Wizards begin by accessing the Inspiration panel.

Chapter 237 Nightmare

There was a black, glossy-furred feline eating something in the garden's flowerbed. What it was eating was quite strange; it was a bunch of flowers shaped like sunflowers.

A leopard that eats flowers?

Richard was also quite surprised as he looked at the scene before him.

Suddenly, as if sensing someone had entered the flowerbed, the black feline raised its head and looked at Richard.

Instantly, Richard was struck dumb, frozen on the spot!

The black feline's face was actually that of a beautiful human woman. The only difference was that its slightly protruding canines gave the beautiful face a more bloodthirsty look.

The other person glanced at Richard, seemingly very displeased with this uninvited guest who had interrupted their meal. They abandoned the remaining withered flower at their lips, took elegant steps, quickly adjusted their streamlined body, and immediately faced Richard directly.

Seeing that the other party was poised to attack, Richard thought to himself, "This is bad!"

Richard immediately planned to summon the vengeful spirit, Abomination.

But to Richard's surprise, after the short incantation was finished, there was no reaction at all. The inverted pentagram summoning circle did not appear on the ground, let alone the shadow of the vengeful spirit.

This unusual situation immediately startled Richard!

"It seems this time is different from the previous two times. I've been caught in similar dreams before, but summoning vengeful spirits didn't affect me."

"But this time, it seems..."

"Whoosh!"

The strange feline opposite them, which they would call the Beauty Leopard, suddenly launched an attack while Richard was distracted. It was as fast as lightning and pounced on Richard.

Fortunately, Richard was very familiar with and proficient in close combat, and he never gave up this skill even after becoming a formal wizard.

The mimicry metal in his hands immediately transformed into an arm shield and a knight's longsword, which he held in his left and right hands, and Richard began to fight the beautiful leopard.

"Sizzle~~"

The beautiful leopard gathered its strength and unleashed a claw attack, creating three phantoms as it struck Richard. Richard blocked with his arm shield, and immediately a piercing metallic scraping sound was heard, like someone scraping several stones against glass.

Richard immediately frowned upon hearing this.

Richard pushed hard with his left arm, sending the beautiful leopard flying several meters away.

In the blink of an eye, after a few brief exchanges, Richard was able to assess his opponent's basic combat abilities: high agility but low strength, making them roughly equal in close combat.

However, in this unfamiliar environment, engaging in prolonged combat with the opponent is clearly not a wise choice.

Richard intended to end the battle quickly.

"Mental shock!" After the initial probing, Richard launched a full-scale attack.

In an instant, a transparent wave swiftly swept towards the beautiful leopard.

The beautiful leopard seemed to have not expected its opponent, with whom it had been fighting in close combat, to suddenly launch a witchcraft attack. Instantly, it was hit by a mental shock and froze on the spot.

Richard took a step forward and delivered a horizontal slash to the leopard's neck.

"Whoosh!"

"Gurgle~"

A line of blood instantly appeared on the leopard's neck, and its head immediately rolled to the ground. Large pools of blood gushed out from its neck, quickly overflowing into a small blood puddle on the ground.

It seems that even in death, the beautiful leopard never imagined that she would be killed so easily by her opponent.

[Gained 12998 energy points.]

A system notification sounded!

Huh! There are energy points?!

A glint flashed in Richard's eyes. This creature in the unfamiliar environment was actually able to provide him with energy points.

If that's the case, then coming to this unfamiliar area doesn't seem to be entirely a bad thing!

Seemingly realizing something, Richard stepped forward to examine the flowers that the beautiful leopard had just eaten. However, strangely, it seemed that the flowers had disappeared during the fight between Richard and the beautiful leopard.

Even the remains of their companions were taken away.

Confirmed, it's "Run!"

Richard noticed fine scratches on the ground, seemingly caused by the friction of fine plant roots.

Richard thought about it and decided to follow the trail and see what was going on.

However, he had only followed the trail for a short while when he seemed to hear rustling voices coming from ahead. This immediately made Richard raise an eyebrow. Intelligent beings?

However, after a moment's thought, Richard became alarmed and solemnly pulled out several fire crystal bombs, a deadly weapon, from his pocket.

