Chapter 54

Chapter 54

[Idle mode has been turned off.]

[Nightmare fragment instance time fast-forwarded by one month.]

When Bai Yi entered the nightmare game again, familiar historical records scrolled across his panel.

[... With the help of numerous Painting Spirits, you successfully created the painting “The Last Supper” with an A-grade painting skill and SSS spiritual energy, achieving a spiritual rating of S-grade.]

[You have chosen to submit this to the Art Center of this division.]

[During the idle period, as the results of the Painting Grand Prix have not been announced and other group art competitions have not officially begun, your character “Joey”, unwilling to waste any time, continued to practice painting, culinary arts, music, literature, and other skills under the guidance of the traits you assigned such as “long sleeves excel at dancing”, “becoming friends at first sight”, and “world’s genius”.]

(TL: long sleeves excel at dancing= metaphor meaning that someone who has ample resources or favorable conditions is more likely to succeed or perform well. It can also imply that a person with good connections or social skills can navigate situations more effectively.)

[Your character “Joey” gained +1 experience through rigorous training.]

[Your character “Joey” gained +1 experience through rigorous training.]

[Your character “Joey” gained +1 experience through rigorous training.]

...

[After rigorous training, your character “Joey’s” painting skill has continuously declined, currently at C-grade.]

[After rigorous training, your character “Joey’s” culinary skill has continuously declined, breaking through the lowest F-grade of the evaluation system, currently unable to be correctly evaluated.]

[After rigorous training, your character “Joey’s” music skill has continuously declined, breaking through the lowest F-grade of the evaluation system, currently unable to be correctly evaluated.]

[After rigorous training, your character “Joey’s” literary skill has continuously declined, breaking through the lowest F-grade of the evaluation system, currently unable to be correctly evaluated.]

...

Bai Yi: ???

Seeing this, Bai Yi’s head was full of question marks.

Rigorous training leading to declining skill levels, more experience resulting in lower skill evaluations – what kind of unparalleled talent was this???

This “artistically challenged” individual was truly unprecedented.

“I miscalculated, I miscalculated...” he thought to himself.

Mature game characters usually grow on their own. In the past, Bai Yi could always leave his characters to develop while idle, saving time by directly receiving characters at their peak. However, this time’s character was truly exceptional – the more it was left idle, the worse it became, training itself to drop below the lowest grade of the evaluation system. Even the legendary talents probably couldn’t carry this one!

This was the first character that couldn’t be developed through idle mode. It seemed that to pass this nightmare fragment instance, he would have to grind!

The only consolation was that although the A-grade painting skill Bai Yi had painstakingly trained in the game had been reduced to C-grade by this character during idle mode, at least the painting had already been submitted. There was no second round in the Painting Grand Prix, so he didn’t need to level up again.CHeCk for new stories on no/v/el/bin(.)c0m

At this point in time, within the nightmare fragment instance, it was time for the final rankings of the Painting Grand Prix to be announced.

He turned on the living room TV on schedule.

Sitting on the sofa, with emptiness all around.

“Without familiar roommates and neighbors, watching TV alone is really quite boring~” Bai Yi tapped his chin with a finger, letting out a sigh.

As the TV screen lit up, the familiar host appeared on the familiar World Art Channel.

[Good morning, viewers. Welcome to the World Art Grand Prix... Today, after a month-long process, the Painting Grand Prix has finally concluded. The list of 125 works selected for the Grand Prix has been finalized. Let’s review the competition process over the past month and look at the stories behind each work...]

As the host spoke, the screen quickly changed.

A black and white intertwined logo resembling a giant cube rotated continuously on the screen.

This was the famous Death Gallery.

From the outside, it looked like an ordinary building, but upon entering, one would find themselves in a special 5x5x5 cube, each grid being an exhibition room that could hold only one painting. All paintings placed inside would be automatically selected by the Death Gallery based on their spiritual intensity and placed in different exhibition rooms. After selecting 125 works, the remaining paintings with insufficient spiritual energy would be automatically discarded by the Death Gallery like trash.

