Wizard Lord:I can Extract Anything

After entering the Nightmare Body, Richard quickly realized a problem.

This body could no longer be controlled by him because, after the transformation, it essentially became a nightmare creature. If he tried to force control over it, the Nightmare Body would be digested, turning back into Nightmare Power, as if he had consumed it.

Stepping out of the Nightmare Body, Richard turned his attention to the sealed core.

Within the core, a newly birthed consciousness was raging. This consciousness was like a paralyzed patient, unable to move despite issuing commands to its body.

This sensation was akin to torture.

Richard probed the core with his mental power. Compared to his mental prowess, the newborn consciousness of the nightmare creature was pathetically weak.

"What are you!? Monster! Get out of my body! Get out!"

The nightmare creature's consciousness roared with bluster, but Richard paid it no heed.

"Interesting."

Richard pondered over the Nightmare Body.

This new consciousness was beyond the realm of soul studies as Richard knew it; it didn't stem from a soul. Instead, it resembled the electrical consciousness of an alchemical beast—a false personality generated by bioelectric stimulation of the brain to produce mental power.

Richard wasn't well-versed in this area, but he understood that even if he destroyed this consciousness with his mental power, as long as the core remained intact, a new consciousness would form.

However, Richard quickly devised a solution.

"No soul, no problem. I can lend you one."

With a smile, Richard conjured a soul seed.

Since the core would continuously generate new consciousness, he decided to occupy the ecological niche of the consciousness with a soul seed, preventing new consciousness from forming.

With a mere thought, Richard shattered the newborn consciousness within the core. As expected, the core began generating a new consciousness.

Seizing this moment, Richard sent his soul seed into the core.

The core's mental power was soon dominated by Richard's soul seed, preventing the formation of new consciousness. The core's mental power production ceased upon reaching its limit.

With the core no longer producing mental power, Richard's soul seed became the core's ruler.

Richard then lifted the seal and re-entered the Nightmare Body.

This time, the Nightmare Body could finally move freely.

"Caw! You actually did it!" Ulysses exclaimed, surprised by the now-operable Nightmare Body.

Richard's method was akin to possessing a nightmare creature, far superior to his earlier plan of crafting a body from Nightmare Power.

Richard essentially hid within a nightmare creature's stomach, without being digested.

In this situation, even if Richard faced a Nightmare Lord, he could easily deceive them.

Richard wore a confident smile:

"This is the wisdom of a wizard."

Richard infused all collected Nightmare Power into the Nightmare Body, instantly elevating its strength to the level of a legendary knight.

This achieved Richard's initial goal—continuous evolution.

With enough Nightmare Power, this body could evolve into a Great Nightmare, a Nightmare Knight, or even a Nightmare Lord.

To advance towards this goal, Richard planned to increase his Nightmare Power collection efficiency.

...

At night, as the Blood Moon rose, Nightmare Spirits crawled from hiding, ready to gather tonight's Nightmare Power.

But tonight was different; Richard had gathered them in the village center again.

After a month's observation, Richard found the Nightmare Spirits' efficiency in gathering Nightmare Power dismal.

An average Nightmare Spirit might collect one unit of Nightmare Power in ten nights.

Stronger, longer-lived Nightmare Spirits might gather one to three units in a single night, but this required harvesting from four or five dreams.

Their efficiency was abysmally low.

Richard also discovered that conflicts often arose among Nightmare Spirits, leading to one side's death and the Nightmare Power returning to the earth.

These conflicts didn't reduce the number of Nightmare Spirits; in the village's hidden corners, they frequently emerged from the ground.

This emergence was literal.

Though conflicts didn't reduce their numbers, they caused rapid turnover, making it hard to accumulate enough experience for more efficient scaring.

A newborn Nightmare Spirit might not collect any Nightmare Power in a night.

Richard's standard was a one-third cut; every unit of Nightmare Power a Nightmare Spirit collected meant they had to turn over a third.

To speed up Nightmare Power collection, Richard decided to give the Nightmare Spirits some guidance, helping them gather more each night.

...

In the village center, Richard hovered above, addressing the varied Nightmare Spirits below.

"You lot are too slow at collecting Nightmare Power! Today, I'll teach you some tricks to gather more when scaring people!

