Lord: Sequence Master

"You're not very skilled in oil painting, and even less so in abstract painting. Why?" Clement asked, surprised after observing Rosen's work.

Rosen's painting wasn't bad, but during a career evaluation, the higher the score, the better. Clement couldn't understand why Rosen would take such a risk.

"I don't want any weak spots to hold me back," Rosen replied, weaving a reasonable, albeit dishonest, explanation. "This painting will inspire me to chase after the many masters before me."

In reality, Rosen had long regretted some of his decisions. Back in Redstone City, he should have been more careful when painting static images. The incident where a possible Sequence 6 Painter had appeared in Redstone City wouldn't remain a secret forever. Word would spread, and people would eventually start investigating.

Although all his static paintings had been destroyed when the Saw Spiritual Realm collapsed, many people had seen them. Rosen had no way of erasing their memories.

For a skilled painter, understanding another artist's habits was akin to identifying someone by their fingerprints. If the wrong people noticed, it could become a hidden danger for Rosen.

At the time, his knowledge of the supernatural world was too limited to understand the potential risks. Once he learned more about his situation, much of his time in the Death Forest Spiritual Realm was spent correcting this mistake.

During that period, he focused primarily on oil painting rather than his specialty, realistic color painting, for one reason: to conceal his true artistic identity. Moreover, to progress as a Painter, one needed to master various styles.

"Your thinking is unique. Most painters are reluctant to show their weaker sides," Clement said, offering some half-hearted encouragement.

However, when it came to the career evaluation score, Clement had no choice but to give Rosen's painting its fair due.

Rosen received 65 points—barely passing.

When Rosen heard the score, he anxiously inquired about the admission requirements for the city's official academy. Learning that passing was enough to get in, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Clement appeared friendly toward newcomers, so Rosen spent over an hour talking with him.

He learned that studying at an academy wasn't particularly crucial for the Painter Sequence. Established painters rarely taught at academies. Most of the art instructors at the academy were ordinary people with a natural talent for art but no awakened spiritual abilities. Painters who enrolled in academies mainly went to learn basic artistic skills.

As for supernatural skills, the best option was to pay other painters within the guild for instruction.

Still, the academy offered more than just art training. In addition to learning basic painting techniques, Rosen could also gain a comprehensive understanding of the supernatural world and the fundamental knowledge of other sequences. At the very least, he would be better equipped to recognize the abilities of other sequences in the future.

However, academy instruction moved at a pace suitable for the majority. Even if Rosen were a quick learner, the academy wouldn't adjust the curriculum just for him.

For this reason, those nobles who could afford it preferred private tutors over attending academies.

Because the number of members was small, the Artist's Guild offered free accommodation. Learning of this benefit, Rosen immediately settled into the guild.

Each day, he visited different painters and inquired about the various supernatural skills available within the Painter's Division.

After more than half a month of investigation, he finally had some initial choices.

First, he realized there was no point in hoping for combat abilities—the Painter Sequence at Sequence 9 had negligible offensive power.

Most painters at this level chose to learn skills that enhanced their spiritual paintings.

The most common choice was three skills—each enhancing paper, brushes, and pigments.

Some painters chose to combine brush and pigment into one skill. After all, not every painting style separated the two as oil painting did.

In realistic color painting, Rosen's specialty, brushes and pigments were usually fused together. In this case, the brush and pigment would count as one skill, leaving room for an extra auxiliary skill.

However, choosing this fused approach would make it difficult to master oil painting later.

After much deliberation, Rosen decided to take the traditional route of separating brush, paper, and pigment.

Though realistic painting was his strength, he didn't want to give up on ink painting, oil painting, and other styles.

Different painting styles produced spiritual works with varying qualities.

For example, when painting a gun, realistic or sketching styles were more suitable for materialization. But if you wanted to depict a twisted, monstrous evil spirit, abstract oil painting would likely yield much better results than realism or sketching.

Of all the elements—paper, brushes, and pigments—the brush was the most complicated and costly. Not only did Rosen need to master the auxiliary skill, but he also had to commission a custom supernatural brush.

Ideally, the brush would be made as a Sequence 7 brush, then sealed at Sequence 9. That way, as he progressed through the sequences, he wouldn't have to replace the brush constantly.

However, commissioning a Sequence 7 brush came with a hefty starting price—50,000 units of spiritual energy.

Realizing his personal savings would be cut almost in half, Rosen gritted his teeth and placed the order.

Since the brush would take time to craft, Rosen decided to focus on learning the brush auxiliary skill in the meantime.

For ordinary paintings, a Painter at Sequence 9 could become a human printer, drawing with inhuman speed. However, creating spiritual paintings could be even slower than normal painting, as the Painter had to carefully infuse spiritual energy into each stroke.

While slow painting was fine in a safe environment, taking your time while in danger would likely get you killed before you finished. Thus, auxiliary skills were needed to increase speed and enhance the Painter's hands. With stronger hands, painting speed naturally increased. As for infusing spiritual energy, there were other skills to help with that.

"Masterstroke, Miracle Brush, Iron Strokes, Divine Brushstroke…" Rosen muttered as he examined his options, struggling to choose.

Masterstroke strengthened both brushes and pigments—a versatile choice.

Miracle Brush merged writing with painting, providing a strong boost to ink painting.

Iron Strokes offered the most extensive hand-strengthening abilities.

Finally, Divine Brushstroke didn't enhance the hands but rather the supernatural brush itself. With this skill, you could permanently fuse supernatural energy with the brush, allowing it to evolve and grow alongside your supernatural sequence.

Without a doubt, Divine Brushstroke was the most powerful of the four skills, but no one in the guild had mastered it. Since there was no one to consult, Rosen would have to study the skill on his own based on the records left by past artists.

This difficulty would increase the challenge many times over, but Rosen felt reluctant to pass up the strongest skill.

In the end, he decided to give Divine Brushstroke a try. If it didn't work out, he could always fall back on Iron Strokes. Youth was his greatest asset—being 18 again gave him the confidence to take risks.

Rosen spent 5,000 units of spiritual energy to obtain the information needed to learn Divine Brushstroke. He spent two days reading the materials before realizing why the skill was so difficult to master.

First, to learn Divine Brushstroke, each sequence would need to permanently allocate one unit of spiritual energy into the brush. The spiritual energy would be fused into the supernatural brush to create his Divine Brush.

This meant that for every spiritual painting, Rosen would always have one less unit of spiritual energy available compared to others of the same rank.

For example, at Sequence 1, a regular Painter could infuse 98 units of spiritual energy into a painting. But Rosen, using Divine Brushstroke, would be capped at 89 units—others' maximum would be his minimum.

However, the skill's negative effect was balanced by its formidable benefits.

While most Painters would have 9 innate skills and 27 auxiliary skills by the time they reached Sequence 1, Divine Brushstroke allowed the user to convert one auxiliary skill into an innate skill per sequence.

Additionally, at Sequence 1, if Rosen wished to ascend to Sequence 0 and become a god, Divine Brushstroke would better integrate with divine power.

Even without this, having nine additional innate skills was more than enough to offset the nine points lost in spiritual energy for paintings.

Many Painters never even dreamed of reaching Sequence 0—for most, Sequence 6 was a lifelong aspiration. Thus, few pursued Divine Brushstroke. Moreover, learning the skill required interacting with divine energy. Although not as difficult as acquiring divine power, it still required contact with semi-divine artifacts.

Such treasures were exceedingly rare, even in the Blazing Shadow Duchy, with millennia of accumulated history.

(End of Chapter)