"Who knows if the intelligent beings we encounter in this environment will be able to communicate or not?!"

"If communication breaks down, conflict is inevitable. If that happens, it will be much more dangerous than the beautiful leopard we encountered before."

Richard tiptoed cautiously forward, his eyes searching for the source of the sound.

In an instant, Richard was stunned. He saw several sunflower-like flowers in the mist dozens of meters away. Their large, round petals were gathered together, as if discussing something. The roots of these flowers were exactly the roots that Richard had guessed earlier.

At this moment, just like the tentacles of an octopus, it supports its body and keeps wriggling.

Richard didn't dare to approach, and stood quietly in place, intending to listen to what they were saying.

However, perhaps because they were speaking too softly, or perhaps because it was a language Richard had never heard before, after listening intently for a moment, Richard seemed to hear a few syllables that he could understand, but it didn't seem like he could.

It's very uncomfortable to always have trouble hearing what the other person is saying; it feels like someone is gently tickling your ear with a feather.

So Richard thought for a moment, then slowly took a few more steps forward.

Now he could finally hear the language the other person was using, but Richard was certain that it was a language he had never heard before.

However, this language, like the language of wizards, seemed to cause a strange vibration in mental energy, so Richard was able to understand part of the meaning of the other party's words.

"That leopard just now...it was terrifying."

"Originally, outside the fence"

"That...hit."

Suddenly, Richard heard a cracking sound under his feet. Looking down, he realized that he had unknowingly stepped on and killed a small snail carrying its shell.

But the next second, when he looked up again, he was greeted by all the talking sunflowers turning their heads to look at him in a daze.

Strangely, a mouth grows from the center of the stamen of these sunflowers.

After staring at each other for a few seconds, suddenly, these little mouths let out screams and shouts.

"ah!!"

"Monster is coming! Run!"

"."

These little creatures ran off forward without looking back.

Richard immediately gave chase. It was rare to encounter talking creatures that looked weak. If he could capture them, he could learn a lot about this unfamiliar environment.

At the same time, Richard cautiously observed his surroundings. Some cunning monsters use bait, and Richard couldn't be sure whether these little things were bait for some powerful monster.

The little creature ran ahead, and Richard chased after it.

Surprisingly, these little creatures that only run using their roots are quite fast. Before long, Richard followed them to the edge of a lake.

The lake was very large, seemingly boundless. However, due to the thicker fog around the lake, Richard could not see exactly how big it was. Within a range of several dozen meters, all he could see was a gray, rippling surface of water.

Richard saw the little creatures huddled together at the edge of the lake ahead, shivering.

They seemed to prefer facing themselves rather than going into the water, as if there was something more terrifying than Richard in the lake.

Richard sheathed the mimicry metal longsword in his hand, transforming it back into a wrist guard that wrapped around his wrist. He then tried to display a kind expression, opened his arms, and slowly moved forward.

At the same time, he spoke in the oldest wizarding language—Hutter: "Don't be afraid, I mean no harm. I..."

The Hutt language is also a language that can generate a certain kind of mental energy vibration. Ancient wizards visited or invaded many planes and worlds, and the Hutt language may be one of the best choices when communicating with otherworldly beings.

Sure enough, the flowers seemed to understand Richard's words.

After a brief, hushed conversation, one of the bolder flowers seemed intent on communicating with Richard.

Just as the mutated sunflower stretched out its roots and walked towards Richard...

Suddenly, a ripple spread across the lake, and with a "splash!" a dark shadow four or five meters long leaped high out of the lake, opened its blood-red maw, and swallowed all the flowers in one gulp!

"You're asking for it!!" This immediately enraged Richard!

Richard looked closely and saw that the creature resembled a hybrid aquatic creature that looked like a salamander and a catfish. It had four small claws, catfish barbels on its lower jaw, and smooth, scaleless skin all over its body, with what appeared to be a thin layer of mucus on its surface.

After swallowing the flower, this guy actually showed an extremely satisfied expression, lying on the lake shore without being in a hurry to leave, as if he had eaten some kind of supreme delicacy!

"Damn it, how dare you ruin my plans!" Richard roared.

Just now, those peculiar little flowers had shown a preliminary willingness to communicate with me, but this strange fish ruined it.

