SS 55: Fat Dragon’s Dream

The Heart of Bamboo transformed into a beam of green light, entering Feng Lianzhu’s brow. He slightly tilted his head, his gaze landing on the little golden dragon for the first time.

Feng Lianzhu had just experienced a paradigm shift in his worldview during his online classes. The elementary subjects like language and mathematics, along with some basic general knowledge courses, were fine, and Feng Lianzhu coped well with these.

However, when he started learning physics and chemistry, he couldn’t understand them at all.

Are thunderstorms natural phenomena? Is there no god in this world? Can bamboo not become sentient? Was the Fat Dragon’s transformation into Feng Lianzhu a physical or chemical change?

The Teacher Green Dragon’s flower on his head turned black from frustration. He tapped the ruler on the blackboard while roaring, “How can you not understand such simple laws of mechanics?”

Feng Lianzhu looked bewilderedly at the Teacher Green Dragon, asking, “Is bamboo turning into a human a physical or chemical change?”

The Teacher Green Dragon angrily said, “That’s impossible!”

“But Kirates dragons can transform into humans too, is that also impossible?” Feng Lianzhu inquired.

The Teacher Green Dragon was speechless.

“That would fall under the domain of university-level biology, genetics, and quantum mechanics, which I can’t teach,” the Teacher Green Dragon sighed, his flower wilting, “I’m teaching content from the textbook. If you insist on getting to the bottom of this, I can’t help.”

Seeing the Teacher Green Dragon’s dejection, Feng Lianzhu felt he was being too pedantic and quickly assured him, “I didn’t mean that. I will study hard, whether I understand it or not.”

“But understanding helps with better memorization,” the Teacher Green Dragon’s flower wobbled. His eight-meter-tall body curled up, shrinking to four meters high, sitting in a corner, looking small, pitiable, and helpless, forcing Feng Lianzhu to look up to comfort him.

“Understanding isn’t always necessary. Familiarity will come with repeated reading,” Feng Lianzhu comforted the Teacher Green Dragon, addressing his juvenile state, “The world I’ve been exposed to previously differs from what you’re teaching. Upon reflection, all views are merely incomplete understandings of the world, just from different perspectives. Hence, my ability to control lightning, fire, water, and wind, and to fly doesn’t conflict with the laws of energy conservation, mass conservation, or mechanics.”

The Teacher Green Dragon sniffled, looking at Feng Lianzhu, “So, will you still ask me if clay molded into a human is which type of change?”

“I won’t ask anymore,” Feng Lianzhu relented, wary of the juvenile Teacher Green Dragon, “I’ve memorized the textbooks on physics, chemistry, biology, history, and the basics of quantum mechanics. Let’s start doing exercises tomorrow. It’s okay if I don’t understand, as long as I can solve the problems, I’m a good student.”

“Alright,” the Teacher Green Dragon gradually regained his confidence, “Luckily, your literature grades are good. Let’s take it easy tomorrow and start with poetry.”

“Sure, wait! Poetry?” Feng Lianzhu flipped open the textbook for interstellar common language, pointing to the poetry section, “Like these poems?”

The Teacher Green Dragon explained, “Yes, you’re studying middle and high school textbooks simultaneously. In high school, students are divided into arts and sciences streams. Science stream students don’t need to write poems for their exams, only arts stream students do. But considering your science grades, I’ve decided to teach both arts and sciences, so you’ll answer both sets of exam questions. We’ll see which set you perform better on for the college entrance exam.”

Feng Lianzhu was speechless.

He glanced through the arts curriculum, discovering that besides interstellar geography, history, and politics, composition was a specific subject requiring the study of imperial language and ancient literature, ancient poetry, sonnets, expository, narrative, and argumentative essays, and accurately describing an event in 100 words.

Feng Lianzhu felt dizzy, the Teacher Green Dragon’s outline causing him more damage than the Fat Dragon’s roars.

Thankfully, today’s lessons were over. Just the teaching outline nearly overwhelmed Feng Lianzhu. He removed the online education device, feeling mentally exhausted, only to receive a message about point deductions from the system.

Caught between the dual pressures of online and offline dragons, Feng Lianzhu was exhausted.

Fortunately, the Fat Dragon transferred over five thousand points to him. After deducting the 1000 points, he still had 4940 points left, sparing him from being crushed by debt.

“I’m not even in the game world, how did Pang·Kirates get deducted points for ‘Fake Smiling Boy’?” Feng Lianzhu calmed his emotions and asked.

【Pang·Kirates reminisced about Host Feng Lianzhu’s skill in his dream, feeling sorrow again, thus the deduction.】

Feng Lianzhu: “…”

Deducted points even in dreams, he was truly at a loss.

He and the Fat Dragon still had three unused chances to communicate. Feng Lianzhu could contact the Fat Dragon to inform him about this, but dreams are hard to control with conscious thought, so it might not help much. He decided not to contact the Fat Dragon for now.

“Dreaming?” Feng Lianzhu shook his head, “I’ve never dreamed.”

He didn’t even need sleep, using meditation to restore his spiritual energy. Except for that day affected by the Fat Dragon, lying in the pile of gold coins to sleep, Feng Lianzhu has almost never slept since regaining consciousness.

