20,000 stone elemental coins, please teach me the ability to hand-draw three-dimensional shapes on a flat surface. ”

The Vasa Academy has the name of "Academy", thinking it is an academy, but in fact it is just a deserted painting studio. In front is a storefront of more than 20 square meters, and there is a home of about the same size in the back. Three generations of seven people live here, making upholstery for others.

Because the business was cold, they didn't want to accept students or workers, but they didn't say they didn't want to accept money, so Qian Jing took this direct way.

"Twenty thousand? It's kind of interesting, but ......" Yuna Qiu Yin looked at her father. Just like the White Flag grocery store, the Vasa Painting Institute is also a family lineage, and the current manager is a woman named Yuna, who is also the author of the two picture books that Qian Jing found. "Dad, do you think that's possible?"

"I don't have any opinion, kid, you can make up your mind in the end, we all believe in you. ”

"That's good. Yuna said to Qian Jing, "If you can come up with 50,000 stone elemental coins, have the right magical talent, and promise not to pass it on, this craft of our family can teach you." ”

"It's expensive. Qian Jing shook his head: "Fifty thousand stone elemental coins are almost enough for me to use for a lifetime, this is obviously not the price corresponding to a hobby." If you add the requirement that you can't spread it, it's only 20,000. Oh, what does it mean to have the right magical talent, my magical talent is poor, is it a must?"

"Bad?" Yuna's eyes lit up, "How bad?"

"The kind of difference that can turn the crystal ball in front of the magic shop black, the kind that is not served at all. ”

After Qian Jing finished speaking, Yuna's father turned around and entered the back room, and came out in a blink of an eye, with a small crystal ball in his hand. "The young man took it and saw what changed. ”

Qian Jing took the light blue crystal ball and waited for it to turn black. Unexpectedly, the black color did not appear, and the entire crystal ball turned into a completely transparent colorless, and at the same time emitted a flickering light. "What does that mean, do I have a gift for magic?"

"Well, yes. Thanks to your money, your magical talent has survived until now. Yuna's dad took the crystal ball back, and it turned pale blue again. "Your family should not worry about eating and drinking, and there should be servants in all aspects, right?"

"It's not like that, I just happen to have a little spare money lately. Qian Jing became vigilant and asked if he had any money at home, this could not be to tie himself up, right? "Why do you say that, what the hell is my magical talent?"

"Water elemental affinity. Yuna said, "In this world full of sand, all magic is either earth elemental, or a little air element and fire element, and almost nothing is water elemental. All walks of life need earth elemental magic affinity, and it is impossible to move without it. If your family didn't have any money, how could it have survived until now?"

"Oh...... Well, if you think so, I'm not against it. Qian Jing breathed a sigh of relief, as long as it wasn't tied up: "It seems that my test passed, and the rest is a matter of price." I just learned it for fun, and I didn't think about spreading it or teaching it to others. 50,000 is too expensive, how about 30,000?"

Yuna shook her head, then nodded again—what does that mean? She asked Qian Jing to wait a moment, and then dragged her father to the back room, and it took about ten minutes before he came out. "Sixty thousand, you can use it yourself, and we can only spread it with our consent. However, I will teach you all the skills without reservation, and I can also find you orders, and you can earn your own money. There are very few jobs that allow the water elemental to use their abilities, and it's almost impossible to find a second place to make money. ”

"Unreservedly, let me start by asking, what else can this craft do other than draw three-dimensional pictures?"

Yuna squinted her eyes, hesitated for a moment, and finally spoke: "Use the power of the water element to make magic runes and produce magical effects." ”

"Seventy thousand, don't do anything else for the time being, just teach me! The sooner you can let me learn, the better!" Qian Jing patted the table and said excitedly: "Magic, I've been waiting for a long time, and I finally saw the light." I don't have much time, so let's get started!"

Yuna was taken aback, but she didn't lose her cool, and she made sure to see the money first. Qian Jing understood this concern, so he took out a woven bag and poured out 35,000 stone elemental coins as a deposit and advance payment. With the White Flag grocery store system, he doesn't need to carry that much money with him, just withdraw it from the book. These stone elemental coins were still collected by Liu Shawende from various places with a lot of effort, and Qian Jing just made a hand.

