Sugar Painting was something most people probably saw often as children, but it had become much rarer in recent years.
Simply put, it was an artistic sweet made by melting sugar to the right consistency, drawing whatever shape the buyer wanted on a clean slate, then attaching a Wooden Stick and letting it cool and set. For children nowadays, it was something with more decorative value than edible value.
As an inheritor of intangible traditional cultural heritage, Cheng Tian had properly earned his certification. And as a young middle-aged man, his ideas were clearly far more freewheeling than his master's.
Compared to the Twelve Zodiacs designs randomly selected by a spinning arrow fixed to a slate, Cheng Tian was clearly more in touch with the times and had put a great deal of effort into expanding his Sugar Painting design options.
He would ask at convenience stores near schools of all sizes that he frequented, mainly about which cards sold well and what kinds of toys were more popular, then incorporate the things those children liked into his Sugar Painting repertoire.
Honestly, these "new-style Sugar Paintings" sold much better than traditional designs. There were simply more little boys and girls who liked Ultraman, Armor Hero, My Little Pony, Barbie Doll, and the exquisite character art from mobile games than there were children who liked the Twelve Zodiacs. Occasionally, even adults could not resist spending money at Cheng Tian's stall.
Cheng Tian also took the opportunity to openly slip his own personal favorites into the mix. You would not find the Twelve Zodiacs on his random Sugar Painting wheel, but you could find special Sugar Painting designs like Fire Flower, Kirby, Wolf Jeep, Pikachu, Frostmourne, and more.
Starting today, though, his Sugar Painting designs would gain a new image: Ghost Cicada.
His new-style Sugar Paintings naturally cost more as well. Small ones were fifteen yuan, large ones were thirty, and some complicated custom designs could even go for fifty each.
That only referred to flat ones. Three-dimensional Sugar Sculptures cost twice as much, though orders for such sculptures generally only came during temple fairs or cultural arts festivals. Normally, Sugar Paintings remained his main business.
But whether it was a Sugar Painting or a Sugar Sculpture, what customers were really paying for was the making process—the chance to admire these fleeting works of art. Once they had seen enough, they would crunch them up and eat them. No one was going to take one home, freeze it, and admire it every day.
Cheng Tian's master was not some stubborn old fossil either. The reason he had asked Cheng Tian what Ultraman looked like was because he was getting ready to make an Ultraman Sugar Painting.
Only an idiot turned down money~
This line of work would not make him rich, but it let him live comfortably enough, with only himself to feed.
He could set up his stall whenever he wanted and stay home whenever he wanted. On top of that, Cheng Tian neither smoked nor drank, much less gambled or touched drugs, and his lifestyle was practically the opposite of consumerism. Even if he did nothing now, his savings would be enough for him to live easily, without pinching pennies, for four or five years.
Cheng Tian had always treated his Sugar Painting business as both a livelihood and a hobby.
Unfortunately, Sugar Painting would probably become the neglected old wife in Cheng Tian's eyes—
He had clearly found something like Chosen Space that he was more passionate about, something worth pouring his energy and even his life into.
After directly sending his master the reference image of the same Sugar Painting he had saved earlier, Cheng Tian prepared to feast, then get a good night's sleep.
He would rest up before facing the beautiful Gotham City~
By all normal bodily standards, after seven or eight hours of intermittent, intense fighting yesterday—including solo battles against powerful units like the Red Demon and the Cyclops—Cheng Tian should have been suffering from severe post-battle pain. Yet he climbed out of bed like nothing had happened.
Forget sore muscles or legs too weak to lift. He even felt healthier than ever before. He had no idea whether it was natural talent or the improved bodily recovery brought by those 6 points of Strength.
The increase in his physical condition was obvious, yet it did not feel abrupt at all. There was no crushing water cups or breaking door handles when he turned them. But when he looked in the mirror, he could clearly see that the fat that had once been obvious on his body was gone.
Oh, right—his appetite had increased greatly too. First thing in the morning, he wolfed down five steamers of Beef Soup Dumplings and three huge bowls of Preserved Egg Lean Pork Congee. His carb intake was completely maxed out!
If his appetite kept growing at this rate, his savings probably would not last four or five years...
The thought only flashed through Cheng Tian's mind before he dismissed it at lightning speed. Not long afterward, Cheng Tian, who had very little real-world nonsense to deal with, reappeared in Chosen Space.
Cheng Tian did not rush straight into a dungeon. Instead, he first went to South District and found someone who looked exactly like that person, no matter how he looked at her.
"If Nen energy could be added to bullets, wouldn't that be so cool~"
Beside the woman, who was muttering those incredibly familiar words to herself, stood an equally familiar enhancement machine. Cheng Tian clicked his tongue as he walked over, then pulled out his newly acquired Crystal Wingman and decisively began the enhancement.
As Blue Excellent equipment, enhancing it for the first time required 1,000 Chosen Coin. The higher the enhancement level, the more it cost, while the success rate fell further. It could even result in lost enhancement levels or the item exploding.
Furthermore, depending on the characteristics of the item being enhanced, high-level enhancement might require special materials as accelerants.
Fortunately, most Magic Equipment had a 100 percent enhancement rate up through Enhancement +4. Enhancement +4 was probably the most cost-effective level among all equipment enhancement tiers, because every time equipment reached +4, +7, +10, +14, and so on, it received a small qualitative boost.
It either granted the equipment a new enchantment or strengthened its existing enchanted skills.
Therefore, under normal circumstances, Players would first focus their resources on enhancing one piece of equipment before considering others, rather than ending up in the awkward situation of having four or five pieces of equipment all sitting at +2 or +3.
Oh, you wanted to know how Cheng Tian knew these enhancement rules?
He had asked Aunt Kaster, one of the staff members at the Mission Hall!
Auntie was amazing!
After trading a set of Knight Armor for Old Fan's Classic Four Four-piece Set, combined with the Equipment and Items Cheng Tian already possessed, he clearly had more choices. But after considering it again and again, he still chose to enhance the Crystal Wingman first.
After selling the Giant King Statue directly to the space, Cheng Tian finally managed to enhance the Crystal Wingman to +4, leaving himself with only a two-digit number of Chosen Coins.
For the time being, he had not sold the Knight Armor, but he was otherwise completely dry. This was also in keeping with Cheng Tian's usual style: before battle, he would convert his resources into combat strength as extremely as possible. He even exchanged his final dozen or so coins for ordinary gold coins usable in most dungeons, ensuring he had some starting capital within the dungeon.
He did not rush to sell the Knight Armor either, keeping it on him as insurance.
However, Cheng Tian, already enveloped by the teleportation light, had no idea that right after he left the Mission Hall upon accepting the mission yesterday, the remaining three slots for that mission had all been taken...
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