0024 - Passed or Failed?

The book channeled its abilities, the same ones he used to invade the Lu Sheng dream, to be with one. But now, to influence it, to see what would be the response if any other emotion gets heightened.

"Let's see how you would handle the sadness?"

Suddenly, everything stopped. The guns blazing stopped, the narrator's voice stopped, and the invading horde stopped.

"What is going on?" Chad Sheng asked.

Nobody answered but one of the Infested Orcs walked forward. Chad Sheng raised his gun and tried to shoot it but except for triggers clicking, nothing happened.

The Orc came face to face, his eyes were not mad anymore but they had clarity.

"What? What do you want?" Chad Sheng felt awkward looking at the Orc's eyes.

The ambiance suddenly changed and instead of a land of fire and hell, they were standing up high at the corner of a waterfall. 

Chad Sheng was no longer in armor but in a simple white dress. The infested Orc transformed into a sexy female version of her previous self.

"NOPE! I have no such fetish!" Chad Sheng quickly dismissed. "I cannot accept your love."

Tears streamed out from the eyes of the female orc hearing the rejection. She cried loudly like a howling beast making an awkward scene and Chad Sheng only scratched his head in embarrassment.

"I…I am going…" He tried to skip but suddenly she grabbed Chad Sheng forcefully.

"What are you doing? Let go of me." Chad Sheng tried to free himself.

"Why don't you sound convincing at all?" The book who was observing this cringy cheap-ass love soap drama can't help but comment in his mind.

Suddenly, she hugged Chad Sheng tightly and tried to force herself.

"Please, no, don't. I am warning…Ah! No!" Chad Sheng's voice filled with pleasure and anticipation.

"NO! I have no such Heavy Taste or wish to peek into someone else's wet dream." The book tried to influence the emotions again. "I am not sure how the sadness turned into a wet dream, this fool's mind is not in the right place. Let's try anger."

The female Orc cried out in anger, the lust in her eyes started to boil her blood as her body started releasing steam. "Let me go please." Chad Sheng whimpered in pleasure when suddenly, she lifted him up on her shoulder.

*ROAR*

She roared as if she had secured a hunt and with no logic at all she jumped. She jumped right into the waterfall.

"NOOO!!!" The book cried out in disbelief.

Lu Sheng also screamed in return but his voice was muffled.

"MMMH! MMHHH!" Lu Sheng's eyes shot open in panic as he found himself in his bed. he realized it was all a dream but then he panicked again because something was covering his face. 

Frantically, he attempted to scream, but the sound was muffled by the object pressed against his mouth and nose. It was the Book. 

With a surge of fear, he struggled to remove it, but to his horror, he felt his strength draining away. Desperate, he searched for help and found his Cane of Obedience and struck the book with all his might. The book trembled in response, finally releasing its grip on his face.

He took a deep breath and saw the book floating away from him, only to realize he was no longer in his room.

As he blinked his eyes repeatedly, the darkness around him slowly transformed into a barren land. "What is this? I am still dreaming? he mumbled, looking around at a dark, dusty, barren land as if trying to make sense of his surroundings. The air was thick with dust, and he could feel it sticking to his face.

[This is a hallucination.]

"Oh?" He wiped his face and tried to avoid breathing in this dusty unknown place. 

[Calm yourself; you are not breathing in here. It's not real. Let it go and let me resume the automation because you are going to affect the real breathing.]

"Yes." He trusted the system and let go of the uneasiness, suddenly feeling calm return.

"This book was in my dream, why didn't you warn me?"

[If I did then this book would have noticed my presence, my power, and this would have been very dangerous if others got to know about me.]

"Oh? What about now? In hallucination?"

[Only projection, nothing more.]

Dust kicked up as it surrounded him, blinding him, trying to suffocate him but he remembered the words of the Automated System and trusted it. The uneasiness in his heart calms down but how can someone ignore his instincts?

"PHHUWAAA!" Dirt entered his nose, irritating him, and bitterness spread in his mouth as he tasted the dirt.

"What is this?" He panicked again.

[it's all hallucination, remember, you are in your room, whatever your senses are showing you, letting you feel, making you believe it's all a lie.]

"If everything is a lie then how can I believe you are also not a hallucination? How can you not be a lie?" He choked out between coughs as the gritty wind assaulted his face. Instead of recovering he spirals deep down in the hallucination. Everything started to become more real to him.

[Your caution is commendable, if I am also a lie then who do you believe the most?]

"I…I don't know…" His eyes started to itch as he felt losing his footing in the wind. He waited for the answer but no voice answered in his head.

"Automated System?" He called out as he raised his hand to hide his face from the dirt.

"What is going on? Why are you not answering?" He called out again but no one answered.

"NO!!!" Suddenly he was deep in the dirt till his waist and he couldn't move. Terror seized Lu Sheng as the swirling sand sucked him down, trapping his body. He cried out for the Automated System again and again but no one answered.

"AUTOMATED SYSTEM!!! YOU TRAITOR!!!! YOU SCAMMER!!! YOU!!! YOU!!!!" His anger rose against his terror as he started cursing the Automated System.

