The night was deep, the moonlight faint.
The solitary observer girl was immersed in a void-like interface, her consciousness having reached a level beyond human.
As for this bizarre, multi-layered world stacked like a club sandwich, Natsume-san maintained an excellent adaptability, allowing her to use her perceptual abilities cheerfully as if nothing unusual was happening.
After observing her classmates' anomalies for a short while, the intense vigilance that had suddenly welled up within Natsume-san subsided.
It wasn't that she had found a solution to these irregularities, but rather that she realized the card's ability to interfere with one's Personal Reality was exceedingly weak—so weak that the AIM diffusion field restored itself the moment it left the body.
Short-term use probably couldn't shake even an ordinary Level 3 esper. As students who had developed their abilities to at least Level 3, the Personal Realities of Tokiwadai's girls were relatively stable.
Of course, since Natsume-san's current observations were limited to her own classmates, she couldn't gather data on lower-level espers or those without abilities.
This weakness was likely due to insufficient capacity within the card itself, unable to contain something powerful enough to hijack the user's Personal Reality.
At the same time, just by pondering the origin and manufacturing method of these cards...
The factor that interfered with others' AIM diffusion fields and caused disturbances in Personal Reality most likely came from the card's creator—the Dream Ranker themselves.
These cards might have invaded the Dream Ranker's AIM diffusion field and Personal Reality, then used technological means to simulate and record that specific Personal Reality.
Furthermore, when the cards were used, they probably fed this information back to the user through dream reconstruction or some other method.
In other words, besides allowing one to learn from others' experiences and knowledge, these cards also let users learn another's Personal Reality. Quite the bargain.
It was probably the collision of two different Personal Realities that caused the instability in the user's AIM diffusion field.
Therefore, the factor within the card interfering with the user's Personal Reality was naturally the simulated and recorded Personal Reality of the Dream Rankers.
Considering this product came from an ability development institution called the Clone Dolly...
One might speculate that this Clone Dolly facility had likely used such cards for ability development, or perhaps even used them to guide the direction of ability development.
Influenced by this line of thought, something else popped into Natsume-san's head—the Level Upper, which had been making frequent appearances lately.
Although she had drawn comparisons between the Level Upper and these cards before, this time her perspective shifted slightly.
The Level Upper operated by synchronizing brainwaves to share abilities and calculation power. Essentially, the master brain could seize absolute control over everyone's minds without losing control itself, gaining a multi-skill ability born from the messy amalgamation of multiple Personal Realities.
Now, if there was a Dream Ranker whose cards were widely distributed, and whose Personal Reality could effectively hijack the Personal Realities of the card users...
Then, using a method similar to brainwave synchronization, it might be possible to temporarily or permanently assimilate others' Personal Realities. If this entity assumed a role like the master brain in the Level Upper incident, a foreseeable future emerged.
And unlike the Level Upper, the system formed via the Indian Poker would likely result in a single, massive Personal Reality, rather than a stitched-together monstrosity of multiple disparate ones.
The resulting singular Personal Reality would be a product of assimilating—or fusing—the Personal Realities of numerous espers. An esper possessing such a Personal Reality could become a powerful monster capable of multiple forms of ability interference.
If the fusion became even more extensive and profound, it might even reach a point of replicating the interference methods of all participating espers.
While it was uncertain whether one person could master more than two types of ability interference, if a single Personal Reality was composed of multiple espers, that possibility would be magnified infinitely.
However, to play devil's advocate, once such an exaggerated Personal Reality existed, its presence would inevitably manifest through an AIM diffusion field.
Simply put, the card users themselves would become part of the Dream Ranker's Personal Reality, needing to be interconnected and manifested in the world via the AIM diffusion field.
But a Dream Ranker capable of that probably didn't exist, and the card's own capacity limited any possibility of assimilation.
Most importantly, a human body simply couldn't withstand the endlessly dissipating AIM diffusion field; it couldn't become something called a Field Core.
Unless the AIM diffusion field could be stably anchored in the physical world, forming a channel connecting the master brain and its extensions, this fused-type Personal Reality wouldn't appear.
The fused Personal Reality would immediately vanish as the AIM field returned to the phases. Without a connecting channel, maintaining the fusion would be impossible.
The AIM field energy emanating from the sleeping senpais before her eyes also disappeared from the real world almost immediately after appearing. It was nearly impossible to link it to some inexplicable master brain, unless a so-called core that could stably exist in reality had formed.
This was probably the biggest difference from the Level Upper. After all, the Level Upper operated on brainwave synchronization; the AIM field was just a medium, not a channel, so connection maintenance wasn't a concern.
As long as there was no core capable of converging the AIM diffusion field, the danger was significantly reduced.
'What nonsense, it's not such a big deal after all.'
'So many people in Academy City use Indian Poker. It's almost impossible for there to be an esper who can stably receive such a massive AIM diffusion field and maintain its existence.'
'Or rather, how could a mere human become a god?'
Her brow twitching slightly, a bit of lively spirit returned to the certain bun-head's previously dazed expression.
By deducing carefully based on the information she had, primarily drawing from her past experience with the Level Upper which provided many similar insights...
When faced with a similar situation again, Natsume-san easily connected the two, arriving at a conclusion that might be accurate or perhaps pure guesswork.
Overall though, the easy-going bun-head felt optimistic about it and thought her own imagination was just running a bit too wild.
How could some Field Core just pop out of nowhere and turn everyone into tools without anyone noticing?
After all, something like a Field Core must be born alongside the emergence of a field aggregate—one spot for each, with no extras to spare.
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T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL