Kapitel 26: CHAPTER 26: THE DREAM REAPER

After the intense day, David carried his tired body into his apartment. He didn't go for food or a shower. He just walked straight to the bed and plopped face down. He was beyond exhausted.

After the helpful discussion with Mr. Gauge, David still had several unanswered questions...but he couldn't ask those questions...they involved his secrets.

If Foundation Stage involved skill mastery, wouldn't he already be at the peak of the Foundation Stage in Darkness? He had mastered the "Shadow" skill that he used to blend into the night weeks ago...before he even knew skills existed. But it wasn't the same skill method that he was learning with Mr. Gauge. Those skills involved the use of chants to channel the skill externally...like when Mr. Gauge dimmed the room lights with his shadow skill. David just willed his Shadow skill into action and he actually became a shadow. He still had to use the chants or hand motions to start the other 5 skills, but he used them with ease. He could use the shadow skill without the chant....From what Mr. Gauge had said.....that would make David a Level 1 Demigod....wouldn't it?

"No way," David said to himself, "I am not close to being as strong as a demigod. One hit from a regular soldier from The Other and I would turn into a bloody mist."

After thinking over the issue for a while, David decided to just give up trying to figure it all out. He was content to assume that he was at Level 6 Darkness Foundation Stage already.....even though he wasn't 100 percent sure and he couldn't tell anyone. David really wanted to ask someone his questions but he still had a feeling that it would not end well if he told someone about his real powers with darkness and dreams.

Thinking of his dreams, David was also left confused about those abilities and where they would stand in the grand scheme. Did entering people's dreams count as an bonus darkness skill or would it be its own category of specialty like darkness or swords? If Dreams were a specialty, then wouldn't he have tons of skills and already be a Demigod there too? What about that ability to perceive things around him when he was awake? He had developed that after his first coma. He just felt overrun with skills.

After thinking it over, he realized that he couldn't be a Demigod without the resources from The Other. Mr. Gauge had confirmed that a person could not breakthrough to Demigod on Earth due to lack of heavenly energy. At most, he would be at Level 6 Darkness Foundation Stage.

David then decided to try to organize the skills that he had learned so far. He had mastered the 6 skills of darkness with ease: Shadow, Retribution, Strife, Doom, Destruction, and Death. Shadow could make darkness appear in the surroundings and he could incorporate the shadow into his body and actually become a shadow. Retribution was a counterattack skill that returns physical damage, Doom was sort of a detection skill for threats, Destruction was an berserk like attack enhancement, Strife was ability that made those around him act aggressive with each other, and Death let all his life signs be hidden. He also had mastered the skills Perception and Dream that didn't fit into the Darkness specialty. Dream involved an assortment of techniques and gave him free rein over his dreams and the dreams of others. Perception allowed him to sense his surroundings in detail without looking. He had read through a few books and didn't find those two skills anywhere.

He was left with all kinds of questions. Even after Mr. Gauges explanation, David still didn't understand his situation at all. It seemed like he didn't quite fit in any of the boxes. Eventually, David just gave up. His exact status didn't matter. He just needed to be stronger....no matter his actual current level.

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Picking up his phone, David text messaged Karine,"You still up?"

After a minute, he received her response in the form of a phone call.

"Hey Handsome. You getting ready for bed?,"

said Karine using her new nickname for David. He didn't mind and it seemed like a response to him always calling her beautiful.

"Yes, I'm just trying to settle down and was having trouble sleeping. How was your day?, David asked.

"Well, my dad broke some news to me today. Apparently, he broke through in his last skill two weeks ago and is at the peak Zero Stage," Karine said.

"Don't worry, you can call it the Foundation Stage around me now. Mr. Lester busted that bubble this morning," David said sorrowfully.

"Oh really," Karine said with a joking tone to her voice, "they sure seem to be treating you specially. Guess that's what you get when you go on a couple dates the bosses daughter."

"Ha ha....they say I have great potential," David said as he actually made air quotes around potential when talking to her in the phone.

"Do you think I have potential?" David quipped in a provocative tone.

"Of course silly, now when are we going on a date again...I miss you already," Karine pouted.

"How about we go to breakfast on Saturday morning? I haven't had breakfast with you since my parents' house," David suggested.

"Deal, but since we had breakfast at your parents house....now it's our turn to have breakfast at my parents' house," Karine responded, "I'll send you the time once I talk to my dad and sister."

"Okay beautiful, let me get some sleep. A few more days of training until our date. Sweet dreams, goodnight," David said wrapping up the conversation.

"Good night handsome. Sweet dreams," Karine said before hanging up the phone.

