Data-Driven Daoist

Yu Han entered the crabscape and tried to echo a stick. It worked. He echoed Huang Niuniu showing off her bioluminescence on his bed.

It worked.

"I can use Echoing Dreamscape... as long as I’m in a dreamscape?" A surge of excitement flowed through Yu Han. "Fei Rui. You can enter other people's dreams, right?"

「I think so? Fei Rui thinks so. Maybe?」 The crab scampered back and forth.「I can. Not just people, but bugs and fish and cats and—」

"How did you do it? Can I go with you?" Yu Han wouldn't go even if he could, but just knowing the possibility would open up many options.

「I'll show you.」 Fei Rui scuttled out of the entrance connecting Yu Han's dreamscape to his. His legs tapped on the white dreamscape floor. 「Huh?」

Fei Rui raised a claw, then lowered it again. He walked back into the crabscape tunnel.

「Huh?」

He scurried back and forth in a panic.

"How am I supposed to know?" Yu Han asked.

「It was here. The Tunnel of Many Strange Dreams. It's not here anymore. It's the Tunnel of Yu Han now! Why?」

"Because of the accord," Yu Han slapped his forehead. He crossed the threshold back to his dreamscape and sat down on an echoed cushion. "Can you enter every being's dreams?"

Fei Rui shook his eyestalk.

"How do you know you can enter a dream?"

「I don't know. I-I would meet a living thing during the day, and then, I would think about that living thing when I walked the Tunnel of Many Strange Dreams. Sometimes the tunnel would be closed off by a wall. Other times it would be open and I could wade into their dreams. Now it's gone. Why?」

Yu Han thought for a moment.

It's like an API network. The Tunnel of Many Strange Dreams could connect to other beings' dreams, each dreamer like a server with their own unique address. When Fei Rui searched for dreamers, it was like sending out discovery requests across this vast dream network—first checking if a creature had any accessible dream connections at all, like an API checking for open ports.

If they were receptive to connections—similar to a public API endpoint—Fei Rui would attempt to establish a link, like sending a connection request. Some beings had their dreams completely closed off, returning a “403 Forbidden” response, while others were open to these dream-connections, accepting his request with a “200 OK.” Once a connection was established, Fei Rui could enter their dreams, as if he had gained authorised access to their dream server.

But now it was like the Tunnel of Many Strange Dreams was permanently coupled with Yu Han's API endpoint. The security protocols were updated, and maybe it couldn't connect to other servers?

Yu Han shared his thoughts.

「No! No! It's no fun. Why do I have to be stuck in my cave and here? I want to go out and play!」 The crab rolled over on its back and threw a tantrum, hitting the floor.

"Maybe if you break the accord, you can do it again?"

「No! I don't wanna.」He flipped upright. 「After the accord, my mind-cave— right, my crabscape changed in the other tunnels too. I feel it, but just now when I went with you, we didn't check. We should've checked. Why didn't we? Is it my fault or yours? I'm gonna check now!」

"Wait, leave a few pearls."

Fei Rui left a bunch and went into the crabscape, shouting up a fuss.

Yu Han echoed a memory into it: Sima Yan talking with Qiao Jinhai. He then held the pearl steadily, trying to see if he could make the echo appear. If Fei Rui was telling the truth and they could really take these memory pearls out, then Yu Han could do so much with them. R𝘈₦ọＢЁŝ

A video recorder? If he could go to the Law Enforcement Hall and show direct proof of Gong Muhua being a dick, would they give him justice?

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

An archive for sharing Arts Manuals? He could show Huang Niuniu the memory of him flipping through those scrolls and books in the Rookie Village Library.

He didn't know if the memories stored in the pearls were permanent, or if replays consumed them somehow. Maybe after playing them a few times, they would disappear? Or the pearls would be destroyed?

Whatever the case, he could at least temporarily make an archive in his dream. A stack of pearls, each a datapoint, with the stack being the dataset.

And with enough data, he could run some algorithms on them. Of course, he’d first have to feed the data into something capable of running the algorithms.

But even if none of that was possible, he could review it personally, going through one pearl at a time, taking notes.

After a certain number of pearls with memories were stacked, something happened. The pearls were consumed, and I got a point in memory. Yu Han thought. I'll have to be careful. No need to take a risk and ruin days' worth of data collection.

Then again, the pearls Yu Han had consumed to get the point in memory had Fei Rui's memories. And they weren't merely copied from Fei Rui, but moved, causing memory loss for the crab. The situations weren't similar. Pearls with Yu Han’s memories were lime green, where Fei Rui's were a light shade of blue.

