Painting and Calligraphy

"Senior Brother Ouyang, please, stop stripping it bare! If you take any more, the Sect-Guarding Grand Formation won't even activate!" a youth in an ordinary blue Daoist robe pleaded with Ouyang.

Iron pickaxe in hand, Ouyang was prying top-grade spirit stone essence out of the ground.

This top-grade spirit stone essence existed only in the deepest reaches of spirit stone veins and was exceedingly rare. Whether for cultivation or refining magic treasures, it was an indispensable material.

Only a top-tier sect like the Azure Cloud Sect would use it to construct the Sect-Guarding Grand Formation.

"What's the panic? If the sect leader hands down a punishment, just say I did it. Here, this piece is yours. As long as I've got a bite to eat, how could I leave you hungry?" Ouyang declared grandly, a sack slung over his back, as he stuffed a scrap into the youth's hands.

The youth trembled as he accepted the top-grade spirit stone essence Ouyang offered him. This single piece was worth half a year's cultivation resources.

And the sack on Ouyang's back held a whole half-sack of it!

This fellow had pried his way through the entire Sect-Guarding Grand Formation!

If Punishment Peak's enforcement squad caught an ordinary person doing this, they would strip a layer of skin off him, if they didn't kill him outright.

You dared pry apart the Sect-Guarding Grand Formation, and you still claimed you weren't a traitor?

But while this fellow was prying away, the enforcement squad happened to pass by, and he even greeted them:

"Where have you fellows been?"

"Senior Brother Ouyang, the Peak Master sent us to patrol the mountain. What are you doing?"

"Oh, we're a little short on spirit stones at home, so I came to dig some up and take them back. A man has to stand on his own two feet."

"Need a hand, Senior Brother Ouyang?"

"No need. I'll dig up a little more and head back. It's almost lunchtime..."

That was the conversation Ouyang had with the senior brothers of the enforcement squad while swinging his pickaxe!

Were they all blind?

He was mining inside the Sect-Guarding Grand Formation!

If an ordinary Inner Disciple so much as gave the Sect-Guarding Grand Formation an extra glance, these men would step forward and ask whether he was a traitor.

Yet this Senior Brother Ouyang had been digging here for nearly two hours!

Still, rumor had it that this senior brother was the sect leader's illegitimate son.

Well, that explained everything!

The youth who had been desperately begging Ouyang to dig up less flipped one hand over. The top-grade spirit stone essence vanished from his palm, and he left as though nothing had happened.

Ouyang wiped the sweat from his forehead, hoisted the half-sack of top-grade spirit stone essence onto his back, and headed toward Little Mountain Peak.

He had barely taken two steps when a middle-aged man wrapped in black robes blocked his path.

Standing before Ouyang, the middle-aged man said coldly, "Deliberately damaging the Sect-Guarding Grand Formation and stealing the sect's spirit stones. Do you admit your crimes?"

Ouyang looked at the newcomer and grinned. "Martial Uncle Li, have you eaten?"

"Wicked disciple! What a fine disciple Hu Yun has taken in! To think you would commit such an outrageous act of defiance!" the middle-aged man barked, his eyes cold and fierce.

Ouyang couldn't be bothered to waste words. He took a book from his Storage Bag and sent it flying toward the middle-aged man.

Glimpses of stunning, scantily clad women could be seen between its pages.

"What a fine hidden weapon!" the middle-aged man growled. He spread his black robes, and in an instant, heaven and earth went dark, as though the entire world had been drawn into them.

By the time Ouyang's vision returned to normal, the middle-aged man was gone.

"Every time he wants a dirty book, he makes it look like the sect's being annihilated, terrified someone might see him. That old virgin sure has a lot of pent-up heat," Ouyang muttered.

The man who had just stopped Ouyang was Li Yi, Punishment Peak Master. His cultivation was unfathomable, yet he had a passionate love for painting and calligraphy.