Also, from tonight, fighting is forbidden among Nightmare Spirits! Any fighting Nightmare Spirit becomes my food!"

Richard's declaration caused an uproar among the Nightmare Spirits.

Among them, a few strong, long-lived Nightmare Spirits murmured to each other, finding this new Nightmare Spirit peculiar.

Forbidding fighting and teaching the little ones to scare people seemed lunatic.

"Quiet!"

A thunderous command silenced the Nightmare Spirits instantly.

Richard looked at them with a fierce gaze:

"Anyone who disagrees can step forward, and I promise them a dignified death!"

...

No Nightmare Spirit dared to move.

Satisfied with the outcome, Richard nodded and began his lesson.

The lesson was simple. Scaring these rural villagers didn't require complex imagery.

A skeleton, a venomous snake, a towering beast, or an unkillable ghost could frighten ordinary farmers.

These didn't need the Nightmare Spirits to manipulate dreams.

They just needed to change their appearance within the dream.

Regardless of the environment, these forms would scare people.

After teaching the scaring techniques, Richard's body suddenly split into several smaller versions of himself.

As a wizard, Richard could now split more soul seeds, with a first-ring wizard capable of splitting ten.

These smaller Richards acted as his avatars, maintaining order among Nightmare Spirits and preventing fights.

Richard couldn't lecture them daily, after all.

Using the same method, Richard soon conducted scaring lessons in four other villages.

In each village, he left two avatars to maintain order, while his main body retreated to a quiet room to continue his research.

In the Nightmare World, research wasn't limited to nightmare creatures. The world's rules mirrored those of the Wizard World, allowing Richard to conduct spell research.

Though lacking tools, some research didn't require any.

...

Time passed, and soon Richard had spent nearly three months in the Nightmare World.

In the material world, Richard's body had been placed in a secret realm by Ulysses, guarded by the World Mushroom, ensuring its safety.

In the Nightmare World, Richard's Nightmare Power collection progressed steadily.

After training and banning fights, his Nightmare Spirits improved significantly, with no Nightmare Spirit having only one unit of Nightmare Power.

Richard further refined management, assigning each Nightmare Spirit fixed dreams, ensuring they always had a dream to enter.

Under this management, Nightmare Spirits transformed into beasts and ghosts, ambushing dream owners. Some even learned to offer a false sense of security before delivering a final scare, causing the corresponding village in the Wizard World to resound with screams nightly.

Within just three months, Richard amassed an impressive fifteen thousand units of Nightmare Power, with each village yielding around a thousand monthly.

However, data showed Nightmare Power collection peaked in the second month, then declined sharply in the third.

With Nightmare Spirits' high-intensity, repetitive scares, ordinary people developed immunity over time.

Richard made no changes; frequent nightmares in a few villages would eventually draw the attention of a wizarding academy. If soul magic wizards or even the Wizard World's guardians appeared, it would be troublesome.

Richard believed the Wizard World had researched the Nightmare World.

Attracting powerful figures who could squish him like a bug would be laughable.

Asking wizards for rescue was risky.

Richard was a pure soul now. If rescued by wizards, there'd be some soul interaction. If other wizards detected the Miracle Furnace, it would be a major problem.

Though the chance of the Miracle Furnace being detected was slim, with a way out in hand, Richard preferred caution, avoiding any risk.

With fifteen thousand units of Nightmare Power, Richard's Nightmare Body reached the level of an advanced wizard apprentice.

At this strength, as long as he avoided high-level nightmare creatures, he faced little danger...

"Caw, Richard, come out, we've got trouble!"

Ulysses flew in from outside, sounding alarmed.

"What could have you so rattled?" Richard asked, rising calmly.

"Caw, come see for yourself, remember to activate your energy vision."

Exiting the room, Richard switched to energy vision.

In energy vision, the ground revealed faint energy pathways. Following Ulysses into the forest near the village, Richard was startled by what he saw.

Threads of Nightmare Power seeped from the ground, forming a black nightmare creature.

Richard sensed no intelligence in this nightmare creature, only an abyssal hunger.

"Ulysses, what are these things?" Richard asked, his expression calm.

In his hand, a wand crafted from Nightmare Power was forming.

"Caw, these are Nightmare Beasts. They hunt all intelligent nightmare creatures and are the Nightmare World's most obnoxious mad dogs."