From then on, it was as if Aergia had a ghost trailing behind her.
When she organized crystals, Hypnos stared at her; when she tended the garden, Hypnos stared at her. Even every time Aergia raised her head from her dream research, she would meet those half-lidded, pinkish-purple eyes.
Aergia went silent, finally understanding why sometimes saying nothing at all was even harder to bear than direct nagging.
She really couldn't stand these two brothers secretly competing with each other! Once this matter was over, she was definitely taking a vacation!
Ignoring Hypnos's unmissable gaze, Aergia lowered her head once more and sank her consciousness into the dream crystal in her palm...
Categorizing dreams did not immediately become easier just because Aergia poured more time into it.
At first, she tried placing the crystals into separate categories based on the imagery within the dreams.
Mountains and rivers, forests, skies, and the various living beings appearing in those dreams.
This method seemed very intuitive, but before long, issues arose.
A single dream could easily contain mountains, rivers, forests, and flying birds all at the same time.
Even in the brief moments she observed, a forest could turn into an ocean, and a running beast could suddenly sprout wings.
The divine power within the crystal did not find this contradictory at all.
It continued to flow naturally, as if such changes were completely taken for granted—dreams were inherently wild, imaginative, and fickle to begin with.
Aergia looked at the few crystals she had moved back and forth repeatedly and slowly stopped her hands.
This basis for categorization was officially declared invalid.
Dreams were chaotic and ever-changing.
So was there anything that wouldn't easily change along with the imagery inside the dream?
She reached out to touch a crystal once more.
The dream slowly unfolded.
It was a meadow blooming with flowers, where breezes blew from afar, carrying a faint glow that drifted through the blades of grass.
The dream's owner was bowing its head to drink water, yet what reflected on the water's surface was not its own shadow, but a pair of pure white wings.
Aergia's gaze paused slightly.
She recognized the owner of this dream.
Nephele.
That divine steed was currently resting in the garden, its long mane spread across the poppy thicket, while its wings still maintained the posture it found most satisfying.
In the dream, it seemed equally satisfied.
Aergia couldn't help but chuckle softly, then focused her attention back into the depths of the laws.
Nephele could dream of meadows, seas of clouds, or even possessing even more beautiful wings.
Yet no matter what appeared in the dream, the subject dreaming was always Nephele.
Following the connection between the crystal and the dream's owner, she continued to feel inward.
A trace of life belonging to a beastly form gradually grew clearer.
That was the initial mark left behind when the dream entered the domain of sleep.
Aergia's eyes lit up.
She immediately fetched another crystal.
This time, the imagery in the dream was a steep cliff.
The dream's owner seemed to be plummeting downward; the surrounding wind grew fiercer and fiercer, yet it never actually hit the ground.
Aergia paid no further attention to the cliff, instead carefully discerning the mark deep within the crystal.
This dream crystal belonged to a bird.
There was also a dream crystal belonging to a Wood Nymph.
In her dream, she had turned into an ancient tree, her branches and leaves continually reaching toward the sky, but outside the dream, the subject entering slumber still retained a humanoid form.
Aergia finally sat up straight.
The first tier of categorization, perhaps, should begin with the dreamer itself.
Only by first identifying what kind of subject the dream originated from could those ever-shifting scenes find a relatively stable belonging.
She did not immediately invoke her authority to re-categorize all the crystals.
Instead, she first selected a portion of dreams whose origin could already be identified, placing them in different areas according to the form of the dreamer.
Humanoid nymphs and other creatures.
Beasts.
Birds.
And some more special subjects that were temporarily difficult to classify.
New crystals were added one after another.
Dreams that originally seemed completely unrelated actually began to exhibit certain similar divine power properties.
Dreams of birds often possessed a lightweight fluidity.
Deep within the dreams of beasts, traces left by physical activity were more easily preserved.
Dreams of humanoid creatures were far more complex; the relationships between different scenes within them were often closely tied to memory and intent.
These distinctions could not determine what specifically would appear in every dream, but they allowed Aergia to find the first identifiable boundary amid the chaotic divine power.
Next was the second tier.
Among dreams that also came from birds, some were exceptionally serene, while others were filled with dread.
Among dreams that also came from beasts, some satisfied their dreamers, while others remained shrouded in loss and sorrow.
They clearly shouldn't all be piled together.
Aergia fetched another crystal once more.
