Free and Unfettered 98 One Is One Too Many

He was suffering. He was actually, legitimately, suffering. No matter how hard he drowned out the surroundings, or how carefully he put the brush to the canvas, the end result made him feel like tearing out his hair. How could he possibly be this bad at it?!

He swore that even if it was real life, he wouldn't be *this* bad, but alas, the work born from his hand could not be called anything but an abstract piece of work. Even Picasso back on Earth made more sense than his did.

Done with the first painting, he stepped back and squinted at the finished work. Valerius tilted his head, closing his eyes in silence and prayer before opening them again, but the end result remained unchanged.

He silently thought about the process he went through. He drew the outline, then he painted based on the colours he saw, but… what was this? How could this… this monstrosity possibly be born from his hands? It just didn't make any sense!

Hoping that it was just himself that was doubting his work, he grabbed a random passer-by, pointing at this painting.

"Sorry about this, but… tell me. What do you see?"

The startled woman calmed her beating heart at suddenly being grabbed off the streets, especially when everyone was still rather high-strung from the rising tensions in the air.

She looked at the canvas sitting on the easel before her before doing a doubletake. What was this? Was this some sort of new trend that she didn't understand? Was this what was 'artistic' nowadays?

She squinted harder, trying to make sense of the colours and random shapes, but for the life of her, she couldn't make anything out.

"Ah, it's rather… creative," she said at last, unable to use any other description for it.

"Really?" Valerius said doubtfully. He looked at his painting again. Could she be seeing something that he wasn't seeing? Actually, that's right. Could it be that he was being too critical on himself? You know what they said about artists and their work, after all. There was always something they weren't satisfied with.

"Yes, yes," the poor woman said, inwardly sending a prayer for lying so blatantly. But she didn't want to crush this poor young man's aspiring career/hobby so cruelly when he was just starting out.

"I see," Valerius said. "Thank you!"

The woman patted him on the shoulder. "Work hard!" she cheered him on.

Valerius, quite literally, teared up at the encouragement. Maybe this wasn't so hard after all! What a kind lady. He would remember her and make sure to thank her later on.

With a grateful bow, Valerius cheerfully left the place to head for the mage tower – another one of the locations he was about to paint.

Behind him, a curious male onlooker sidled up to the lady. "Hey, was his painting really that good? I looked at it, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it!"

The woman scoffed. "Of course, I make out anything at all. But you have to be kind, you know? Don't be cruel! Don't ever crush someone's dreams. If they never work on it, they'll never get better at it!"

"True, true."

What Valerius didn't know that this one interaction would cause a great change one day in Cosmos City, where people would be encouraged regardless of their passion. Far in the future, man grandmasters of their art would be born thanks to a simple interaction with a passer-by.

Valerius took four strenuous days to complete all twenty paintings as requested to him by Lucien, the strongest human back before he travelled back in time, and he had never felt as accomplished as he did when he finally finished.

Standing outside the mage academy, Valerius was clutching all twenty paintings to show his sincerity. He politely asked a student if they knew where to find Lucien.

"Oh, Lucien? Nine's student?" the student asked, his tone unusual.

Valerius looked at the person, puzzled. "I'm not sure about that, but yes. I'm looking for Lucien."

"Mm, go that way," the student said, pointing in a far direction into the greenery.

"Thank you," Valerius said politely.

Valerius walked in the direction he was pointed to, not thinking twice about it. For some reason, all these hidden masters liked to be placed in random and baffling places that made them hard to find. The Undyings had cursed the game developers' countless times in the past, but in the end, they had to get used to it and suck it up, because the game company who made 'Pride and Honour' ignored every complaint from the players!

Before he could walk too far, his jaw dropped open at the sight before him. The sight of magic spells being rapidly cast and used in battle filled every inch of his eyes.

There was a group of people around, all watching the battles that were taking place to give advice later on. There were solo battles going on, as well as group battles. Valerius had never seen such a concentration of magicians purely sparring before, even back in the later stages of the game.

Most people ended up becoming either swordsmen, rouges, etc. Mages were the rarest of the lot, because not only was it hard to trigger the class change quest, the job consisted of a stringent requirement for one to properly study the workings of magic.

Even Valerius had been a swordsman in his past life, only able to use internal casting to boost little things like speed or strength. External use of magic was a whole different ballpark all together.

He watched with soft awe gracing his features. Even the players years in the future couldn't use magic with such ease. The spells that should have seemed familiar to him looked like different spells in these mages' hands.

It was only when he watched the ease and grace these magicians carried themselves with that suddenly understood the vast depth of the realms of magic. Instantly, he ached to be like them. To learn and carry himself like they were doing. Never had he seen such grace and precision upon using magic.

Before this, he had only wanted to learn magic because magicians were highly valued by other players in parties, which would have allowed him to earn money quicker, but here, at this moment, was when Valerius suddenly fell in love with magic itself.

Lucien watched the Undying's expressions with interest and gratification. It seemed that his one was worth teaching. Suddenly, he could understand just a bit of what his Teacher felt when he was teaching all of them. If it was anything like this, then he could understand why his Teacher loved teaching them, no matter where and when.

"Valerius," Lucien greeted.

Valerius snapped back to himself, his cheeks burning red, having realized that he was impolitely gawking and staring at the display of magic.

"Ah, hello Lucien," Valerius greeted awkwardly back. "Here are the paintings."

Lucien grabbed the stack of paintings and casually glanced down, about to complete the other's class change quest, and looked back at the other, only for his head to snap back down to look at the paintings.

What was this? Lucien squinted. How could such a monstrosity possibly be produced. Even being bad had its limits, but this was pure talent.

One by one, Lucien's friends started coming over, looking at the paintings. Immediately, their expressions were a sight to behold. They couldn't decide between whether or not to laugh or to be shocked.

"What are these!" Brooke said, shocked. "Oh man," Nine's student gasped, admiration filling his tone. "You sure have talent." That was… the paintings sure were… special. Valerius was indeed talented.

Lucien cleared his throat, pushing up his glasses nervously. "Indeed," he said, moving to topic away. "Well, then I'm glad to accept you as my student. Are you willing?"

"Yes!" Valerius said without hesitation, his eyes shining.

"Very well. Let us meet here again tomorrow, since it's getting dark."

"Yes, Teacher," Valerius said, all but happily skipping away.

Lucien silently kept a single painting before turning around to the rest of his friends. "Now," Lucien said, holding another painting. He quickly shoved one painting into each of his friends' hands. Twenty paintings. Just nicely, his class consisted of twenty students in total. "Here. One for each of you. Then, goodbye."

Lucien quickly fled the scene, disregarding the sounds of shock behind him.

One painting was already plenty enough for him, he thought, pushing up his glasses as he fled.

Chapter end