Lu Sheng's emotions spiraled into a whirlwind of fear and anger. The Automated System he relied on was nowhere to be found, and he felt abandoned in the surreal nightmare.

"Come back!! I will not scold you any more, I will trust you!! Come back!!" He started crying as he found his hands now buried in the dirt.

"Fine, I will listen to all your words, please come back!! I will trust you…look, I believe your words, I believe that this is all just a hallucination, nothing of this is real, the dirt in my eyes making me blind is not real, the dirt in my mouth choking me is not real at all, making my throat dry so that I cannot scream for help is not real…huh?"

Suddenly he felt like something illogical, something that did not fit right at all. He said something that does not make sense at all. He checked and his mouth was still choking but still, it felt like if he took his attention away it did not choke at all. 

"Huh!?" He wants to cough and he feels that he is not able to talk at all but he was still able to say all of his words without any difficulty while cursing and begging to his Automated System.

"What the hell? This is actually a Hallucination!!!??" The moment Lu Sheng said those words the dirt vanished and his eyes snapped open. 

"Automated System?" He called out in his mind as he got up from his bed.

[I am here.]

"What just happened? Why did you go silent?" 

[I did not, you believed that I was not real.]

"So, was it all I imagined?"

[Yes, you refused to hear me, you believed the dust, the irritation, the choking, and getting buried but you made it out, you broke your own prison.]

"Umm…I was just lucky." Of course he was, if nitpicking can be a buff, if arguing on the internet can be a buff then he had that buff when he found his own words not making sense and that's how he got out.

Lu Sheng turned and looked at the book at his side with a frown, a thought of burning it right now did cross his mind. 

"Who are you?" He asked the book directly.

Silence.

"What do you want?"

Silence.

"If you do not answer then I will burn you right now."

Still silence, nothing from the book.

"Let's burn it." He walked out of his room and went straight to the kitchen in his courtyard. The ambers in the stove were still smoldering as he tossed the book in it. For a moment, nothing happened. Lu Sheng watched intently, ready to see the book consumed by the flames.

However, the book remained untouched by the fire. The embers around it started to die out faster than usual.

"What now?" He asked 'The Automated System'.

[Let's listen.]

Lu Sheng understood the meaning behind Automated System words. "Okay."

His vision dimmed as the color of the world drained. Silent Apprentice awakened as he saw bright outlines around everything.

Lu Sheng looked at the book again, and this time a face was visible on it glaring at him. However, it seemed that the face did not know that Lu Sheng could see him perfectly.

"What are you glaring at?" Lu Sheng quickly asked, reaching out with the Cane of Obedience to poke it.

Confusion covered the expression of the dark face on the book. For a moment, he thought Lu Sheng was playing an act.

"Yes, I am talking to you." Lu Sheng poked the face with the Cane, and as if touched by a hot rod, the face screamed in pain.

"AHHHHH!!!" the book shot out of the stove as he flew out of the window.

"WAIT!" Lu Sheng tried to catch it but his fat body was not agile enough. However, he could hear the pained shriek as it continued to flee, ultimately disappearing from his view.

"Did he just run away? What was it?"

[I have no clue at all.]

"Do you think it returned to the underground storehouse of the library?"

[I am not sure but it's one possibility.]

"Remind me when we will return to the library, okay?"

[Yes, I will.]

He returned to his room and went to sleep as if nothing happened at all. Lazy people are very fast at forgetting the pain and caution.

_______________________

Meanwhile, the dark book returned to the underground storehouse.

"What took you so long?" The Old Man asked, sensing the presence of the dark book.

"You swindler! You old fool!" the dark book hissed, its pages rustling with anger. The Old Man, the caretaker of the underground book storehouse, looked at the book with an amused expression.

"You treacherous old bat!" bellowed the sentient book, its pages pulsing with rage. "Did you deliberately send me into the lion's den, hoping I'd be devoured whole?"

The old man, hunched over a flickering oil lamp, chuckled dryly. "Why? Did a little boy scare the mighty Grandmaster of the Endless Paths Academy?" The old man mocked the dark book, addressing him with his real title.

"Do not patronize me. I am no longer the Grandmaster of Endless Paths Academy but an obsession demon forever trapped within this cursed book of my own deeds."

"Fine, then tell me what that brat did."

"He burned me." The voice carried a sense of dread.

"Burned you?" The old man looked up closely at the floating book. "I do not see anything burned."

"No, he burned me, not this book but me."

"What are you trying to say? He burned your demonic form?"

The book stayed silent.

"How is that possible?" The old man thought for a moment. "He showed exceptional memorization art and now he has some kind of demonic flame art?"

"No, it was not demonic…it was beyond…I know that…I can almost remember it."

"Remember it? You consume knowledge and then recall without any interruption and now you are struggling to remember it?" The old man was not sure what was going on.

"This is not knowledge, this is not even memory but a path I ran away from…"

"Afterlife?" The old man answered logically.

The book stayed silent.

"Have you finally gone senile?" The old man asked, squinting at the dark book as if it could somehow display senility.

The book stayed silent.

"Tell me everything from the beginning."