The dream unfolded slowly. The valley within the dream was gorgeous—flowers bloomed, streams ran clear, and even the sky's light seemed exceptionally gentle.
If one were to look only at the scenery within, it could almost immediately be judged a sweet dream.
Yet the dream's owner was constantly terrified.
It knew something was searching for it outside the valley.
Even if that creature never actually appeared, the fear never dissipated.
The maiden sensed quietly for a moment, then moved this crystal away from the position she had originally intended to place it.
The type of dream could not be decided solely by the scenery displayed on its surface.
A living creature's experience within a dream was also part of the law.
Sweet dreams.
Nightmares.
Sorrowful dreams...
Following these different attributes, she gradually separated the crystals within the same subject area once again.
Some dreams were simpler, quickly finding their rightful place.
Others, however, continuously changed as they unfolded.
Initial satisfaction would gradually turn into unease, while brief dread might return to tranquility after finding a familiar source of comfort.
Aergia tried several times to lock down such changes, only to discover in the end that the divine power of dreams would always flow back and forth between the boundaries she had drawn.
The goddess in the form of a young maiden gazed at one of the crystals and pondered for a moment, finally relaxing the constraints that had been overly tight.
Since the dream itself could change, its assigned section should likewise allow it to change accordingly.
The purpose of categorization was to allow dreams to find their corresponding divine power and laws.
There was no need for her to hinder dreams from continuing to occur just to keep them tidy.
The subsequent adjustments finally proceeded much more smoothly.
There was another category of crystals that took Aergia a considerable amount of time.
They were extremely faint in color, containing almost no visible imagery.
Once consciousness entered, one could feel only a complete blankness.
No pursuit, no mountains or rivers, and no clear memories or emotions.
Yet this blankness remained within the realm of dreams.
The dream's owner had already entered that domain belonging to inner consciousness, only nothing identifiable had yet arisen from it.
Aergia placed them in a separate location by themselves.
Dreamless dreams.
Aergia looked at the nearly transparent crystal in her palm; this name was indeed quite fitting.
As the categorization grew clearer, the problem that truly needed to be solved finally presented itself before Aergia.
She could not keep organizing them by hand forever.
Even fetching just a portion of the crystals now had already consumed so much time.
If the dreams of every living creature across the entire world had to be identified by her one by one, she probably would never finish sorting them even if she never stepped foot outside again.
Furthermore, she still had duties concerning death, Sleep Induction, and other affairs of the Temple of Sleep.
Thinking up to this point, Aergia secretly stabbed a voodoo doll of the God of Sleep in her mind.
The law she possessed was clearly sloth.
How on earth had she instead ended up the busiest person in the entire temple?
But there was no helping it; who told him to be the boss?
Aergia sighed and unfurled her authority over dreams once more.
She connected the dream traces of different subjects to the existing laws within the domain of sleep.
Dreams belonging to the same type of subject began to resonate with their corresponding areas.
The moment they entered the domain, they could follow familiar divinity and gather toward the same location.
The second-tier division was even more detailed.
Aergia needed to constantly compare the differences between sweet dreams and nightmares, while also discerning which property was dominating the entire dream when sorrow and fear were occasionally intertwined.
She did not demand that every single change stabilize immediately.
Those crystals that could not yet be clearly classified were temporarily left on the periphery by her, waiting until their own properties grew clearer before re-entering their corresponding areas.
Day after day, night after night passed.
The light within the dream domain began to exhibit an order it had never possessed before.
The area for humanoid subjects gradually expanded, within which different types of dreams branched off once more.
The dreams of beasts and birds were no longer mixed together either; instead, they formed layers of divine light of varying intensities in their respective places.
When new crystals entered, they initially paused at the border for a moment.
Later, the duration of their pause grew shorter and shorter.
On this night, Aergia had just finished fulfilling her duty of Sleep Induction.
Just as she entered the dream domain, she saw a newly born crystal quietly emerge on the edge of the dreamscape.
Before she could even invoke her authority over dreams, the crystal spun gently on the spot and then, guided by a strand of existing divine power, slowly drifted toward the area belonging to beasts.
After entering, it continued inward, finally coming to rest in a relatively bright, quiet light.
Aergia couldn't help holding her breath.
Another one.
A nightmare belonging to a bird.
The crystal entered the domain and quickly fell along another path into its corresponding partition.
Throughout the entire process, she no longer needed to guide it personally.
It worked!
Rate on N.U.
