Dark Abyss found it novel. Seeing it once truly surpassed hearing of it a hundred times.
Body painting was one of the Rhetoric System's abilities, another clone technique distinct from Word Spirits.
The foundation of Word Spirits was "words," one of Rhetoric's three fundamental essences. The foundation of body painting was "beauty," the second of those three essences—an ability developed from aesthetics, an extension of painting.
Its core principle was this: portraits were reflections of humanity. Whether realistic or expressive, depicting objects or impressions, restoring or distorting, they all dissected some facet of a person and were bound to humanity by countless threads.
Shen Sao Ye's pen pal Bai Qian had been able to paint in midair and find Hu Zi through this very principle. When that principle was pushed to its limit, the method of "body painting" emerged.
Different body-painting methods each possessed their own mysteries, but overall, they differed from Word Spirits in three ways. First, body painting required actual material as a medium—namely, "paint" and "paper." Unlike Word Spirits, it could not exist in pure emptiness, and naturally could not come with invisibility. Second, the distance limit between a body painting and its original body was far greater than that of Word Spirits. Third, body paintings did not require the original body's constant focus to control them.
It sounded perfect, didn't it?
But nothing in this world was perfect.
For one thing, a body painting's original body was relatively fragile. For another, it could not house the Primordial Spirit as Word Spirits could. But the most treacherous part was this: your painting might not obey you.
A painting was not your slave, but your reflection. If you were wholly self-serving, it would be born with rebellion in its bones.
"Then," Dark Abyss bent down, his pressure crashing