He was too busy; time spent sleeping could be used to memorize another book, solve another set of problems, or write another essay.

【The host is not yet a complete life form. Only true life forms dream.】

“What am I considered then?” Feng Lianzhu looked at his hands.

He seemed to have a physical form, felt pain, and bled when injured. He had emotions and an increasingly rich understanding of the world. He had memories, all stored in the Fat Dragon’s mind, like renting a house. Eventually, when the landlord reclaims the house, his placeless memories might become trash, deleted by the intelligence cleaning system.

“How did I transform from a bunch of data into a being with a physical presence in the interstellar world?” Feng Lianzhu wondered aloud.

His question stemmed from today’s lessons in physics and chemistry. The concept of transportation between two worlds could be explained by multidimensional universe theories, but how could data transform into a physical entity? What’s the principle behind it?

【Your current permissions are insufficient to access this information.】 The system predictably responded.

“Why am I the only one who awakened among so many AIs? Teacher Green Dragon’s technical level is clearly higher than mine, so why did only I awaken?” Feng Lianzhu pursued.

His awakening was unusual. Many AIs were killed by players, yet he was the one to awaken.

【Your current permissions are insufficient to access this information.】

The system’s refusal to answer his questions made him curious.

Feng Lianzhu tapped his forehead, wondering if there were memories hidden within this brain that he hadn’t recalled yet—specific events that truly awakened him?

While Feng Lianzhu pondered, the Fat Dragon continued dreaming.

The destruction of Bamboo Valley and Feng Lianzhu being homeless seemed to deeply distress Pang·Kirates. His dream never left Bamboo Valley; he still wanted to restore Feng Lianzhu’s valley.

In his dream, he saw Feng Lianzhu repeatedly killed in the valley, which made him very upset. He wanted to help, but this was just a dream; his powers were useless here.

The Feng Lianzhu before the Fat Dragon fought mechanically, not as clever as he was in the interstellar world. Initially, players could decipher his moves, and Feng Lianzhu looked cool, killing players like cutting vegetables. However, as players learned the patterns of his special moves and improved their equipment, Feng Lianzhu was killed over and over, reviving and continuously dropping a green crystal.

Perhaps a player had to kill him 50 times to obtain such a crystal. The players who obtained the crystal were very happy, and some camped at Feng Lianzhu’s spawn point to farm materials.

In the game world, this wasn’t unusual. After awakening, Feng Lianzhu himself didn’t see any problem with these memories. The game was designed for play, and NPCs were non-living entities, data clusters that could be reassembled. Players needn’t feel guilty about this.

But the Fat Dragon was distressed. In his dream, he repeatedly tried to help, but his power always fell short, wastefully expending energy.

No matter how many times he told Feng Lianzhu not to confront players directly, to hide, that his ability to hide in bamboo was strong, and they couldn’t possibly destroy the entire Bamboo Valley, so why not hide?

Feng Lianzhu never saw the Fat Dragon, couldn’t hear his voice, and passed through the Fat Dragon’s body to continue fighting players.

The Fat Dragon dreamed for a long time. Initially, it was indeed a dream, but later it seemed his brainwaves connected to the game’s historical records. What Pang·Kirates saw was no longer a dream but the game’s records.

A little golden dragon hid in Bamboo Valley, perched on Feng Lianzhu’s shoulder, watching him fight. The little golden dragon wasn’t saddened by Feng Lianzhu’s death, knowing that this version of Feng Lianzhu felt no pain and could revive; death meant nothing to him. The little golden dragon was pained for the Feng Lianzhu from the interstellar era, who was kind to everyone, studied earnestly, respected teachers, and cared for the Atavists on the Primitive star, yet was once an unaware AI.

The little golden dragon watched for what seemed like years, always perched on Feng Lianzhu’s shoulder, waiting for him to awaken.

Then one day, a player farming for levels dropped a “Heart of Bamboo” material but didn’t pick it up. By then, a level 30 material was useless to non-wood element players, so he left the green crystal behind.

Feng Lianzhu hadn’t reached the respawn time yet. The little golden dragon sat next to the green crystal, his blue eyes sadly gazing at the continuously dropping heart.

A tear fell on the “Heart of Bamboo.” The little golden dragon wiped his face with his front paw, Pang·Kirates refusing to admit he cried.

Right on the hour, Feng Lianzhu randomly respawned next to the “Heart of Bamboo,” stepping on the crystal dampened with the little golden dragon’s tear.

The heart turned into a beam of green light, entering Feng Lianzhu’s forehead. He tilted his head slightly, his gaze landing on the little golden dragon for the first time.

“Are you…” he said in confusion, “Strange, are there dragons in Bamboo Valley? I am the master of this valley, who are you, and when did you arrive?”

Pang·Kirates opened his mouth, about to ask “Can you see me now?” when he felt a jolt, the pile of gold coins collapsed, and he woke from the dream.

The little golden dragon stood bewildered in the guild hall, the coins he used as a bed gone. A man with two bony wings on his back sneered, “Displaying so much unclaimed gold in the guild hall, were you waiting for it to be stolen?”