They were so sweet to each other it was sickening.

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After wallowing in his lack of knowledge for a while, David decided that he would go ahead and get to sleep. He wanted to relieve some of his daily frustration and he knew the best way to do so.

Since he started learning skills, David had decided to give cool names to all the dream techniques that he already learned by himself. He had the Dream Lock where he locked people in their dreams. The Dream Crusher where he crushed the dream orb and killed people. The Dream Eater where he absorbed some of the energy from a dream. Dream Watcher where he watched other peoples' dreams. He really did have all sorts of dream techniques that he had developed himself. He couldn't help but wonder if these were actually skills for some exotic dream specialty....but he didn't know. All he knew was that they were useful.....and fun.

Tonight, he was going to use one of the newly named techniques that he called the Dream Walk. Dream Walk sounded bad ass and pretty much described what the technique was all about in its name. He would walk into other people's dreams.

What he did in those dreams really depended on the situation, but most of the time it was to modify or change the dreams. He could hide himself completely in the dream or participate in the dream. He could pretty much do anything that he wanted to do, since he was in total control of any dreamworld he was inside.

For the a week and a half, he had been on a mission of Dream Walking for trouble. While browsing through people's dreams to ease his boredom, he had stumbled across a guard that had bad motives towards Karine's sister, Sonia. The guy was like a stalker and had some pretty messed up fantasies about her. David's first thought had been to just crush the orb and be done with the threat. But he realized that if he kept killing people then someone might figure him out....or think someone was attacking the building. So, he had to get rid of the creeper covertly.

Conveniently, David found another guard with practically the same fetish for Sonia. Why did this girl have so many stalkers? Although he was weirded out a bit, multiple stalkers offered the perfect opportunity after he considered his options. David had upped his dream technique game and began to make the two men dream about each other stealing Sonia away. It was like they were hardcore rivals in their own dreamworlds....but not in real life.

To David's delight and surprise, his plan only took three days of messing with their dreams before it bore fruit. The two fanatical men had actually physically ran into each other in a random hall of the apartment complex. After recognizing the appearance of each other from their dreams, they had almost immediately started a verbal altercation about who was better for Sonia. In no time, the exchange of words started a bloody brawl on the spot.

One guy had actually pulled a knife and stabbed the other guy before any of the other guards could stop the fight. The stabbed guy died in the hall where the fight started. Mr. Carmine had freaked out when the other guards had told him that the guy was yelling stuff like "You'll never have her, Sonia is mine" while he was stabbing the guy to death. Mr. Carmine had checked with Sonia and she didn't even know who the guys were. The surviving stalker guy had been quietly disposed of by the other guards on Mr. Carmine's orders. The man didn't tolerate threats to his daughters at all.

After that incident, David was no longer playing around....he felt like he was a hero that saved a damsel from disaster...now, he was actually actively searching for threats. He had found quite a few too. The large quantity of people that he had to set straight had rapidly grown in number. David's heavy workload started to make him stretch his imagination on how to deal with the offenders. Since he couldn't outright kill them, then he needed to influence them through their dreams.

David was learning something new...how to cleverly manipulate people. He didn't know why but really enjoyed correcting these peoples' despicable actions by twisting their dreams.

David didn't only focus on stalkers and other weirdos. One guard seemed to be fixated on money and was having a nightmare about being caught selling information to other gateway controllers. David had tortured him in that dream to find out the truth of the situation. Then, he repeatedly made the man have wonderful dreams about running away from the Carmine Family with some valuables and escaping to a beach somewhere to live in luxury. After five nights of the dream, the guy had actually tried to make the dream come true in real life. He was caught by some other guards while stealing some jewelry and spilled all the beans about the spying for money during the interrogation. The threat was eliminated.

David also spent some time tormenting guards that do not have true loyalty to Carmine Family. The overall staff living in David's housing building of the Carmine Corporation has to exceed 1000 people. There were bound to be people that were unsatisfied. David liked to mess with them by showing the 'propaganda' for the Carmine Corporation. David would make a monster attack someone in a nightmare, then he would make William Carmine appear and destroy the monster...then the two guys would go have some beers and be best friends.

David really started to enjoy modifying and manipulating other people's dreams. He did not realize it but his methods started to significantly effect the way that the Carmine Corporation was operating. People were working better, problems were being caught sooner, and Mr. Carmine's approval ratings in the company were skyrocketing.

For David, this sort of dream manipulation seemed to have all kinds of benefits. Just like when he crushed a dream orb and killed someone.....he would take small pieces of each orb he visited to supplement his strength. He was like a dream reaper harvesting the crops of his planted dreams.