"It's thirty-five thousand, and when I learn three-dimensional drawing, I'll pay the remaining thirty-five thousand, and you teach me magic drawing. ”

Yuna agreed to this payment method, after all, the sight of 35,000 stone elemental coins piling up on the table between the two of them and constantly flowing to the ground was too shocking. "I didn't mean to, and I didn't take out so many elemental coins at once, forgetting that they would run around. I'll clean it up for you. ”

"No, you come with me. The sooner you are taught, the sooner you will be paid. Yuna stood up and motioned for Qian Jing to follow.

They came to Yuna's studio, or "the bedroom with only one sleeping bag left" more appropriately. The floor and walls were filled with lines and patterns, hundreds of thin stone slabs for painting were piled up in the corners, and in the middle of the room was a boxy sand pit of white sand as fine as flour.

Yuna's personal belongings, such as clothes and the like, are all stuffed inside two stone boxes, and sleeping bags are spread on top of them, which are forbidden areas for money mirrors and are not allowed to be approached. Yuna removed a few unpainted stone slabs, cleared an area, and then sat face to face with Qian Jing at both ends of the sand pool. She handed over a smooth metal rod, about the length of chopsticks for frying fritters. "After a while you connect in the sand pit, then the slate, and finally you become skilled in leather. ”

Qian Jing nodded. The White Flag grocery store had a lot of paper in the warehouse, and he had a picture book with him, which was certainly much better than the bunker. However, he has just learned the importance of following the local customs, and understands that you should not always think that what you are the best is the best, let alone that you are absolutely right, but learn to empathize and listen more.

"How are you learning magic?" Qian Jing shook his head. "Have you listened to the class?" Qian Jing shook his head. "No foundation at all?" Qian Jing nodded and said, "I went to the magic shop, and the crystal balls were all black......"

"I see, it's not a bad thing to start from scratch, because you're not going to learn the same thing as theirs. Yuna said, "You haven't used magic yourself, but you've certainly seen someone else do it, and that's not a good thing." So, the first concept I'm going to tell you is this: magic is not what you see, and your eyes are deceiving you all the time. ”

"The world is complex, you only see a small part of the world around you, and all your senses together don't have enough information to describe the world. Grand Magician Terry (a Stronghold Star historical figure) ushers in the Age of Magic from scratch, and his most famous quote is 'You and I see nothing the same'. Magic is both talent and knowledge, but magic is not your eyes, nose, ears and tongue, and it is not something that these organs that have evolved to survive can easily feel. ”

"You can hold a ball of sand in your hands, using the strength of your muscles. When you use magic, the medium of power is different, but the sand is held in place by the same power. Magic is a medium that does not have the ability to generate energy out of thin air, but is merely a bridge for you to interact with the world around you. Powerful magic is nothing more than a stump from a higher sand dune, causing an even greater collapse. ”

"Now, I'll help you feel the presence of magic. You have to forget for a moment that you have eyes, noses, and ears, and focus on expanding your perception as much as possible. It's a bit contradictory, but eventually you'll find that they're actually coordinated. ”

"Just like a blind person's hearing gets stronger?"

Yuna nodded, placed her fingers on either side of the mirror's head, and asked him to close his eyes. Her mouth is purring, low and rhythmic, and it's easy to immerse yourself in. But Qian Jing didn't understand: "Don't you forget that you have ears?"

"A magician is not blind, deaf, and has no nose, and forgetting means not to see, hear, smell, or use them deliberately. You have to try to tap into the other senses of your body. ”

Other senses?Qian Jing wasn't sure if he had other senses, especially since he wasn't a Fortress Star, and he couldn't even eat the food on the street of the Fortress Starman, so how could he dig up new organs?

He tried to concentrate according to Yuna's method, but he didn't know where to concentrate. It is difficult to directly subvert his worldview and methodology in a short period of time by using these two or three sentences to explain magic to a person from Earth. Qian Jing works hard, but is still trapped in a dark, tasteless world surrounded by gurgling sounds.

