Chapter 1: The Terrifying Profession

7

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Qiu Ren was on a bus, gazing at the scenery outside the window.

Calculating the time carefully, he had already been in this world for three days.

This was a world similar to Earth, but there was something very strange.

Qiu Ren looked at the billboards along the streets outside. There should have been movie posters on the billboards, but something else was put on them…

“The new dream movie ‘Interstellar’ created by the famous Movie Dream Maker, Chris Nolan, is now on.”

And some other advertisements like… “Multiplayer online strategy dream game ‘Swordsman’ launches today. Young swordsmen, please join us and pick up where we left off!”

They seemed to be the usual movie and game advertisements at first sight.

However…

Dream Dungeons, Dream Makers.

Qiu Ren had spent some time understanding what Dream Makers and Dream Dungeons were.

According to the memories of the body’s original owner, when everyone in this world turned eighteen, a Dream Dungeon Dimension would be awakened.

Anyone could create the characters and stories in their own fantasy in the Dream Dungeon Dimension.

Of course, this required the consumption of something called Creation Points. Furthermore, there was a limit in the size of people’s Dream Dungeon Dimension that had just been awakened, limited to a maximum of ten square meters.

The existence of Dream Dungeons also gave rise to the world’s most popular profession… Dream Makers.

Dream Makers obviously relied on Dream Dungeons to create all kinds of novel story experiences for the public.

The two largest pillar industries of human entertainment, movie and game, were also transferred to the Dream Dungeons.

Even though the traditional movie and game industry still existed in this world, people were more willing to enter the dreams created by the Dream Makers. After all, there, they could personally play the characters in those movies and go on thrilling adventures one after another, experiencing the excitement of being a hero.

“There isn’t a serious revolution in this world. How amazing!”

Qiu Ren exclaimed again.

“What revolution?” the person sitting next to Qiu Ren suddenly asked.

“Nothing.”

The guy who spoke just now was the deskmate and best friend of this body’s original owner, Xu Sheng.

Qiu Ren was a third-year high school senior, and he was about to take the examination for Dream Makers.

“I still don’t understand why you applied for the Nightmare Purification Major.”

Xu Sheng had been nagging him since they got on the bus.

The school had arranged an extracurricular practice for Qiu Ren and some of the students in the class.

It was already ridiculous to arrange an outing, which was regarded as an extracurricular practice, during this critical period in the third year of high school.

However, the most ridiculous thing was that the destination for the outing was… prison.

It was even the kind of prison used to imprison death row prisoners!

“Maybe because I can earn more money?” Qiu Ren casually replied to Xu Sheng.

Not many students had come to this extracurricular practice. Only some of the students who had applied for the “Nightmare Purification Major” like Qiu Ren were here.

And those who didn’t want to attend their classes came to enrich their experience like Xu Sheng.

“More money? But I heard that the death rate of the Dream Makers in the Nightmare Purification Major is extremely high. You may be eaten by a nightmare someday,” said Xu Sheng as he shivered.

If there was light, there was a shadow.

Dream Dungeons gave humans in this world a platform so they could travel around the fantasy world of themselves and the others.

However, this also led to the appearance of “Nightmare Dungeons.”

“Nightmare Dungeons” were apparently Dream Dungeons that brought death and fear. They could take someone’s life at a spiritual level.

And yet, Qiu Ren had no idea what Nightmare Dungeons exactly looked like and how he could purify them.

The body’s original owner had opted for this Nightmare Purification Major with a high death rate when he applied for the examination.

The reason was… this dumb kid was penniless. He wanted to get into a lucrative profession all his life.

“Don’t think too much. The high death rate might just be a rumor?” Qiu Ren tried to reassure himself.

“The rumor is true! Ah, I’ll never get into this major anyway, even if you beat me to death. I’m only here today because of Wanxiang.”

Xu Sheng lowered his voice when he got to the latter part of the sentence. He took a peek at the girl sitting at the back of the bus.

She was holding a book that could be opened and closed with one hand and was reading it quietly.

Lin Wanxiang…

It was like every class had one girl who looked a lot better than the others. Lin Wanxiang was that one girl who raised the average attractiveness of all the girls in the class. Qiu Ren felt like she could do a similar job when she went into college.

Coincidentally, Qiu Ren could do the same, but for the boys.

Unfortunately, Qiu Ren and Xu Sheng had only looked at the girl for a short time when the bus stopped outside a highly secured building.

“We’ve arrived at the Fengdu Prison. Everyone, please follow me when you get off, or you’ll be captured by the prison guards!”

The class teacher made a joke to relieve the student’s anxiousness.

Fengdu? Fengdu Ghost City?

Qiu Ren originally thought it was already unusual enough that they had come to a prison for death row prisoners for their extracurricular practice, but the name of the prison was also unique.

There weren’t many students on the bus, only around forty. This was the total number of students from the ten college examination classes in the school.

Most of them only came for fun, like Xu Sheng, because they didn’t want to have classes. Very few of them had applied for the Nightmare Purification Major.

Qiu Ren stood in front of the gate of the prison when he got off the bus. The first impression he got was… This place didn’t look like a prison.