When he first saw the realistic portraits Ouyang produced, he had been utterly astonished by their heavenly artistry, lavishing praise on the books' riveting plots and their heroines' dramatic ups and downs.

So every so often, he would find some excuse to borrow another volume from Ouyang.

When Ouyang returned to Little Mountain Peak with the top-grade spirit stone essence on his back, the little courtyard was unusually lively.

Xiao Feng stood bare-chested, his sculpted bronze muscles dazzling in the afternoon sunlight.

Hu Tutu hugged the Tibetan Fox, staring dumbstruck, with shameful tears trickling from the corners of her mouth.

Chen Changsheng held a brush and sketched an outline on Xiao Feng's back.

Five divine beasts appeared on Xiao Feng's back, each rendered so vividly it seemed alive.

A dragon stretched over his shoulder, a tiger descended a mountain, the Black Tortoise raised its head, the Vermilion Bird lowered its head, and a Qilin kept its eyes closed.

With each breath Xiao Feng took, the five divine beasts seemed to come alive, slowly moving across his back.

No wonder even the master of Punishment Peak couldn't get enough of this artistry. If he actually painted a cute girl with enormous knockers, who could withstand it?

Looking at Xiao Feng's back, Ouyang spared no praise for Chen Changsheng's skill.

Chen Changsheng's face flushed red, and he loudly insisted that he had never painted anything like that.

But his protest only drew a burst of laughter, filling the courtyard with merriment.

Ouyang tipped the sack onto the ground, scattering multicolored spirit stone essence everywhere. Dense primordial qi of heaven and earth radiated from it.

To outsiders, this spirit stone essence was something they could scarcely obtain even in their dreams. Yet among those present, only Xiao Feng looked like a bumpkin seeing the world for the first time; everyone else regarded it as though it were trash.

"Senior Brother, I told you before you left that the innermost ring of the Sect-Guarding Grand Formation had the best quality. How come there's none here?" Chen Changsheng asked Ouyang, bending down to rummage through the pieces.

"I wanted to dig up the middle too, but that old fossil of a sect leader put restrictions on it. I couldn't get anywhere near it," Ouyang said with a sigh.

Chen Changsheng hadn't truly expected Ouyang to bring back spirit stone essence from the very center of the Sect-Guarding Grand Formation.

That was the most crucial part of the entire formation. Even if the sect leader allowed them to fool around, they couldn't take it too far.

"This will be enough. Come on, Junior Brother Xiao. I'll grind this essence into fragments and embed them in your body. It'll hurt badly, so bear with it," Chen Changsheng said as he gathered up the spirit stone essence.

Xiao Feng nodded. Compared with finally being able to cultivate, a little pain was nothing!

But he had still underestimated the pain of spirit stone essence entering his body.

To embed the spirit stone essence firmly and completely in Xiao Feng's body, nearly every piece had to sink deep into his flesh.

There were thousands of fragments, and every single one brought pain that bored straight into his heart.

To make the spirit stone essence more effective, Chen Changsheng also activated the primordial qi of heaven and earth within it.

Thousands of spirit stone fragments pierced Xiao Feng's body like thousands of scorching-hot nails.

Under such torture, Xiao Feng actually endured the entire process without making a sound.

When the painting was complete, Chen Changsheng wiped the sweat from his forehead in satisfaction and admired the Five-Direction Divine Beast Painting he had just created.

This might well be the finest painting he would produce in his lifetime.

Enhanced by the top-grade spirit stone essence, the five divine beasts looked even more vivid. One could almost hear dragons roaring, phoenixes crying, and tigers growling.

If Xiao Feng walked bare-chested down a street in Ouyang's previous life, he would be arrested within a few steps and questioned about whether he was some underworld kingpin.

But none of the five divine beasts had their eyes dotted, leaving them without any true spark of life.

The task of dotting their eyes had been left to Ouyang.

The eye-dotting stroke would awaken the divine beasts' intelligence!

This was also the hardest step in this act of stealing from heaven, so they had to proceed with the utmost caution!