Choice

"Mr. Adam, please go in first." The servant trotted over, sounding far more cordial. "Follow this path, pass through the main hall, then take the corridor on the right. You'll find Master Alva."

"Please forgive Ai for being unable to accompany you."

Yet Adam could sense that, while Ai was speaking, the old man glanced at him again.

Adam nodded, offered his thanks, and walked inside, still able to hear the conversation behind him.

"Mr. Ai, please announce us." The old man's voice carried a tremor he was trying desperately to suppress.

"My apologies, Master Alva is not home." Ai lied through his teeth. Even without turning around, Adam could sense the dark expressions on the old man and the coachman's faces.

Even Adam was somewhat astonished. Alva's servant was rather impressive.

At the same time, he was curious what this noble wanted from Alva that Alva had refused to even let him through the door.

Before entering the main entrance, though, Adam vaguely heard the old man mention something about collecting a painting for a friend.

"This doesn't match Alva's image at all." Looking at the resplendent, gold-decked hall, Adam recalled Alva's usual appearance and felt a distinct sense of incongruity.

"The corridor on the right." Adam stepped across the soft carpet. Following Ai's directions, he passed through the right-hand corridor and saw a room filled with portraits.

The instant he entered the room, Adam frowned. A sense of discomfort rose within him.

It felt as if countless people were watching him, like in middle school when a teacher had called on him to stand and read from the textbook, only for the entire class to laugh at him because of his accent.

A surge of shame and anger rose from the depths of his heart, making Adam instinctively want to explode.

"No, this place is exerting some kind of inducement." But Adam quickly came to his senses. His middle-school days from his previous life had been so long ago that, unless he deliberately recalled them, he had forgotten most of what happened.

Even if being watched and the similar situation had reminded him of that incident, the Adam of today would not have felt such shame and fury.

Clearly, this room possessed some special effect, much like a bloodline tracing one's past and causing a person to unconsciously reveal their own abnormalities.

Realizing this, Adam immediately calmed his emotions and returned himself to a composed state.

"What a nuisance. So there really wasn't a problem?" Alva's voice came from behind him. He stood there in white robes, still covered in all kinds of paint.

"Come with me." Alva spoke impatiently and turned to leave.

"Yes, Teacher." Adam hurriedly composed himself and nodded. Before leaving, he glanced at the paintings.

Most were portraits, with only a small number of landscapes. The people in those portraits seemed to have come alive, their eyes fixed on Adam.

Then he sharply noticed a portrait of three people. It was the only portrait whose figures did not feel alive, which made it stand out all the more.

The painting was extremely realistic. Adam did not linger over it, quickly following Alva out.

"Wait..." The moment he left the corridor, Adam sensed something wrong. Turning around, he saw not a corridor, but a painting of one.

"Teacher, this painting?" Adam did not conceal his shock as he asked. Only then did he understand why, when Ai had given him directions, that old man had specifically glanced at him.

"And that painting." Adam remembered the portrait of the three people clearly. They were three young men.

One sat in the middle, smiling especially happily. If he were older and more unkempt, he would look much like Alva now.

"And the other one..." The person who had left the deepest impression on Adam was the man on the left. The portrait had realistically captured his gloomy face, giving Adam an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

As for the man on the right, Adam neither knew nor recognized him.

There was also a signature in the lower-right corner of the painting: Alva Ratu.

A name surfaced in Adam's mind: the Holy Sound Three Heroes.

"Archpriest Xia Ya." Comparing Archpriest Xia Ya's peaceful, wrinkle-lined face with that gloomy young man, the source of that familiarity was finally explained.

"Could Alva also be cultivating the knight path?" Adam did not quite understand.

After all, a person's energy was limited. Geniuses existed, but there were few who could push two professions to their peaks.

If not for his bloodline ability, Jin would not have advised Adam to cultivate both sorcery and knighthood.

