Chapter 136 Painting Classroom

Under Batchelder's guidance, they re-entered the teaching area. They traversed layer upon layer of spiral staircases, surrounded by dark, inky voids. Gradually, dim yellow lights illuminated their path, the rotating stairs disappearing behind them, replaced by an ancient, stone corridor.

This initial corridor seemed to cradle everything in the teaching area. Lime was solidified on the stone walls, displaying the marks of time. The candlelight reflected off the stone walls, emitting a faint halo, and the air mingled with the scent of ancient rock and a slight dampness.

Each corridor had its unique characteristics, whether it was a carving, a worn spot, or even a special metal floor tile.

These subtle differences were Batchelder's important clues for recognizing each corridor.

Lan Qi and Hyperion followed Batchelder's footsteps, passing through corridor after corridor, slowly delving into the depths.

Finally, Batchelder stopped in front of an exquisite and small wooden door.

Imprinted on the door were three demon marks.

"Rumor has it that this is a painting classroom, and it's one of the few art-related classes with a difficulty of 3," Batchelder explained to the two.

Hearing this, Hyperion instinctively took a half-step back. She seemed to be a little traumatized.

In her eyes, the art of the demon realm was now somewhat terrifying.

She still couldn't forget the music classroom with a difficulty of 2 that they previously visited.

However, no matter what, music magic happened to match Lan Qi's strongest point, because his natal magic card [Great Poet] was a summon of the music magic type.

And now, they had encountered a painting classroom with a higher difficulty.

"Lan Qi... how good are you at painting?" Hyperion asked him.

"I know a thing or two," Lan Qi smiled calmly.

"Mm." This put Hyperion at ease.

Although she didn't know how confident Lan Qi was, she knew she could trust him.

Next, Lan Qi walked ahead and pushed open the door. Hyperion followed him into this seemingly refreshing little classroom.

The interior of the classroom was circular. The walls were made of gray-white stone slabs and murals. There was no traditional front and back, but all the seats were arranged around a central round table, forming a complete circular view.

This design allowed the teacher to interact more easily with each student and made it more convenient for students to discuss.

It was also the most normal classroom that Lan Qi had seen so far.

[Seminar: Demon Realm Art Appreciation]

[Location: f17 Corridor, Art Storage & Seminar Study Room]

Clear words were written on the gray-white stone slabs on the wall.

It seemed that every wall in this classroom could be used as a whiteboard for teaching.

The basic rules of this classroom were also very clear.

[No attacking other students]

[Seminar Content: Appreciating paintings to determine whether they were created by the academy's professors]

[Senior Professor Mogut will randomly select works from the art storage—]

[They may be paintings created by several art professors in the academy, or they may be works by former graduates. There will be differences in painting level.]

[Students need to identify them.]

When Lan Qi and Hyperion walked in and took their seats, there were only five students in total.

An elderly demon professor was standing at one end of the classroom, looking at the pocket watch in his hand, feeling that class time was approaching.

The demon professor silently opened the door behind him, went to the art storage, and pushed out a small cart loaded with paintings. Then, he found four of them and hung them on the wall so that the five students could see them clearly.

"I am the senior professor of the art department of this academy. I will first show you a few examples. For example, these two are works by the art professors of the academy, and the other two are works by students," the demon professor Mogut said unhurriedly, pointing to the paintings on the wall.

The students in the classroom immediately turned their attention to the paintings, observing them intently.

Because the forms of the paintings were different, with oil paintings, watercolors, and charcoal drawings among the four, Hyperion didn't find the contrast very strong. She couldn't even tell the quality of the four paintings at all.

Lan Qi, on the other hand, rested his chin in his hand, glanced at the four paintings, and then nodded slightly.

"The rules for later are: 1 point will be added for a correct answer, and 1 point will be deducted for an incorrect answer. If you don't answer a question every five minutes, 1 point will be automatically deducted. If you are in a negative score state, the professor will execute you."

"If no one takes the initiative to answer in the first round, then I will randomly select one, and then complete a round of answering in a clockwise direction. From the second round, you can enter the free-for-all answering mode."

"At the end of this class, you must not be deducted into a negative score to pass, and the higher the score, the better the reward you will receive. Currently, the highest record is 21 points," Professor Mogut said, looking around at the five students.

The current students didn't seem to be anything special, and the hope of breaking the record was not high.

...

In the Demon Engineering Institute's laboratory, bright yellow lights illuminated the messy workbenches and the dazzling array of tools. Although it was late at night, several students could still be seen sitting in front of a large screen, playing a demon realm shadow world live broadcast that was as shocking as reality.

The faces of these students were tired but excited, their eyes fixed on the screen, as if watching a game.

The program effect of this demon realm shadow world was really explosive.

Although they had all been forced to wear masks of pain by Lan Qi in the music classroom before, they had gradually discovered that Lan Qi was actually a trouble maker. They had never seen such a crazy shadow world.

"Will a level 3 classroom be more terrifying than the previous level 2 music classroom?" Some demon artisans couldn't help but have the same concerns as Hyperion.

"Definitely, but even if I'm tortured, I want to see the Great Poet. She's so beautiful, I really want to..."

"Cough! People can't, and shouldn't fall in love with magic cards! You must read Professor Bolaro's *Ethical Code for Card Makers* again!"

"By the way, if you don't understand painting appreciation, how can you tell the difference?" The demon artisans in front of the screen discussed after hearing the rules.

However, beside another workbench, a young man sitting on a sofa pointed out, "Actually, in addition to the difference in skill level, the brushstrokes on the paintings should leave some traces of magic power. If you have extremely precise magic power identification abilities, you can detect the magic power characteristics of the painter. Answer a few more questions, and based on the previous answers, you can gradually memorize the magic power characteristics of the academy's professors. Subsequent identification will become easier."

"The real difficulty of this classroom lies in the first few questions at the beginning, which are undoubtedly the riskiest, because there is no information to build on, so you can only rely purely on analyzing painting skills or taking a gamble."

The young man's words enlightened the sophomores in the front row.

"As expected of His Highness Ainuer!" The sophomores turned back and gave the young man a thumbs up.

And the young man on the sofa, who was none other than Ainuer, the Second Prince of the Kingdom of Hutton, grinned.

He didn't seem to have any aristocratic airs at all, just like an ordinary senior.

"Didn't Her Highness Vivian say that this guy named Lan Qi is good at appreciating paintings? Wouldn't that mean he would be in his element in this classroom?" The silver-ranked card maker girl was still by his side, asking Ainuer.

"No, no, the difficulty is very high. The art style of the lost era of the demon realm is very unfamiliar to us humans. And even if I were to appraise the four paintings used as examples, I wouldn't be able to say for sure." Ainuer frowned slightly and pondered.

"Then what is the probability that you can correctly appraise the next painting?" The girl asked, gazing at Ainuer's handsome, worldly face.

"A full fifty percent," Ainuer replied confidently.

"?" The girl was stunned.

She thought that all true-false questions had at least a 50% chance of being guessed correctly, right?

Then, she gritted her teeth and held back her anger, clenching her fists tightly.