Chapter 55 Janice: How to evaluate
Janice was obviously a little surprised when she heard the answer given by Aiwass.
"I see..."
Her emerald green pupils widened slightly as she murmured softly.
Isabel beside her nodded happily in agreement, "I like The Crystal Sea, too."
In her opinion, "Crystal Sea" is Janice's masterpiece and her favorite painting.
The 14-meter-long scroll was created entirely using the "magic painting" technique. If you turn off the lights and admire it, you can even hear the sound of the tide.
And when the candle is lit - just a little bit of light, when it illuminates the painting, it will illuminate the entire deep blue sea.
When light shines on it, the ocean in the painting will freeze into beautiful crystals, and the temperature in the room will drop accordingly.
Each time the angle and brightness of the light changes, the hollow relief that emerges as the crystal solidifies will also change. In summer, as the angle of the sun's rays gradually changes, the crystal sea will also undergo endless changes in real time.
These paintings were previously collected in Professor Moriarty's art museum.
About six or seven years ago, the Queen grew old and increasingly frail. She couldn't stand the summer heat, but the "silver frost" created by alchemy was too cold. So, with Master Janice's permission, Aiwass's adoptive father moved the painting to the Hall of Silver and Tin.
Once the curtain on this painting was lifted, the cool air coming from inside would make the entire palace as cool as autumn, but not too cold to the point of being bone-chilling.
In winter, as long as the curtain is covered, no cold air will leak out, and you can hear the peaceful sound of the ocean tide when you walk along the edge.
In the summer, Isabel would sometimes run over and stare at it, never getting tired of it. Initially, Isabel had little interest in painting or sculpture, but it was this painting that made her decide to pursue a career as a "jack of all trades" rather than a "poet."
Her talent was primarily in singing, with dancing being a secondary factor. But after encountering Janice's paintings, she felt the beauty within them—like Lulu's Magic Flute, something that would be deeply engraved in one's heart once viewed, a mark never to be forgotten.
but……
"I remember that the teacher seemed to have a better painting?"
Isabel looked at Janice and said, "Teacher told me before. Those paintings contain secrets about the Nine Pillars, Celestial Officials, and Apostles, and they also contain the power of the Tao.
"It's a different kind of 'gentle miracle' than the one in 'Crystal Sea'. It's a far more brutal miracle."
“…Ah, there is.”
Janice nodded. "Those were the drawings I made while traveling around the world. Some are related to the mortal war involving the Nine Pillars of God; some are related to another possibility in history..."
Although she said this, her face did not show any pride or pride.
Aiwass knew why.
——Because the names of the three paintings he mentioned are the three special mechanisms used by Janice in her difficult level 80 copy "Twin Towers of the Palace of Dawn and Dusk".
The principles of the path of beauty are harmony and art, fluidity and eternity; but once it comes to the "solidification of beauty", it is easy to go to the path of "everything will eventually perish", and thus advocate the twilight path of "preservation" and "solidification".
Janice couldn't resist the urge either.
But she had already embarked on the dual paths of balance and beauty, and was no longer able to take a third path. Therefore, she could only control herself with reason and maintain her spiritual balance.
Painting is the art of transforming a fleeting moment into eternity. While "magic paintings" are magical and can store more information, they also lose the eternal beauty of that moment.
So, after Janice reached the limit of her painting skills, she returned to her roots and began to pursue "immovable paintings".
Long ago, when she defeated the first descending Celestial Master, the "Amber Celestial Master" of the Dusk Path, she had obtained the Essence of the Amber Celestial Master. However, she did not trade it for the Essence of the Celestial Master of the Beauty Path, nor did she entrust it to other transcendents of the Path to be made into equipment.
She wanted to create a painting that was beyond her own capabilities, using external forces to guide her in the right direction.
So Janice ground it into powder using a special process and made pigment. Combined with the expensive spiritual pigments she had obtained through other means, she painted a still painting called "Skull in Amber".
The moment the painting was created, she instantly gained enormous power and directly surpassed her own realm.
But unfortunately, that is not the power that comes from the path of beauty, nor even the power of the path of balance.
But it comes from the recognition of the dusk path.
She was forcibly dragged into an inhuman realm by the uncontrolled power of the Tao, lost her physical body and turned into a phantom demon.
Out of control, Janice used her mind as a brush and the world as a canvas, painting haphazardly and carelessly across the material world. The painting covered the entire area surrounding her retreat, rewriting the entire world into a scroll. Anyone who came within reach was captured and drawn into her scroll.
The player was able to avoid being captured by the material scroll and sneak into the side of Janice, the master of the Dawn and Dusk Palace, with the help of Isabel, who had grown up at that time.
Aiwass was very impressed by this copy.
