Reincarnated As God - Chapter 35 Eight Long Years

Meng Li took out the painting equipment but he didn’t set it up yet. He wanted to find a subject to study – although it wouldn’t matter much, it was a matter of preference.

While looking around, he couldn’t help but appreciate the view once again – it was truly magical. However, he could now vaguely sense that capturing the view’s essence would be extremely difficult. He shook his head slightly and looked for a smaller object. The trance he had fallen into yesterday was the main point which allowed him to capture the tree so well. To comprehend the Dao of Painting, he needed to start small. After all, though the trance made him create something which the current him could consider a masterpiece, he was, after all, a novice. Thus, a simple object would be more fitting.

He settled on a small herb growing a few meters away from the cliff. He didn’t know its’ name, but he didn’t have to. First, before even starting drawing, he observed the herb. It was small – less than ten centimetres in height. It was like a mutated clover – with quite a complicated branch structure, and every small green branch ending in precisely three leaves. Meng Li carefully counted the branches – there were eleven in total. The herb grew in small patches, but Meng Li chose one which grew about a meter away from the large patch, so it was not obscured by other small plants.

With his observation finished, Meng Li got the canvas. This time, he placed it on the rack much lower than when he was painting the tree. To precisely observe the herb he would sit, and it would be far easier to paint while sitting too.

Once again, while being faced with a blank canvas, he was conflicted on where to start, but he shrug his shoulders and put a straight line of green on the canvas. Which branch it would end up as wasn’t important – what was important was that he needed to start somewhere.

While focusing on the small herb, he continued to add more brushes. Gradually, the shape of the herb started to show on the canvas. However, anyone would be able to tell that there were some differences between the herb on the canvas and the herb which Meng Li was focusing on. Unfortunately, Meng Li simply glanced at the painting once in a while, so he didn’t notice the differences.

After a while, Meng Li was satisfied with the level of detail he had saw and recorded on the canvas and decided to see the result. Immediately, he was stunned.

‘This… Looks nothing like what I wanted to paint!’ Meng Li was astounded. He was practically sure that the strokes of his brush would perfectly resemble the herb. However, the reality showed up and slapped him straight across the face.

It was an important lesson – even though Meng Li had a great control over his body, it still wasn’t perfect. Even though his hands didn’t tremble when he held them in the air, when it came to moving them, he still didn’t have total control over it. If anything, the great control wasn’t a result of experience, but rather the capabilities of his body and the systems which made it up – the muscles, nerves, etc.

Another thing which Meng Li didn’t account for is the fact that he didn’t have enough experience to be able to perfectly tell what a stroke of the brush would leave on the canvas. In short, he needed practice.

Meng Li was a bit disappointed, but not discouraged. He put the canvas away into his bag of holding and summoned a new one. He didn’t want to throw them out – his earliest paintings would some day make him realize how far he had come.

In total, Meng Li had spent about an hour on painting the herb, though he didn’t fall in the trance he experienced the previous day.

Time passed by quickly. Meng Li suddenly realized that the sun was actually setting, and that the light would soon be gone.

This day, he had went through more than ten blank canvases – none of the resulting paintings contained the essence of the thing he was painting, but he could see that he had made some progress.

Despite still not being perfect depictions, his paintings had improved immensely, with better use of colour and shapes of the brush strokes.

Meng Li switched objects several times – he first did so after the fourth painting, when he got bored with the small herb. In the end, he did about two to three paintings before moving on. He also stored all of the paintings, without throwing anything out. That was the reason that he was able to notice the fact that he was getting better. It encouraged him to come back the next day to paint more – even if he managed to comprehend the Dao of Painting, it would be quite useless if he couldn’t paint, no?

And after the day, Meng Li noticed that painting itself was relaxing and enjoyable – if he produced something which looked good and he was proud of it, he got a sense of satisfaction – similar to the satisfaction he got from cultivating.

During the day, Ye Jian had stayed calmly at home to cultivate. Although he was able to achieve better efficiency in the wild, the battle had ended not too long ago, and as such, the wild could still be dangerous.

The next day, Meng Li came to the cliff once again. He chose a new object – this time the rock at the centre of the small clearing he was frequenting. Despite numerous tries, he was unable to capture its’ essence. Even lifeless objects were quite hard to replicate perfectly. However, Meng Li was not discouraged. He found that even without the attraction of the Dao of Painting, he liked it. Even if he wasn’t able to comprehend the Dao, he would still keep on painting simply because it was enjoyable.

The next few months passed by uneventfully. Meng Li kept on coming into the mountains every day to paint, though he left the small clearing at the top of the cliff since he ran out of interesting things to paint. He still didn’t attempt to paint the view – he felt that with his insufficient skills, he would make the gorgeous view a disservice if he tried to paint it right now. He remembered it for later, for when his skills had grown to a sufficiently high level.

At some point during those few months, Ye Jian eventually returned to training in the mountains – he sensed that the experts had already all left after the time. He managed to break through to the seventh layer of Qi Gathering with the Heaven Connecting Tea, and he was already approaching the middle of the layer. The heavenly tea was really useful to him, even though he didn’t use its’ most valuable effect – the comprehension increase. It was extremely wasteful – even the richest people in the world would cough blood if they saw him doing so.

Meng Li had continued drinking tea during those few months, even though he had switched to a different, higher level herb. The new tea had an effect of clearing the mind and helping a cultivator comprehend the heavenly secrets. It also had small benefits to cultivation, but they were too violent for Qi Gathering cultivators – thus Meng Li didn’t give it to Ye Jian. The tea was made from an Origin Core spiritual herb, a Seven Leafed Heavenly Orchid. The orchid itself was the most valuable part for normal cultivators, giving a huge boost to their cultivation. However, to Meng Li, it was useless – from the many novels he had read, although heavenly resources had a great effect, they also made the foundation unstable. Meng Li had ten times the lifespan of a normal cultivator at his level – he didn’t worry about not being able to cultivate fast. Thus, he simply threw the orchid, plucked of its’ leaves into his bag of holding. He had accumulated more than a dozen before the option to summon individual leaves appeared in the summoning tab.

More years passed by unknowingly. Meng Li had given up on his small house and instead chose to live in the mountains, cultivating at night under the night sky and painting during the day. He didn’t make much progress with comprehending the Dao of Painting, but his painting skills had grown to an incredible level. He was able to practically copy every object he wanted to, but all of the paintings still lacked that… Something. It was the essence – the essence of an object. His paintings still lacked it, and he had no idea how to imbue it into them. As such, he could only practice.

One day, Meng Li was preparing to start his usual routine and had already taken out an equipment, before his peaceful face suddenly changed. A small frown appeared on his face, but it disappeared in a split second. He collected the things he took out with a wave of his hand and simply disappeared from the place he was standing on. Only a few marks in the grass gave any evidence that someone was standing in the spot.

What happened was that Meng Li felt a small jolt to his consciousness. At first, he was confused by what was happening, but he remembered practically instantly. It was a sliver of his Spiritual Sense he had left in a small jade slip which he left to Ye Jian when he moved out all those years ago.

It was the only way Ye Jian had of alerting him. Thus, Meng Li wasted no time and teleported to where he felt the jolt from.
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He appeared from thin air, but it seemed like he was there for a very long time. He looked at Ye Jian, standing before him. Ye Jian held two pieces of the jade slip Meng Li had left him, but otherwise his face was peaceful, without any signs of danger around. As such, Meng Li relaxed.

Ye Jian was already sixteen this year – he had grown from a small kid into a young adult when Meng Li wandered the mountains. His hair was long, but he tied it behind his back with a piece of string, unlike Meng Li, who let his hair fall wherever.

“What’s the matter?” Meng Li asked Ye Jian. His voice was quite hoarse since he didn’t talk for a long time while in the mountains.

“Nothing’s wrong, but I have decided that I’m ready to go and adventure. I want to go see the island you chose, and not by simply teleporting there. I’ve reached the peak of the ninth layer of Qi Gathering, and can set off immediately after breaking through to the Qi Sea Realm.” Ye Jian told Meng Li.

“Hmm? Only the ninth layer? You should cultivate to the tenth layer, that way your foundation will be much more stable.” Meng Li frowned slightly and informed Ye Jian. He didn’t want Ye Jian to have subpar achievements in the future simply because he didn’t break through to the tenth layer of Qi Gathering.

“What? What tenth layer?” Ye Jian simply exclaimed in surprise. If this was told to him by anyone else, he would’ve dismissed it immediately, but since it came from Meng Li, who created enough miracles for Ye Jian to take him seriously.

“You don’t know? How come?” Meng Li was confused. He couldn’t help but ask the system about this.

[The tenth layer, although being part of the cultivation path, is something which is usually sealed in most worlds, making it ten times harder to achieve. This world is unsealed by master, but people choose to break through to Qi Sea immediately instead of exploring.] the system explained. Meng Li felt more and more that the system would tell him most of the important things only if he had asked it about them out right. He sighed slightly.

“Try feeling your cultivation base. Apart from the possibility of breaking through to Qi Sea Realm, is there another possibility?” Meng Li instructed. Ye Jian looked at him doubtfully, but still dove in to check his cultivation base. To his surprise, apart from the overwhelming feeling of being able to break through to Qi Sea Realm, there was also another small possibility – it was faint, and he would’ve easily missed it if he wasn’t looking for it on purpose.

Meng Li couldn’t help but sigh mentally as he watched Ye Jian sense his cultivation base. He could do the same, but Ye Jian could feel what he should do next, and Meng Li couldn’t. He didn’t have any instructions he could feel from his cultivation base – this was the only reason that he hadn’t yet broken through to the Origin Core Realm. He didn’t have a clear path ahead of him, and he had a faint feeling that he couldn’t break through yet. Since he experienced many good things due to the feelings he got, he trusted it fully and stopped his cultivation. He simply recovered any energy he lost during the day when cultivating in the night.