Therefore, from the outermost layer of the cube inwards, the closer a painting was to the center, the stronger its spiritual energy.

In theory, with such an impartial judge, there was no need for anyone to be involved in the behind-the-scenes evaluation of the Painting Grand Prix, nor was it necessary to drag it out for a month. Just throwing all the paintings into the Death Gallery would settle the rankings in less than a day.

And that’s exactly what the organizers of the World Painting Grand Prix did.

On the first day of the competition, the rankings were out.

The reason for waiting a month was to verify the special abilities of these paintings. After all, in this world, paintings were not just paintings, but also extraordinary items.

The Death Gallery only evaluated the 125 paintings with the strongest spiritual energy. The organizers of the Painting Grand Prix still needed to appraise these 125 works.

Among these, some paintings might have low spiritual energy but could provide widespread healing effects for mental pollution, allowing almost anyone to cleanse their mind by appreciating the work. Other paintings, despite having extremely strong spiritual energy, could only be appreciated by a few individuals with strong mental willpower, as most ordinary people couldn’t withstand their mental impact.

The former could be publicly displayed to everyone, while the latter could only appear in private exhibitions with level restrictions.

As for those paintings following the dark art style, they couldn’t be casually displayed. Otherwise, wouldn’t it be murder of the audience?

In gaming terms, spiritual strength only represented the equipment level, but higher-level equipment wasn’t necessarily better than lower-level equipment. It depended on the equipment’s characteristics – whether it increased defense, attack, or healing, each with different focuses.

Since many of the 125 paintings were noted as dark art works, and some were labeled as healing art by their creators but no one knew if they might cause mental pollution, or there might be dangerous works sneaked in by anti-federation or anti-government individuals, the staff of the Painting Grand Prix organizers wouldn’t risk themselves. They sent death row inmates who had committed unforgivable crimes due to mental pollution to appraise the paintings.

[Here we have sworn enemies, complete strangers, people who dislike each other, antisocial individuals, terrorists, cult leaders, ordinary people... It’s hard to imagine them sitting together like good friends to appreciate a painting.]

The host introduced their identities in a timely manner.

But the viewers in front of the TV weren’t paying attention to what she was saying. Their eyes were almost all drawn to the painting.

Gazing at the painting in the lens, even through the screen, they felt as if they were being illuminated by warm light, as if they could smell the fragrance and steaming aroma of food. An intense feeling of goodness and warmth suddenly burst from their hearts...

Without realizing it, everyone was entranced.

They seemed to be guided into an endless, wonderful dream. An incredibly beautiful and harmonious atmosphere swept across the entire Federation. Everyone involuntarily felt a sense of peace, satisfaction, and happiness.

Past events, arguments with parents, conflicts with neighbors, contradictions with competitors, hatred for enemies... At this moment, they all seemed to be gradually suppressed by some strange force.

Arguments were unnecessary, conflicts were unnecessary, contradictions were unnecessary, hatred was unnecessary, all of this was unnecessary.

[Isn’t a harmonious and peaceful life good? As long as everyone loves each other, this world is a beautiful paradise...] Such thoughts flashed through everyone’s minds simultaneously.

Just then, the light in the painting seemed to flicker. In an instant, all the people sitting at the table seemed to melt.

The various colors on the painting melted, each person seeming to melt like a wax figure heated by fire, flowing directly onto the dining table and melting together with the food on the table. It was like a completely overturned palette, with various colors chaotically mixing on the dining table.

Only that blurred outline still sat at the table.

It looked as if... as if...

As if everyone had become ingredients on the table, ready for the outlined figure to enjoy at will!

!!!

In that moment, this incredibly horrifying association made everyone in front of the TV snap back to reality, instinctively recoiling.