Because in this dungeon, players would constantly switch between reality and virtuality. In reality, they would just play the dungeon normally. But every time she activated her special move, all players hit by her illusory brush would instantly switch styles and enter the painting.
In "Visit to the Temple of Acropolis", players enter the Temple of Acropolis in the scroll, and have to dodge and kill the patrolling Temple Knights within a limited time. It is a top-down stealth assassination game similar to Commandos; while in "Golden Dawn", it becomes a horizontal action game where players have to kill the guards of Nephthys and then the boss at the end of the level; in "Crystal Sea", players turn into birds, and it becomes a flying hoop game where players have to dodge various obstacles and attacks.
Three paintings, three completely different styles.
In each painting, the player will hear Janice's comments on it. Players remaining in reality can take this opportunity to attack the main character. The three paintings will play in a loop. If Janice is hit below half health before all three paintings are cleared, she will go berserk. If a painting drags on too long, leaving Janice speechless, she will also go berserk.
During these three cycle stages, Janice's desire to attack is not very high, and her mechanism is simple: she just dodges whatever comes out and has no normal attacks; while in the scroll, players can only use the mechanism skills granted by the scroll, and it doesn't make much difference what profession they enter.
Therefore, in order to save time, usually no healers or tanks are left, only one or two output players are left outside, who slowly output damage while hiding, and stop when the health is almost up.
Only after all the Temple Knights in "Visiting the Temple of Acropolis" are slain, the boss health bar in "Golden Dawn" is completely depleted, and the aerial hoops in "Crystal Sea" are completely bypassed, can the surviving players enter the fourth painting, "Skull in Amber," and face Janice in her true form as a Pseudo-Aster.
Players who died in a closed painting were trapped in that painting forever, meaning they could not be resurrected.
This meant that at least one tank and one healer had to survive to make it past Stage 4. Aiwass's team was constantly being wiped out... Even after two months of the dungeon opening, it was rare for a full eight-man crew to make it to Stage 4.
Aiwass had listened to Janice talk about her understanding of the three paintings at least three hundred times - he didn't remember much of the latter part, but he had memorized the beginning.
And this copy is a must-play copy.
Because in addition to dropping the three paintings that can be hung in the home, it also drops very beautiful clothes and a staff in the shape of a paintbrush.
Aiwass has helped many newbies in this dungeon, and many of them have become his friends after being helped through the dungeon by him.
The female players in the game "Ouroboros" are quite aggressive, with many more playing PVP than PVE. However, because of this, some of the beautiful appearances produced in difficult PVE dungeons need to be brought in by someone.
Aiwass doesn't play PVP much, but there are a lot of girls in his friend list, half of whom came from this way.
The remaining half was because he spoke nicely, had a charming voice, was humorous, and could sing - while chatting in the voice channel, a friend request came in.
His habit of teasing Haina and Isabel did not start after he came to this world.
Before he awakened his memories of his past life, Aiwass had a reputation for being somewhat dissolute and unruly.
This kind of talkativeness may be an instinct in his soul.
Janice asked Aiwass curiously, "Since you like these three paintings the most...why not tell me about your understanding of these three paintings?
"I'm very interested in why you like them. And I won't let you waste your words. If you have something to say, I'll give you something good."
"Then I'm sorry to show you my ugliness, Master Janice."
Aiwass smiled gently.
His words were humble, but his expression was calm and confident.
Of course, he had never seen these paintings, and he didn't even know what the critics in this world thought of them.
I didn't even watch the interpretation videos made by players on the forum in my previous life - because I was already sick of it.
—But Aiwass knew what Janice herself thought of the paintings.
It's impossible that the evaluation you made of your own paintings would be wrong when you hear it now, right?
"I remember that 'Visiting the Temple of Acropolis' was the first magical painting you created shortly after you embarked on the path of beauty."
Aiwas recited skillfully and fluently, "That is a temple atop a lone, extremely high peak in the Eternal Kingdom. Hippocrates, the apostle of the Lord of Scales and Feathers, now resides there.
"Back then, there was no professional inheritance, and ancient transcendents often sought power but could not find it. When Hippocrates was 380 years old, he realized he had exhausted all the medical traditions of the Eternal Theocracy. So, he hiked up the mountain dedicated to Acropolis, another apostle of the Lord of Scales and Feathers, to seek healing from him.
"This Acropolis is one of the Lord of Scales and Feathers' most powerful apostles, yet he is very friendly to mortals. If anyone can ascend this mountain and worship him in his temple, he will appear and equally heal all who seek his medical attention. Furthermore, he often appears and walks the most brutal and bloody battlefields, healing those soldiers who possess a tenacious will to survive.
"Some say that those soldiers who sustained fatal injuries but survived were saved by Acropolis because of their desire to live..."
(End of this chapter)
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