Chapter 2541

2541 - The Drawing-1

"...What?" A layer of tears covered Shaddad's eyes, beginning to glisten under the faint sunlight.

Then, with a feeling of suffocation and estrangement, he returned to examine the glowing tablet, and quickly forgot that he needed to breathe...

The teacher wasn't joking.

After the thirteenth engraving, there was a lengthy explanatory paragraph about First Level engravings, tips on the priorities of studying them and how to do so in order, and the areas to focus on in each face.

But after that, there was another section that began with new drawings...

Each drawing was at least five times the size of those in the first section in terms of detail, and the number of drawings for a single engraving exceeded one hundred thousand.

That single engraving contained a number of separate drawings explaining strange and unique movements and postures more numerous than the thirteen First Level engravings combined, regardless of its size and highly complex internal details that changed with each different drawing.

Even with Shaddad's soul power and his focus solely on skipping without stopping or attempting to study anything, he found that it took him a few minutes to reach engraving number 25.

25 Second Degree engravings... each one larger than the First Level engravings combined.

Then he skipped the lengthy explanation and entered the Third Level, where he spent nearly a full hour merely browsing.

49 engravings from the Third Level.

Each one contained more than a million different drawings.

The sheer quantity of movement systems within an engraving was not something the mind could comprehend, and the word "random" did not do it justice—the differences between one drawing and another were enormous, with no connecting link between them, as if the engraving had simply shifted from one state to another in an incomprehensible manner.

Could this even be called movement anymore?!

Shaddad slammed the tablet down hard onto his thigh and placed both hands over it as if he wanted to hide it, his body trembling slightly—he could no longer mentally continue toward the fourth and final section.

Then, after a full half hour of silence, he raised his exhausted, fearful eyes and looked toward Robin with terror. "How old are you exactly? You can't be a thousand years old, not even a million... You... you...?!"

If Robin took a single day to finish one drawing of this complexity, that would mean his age could exceed that of someone like Athena!

That is, assuming age was the only factor in this miracle.

Not to mention that all the Truth Chosen lived and died without managing to catch a glimpse of a single drawing out of these millions!

"Could someone this handsome be millions of years old?" Robin spread his arms with a chuckle. "Don't say those words again, lest the rumor spread and diminish my genius."

"So how?" Shaddad sat on the edge of his chair. "How do you see what we cannot see? And how do you do what we cannot do? Do you live in a time bubble of your own?!"

"Hmmm..." Robin ran his hand over his hair calmly. "Actually, studying the first First Level engraving and preparing to draw it took me a few years, and completing it entirely took me tens of years..." Then he smiled. "But the second engraving took half the time to draw, and the third was finished in even less time."

Then he winked at Shaddad. "Until I reached the last engraving in the Fourth Level—I saw how it worked at a single glance and recorded it within an hour."

".....?!" Shaddad nearly choked.

Recorded it within an hour? Each one of the Third Level engravings contains more than a million drawings, filled with illogical transitional movements that baffle the human mind—indeed, they baffle his own mind as a Truth Chosen of the Third Level. So what about the Fourth Level engravings?!

"Heh~" Robin sighed as he saw Shaddad in this state. "You are my disciple, and it is your right upon me that I teach you whatever you wish of what I know... Today I tried to spare you the climb up the tree and give you the fruit ready-made, but if you want, I can help you climb so that perhaps you understand what you are about, and perhaps that will help you see the engravings in their true form."

"...." Shaddad's expression and breathing calmed slightly.

Then he stood and quickly knelt. "Please teach me, please. As a Truth Chosen, there is nothing else I could ask for, nothing else I could wish for."

"I told you that it is your right to ask, but you still act with formality. Come, get up." Robin extended his hand and gently pulled Shaddad's ear upward to help him sit again.

Then he began to think about how to start. "Hmmm..." After that, he took out a small tablet from his ring, and with it he took out an ordinary pen.

Shaddad opened his eyes wide, preparing to see a great drawing, most likely of how to draw the first engraving.

But soon his expression turned to extreme bewilderment.

His teacher drew a square, and inside that square he drew a cartoonish figure that looked like a man made of sticks, with a round head having two dots in place of eyes, and limbs that were light dashes.

Then, with a light flick, he raised the tablet so it floated beside them, and pointed toward it, "What do you see?"

"Aaah..." Shaddad stammered for a few seconds and used the Eye of Truth; his eyes gleamed as he hoped to see anything hidden, but he noticed no difference, "I see... a bad drawing?"

"...." Robin raised an eyebrow and looked toward the tablet, "It's not that bad." Then he waved and turned back to Shaddad, "Anyway... you are now looking at an entire universe of my making."