"Junior Brother, you mustn’t do something so reckless."
Hearing Li Mo say he wanted to learn painting to create his own works, Ouyang leaned back slightly, his expression shifting dramatically.
"Is there a problem?"
Li Mo didn’t understand why his reaction was so intense.
"Encouraging someone to learn painting is like sentencing them to a thousand cuts—it’s pure suffering!"
Ouyang spoke with grave seriousness, listing the drawbacks of learning painting as if pouring beans from a bamboo tube:
"First, mastering the art of painting requires innate talent. Having the right aptitude for it is even rarer than possessing top-tier martial roots."
"I don’t need to worry about talent."
Li Mo thought to himself that his painting talent couldn’t possibly be worse than his swordsmanship.
He could just rely on accumulated insights.
Besides, he wasn’t aiming to become a grandmaster of painting—just being able to roughly sketch the form would suffice.
The rest could be left to the Creation Seal!
Ouyang twitched his lips and couldn’t help but advise further:
"Painting is also incredibly expensive."
"When I first started learning, my family thought I’d gotten involved in something illegal."
"Honestly, illegal activities aren’t even as costly as high-quality brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones."
At this, Li Mo gave a modest smile:
"I’ve acquired a few sets of scholar’s treasures. They should be enough for practice... right?"
He laid out the brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones he’d obtained from investments.
"You’re using these... for practice?"
Ouyang’s mouth hung open.
Li Mo waved his hand. "They’re just sitting there. Might as well use them."
Ouyang: "..."
Are you even hearing yourself?
Jade slips from the Azure Vein... Dustless Brushes... Pine-Grain Purple Smoke Beast Ink... Qilin Incense Inkstone...
Even the greatest scholars of this era couldn’t assemble such an extravagant set.
Take that Beast Ink, for example.
His own teacher had waited over a decade at an auction just to get a single piece, spending nearly half his life savings to acquire it.
His fists clenched. At this moment, he really wanted to punch someone—too bad he couldn’t win.
When he bid farewell to Li Mo, his expression was complicated.
"Oh, Junior Brother."
"Hmm?"
"Next time you come looking for me, just walk in. Don’t shout about Elder Shang Wu arriving—you scared me so much today I didn’t even dare paint."
"Understood."
With polite courtesy, Li Mo handed Ouyang a thousand taels in silver notes, soothing his senior brother’s wounded heart.
"Take care, Young Master! If you have any questions about painting, don’t hesitate to ask me!"
Beaming, Ouyang escorted him down the mountain.
......
Autumn Water Pavilion.
On the stone table lay a shattered statue and a ruined Divine Contemplation Painting.
After returning, Li Mo had attempted contemplation once more.
And then...
Both the Night Ghost Statue and the Flesh Buddha Visualization Painting were ruined.
Gritting his teeth, he pulled out the Golden Crow Transforms into the Sun Painting.
The painting itself was fine.
But he gained no improvement in his spiritual will, let alone condensing form and intent to break through to the Mystic Core realm.
"Where exactly did I go wrong?"
"Is my foundation at the Mystic Core realm still insufficient?"
"Or is it... because of my Immortal Body?"
Li Mo’s thoughts wandered.
The first possibility seemed unlikely.
That left only the latter.
Even the elders couldn’t fully comprehend his Immortal Body—he’d have to feel his way forward alone.
"For now, I’ll just have to experiment step by step."
"Divine Contemplation Paintings aren’t easy to come by. If you want something done right, do it yourself."
Li Mo took out the book "Marvelous Brushwork: Ink Cleansing Records" and began studying it intently.
Who would’ve thought?
Painting truly wasn’t a simple craft.
Composition, form, and artistic conception had to merge seamlessly.
And to paint a Divine Contemplation Painting, one even had to channel their spiritual will into the brush tip, letting it flow with every stroke.
This undoubtedly multiplied the difficulty exponentially.
A single misstep, and the entire painting would be ruined.