There were many more avenues he could explore. But it all depended on if they could bring the memory pearls outside. If so, then it mattered how long they could last outside, or if the pearls could replay the memories.

What if it had a memory with a halberd or some legendary cultivator weapon? If he could copy that in real life with a memory pearl, didn't that mean they were basically copying and pasting spirit stones? Or rather, what if they tried to copy-paste and mass produce spirit stones?

It was improbable. But was it possible?

Fei Rui still wasn't back. Sometimes Yu Han would hear frustrated screams from the tunnel.

He really likes throwing tantrums. Yu Han chuckled. Just having the ability to store memory echoes for longer times was a huge gain. This accord was a gift that kept on giving.

And he got it because he was kind to a crab. Dad, what a fool I was.

But he couldn't change the past now. All he had was the present.

Can I overwrite them? Yu Han reused Echoing Dreamscape on a pearl that already had a memory. The mirage inside changed from him beating up Wu Di to Ma San’s raging voice as he cursed Qiao Jinhai.

He next tried to find out if he could extend the original recording. Since he couldn't play the memories, he would have to wait for Fei Rui to return.

Wait. Usually I’m casting Echoing Dreamscape into the pearl. Is there a way to cast the pearl into an Echoing Dreamscape mirage?

Yu Han echoed a shelf, the one he'd seen in the Rookie Village Library. He had scanned every nook and cranny of it, so it was the shelf he had most details of. Then he held the pearl to the shelf.

Nothing happened.

He tried some other things. He threw the pearl at it. Threw the shelf at the pearl. Traced the shelf all over with the pearl.

It didn't work. Yu Han kicked the shelf.

Okay, don't get frustrated. He went back to testing. After what felt like hours and nearly a hundred ideas, he found a direction.

He had to consciously use Echoing Dreamscape while holding the pearl. The space target where he wanted the mirage to appear is inside the pearl, even though he couldn't see or sense that place. Somehow, Yu Han's art was interacting with the pearls.@@novelbin@@

He tried Echoing Dreamscape and slowly, one second at a time, observed what happened.

There was an intention to echo a memory. After that, a prick in his mind. The pearl changed colour, and the memory was now embedded into it.

Damn, nothing. He couldn't feel any changes. There were three pearls remaining.

Try again! He picked up another pearl and placed it on his palm. Does holding it differently change anything? He activated Echoing Dreamscape.

After about a hundred breaths, the pearl completely turned lime green. Yu Han matched it with the previous pearl alongside a few more he had echoed to full capacity.

Is the limit about a hundred breaths? Let's call it a hundred seconds.

Two left. The next one was like the previous, no changes. But with the final one, something clicked in his brain.

How exactly am I activating Echoing Dreamscape?

Until now, it had always been instinctual. The first time he did it by accident, he got the Art. From there, he merely followed his intuition, never delving too deep into the “how” of things.

Yu Han knew it cost him Qi. The old doctor on the ship said he showed symptoms of Qi depletion after echoing the green meteor that blasted him to this world.

Wasn't Lifeforce also a type of Qi? It was like HP from video games. Ji's Cultivation Contemplation mentioned that after breaking through to Qi Gathering, one would gain access to another resource, literally called Qi. Was that the one that was depleted? Or was it another type of Qi variant one might access at higher levels?

Just because it didn't show on his Dao Records didn’t mean he couldn't use it. After all, he was using Echoing Dreamscape at Level 0, even without Lifeforce showing up.

He closed his eyes.

Green flame. Rotten wood. A black skull—

Don't! He might accidentally trigger Echoing Dreamscape. Wait... Why was it that sometimes when he imagined things, the art would trigger, and other times it wouldn't? It had to be about intention. But how did it notice that intention? What was the moment that the intention's intensity crossed a threshold that flipped the switch, so to speak?

Yu Han echoed a computer. It was a latest model from a new Japanese company, a concept that crammed the latest hardware into the machine without caring about energy efficiency. Yu Han and Nexus Assurance Auditors had received a few units for testing.

With the pearl, Li Yao had felt more real. His sword seemed as if it could slice Yu Han up, even in the dreamscape.

What if he echoed this computer into the pearl? Would it become... real?

No way, Yu Han thought. But what if? He could run as many algorithms as he wanted with a computer vision model after capturing the echoes as a dataset—

Yu Han woke up to Fei Rui nudging him. The crab stood over him, both eyestalks sticking out.

「Yu Han,」 Fei Rui whispered. 「The two-legged monsters are outside the fence.」