Rebecca Clark glanced at him: "Speaking of which... Leonard Thompson, I remember at the very beginning, you thought he was the child of me and Charles Reed? That’s one thing, but since you thought he was my child, how could you just swing your blade at him?"

Her casual tone nevertheless made the huge skeleton monster shudder all over. "No, I thought he was Charles Reed's son at the time, so I instinctively swung at him."

Charles Reed was furious: "Old Li, you bastard!"

The skeleton ignored Charles Reed, and explained ingratiatingly, "Look, once I figured it out, didn’t I immediately put my blade away? I didn’t hurt him at all."

Rebecca Clark said coldly, "Anyway, put your blade away. Even though your race has changed, you and I are still Dreamweavers. After all these decades, your brain hasn’t rusted, has it?"

Rebecca Clark’s words were rather blunt, but Leonard Thompson immediately obediently tossed his long blade and shield aside. In William Carter’s eyes, the four-meter-tall giant skeleton was as docile as the chickens and ducks kept at Yangcheng Academy.

"Very good. Next, let’s seriously analyze the secrets of this child... I have a feeling that this variable of the past fifty years will be the key to our escape."

As Rebecca Clark spoke, the flames burning in her eyes suddenly flared up. Within a mass of fire, William Carter felt as if he was about to lose himself, his consciousness gradually growing hazy.

In a daze, he suddenly found the purple fire burning before his eyes to be incredibly beautiful, making him want to grab it and play with it.

As soon as the thought arose, he suddenly heard Rebecca Clark cry out in surprise. The purple flame abruptly went out, and the hazy illusion he was trapped in vanished as well.

Regaining his senses, William Carter became extremely alert. To be able to make him lose himself without him even noticing—this woman called Rebecca Clark was truly formidable. Back at Yangcheng Academy, even when Grace Howard had tried her hardest to guide him into hypnosis, William Carter had never wavered in the slightest.

"Don’t be nervous."

With her eyes half-closed, Rebecca Clark looked a bit tired as she tried to reassure William Carter: "I mean no harm, I just wanted to run an experiment."

William Carter asked, "And then?"

"The result was quite unexpected." With that, Rebecca Clark turned to Charles Reed and the skeleton and said, "A wisp of my purple fire just disappeared... permanently."

At the same time, a faint tinge of purple appeared in William Carter’s vision. Though it was almost imperceptible, everyone present was extremely sharp-eyed.

Charles Reed mused, "A shadow of dreams? Are you saying this guy... steals dreams?"

Rebecca Clark nodded: "At first, I just wanted to try drawing him into the Dream Kingdom to test his reaction, but I never expected to permanently lose a wisp of purple fire... He’s never undergone any training, so this dream-stealing ability is clearly innate, perhaps a kind of bloodline power. And that also explains why he was drawn into this space—he must have stolen a trace of this space’s power at the passage, disrupting the energy balance, and so was sucked in! The nature of this space is void, and since we ourselves are within it, even if he steals a trace of its power, the resulting shadow of dreams would be invisible to us!"

Pausing, Rebecca Clark continued, "Stealing my purple fire isn’t the important part. What matters is that he can steal the power of this space. Even if it’s just a barely detectable trace, you understand the implications, right?"

Of course Charles Reed and Leonard Thompson understood. After being trapped here for over fifty years, they had long since analyzed every property of this space, and now they both showed looks of delight.

"Rebecca Clark, your guess is right—this kid is the key to our escape!"

William Carter naturally didn’t understand any of this. Watching the three of them almost dancing with excitement, he could only sigh inwardly, thinking that after fifty years of loneliness, these three were truly starved for company. Never mind that it was him who barged in—if a dog had come in, they’d probably try to dig out some miraculous factor from the dog too.

————

PS: Many people have mentioned that the protagonist of the new book is too normal... To that, I just want to say, what did I write in my last book!? You readers are already broken! All right, to be serious, the new book is written in third person, so what does that mean? It means it’ll be much easier for me to develop supporting characters, so I hope to spread the spotlight around a bit. Hopefully, after this book is finished, people will remember that besides William Carter, there are other characters in the story as well. That’s all...

Chapter 8: Good personal hygiene is a necessary trait for a true hero.

For people who have been trapped in this space for over fifty years, nothing in the world is more important than escaping. So Rebecca Clark and the others could ignore William Carter’s background and origins, could ignore why he possessed a never-before-seen dream-stealing ability. All they needed to know was that this child who suddenly appeared in the space could help them escape, and that was enough.

Rebecca Clark’s judgment brought excitement, but upon closer analysis, Charles Reed found a flaw.

"In theory, as long as we swallow more than half of this space’s power, we’ll have a chance to escape. But this space was originally created by the three of us together with Samuel King. To swallow half of it—how could that be easy?"