"I suspect my talent in painting isn’t much better than my swordsmanship..."
Li Mo shook his head.
After barely finishing the book, he tried infusing martial insights.
[Thirty years of martial insights successfully infused.]
Good news.
Martial insights could actually be applied here.
This was likely because the "Ink Cleansing Records" itself aimed at painting Divine Contemplation works, classifying it as part of martial arts.
Bad news...
[Thirty years of martial insights fully consumed.]
[Your "Marvelous Brushwork: Ink Cleansing Records" has reached the Beginner level.]
Li Mo: "..."
His mind flashed back to Ouyang’s pained expression as he earnestly advised against learning painting.
"Encouraging someone to learn painting is like sentencing them to a thousand cuts."
Turns out, that saying was absolutely right!
Clearly, the Beginner level only allowed for ordinary ink paintings. To create Divine Contemplation Paintings, he’d need at least Mastery.
[Thirty years of martial insights successfully infused.]
[First year: You recall every scene you’ve ever witnessed, practicing with all your might.]
......
[Thirtieth year: You feel you’ve reached the limit of what technique alone can achieve, yet you still struggle to paint Divine Contemplation works. You realize this is likely your ceiling in the art of painting.]
[In art, if you don’t have it, you just don’t have it.]
[You haven’t even found what you truly wish to paint—how can you pour your soul into it?]
[Thirty years of martial insights fully consumed.]
Countless realizations flooded his mind.
"I was just deducing painting techniques—why the sarcasm?!"
Li Mo slammed his fist on the stone table, sending the scholar’s treasures floating into the air.
Another thirty years wasted, and he hadn’t even reached Intermediate!
Is there no justice?
Is there no law?!
"What’s wrong with you?"
A certain ice block’s puzzled voice sounded by his ear.
Looking up, he saw a girl standing alone under the sunset, her sword in her arms, as if bathed in a layer of soft light.
The evening wind was restless.
It rustled the leaves and lifted the hem of her dress, sending her long hair dancing.
Li Mo froze.
Fresh from learning to paint, he suddenly felt an urge to pick up his brush.
"Ice Block."
"Hmm?"
"Can you do me a favor?"
"Not the hot springs."
"Well..."
......
Dinner.
The table was set with delicious dishes.
Shang Wu glanced curiously at Li Mo, who sat before an easel, meticulously wielding his brush with fluid strokes.
"What’s he doing?"
"He said he wanted me to help him practice painting."
Ying Bing averted her gaze, feeling a faint sense of strangeness.
Li Mo was unusually focused.
Being carefully rendered on paper gave her an indescribable feeling.
"Painting?"
"You went to Joy Peak and got hooked on that stuff?"
Shang Wu’s almond eyes widened as she rolled up her sleeves, ready to storm over to Joy Peak.
The beautiful master was furious.
Someone was trying to lead her precious disciple astray!
"Master, I wanted to learn it myself."
Li Mo spoke helplessly.
"That’s even worse!"
Shang Wu walked over to him.
Her eyes inadvertently swept over the jade slip, where a painting lay, and her expression froze.
Instantly, her outrage died down.
"Hmm?"
Ying Bing, curious, stepped closer as well.
On the paper, the figure of a girl seemed to leap to life.
Her face wasn’t depicted.
Yet...
It was unmistakably her.
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
e school belle recognized by the whole school, a genius girl from the kendo club. She also has a hidden identity, the youngest legendary demon hunter. Chen Shuo just transmigrated and found himself turned into a weak, helpless little vampire. He was caught by Su Xiyen and taken home at the very beginning. Since then, Chen Shuo's life creed only had two items. "First, classmate Su Xiyen is always right." "Second, if classmate Su Xiyen is wrong, please refer back to item one." Many years later, Chen Shuo, who had turned back into a human, led a pair of twins to appear in front of all the vampires to share the secret of how he turned back into a human. "It's simple, I tricked a female demon hunter into becoming my wife!"
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
