Chapter One: What a pity, you’re last again...

Inside a quiet and elegant villa, a gentle woman’s voice softly sounded.

“Relax your mind, don’t deliberately restrain your thoughts, let them flow naturally, control your breathing...”

At the same time, more than a dozen children around twelve or thirteen years old sat upright with their eyes tightly closed. As they listened to the words of a woman in her early twenties standing before them, their expressions gradually changed, as if they were immersed in a dream.

To outsiders, such a scene would seem quite bizarre, but to the students of Yangcheng Academy, it was nothing out of the ordinary.

This was the cultivation of Dreamweavers.

Unlike those warriors who sweat and burn with passion, Dreamweavers cultivate dreams and draw power from them. The students begin with calming the mind, then progress through lucid dreaming, emptiness, creation, personification, kingdom, reality and illusion... and other realms of cultivation, until they can do as they please—nothing is impossible.

A master Dreamweaver is a kingdom unto themselves.

Of course, the children in the villa were far from such mastery. As the new class of Yangcheng Academy, they had only just begun their training in dreamcraft. After more than three weeks, most students had already passed the calming stage and entered the later phase of lucid dreaming. With the help of their instructor, they could daydream and release dreams at will, anytime and anywhere. Their rapid progress was enough to make ordinary Dreamweavers envious.

As the continent’s top Dreamweaver academy, Yangcheng Academy is extremely strict in selecting students. Without sufficient talent and aptitude, even the most illustrious noble children have no chance of entry. At the same time, the academy provides the best teachers and the finest environment for cultivation. The young woman guiding the students in the villa was the instructor appointed by the academy. Though young, she was a rare cultivation prodigy, and so the academy had made an exception in entrusting her with this important role.

After a while, seeing the students looking a bit tired, the woman clapped her hands: “That’s all for today’s training. Everyone did very well. Remember to rest when you get back—don’t overexert yourselves. Understood?”

The children all opened their eyes and answered in unison.

“Any questions?”

A blond boy in the audience raised his hand very seriously and asked, “Grace Howard teacher, what’s our current progress ranking?”

Grace Howard was slightly taken aback by the question, then replied helplessly, “If we’re talking about average progress... fourth.”

The blond boy’s eyes widened instantly: “Still last this time?!” The other children also burst into commotion.

The new students of Yangcheng Academy were divided among four instructors, forming four classes for training. Ranking fourth in progress meant being last among the four groups... and this was clearly not the first or second time.

When the new students were first assigned, each group’s talent was about the same, so in theory, the four groups shouldn’t differ much in progress. With Grace Howard’s diligence and the students’ enthusiasm, it shouldn’t be possible for this class to always be at the bottom.

So, amid the uproar, everyone’s gaze focused on a certain corner.

The corner where the culprit behind all this sat.

Looking at the boy from Penglai in the corner, eyes half-closed and expressionless, even Grace Howard felt helpless.

Why would the academy allow such a child to enroll? Clearly... he has absolutely no talent for being a Dreamweaver.

After more than three weeks, most students had already entered the latter stage of lucid dreaming, but the Penglai boy sitting in the corner remained stuck at the calming stage, making no progress at all.

It wasn’t just slow progress—he simply couldn’t improve. No matter how Grace Howard tried to guide him, she could never get the boy to release even a single dream on his own. Cultivating at the lucid dreaming stage was completely futile for him, and such results naturally dragged down the class’s average progress.

Grace Howard knew it wasn’t for lack of effort—sometimes, lack of talent is simply fatal.

That Penglai boy clearly lacked the talent to be a Dreamweaver. If the calming stage could be achieved by any ordinary person through training, then lucid dreaming was the threshold that separated Dreamweavers from ordinary people. The Penglai boy’s performance was a textbook example of an outsider.

In fact, he was different from any other student. He entered Yangcheng Academy without any formal qualification assessment, but was specially admitted by the headmaster—a decision shrouded in secrecy.

Looking at it now, this special admission seemed like a huge waste. Yangcheng Academy—how many people dream of entering, yet never get the chance?

Sighing, Grace Howard stopped thinking about these pointless questions.

“The class’s average progress ranking doesn’t mean much. Each of your achievements belongs to you alone. There’s no need to care about others. Train diligently, and dreamcraft will reward you in time.”