"Robben, have you seen *Holy Mountain Journey*?"

"Y-Yes, I’ve seen it," Robben answered with an awkward smile, nervously scuffing his foot on the floor.

"Oh, really?" The boy who asked the question rolled his eyes slyly and deliberately raised his voice. "You’re telling me that manager from the Potion Factory actually survived at the end? That’s infuriating!"

"N-No, he didn’t," Robben stammered, swallowing hard. "Didn’t that manager turn into a zombie at the end?"

"Tch, so you really have seen it. How boring." The boy instantly lost interest and sat back down in front of his easel.

PHEW—

Robben breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t seen *Holy Mountain Journey*. The Shadow Demon Tickets were too expensive for him to afford. For the open-air screening in the square, he was too frail to push his way to the front. He also left the art studio too late, so he could only stand behind a tree and watch the ending from a poor angle.

"Ahem." The owner of the art studio walked in, and the boisterous boys immediately fell silent. There were no rules against corporal punishment here; mistakes were met with real beatings. "Today, you’ll be copying this painting."

A decorative painting of a forest was hung at the front.

This was the apprentices’ daily work: endlessly copying decorative paintings, which were then collected and sold en masse. They fetched a much higher price than printed pictures, and the copies never bore the name of the person who painted them.

After a period of this drudgery, the teacher would impart some real knowledge, which would be followed by another long stretch of copying for pay. The cycle repeated endlessly.

The teacher watched them for a while before leaving to attend to his own business.

Mass-producing identical paintings was a tedious affair. It wasn’t art; it was manual labor. Art has always been a privilege for the few.

Of course, you didn’t necessarily need talent; having connections worked just as well. After so many years of development, the art industry had long since established a sophisticated system for generating hype.

Some time ago, a rising star in the art world held an exhibition, and celebrities from all circles were in attendance.

There was no admission fee for the exhibition, so Robben went to see it. The paintings were all... how to put it? To put it delicately, they were all shit. Literally.

Moreover, the technical skill was subpar. It was as if the artist was trying to be unconventional just for the sake of being unconventional.

In any case, Robben couldn’t see what was so good about them, but he was too embarrassed to say so because all the critics were praising the paintings in the exhibition, calling them "full of childlike innocence," "brimming with critique," and "effortlessly natural."

Everyone except Lady Furin.

She started cursing on the spot, saying the paintings were worse than trash, yet no one dared to do anything to her. The art dealer who curated the exhibition even had to politely beg her to leave.

’It’s so strange.’ Those art dealers usually looked down their noses at everyone, and he’d never heard that Lady Furin was some kind of noble. ’Why is everyone so terrified of her?’

’Oh, right. That rising star’s father is the Vice Chairman of the Sutton Kingdom’s Art Guild.’

Robben’s brush never stopped moving. He was the fastest copyist in the studio—not because he was the most talented, but because he was the poorest. The copying work was paid by the piece.

"I heard you bought two tickets to Lady Furin’s exhibition?" another female apprentice asked, leaning in.

"Y-Yeah, that’s right." Robben didn’t know why she was asking.

Lady Furin was holding an exhibition to "usher in a new era of art." Most of the participating artists were people who refused to play along with the Art Guild. Although the Guild didn’t promote it, Lady Furin’s name alone was a mark of fame, so the tickets were not easy to get.

"Since you bought two, how about you take me with you? I’d quite like to see it."

’Why?’

Robben was baffled. He wasn’t wondering what reason he could possibly have to take someone he barely knew—an acquaintance from class at best—to the exhibition. Rather, he was baffled as to how she could even make such a request, how she could bring herself to ask.

Still, Robben maintained a basic level of courtesy. "Sorry, I’ve already invited someone."

"Heh, it’s not like I wanted to go that badly. I was just joking with you. You didn’t actually believe me, did you?" The girl became angry for no apparent reason and started mocking Robben.

"But..."

Although Robben’s hands were fast when he painted, his tongue was always clumsy. Whenever he argued with someone, his mouth couldn’t keep up, and he couldn’t think of what to say. He could only stew in anger at night while replaying the conversation, regretting why he didn’t say this or that.