Judging by Alva's earlier performance, Adam had thought he was more likely a sorcerer. After all, he struggled to lift even a bucket of paint.

In this world, there were quite a few methods of extending one's lifespan. However, most Church clergy believed that birth, aging, illness, and death were the natural order, so they aged and died normally.

Sorcerers, due to their focus on the soul, had many ways to prolong their lives, but most were related to mutant bloodlines.

The most conventional way to extend one's lifespan was knight cultivation. So long as no accidents occurred, Dimension-stage knights generally lived to around one hundred and twenty.

Knights who completed the merit ritual could live to around three hundred. As for how long Ascension-stage knights could theoretically live, no one discussed it, because the first knight to reach the Ascension stage was still alive after more than a thousand years.

"It seems I still know far too little about supernatural powers." Adam frowned. Lacking an understanding of the traits of powerful figures in each profession was dangerous. Put simply, he could not recognize the big shots.

As a border city, Roa usually seemed to be inhabited by ordinary people. Even when there were professionals, they did not stand out. Yet after looking deeper, one would discover that Roa's waters ran deep indeed.

"You don't need to understand any of that. Just follow me." Alva walked ahead, speaking indifferently. Adam could only make himself appear as calm as possible.

They then arrived at the true studio, filled with canvases, paints, brushes, and other such items.

Standing in the studio, Alva placed two things before Adam.

"Your talent truly is not bad. You actually awakened your spiritual power naturally." Alva still frowned. Though he was praising Adam, he made no attempt to hide his dislike for him.

"Spiritual power? The power formed by that intention? Teacher, you know about it?" Adam paused, worked his emotions into place, and asked with a look of sudden realization. Alva looked at him with complicated eyes. Adam truly was talented, but he did not like people like Adam, people brimming with ambition. If they all died, the world would be quieter.

"Adam needs proper guidance, Alva." His old friend Xia Ya's words still echoed in Alva's ears, but he and that old friend had never truly seen eye to eye.

"Congratulations. Thousand Paintings House didn't draw out the abnormalities in your mind." Alva did not answer Adam's question. Instead, he offered congratulations, though regret showed on his face.

Then he tapped the two items before him. One was a paintbrush; the other was a letter.

"So, you have an opportunity to choose." Alva pointed at the paintbrush. "One choice is to continue studying painting with me. I will teach you all my painting skills, and you will inherit my gallery."

"The other is this letter of introduction. Take it, and he will guide you to find someone who can teach you how to develop your spiritual power."

"Adam, I know people like you very well. Your ambition will never allow you to stop at becoming a renowned painter. Take the letter and leave at once. This is my advice to you as your teacher."

Alva pushed the letter forward. His words seemed to urge Adam to take it and get lost as quickly as possible.

Since his questions had not yielded any further information from Alva, Adam could only consider the choice Alva had given him.

Yet inwardly, his mind was calculating frantically. On the surface, Alva wanted Adam to choose the letter and abandon the paintbrush.

But given the disgust Alva had shown toward him, he did not seem like someone who would offer Adam advice. Therefore, choosing the paintbrush was very likely the right choice.

Since entering this manor, Thousand Paintings House, the gallery corridor, and the unusual servant had all directly demonstrated that Alva was anything but ordinary. From that perspective, continuing to study painting and inheriting everything Alva had was a visible reward.

"But Alva said I would inherit his gallery, and what he promised was only his painting skills. It has nothing to do with anything else." Adam looked at Alva. He knew the expression on the other man's face well.

It was instinctive disgust, yet because of certain reasons, he had no choice but to face Adam.

The difference was that the man before him had given Adam a choice, even if it was riddled with traps.

Alva's earlier actions had merely drawn Adam into a battle of wits—thinking he was on the first level while you were on the second, when in truth he stood on the fifth, and so on.

When faced with such thousand-layer schemes, Adam chose to discard those seemingly enticing temptations and choose what he needed.

Adam picked up the letter.

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