threats. And you know what happens when I subconsciously react to threats. So, I reversed some of the effects, I gave up the instincts, muscle memory, and other aspects that made me touchy.

2) I tracked down the 3 remaining Immortals, and studied their skills. 'Locate humans with S level complexity skill: Immortality. Search radius: the entire planet,' was the command I thought of, and it revealed me the coordinates of all 6 of them. Ignoring Edith, Devon, and Heath, I teleported to the other 3. Two females and one male.

Unlike the dynamic between Edith and Devon where Edith is the strongest one, it was different among the castaways. Heath and the other male immortal were significantly stronger than the females, which further strengthened my suspicion that perhaps the Omnipotent faced an issue with coding the male robot as the fighter and the female as the supporter.

3) In addition to locating the other 3 immortals, I used them to sharpen my battle skills. I simply made myself visible to them, and repeatedly provoked fights. I won't lie, I was having a lot of fun kicking their asses while getting super creative with my seed modification skill. Especially with my new athletic capabilities that came along with the martial arts techniques, I fought those 3 with style.

You may be concerned about my dream battle affecting the real world. But rest assured, there is no real danger as long as I'm lucid dreaming with the assistance of the virus. You see, the virus was occupied with listening to my commands and controlling this dream, which confirms that the virus is aware of my lucid dreaming state. So, there's no reason for it to react to my dream activities in the real world. However, if I'm physically threatened by something in the real world, that's a different story.

Anyway, that's about all the things I managed to do during this dream session. Sure, there were plenty of other things I hadn't tried out. But for one, they weren't too important or I failed to realize it, two, I didn't want to spend too much time in the dream, and three, I can lucid dream any time I want so it's all good anyway. By the way, if you're wondering why I didn't just use this opportunity to look into the future and solve all of my problems immediately, the reason is I couldn't. I mean technically, I could but it's not as convenient as you think.

You see, the future is solely based on the present point in time. And the number of futures that can be derived from the present are infinitely many, all of which are equally probable. In other words, there's no way to look into a specific future out of the infinitely many and make my life easier. Furthermore, looking into the future itself will create a recurring loop since there will now be more futures that are derived from the present where I'll be aware of a particular future. It's best not to think too much about this stuff. The concept of time travel is riddled with paradoxes, because it's simply not possible to achieve in a practical way.

'End simulation,' I commanded as I was finally ready to wake up. My surroundings returned back to absolute blackness, and I concentrated to allow my consciousness to leave the state of lucid dreaming. I slowly opened my eyelids, and the blackness was replaced with branches and leaves, and the rope that was tied to my hammock.

I remained laying down for a few seconds to allow my brain to get booted up. There was still no sound I could hear other than my own breath, meaning the enchantments were still in effect. I pulled my body and got down from the hammock, on to the giant branch below. "Hm, that's weird," I mumbled, seeing the sun setting before me.

With the sun's orange hue reflecting off my face and irises, I thought to myself, 'Looks like only a few hours had passed while I was asleep.' I was so sure that I was asleep for at least 12 hours though. But if only a few hours had passed while I was lucid dreaming… I brought up my palms to my face and triggered the analysis skill.

> Level: 387

> Mana Capacity: 54000

> Mana Control: A+

> Skillset: … Seal (Complexity - S , Activated) …

> Character Trait: Logical, Malevolent, Opportunistic, Calculating

> State of Mind: Thrilled

Is this the best day of my life? With just a few hours I managed to raise my mana control from F to A+? Based on this, I would say the peaceful life I'm aiming for is just around the corner. Wouldn't you?

I stopped my involuntary release of mana, wearing off the enchantment, and the sounds of thunder returned. After packing up everything I had brought along, I was all set to fly back down and back home. This called for a huge celebration. Moreover, I didn't have to use the same 3D space navigation skill to get down. With my current mana control, I could develop a proper flight skill. And that's what I did.

> Skillset: … Flight (Complexity - B+) …

This skill was also quite simple. Just imagine Ironman with a see-through suit. Admittedly, it still burns half the mana required by the 3D space navigation skill, which is a lot. But the important thing is that this skill is more comfortable to use and easy to maneuver.

Still feeling immense amounts of joy, I descended the tree, passing the thunderclouds. And then I saw something that made my smile disappear — a huge wall surrounding the area of the tree that didn't exist when I went to sleep. There was another thicker wall surrounding the trunk of the tree, which was connected to the outer wall through a roofed pathway. Surely, this couldn't have been built in a few hours.

Maybe, Just maybe… I've been asleep for a little longer than that.