At that moment, they discovered that the painting in the camera frame hadn’t changed.

It was still the living room adorned with dim yellow lights, a dining table laden with sumptuous dishes, and people sitting at the table with tears in their eyes, seemingly overwhelmed with gratitude for the delicious meal they were about to enjoy.

However, at this moment, as everyone looked at this painting again, their feelings were drastically different from before. This time, they seemed to see the silent tears of despair from a group of victims before being served on the dining table.

Perhaps only one person had a different reaction, and that was Bai Yi.

He also leaned back suddenly, but his expression was somewhat exaggerated. “Oh my, ah, ah, is this an accusation against me? Or is it just whining? I just stuffed you all into the painting to make it more spirited~ Doesn’t this fit better with the theme of good friends loving and helping each other?”

Bai Yi muttered to himself: “...This way of insinuating about me is too much! I’m not some man-eating monster!”

— Although if the entire painting were viewed as a dining table, the painting spirits used as pigments were indeed the ingredients placed on the table, the victimized party.

The sudden change seemed to surprise the organizers as well. The camera quickly panned away from the painting, but what appeared next brought an even greater shock to the entire Federation.

After switching from the wall where the painting was, the central part of the exhibition hall instantly came into view.

The group of people who had been sitting shoulder to shoulder on the ground admiring the painting earlier now showed various expressions.

Some people were leaning against the wall, heads slightly lowered, with serene and peaceful smiles on their faces, as if they had fallen into a beautifully woven illusion. Others were in a state of frenzy: some were biting off their own fingers one by one as if eating cookies; some were walking towards the painting step by step like fanatics, although blocked by an invisible force in the Death Gallery a few steps away, they still charged forward relentlessly; some directly bit through the throats of their enemies... The entire scene was filled with intense bloodshed, chaos, and eeriness, resembling a large-scale evil cult ritual site.

Seemingly realizing something was amiss, the TV station’s feed was immediately cut off, and everything came to an abrupt halt.

But the system’s settlement wouldn’t be interrupted because of this.

[Main quest completed 1/3, you’ve obtained the title of God in the painting field.]

[Achievement system has been refreshed...]

[You’ve achieved the “Blood and Flesh Sacrifice” achievement.]

[Note: Using a Painting Spirit to complete an artwork involuntarily is akin to placing a victim on the dining table for consumption. You have completed a special flesh and blood sacrifice, “sacrificing” the Painting Spirit, endowing your artwork with unparalleled spirituality, thus securing the title of god.]

[You achieved the “Illusion of Paradise” achievement.]

[Note: Goodness and beauty come from within. Only when everyone willingly does good and pursues beauty can the world become paradise. If one forcibly distorts others’ true nature and suppresses their will through extraordinary means, what seems to be ultimate goodness will be twisted into the most terrifying evil.]

[The artwork that should have depicted earthly paradise and conveyed all that is beautiful actually came from forcibly exploiting the Painting Spirit. Everything conveyed in the painting is just a distorted illusion. The true face of paradise is the purgatory of the sufferers.]

Bai Yi: ???

“Are you really created by my future self?” He was speechless about this system that was indirectly criticizing him. “Don’t make me sound like some kind of devil!”

He just wanted to complete the task properly, what evil intentions did he have?

— If he hadn’t tried for several loops, realizing that normal painting didn’t provide enough spirituality and couldn’t even match the second-place “Evil Ghost”, he wouldn’t have suddenly thought of directly attaching the Painting Spirits to the scroll.

Bai Yi didn’t believe that if all Painting Spirits had put in their full effort during painting, “The Last Supper” would have less spirituality than other artificial paintings. It could only mean they were all unwilling, not putting in real effort, and adding little spirituality to the paintings.

After several loops, Bai Yi had let them off a few times, but these Painting Spirits showed no awareness and still wanted to sabotage him?

...Well, then they couldn’t blame him for directly using them as raw materials!

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