Alex was done with 4 of the trails already. He had completely passed through the Alchemy and Talisman trials and had nearly reached the end with the Artifact and Formation trials. He could have returned and tried to see if he could go further, but he saw no point.
There wasn't much to gain by passing a single test in those two categories. It wasn't like he failed because of missing ingredients like he had with the talisman trial.
So, he was intent on moving away from them all.
There were only two trials he hadn't visited yet, and having decided from early on that he wouldn't be visiting the Music trials, the only one that Alex had yet to visit was the Painting trials.
He was quite looking forward to this one. Over the last 6 months since he left Goldheart City, aside from his physical body, his focus had been on painting. He had done a lot of other things at that time as well, but painting was what he came back to each time.
He arrived in the dark room where the painting trail was held, quickly surrounded by black walls all around him. He sat down on the colorless floor and quickly brought out a canvas which he placed before him.
Then he finally looked toward the master of this trial. It was a… deer. Alex was surprised to see a deer standing in the distance where he would have expected a human to stand. This trial master seemed to not care about the fact that he didn't have a human body to mix well with the humans of this world.
The deer was a soul nonetheless, so he hovered there in the distance, waiting for something. A minute passed by before he finally said anything.
"You have all arrived in the Paintings trial, and I see a lot of repeating faces," he said. "I'll address the ones that don't know me yet. I am Zin Gaunhong, the trail master for Painting. Don't let my body fool you, I was an excellent painter when I had a body. As you might know, you don't need human hands to paint."
Alex slowly nodded. Qi could replace hands at a very early stage in one's cultivation.
"Unlike the other trials you have been to, the Painting trial will be very simple. You have to pass exactly 3 tests. If you can complete them all, you will have passed all the tests."
"So, to start, I will give you a very easy test," the Deer said. "Paint me."
Alex paused for a moment. Paint… the deer? That was going to be one of the first 3 tests? He was quite surprised by this test because of how easy it was.
'Just painting? No Intent usage?' Alex wondered. Painting had a rather steep learning curve at the start with many different elements to keep track of. The subject, the background, the colors, the highlights, the shadow, the one, the clarity, the abstractness— there were so many things that one could mess up when they only just started painting.
However, after some time, one could go past this learning curve after having learned everything and easily paint a very good painting. This was very much true for cultivators, and even more so for Alex himself.
In just the first month of training, Alex had already understood the core of painting and could make paintings that were considered the best. So, painting the deer would be no problem for him at all.
He took the Color artifact he had and started creating all the important colors that would be necessary for this painting. Using his knowledge of color theory, he created every single color he could need for this painting and created a palette with it. Then, he went on to paint.
His brush flickered on the canvas, the strokes both thick and thin. He made the deer's head, the deer's antlers, and the deer's body. The deer's current body was transparent bluish-white with some of its original colors peeking through. He captured that.
He gave a slight brown color to its fur, along with some brown color to its antler. Its nose was a tad black and the eyes a deep red. The overall body of the deer was brown, which he added while making sure to neither overshadow the transparency of the art of the bluish-white of the soul.
He waited on the shadows and went on to do the rest of the painting where he drew the background. The background as of yet was a dull black color as everything but the blue soul was darkness to Alex.
He painted the background with black paint, copying as much as he could from what he was seeing. Once he was done with the foreground and background, he moved on to putting the finishing touches on the painting.
There were no shadows to add on the deer precisely, but there were instances where the bluish-white color of the soul was more blue than the rest, like the antlers or fur spots around its body. Its hooves were more blue than normal as well, and so were locations where the deer's skin was cramped a bit, like the neck or the pits of its limbs.
Once completed, Alex moved away from the painting and looked at it from a distance. He looked at the painting intently and then at the deer that floated in the distance. He was happy to see that he hadn't made any big mistakes at all, if any.
The room suddenly changed into a bright red color, surprising Alex. He hadn't even submitted the painting yet, but it seemed as if the deer had seen his art and had considered him passed.
He happily nodded and put the new painting into his storage ring before pulling out another empty canvas. He was ready for the next trial.
He had to wait a while before it began.
"Here is your second trial," the Deer said. "Make a painting with a very strong Intent. It does no matter how complex the painting is. You can leave it for all I care. As long as the Intent it holds is strong, you'll pass."
Intent. That was pretty easy for Alex. He could immediately think of what to draw as well. And he got to it.
Red, Yellow, and Orange shades of colors were prepared according to what Alex thought was necessary and then he started painting.
Fire. Flames. Heat. Burning.
Alex kept in mind what it was that he wanted to draw, and focused his all into it.
The painting itself was simple. It was a small tongue of flame that burned in the center of the canvas. However, the Intent it held was anything but that.
The fire gave off an aura of True Fire Dao, that would appear complex and inconceivable to anyone that did not have it. Everyone including the Deer soul did not have it.
When Alex was done with the painting, pouring his Intent into it as he had learned for the past half a year, he was left with a painting that could be considered to be sent into the Hall of Fame for the Royal School of Painting.
The Red walls turned to Blue at once and he had completed the second test.
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