Yuna didn't seem to be in a hurry, her fingers were firmly on the money camera, and her voice didn't change in the slightest. Influenced by her, Qian Jing also calmed down, recited "Don't worry" to herself twice, and then thought about what Yuna had just said.

"Magic does not generate energy out of thin air, it is only a medium for the use of power. This medium is an integral part of the world, but ordinary senses are not aware of it. Hey...... I don't think I've seen this before. ”

At this time, he suddenly thought of stickman. Isn't the stickman just using the power of the money mirror to act, so as to affect foreign objects? The stickman is made of mind shaping ink, and the money mirror does not understand the principle of its production, but at least he knows the operation method of the stickman. Just like this universe, Qian Jing doesn't know how everything in the universe came into being, but at least he also knows how some things work. Now he doesn't need to be enlightened to understand the truth of the universe all at once, he just needs to focus his attention on the stickman and find out what the connection between himself and the stickman is, isn't that the medium that the five senses can't detect but actually exists?

Regardless of whether the bond between you and the stickman is the magic of the Stronghold, at least it's a goal that you can concentrate on, and it's much more effective than just thinking about it. Qian Jing held his hands together and secretly drew a small stickman in the palm of his hand. He could feel through his skin that the stickman had crept out between his fingers and hid under his hand, so he tried to concentrate in the direction of the stickman.

"Don't rely on your facial features to feel the stickman, feel it with your mind and heart—it should be like this, right?" After having a goal, Qian Jing was able to calm down, slowly abandon all interference from the outside world, and slowly entered the state with a strange gurgling sound.

Suddenly, Qian Jing suddenly felt the stickman, not the shape, weight, texture or sound, but the "existence" of the stickman. At that moment, in his mind, although no image appeared, he just knew that the stickman was crouching at the moment, and at the same time raised his head to look at him, as if he had also discovered the connection between the two.

It was a very mysterious feeling that could not be told in the words known, but Qian Jing was very sure of what he had caught. At this point, Yuna removed her hand, stopped grunting and said, "Do you feel something?"

"Yes, there is a feeling. But I'm not sure if that's magic - could it be that simple?"

"I don't think it's going to be that simple, but what you did just did was catching magic. I did a meditation training and it took me a full 10 hours to get the senses. Are you sure you've never been exposed to magic and magic training before?"

"Nope. I ......" Qian Jing was a little unconfident: "I don't think I have such a good talent, why don't you work hard, do it again?"

Yuna nodded, her fingers hooked in the air, and a leather painting on the wall flew into her hand, drawing the sunrise over the rolling sand dunes with rough and simple lines. "If you look closely, what's between the lines?"

"Between the lines?" Qian Jing stared intently, trying to widen his eyes. At first, there were only golden lines on the picture, but after a while, he saw the ever-fluctuating and overflowing pale golden brilliance on both sides of the lines. To make sure it wasn't dazzling, Qian Jing took the drawing and looked at it carefully. The brilliance does not diminish because of this, but is connected into a film, and finally flows and changes throughout the picture. Qian Jing brushed his hand over the picture, and the brilliance disappeared until he reappeared after observing it intently again.

"An enviable talent—it seems you can see, it's characteristic of the water elemental energy. Yuna bit her lip and said, "In Fortress Star, there are almost no magic items that use the energy of the water element, and you haven't been specifically studied, so you can't see it. Your body's sense of the water element is very strong, overwhelming, and it emits a completely transparent light in the crystal ball, so the learning methods of the other elements are ineffective against you. Our family can barely make a crystal ball light blue...... I don't know how you managed to keep the water elemental affinity so perfect. ”

Could it be that Qian Jing can tell her that she is an alien, that seventy percent of the planet she came to is sea water, and that she was born and raised by the sea? But when she was a child, she was not criticized for the lack of gold in the five elements, and then said that the five elements were short of water, so she was called Qian Jing, nicknamed Ah Shui, and now she is actually a water element affinity physique? Oh, no, the five elements and the four elements are different.

"The magic obstacle is gone, now it's up to you to see what you're capable of. Yuna picked up the pen, pointed to the bunker and said, "Start with a straight line, and I'll teach you how to use the brush to influence the elements." ”

"Okay, teacher!" Qian Jing was full of confidence.