The moment I used {Dream of Hunger}, the world seemed to dissolve into utter madness. The first thing I noticed was the trees. The creepy, dead trees of the forest dissolved into foggy, wispy outlines of whites and greys. Instead of well defined shapes, the trees now looked like they were made of incomprehensibly shaped clouds. 

The trees weren’t the only thing that changed in the dream world. The ground itself faded away, as did the light of the sun overhead. In seconds, the world transitioned from a well lit creepy forest to a lightless world of darkness and fog.

The next thing I noticed was space. I could feel that the way space interacted with me was wrong, somehow. Instead of regular shapes, it felt more like everything in this world was an expression of will. Things here didn’t have a physical aspect to them - they were solely defined by their minds, their thoughts, and their beliefs. Rather than a dreamscape, I felt as if I had fallen into a sort of mind-scape, where shape, space, and physicality were poorly defined.

A moment later, I felt as if something had implanted a certain set of instincts into my mind. It didn’t feel invasive - it was more as if someone were sharing a basic understanding of the world with me. It was a welcome boost to my understanding of this world, with its poorly defined physical shapes and its emphasis on the mind.

It only took me a moment to guess where this new set of instincts had come from. An item that was almost impossible for users to make effective use of wouldn’t be very popular in the Market. Thus, the item itself probably had some kind of built-in assistance feature for users.

I opened the item description again, and fell into thought.

Item: Dream of Hunger (nonphysical item)

Effects: Once per lifetime, you may enter a dream of ‘hunger.’ This will allow you to drag a single creature from anywhere into the world into your dream in a greatly weakened form. (note - this is a dream-related magic item, so creatures which have resistances against this type of effect may be able to resist it. Creatures above Heroic Grade also have considerably stronger bonds between their soul and their body, meaning it is almost impossible to separate their soul and drag it into a dream.)

(To activate this item, you must have some sort of medium related to the target. It is best to use things like blood, hair, or saliva - but other things, such as scales, straw from a nest, or other things can also be used. The more related the medium is to the target, the better the effect of this item).

Maintenance cost - 40.7 Achievement per reconstruction.

This item description had made me think that I would fall asleep, along with whatever creature I was targeting - essentially, I had imagined some sort of ‘war of minds’ happening in another plane of reality, one constructed entirely via souls and dreams. I had also envisioned my own body falling helplessly onto the ground when I used this item. In fact, that was why had gone to such effort to remove any other summons from this area before I activated the item - I didn’t want a monster to come kill me while I was laying helplessly on the ground and my mind was locked into a dream battle.

This was not how the item worked - at least, not entirely.

As the item fed me more instincts related to the dreamscape and the way the item worked, I realized that I was mistaken. My enemy, the chimera I had dragged into this world, was indeed now asleep on the ground. Its body and its soul were separated from each other, as if the item had simply scooped its soul out and dropped it in here. However, my body was present in the dreamscape. 

In other words, I didn’t have to worry about my undefended physical body being torn apart by some unseen threat in the wilderness - I only had to worry about my presence in this world. My physical shape in this dreamscape also offered me a level of real-ness that other things in this world lacked. That would make it cheaper for me to do things that other creatures would struggle with. The chimera would need to spend essence every second, simply to maintain its mind and a connection to its body. If it stopped paying either essence cost, it would die. Meanwhile, since I was now physically present in the dreamscape, I didn’t need to spend any essence to stay in the dreamscape, or to maintain it. I was regenerating essence, just like usual.

The item also sent me a vague warning that the dreamscape itself would only be maintained for an hour. After that, it would collapse. In short, this item had excellent protection for the user, while making the target as vulnerable as possible. The item worked to maintain every single advantage for the user that it could. I could already imagine how useful this would be in the future - when I was fighting with my friends, I could blast an enemy with an extinguish, then drag it into the dreamscape while my friends attacked its helpless body. It was an incredible boon to our fighting abilities as a whole.

After I finished understanding how the item and the real world interacted with each other, I focused my attention on the dreamscape again. I couldn’t see anything - after all, there was no light at all in this world. However, I wanted to find the chimera. I only had an hour, and the essence drain on the creature wouldn’t be that significant. I wanted to get a better feel for how this item worked, so that I could change my strategy if needed.

