The Versatile Master Artist

At the same time,

the temporary enhancement has a slight difference compared to the true Calligraphy and Painting Identification Skill (Master Level), with some special effects like ”trigger limited quests” being trimmed or restricted.]

”It only takes effect when you have already established a strong understanding and familiarity with the work, which means I have to have read this book beforehand?”

Gu Weijing read the explanation on the system panel, feeling pleased he could use it, but with a slight tinge of regret: ”What a pity... Thinking about it, it’s quite reasonable. If I could achieve the same direct knowledge infusion effect like a Knowledge Card with any unknown book after using the skill, that would be too broken.”

If it could be used directly on unknown texts.

Then in the future, when this skill accumulates to a thousand uses, and the true upgrade allows for free usage after that.

Gu Weijing planned to input it into his brain like Neo from The Matrix would upload programs, throwing this skill onto various textbooks whenever he had time each day.

Just imagine.

Other students are still buried in studying various painting technique tutorials.

He, with a ”swish!” of his hand, throws the skill, and all the content from a textbook he hasn’t read is learned.

How satisfying that would be!

Study painting in the morning, relativity in the afternoon, and take a lunchtime to learn to fly a helicopter or something. Probably in a few months, he could happily go fight aliens.

”I wonder if my understanding of The Little Prince is regarded by the system as a strong familiarity level?”

Gu Weijing was still not completely sure in his heart, his hands already starting to prepare the canvas and paint.

The Little Prince was one of the works he was most familiar with.

Even without the help of Mr. Tree Sloth, to make a good painting, Gu Weijing had repeatedly gone through it many times over the past month.

If there is any book that Gu Weijing considers himself thoroughly familiar with, The Little Prince would definitely be among them.

With this known information,

he felt he could take a gamble.

The skill could only last a total of five and a half minutes.

To avoid wasting it, Gu Weijing first prepared all the canvas and easel, placing the internal preview white paper of The Little Prince on the desk.

Then he chose the Calligraphy and Painting Identification Skill and lit the Blessing Candle.

On the virtual panel, a small candle that was no more than an inch long began to show a flickering flame icon above it, with the Arabic numerals above the flame decreasing in a countdown.

[336], [335], [334]...

”Buzz!”

Initially,

after activating the skill, Gu Weijing did not notice any significant change.

He just suddenly heard a soft buzzing sound by his ear, like a fingertip quickly plucking a tight cotton thread.

Gu Weijing instinctively turned his head.

In his line of sight,

he found it was a colorful beetle, about the size of a thumb joint, gently bumping against the window.

The transparent wings were vibrating rapidly, and under the bedroom lights, the insect’s hard, tea-colored chitinous shell revealed a beautiful golden gradient gloss.

The beetle followed its ancient genetic instinct to seek light.

It persistently flew towards his bedroom, only to be repeatedly thwarted by the interlacing fiberglass threads of the window screen.

Cyclically,

much like the lonely knight charging at windmills in Cervantes’ work, or the nocturnal fairy dancing among the grass in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Gu Weijing felt a gentle stir in his heart.

”When Joshua Reynolds, the greatest Academic School painter on the British Isles in the eighteenth century, picked up his brush to create the masterpiece Pique, did he happen to see a beetle flying past the window?”

He murmured to himself.

(Note: ”Pique” is the name of a fairy gathering magic potions in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Here it specifically refers to a famous oil painting created by Joshua Reynolds in 1756 featuring the flying fairy from the play. The painting extensively uses misty green-gold colors and is considered one of Reynolds’ most outstanding representative works.)

”What a particularly beautiful and lovely little creature.”

Gu Weijing blinked, this thought passing through his mind.

But wait,

he suddenly realized something was off.

Come to think of it, what’s so cute about beetles?

This is one of the most common pests in Southeast Asia.

Myanmar has a large number of various flying insects. These insects not only lead to significant reductions in crops like wheat and fruit trees, but the powder scales on their wing sheaths can also cause allergies.

More crucially,

they are very noisy when sleeping at night.

Sometimes, when you open the curtains in the morning, you can find three or four living, dead, or half-dead beetles and various other flying insects in the window tracks.

Gu Weijing is certainly no merciful monk who cherishes the lives of ants while sweeping the floor or admires moths by the lamp.

He never thought they were worthy of any affection before.

He would just shake his head, very disgusted, and use tissue paper to clean all these little things, wishing he could spray insecticide on the windows for satisfaction.

Strange!

Unless it just so happened that this little insect in front of him conveniently met his aesthetic preference.

Then...

The answer was already obvious.

It was Gu Weijing who became more sensitive, and more sentimental; even a small insect could catch his attention.

Even the sound of a beetle flapping its wings, which should have been an annoying noise,

now, in Gu Weijing’s ears, was like a soft nightly sonata from a symphony orchestra’s double bass strings.

”The Burst of Inspiration special effect?”

Gu Weijing calmly felt his own state, seemingly no different from before, and yet entirely different in every way.