This immediately ignited Richard's blood and filled him with rage!

"Whoosh!!"

Two fire crystal bombs, resembling hand grenades, instantly drew two straight lines, heading straight for the strange fish. The monster, however, still had an expression of enjoyment on its face, seemingly unaware of the impending doom.

"Plop!"

Seemingly feeling two hard objects hit it, the strange fish looked down.

"Boom!!"

The next second, a violent explosion rang out!

A raging sea of ​​fire instantly engulfed the strange fish!

"Aww!!"

The strange fish immediately began to roar and struggle, rolling around on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames that had settled on its body.

Although the strange fish has a slime-covered body, the power unleashed by the Flame Crystal in a single burst is quite astonishing.

The strange fish was covered in scorch marks, especially its two short hind limbs, which were located at the center of the explosion and were now blown away, leaving it a bloody mess.

Seemingly realizing that the flames were difficult to extinguish, the strange fish struggled to turn around with its forelimbs, intending to escape into the lake.

But Richard had anticipated this, and the mimicry metal in his hand had already transformed into a two-handed greatsword, charging forward from the side.

"Whoosh!"

A flash of sword light, and the strange fish followed in the footsteps of the beautiful leopard, being beheaded by Richard's swift downward slash.

As the enormous fish head rolled into the water, a large pool of foul-smelling blood flowed from its thick neck, like a fine creek, into the dark gray lake.

[Gained 31877 energy points.]

As the system notification sounded, Richard raised an eyebrow. There were energy points again. Did that mean that all the creatures in this place could provide him with energy points?

If that's really the case, then this is a treasure trove for me.

but

I don't know how dangerous this unfamiliar place is, and I've only explored this small area around me.

Just as Richard was pondering, the once calm lake surface underwent a dramatic change.

Several ripples appeared on the lake surface dozens of meters away from Richard and swam rapidly toward Richard's current location, creating long waves.

Clearly, some creature in the water was attracted by the commotion or the strange fish's flesh and blood.

Immediately, alarm bells rang in Richard's mind, and he retreated swiftly.

After retreating at least several dozen meters, he stood at a distance and quietly began to observe.

"Gurgle gurgle~"

Large clusters of tiny bubbles continuously rose from the surface of the lake.

"Splash!"

Three enormous, ugly toads leaped out of the water, each over three meters tall, and seemed quite pleased to see the monster's corpse lying in a pool of blood.

"Quack quack!!" After two squeaks, they started fighting over it.

Just as Richard was still hesitating about whether he should give it a try and see if he could kill the three monsters...

Suddenly, a wave of drowsiness washed over Richard, so strong that he felt completely unable to resist it.

Before his consciousness completely vanished, Richard saw his hands gradually become transparent.

The next second, the world spun around him, and his vision went completely black. His eyelids drooped shut, and he could no longer open them.

Richard was suddenly plunged into darkness.

He didn't know how much time had passed when Richard opened his eyes again, and what came into view was the familiar ceiling of his bedroom.

The next second, Richard got up alertly and looked around.

The coffee table was spotless and sparkling clean, and there were no cobwebs in the corners of the room. Richard put on his slippers, walked quickly to the bookshelf, and casually flipped through a few books. He found that they were all written in the familiar Grey Dwarf script, and he could even see a small line of his own annotations on them.

Richard fell silent for a moment.

"It seems that everything last night was just a dream?"

But Richard immediately dismissed the idea.

When he brought up the Inspiration panel, he saw that the total energy value had reached 140552.

Clearly, what I experienced last night was no ordinary dream.

Richard paced back and forth in his bedroom, arms crossed, deep in thought.

This dream, which we'll call a dream for now, is different from the previous two.

The first two times, there were monsters or malice that were constantly watching me. I realized this when I entered the dream. After I killed the evil thoughts, I broke the dream created by the enemy.

But this time, it seems to be a completely unknown world?

When I entered, I was completely unaware of any malice, and no monsters or evil intentions attacked me. On the contrary, I explored the area and killed the beautiful leopard and the strange fish.

It's a pity I didn't get to exchange a few words with those little flowers that look like sunflowers.

(End of this chapter)