"You just draw some comics, don’t you? And you think you’re so great? Has any newspaper even accepted one of your manuscripts?" the female classmate chattered on relentlessly.

Anyone familiar with this type of person would know that from the moment she asked the first question, there was no easy way out.

At that moment, her brain was in a superposition of wanting to go and not wanting to go. If he had agreed to take her, she would have collapsed into the "want to go" state. If he refused, she would collapse into the "don’t want to go" state.

To deal with such people, the generally recommended solution is found in classical mechanics.

A good hard slap would shut her up.

Unfortunately, Robben hadn’t studied enough physics; he was at a disadvantage due to his lack of education.

He could only hide in a corner, thinking about finishing his daily task as quickly as possible so he could leave this place of conflict.

He was indeed drawing a comic. Nowadays, artists who couldn’t make a living from fine art were all drawing comics; they were just too embarrassed to admit it.

However, there was only so much space in the newspapers, and one section was unchangeably reserved for *Firepower Young King*, so the competition was fierce.

To this day, not a single newspaper had shown interest in his comic.

*Mechanical Warrior* was the title of his comic. It told the story of a young man who unexpectedly obtains a piece of Magic Armor and uses it to punish evil and promote good.

His initial idea wasn’t complex. First, a story like this would be an outlet for the dissatisfaction pent up from constantly being bullied and pushed around. He wished he could get a piece of Mechanical Armor like that so no one would dare bully him ever again.

Second, a story like this could be drawn out for a very long time; he would just have to keep swapping out enemies. If it was well-drawn, a single comic series might be enough for him to live on for the rest of his life.

But so far, the only successful long-running comic was *Firepower Young King*. Other series only lasted a few months at most.

No one had quite figured out how to write a long-running series yet.

A kind editor had offered him some advice while rejecting his manuscript: they had seen far too many stories about a poor boy’s fortuitous encounter that turns him into a hero.

To stand out, it had to be unique. He either needed a new take on the Mechanical Armor or a unique spin on the enemies. At the very least, they couldn’t be gang bullies, trolls, or evil dragons—things that adventure novels had been writing about for centuries.

*Mechanical Warrior* was the one hundred and sixtieth comic the editorial department had received that month about defeating Zog.

That was the feedback, but he’d been thinking for dozens of days and still hadn’t come up with anything unique.

That’s why he had decided to look for inspiration at Lady Furin’s art exhibition.

When it was finally time to get off work, Robben quickly packed up his art supplies, handed in his painting for the day, and sprinted all the way to the spot where he had arranged to meet his friend.

"Robben, over here!" Ribery waved. "Why the long face today? Who bullied you again? Tell me, I’ll go sort them out."

"How are you going to ’sort them out’? Secretly smash their window while you’re delivering milk?" Robben said.

Ribery delivered milk in the morning and worked as a waiter in a restaurant during the day. He also moonlighted as the scriptwriter for Robben’s comic.

Robben wasn’t just clumsy with words; he couldn’t come up with dialogue either, and he was clueless when it came to plot. So the two of them teamed up, one responsible for the story and the other for the art.

"Let’s hurry, the gallery is going to close soon," Ribery urged.

The two of them arrived at the gallery.

The paintings inside were truly new—unlike any style that had appeared before. They were so new that Robben couldn’t even tell if they were good or not.

There were all sorts of pieces: paintings that looked as if they were made by casually flinging paint, pictures composed of solid color blocks, portraits made entirely of straight lines that didn’t resemble people at all...

’Looks like the plan to find inspiration here was a bust.’

"Come here, look at this!" Just as Robben was feeling disappointed, Ribery suddenly exclaimed, "I know what kind of enemy we should have in our comic!"

Robben followed him and saw a huge black-and-white painting hanging on the wall. The monster in the painting was impossible to trace back to any real-world creature; it was novel and exuded a sense of pressure.

’Fighting this thing would definitely be more interesting to watch than a fight with a Xiao Xiong.’

Robben looked at the information on the placard next to the painting.

"Artist: Mira? Who’s that? Another newcomer who popped out of nowhere? How come I’ve never heard of her?"