My physical eyes wouldn’t help me locate the chimera. Since that was the case, how could I… 

A moment later, the item fed me more information. I realized that I didn’t need to search for the enemy. Instead, I willed the dreamscape to find the enemy. I demanded that it recreate the scene of battle I had just exited. 

Essence bled out of my body and into the dreamscape around me, and reality changed. The endless darkness and glimmers of mist turned into a sunlit clearing in the forest, with broken trees in my surroundings. Most of the trees lacked the definition of a real, physical object - it was obvious that this clearing was created by my memories, and my memories were imperfect. However, I still knew that this was the same area I had just been fighting the chimera in. As I remodelled the world around me, I understood. The dreamscape only worked off of essence and intent. Willpower, backed by essence, could do literally anything in the dreamscape. I could reshape the laws of reality to my whims. I could force an enemy to appear in front of me, no matter how they fled. I could create storms, earthquakes, and tornadoes with a thought.

I just needed willpower and my imagination to fuel it all, along with a healthy dose of essence. The more willpower I had, the less something would cost. 

As I demanded that the chimera appear in front of me, reality unwove itself and changed to match my demands. A moment later, I found that the chimera had appeared in the middle of the forest clearing. However, there was a big difference. It was much smaller.

The physical chimera was the size of a few cars on a train. This was part of what lent its charges such crushing, terrifying velocity and weight - it was in a completely different weight class compared to me.

By contrast, the chimera in the dream world was about one and a half times as tall as me. it was still larger than I was, but not overwhelmingly so. Its movements were also much slower than before. Previously, its strength and speed had both been significantly higher than mine. Now, it was a grade or two lower than I was. I grinned.

Then, I dashed forward. The chimera tried to turn towards me, but its movements were unbalanced and slow. Not only was the creature slower and weaker - it was totally unused to this environment and its own body. It looked like a baby that could barely control its own limbs. Furthermore, I could sense the creature’s willpower and mind. I could feel the way the creature interacted with the dreamscape, since willpower and essence were the only things that were ‘real’ in this world.

The chimera was a terrifying monster. Its physical stats and essence reserves were terrifying. But its mind? It was barely as smart as the average adult human. I wished for my umbrella to reappear in my hands. A moment later, I found that I was holding my umbrella again. A very small trace of alteration essence disappeared from my essence pool - but it was a minor expense. I smiled even more deeply. 

Before the Chimera had time to adapt to its new body, I rammed the tip of my umbrella through one of its eyeballs. The creature screeched in pain and reeled back, and a blast of force tore out of the creature’s body towards me. I willed space to bend, and instantly teleported out of the way of the blast. The chimera’s essence reserves dropped as it tried to crush me with another wave of force - and I teleported out of the way again. The chimera lunged at me, and the tip of my umbrella burst another one of its eyeballs. The chimera bellowed in pain again, and I laughed as I confirmed something else.

Its ridiculous regeneration was gone. The chimera wasn’t healing at all. I darted backwards as it swiped at me with one of its human hands, and then wished for the spike at the tip of my umbrella to grow right as I buried my umbrella in the chimera’s brain. 

The creature reeled back, as essence dribbled out of its body. The creature tried to push me back with another wave of force, but I teleported onto its back and continued stabbing the creature. I cut into its arms, abdomen, back, and neck. With every single cut, the creature started leaking more and more essence, and its mind grew weaker and weaker as the creature flailed and struggled. However, unlike me, it didn’t have any innate understanding of this world - it seemed utterly confused by what was happening.

Two minutes of teleportation, stabbing, and cutting later, the chimera ran out of essence. Instantly, its body crumbled into dust, and I was ejected from the dream. I felt a moment of disorientation as reality became more… real again, before I glanced at the corpse of the chimera.

In the real world, the chimera was simply laying on the ground. It was dead. A System notification appeared in the corner of my vision, but I ignored it as I stared at the chimera and smiled. {Dream of Hunger} was an incredibly potent item. It had single-handedly turned a difficult fight into a victory.

Now, it was time to claim my main prize. I stepped back into the cave and started jogging towards the center, where the giant patchwork soul waited for me.