It was more like a research center, one that was exploring some kind of high technology.

When Qiu Ren followed the outing group into the prison, this feeling became even stronger.

The ground and the walls were neat and had a sense of efficient technology.

“Guys, this is the peripheral area of Fengdu Prison.”

The guide leading the group was a young woman. Her clothes looked more like a clerk than a prison guard.

“You might be curious to know why your teacher brought you here to visit a prison after you applied for the Nightmare Purification Major. Please look down through that window.”

That female guide pointed at a transparent glass on the side of the corridor.

What she said made Qiu Ren think he was in a zoo, but the sight here was much more horrifying than in the zoo.

On the left side of the corridor was a giant French window. It was apparently bulletproof.

There was a spacious area outside the window, like a water reservoir. It was so deep that the bottom couldn’t be seen. People would need some kind of equipment like a telescope to look further down.

Qiu Ren borrowed one of the telescopes. He observed the spinning black Rubik’s Cube stored in a machine at the bottom of the space.

“That’s a Nightmare Seed?” a student asked curiously.

“Exactly. There are various forms of Nightmare Seeds. This one here is the most dangerous, Level S Nightmare Seed. The purification process hasn’t even reached halfway at the moment,” the guide answered the student’s question patiently.

A Level S Nightmare Seed?

They were allowing the students to look at such a dangerous thing?

While Qiu Ren was still confused, he suddenly noticed many people gathering around the Rubik’s Cube.

They were all wearing prisoner uniforms. It seemed that they were the death row prisoners here. These prisoners all surrounded the Nightmare Seed and fell asleep.

Soon, one death row prisoner suddenly woke up, shouting something in fear. He then spurted out blood and fell on the ground.

This scene made the students, who were thinking “the Nightmare Seed was awesome,” tremble.

“What… What happened to them?”

Xu Sheng looked at the death row prisoners who were waking up one by one. Most awakened prisoners had spurted out blood and became unconscious immediately after, while others had a seizure.

A few prison guards came to work together and finally calmed them down.

“They were killed in the nightmare,” the guide said with a smile. “There are two steps for purifying a low-level Nightmare Seed. One of them is to dispatch personnel into the nightmare and kill the monsters in the dream or other things that represent the nightmare.

“Their mental health will be affected severely if they die in the nightmare. They may be able to survive the first time but won’t be so fortunate the second.”

“Then… Then, aren’t we going to be the same like these death row prisoners… after getting into the Nightmare Purification Major?”

Xu Sheng looked at the miserable faces of the bleeding death row prisoners down there, then gazed at Qiu Ren with fear in his eyes.

He wanted to grab Qiu Ren’s collar right now and say to him, “Brother, please apply for another major! Don’t choose this terrifying course!”

“Of course, it’s different. People in the Nightmare Purification Profession are responsible for building nightmares, and this is the first step before that.” The guide still had that smile on her lips. “The inside of a Nightmare Seed is originally chaotic. It needs Dream Makers to build nightmare scenes.

“However, Nightmare Seeds have their own consciousness. The job of the Dream Makers is to build a dream that satisfies the Nightmare Seeds. As for how they do that and decrease the casualties when the Dream Explorers get into the nightmare, it’ll depend on the Dream Maker’s skills.”

Qiu Ren understood what the guide meant.

If the Dream Makers wanted to use the Nightmare Seeds to create Dream Dungeons like “The Little Pony,” “Pokémon,” and “Teletubbies,” these Dream Dungeons would be destroyed by the Nightmare Seeds.

Instead, Dream Dungeons like “Resident Evil,” “The Conjuring,” and “Saw” would greatly please the Nightmare Seeds.

However, the Dream Explorers in these Dream Dungeons wouldn’t be that… happy.

“If you like horror games or movies, you can try to apply for this major. Of course, Nightmare Makers also have the risk of being swallowed by the nightmares. They might die even more miserable than the Dream Explorers.”

After hearing what the guide said, most students in the class already wanted to leave this scary place as soon as possible.

Qiu Ren also realized the purpose of this extracurricular practice. Simply put, it aimed at convincing students not to apply for this major!

They wanted to scare away those ignorant students who had applied for the Nightmare Purification Major in their innocence.

It looked like this profession was created by the seniors without thinking thoroughly, which was why the professionals under them wanted to convince these kids to stay away from this dangerous job.

“Alright, let’s not talk about these terrifying things. It’s time for lunch. We’ve prepared quite a lot of delicious food for all of you. Please come this way.” The guide stopped scaring these kids.

Just as she had led everyone to the other side, the alarm of the prison suddenly rang!

“What’s going on?” Xu Sheng was immediately frightened.

“That Rubik’s Cube… The Nightmare Seed…”

Qiu Ren noticed that the Nightmare Seed was letting out beams of light, but as soon as he noticed it, it also noticed Qiu Ren.

A huge eye suddenly opened on the Rubik’s Cube.

The moment Qiu Ren looked right into that eye, he felt like his consciousness was pulled into that Nightmare Seed!

In the end, Qiu Ren could only hear the screams of his schoolmates and teacher around him.