Chapter 239: Living in a Painting
If you've received money from others, you must do it well.
An expert must complete the work with mastery!
However, Ren is very concerned about this. The most important thing is that he thought of a man from his previous life who was especially suited to drawing horror manga. Speaking of horror manga, what could be better than Mr. Junji Ito!
The Best of Junji Ito!
It's truly perfect! Choose a short manga from him, it's very suitable.
However, after Ren drew it, he discovered that... the manga he drew wasn't particularly scary...
It's not that it isn't scary, but he thinks it's far from enough.
He has the ability of [Painting the Finishing Touch (Master)]. As long as he pours his emotions into the manga, anyone who sees the painting with emotions will be infected by them.
But Ren discovered that... his horror story [Painting the Finishing Touch (Master)] seemed to have failed... or hadn't worked at all.
Why?
But he soon figured it out.
The reason lies with him.
[Painting the Finishing Touch (Master)] This ability consists of capturing one's own emotions in the manga when drawing them, so that those who read them are infected by them.
If sadness is captured, those who read them will also feel sad.
If pain is captured, those who read them will also feel pain.
If only a little sadness is captured, those who read them will only feel a little sadness, in addition to their own.
The same goes for fear.
Ren wants his manga to instill fear.
Therefore, when drawing them, he naturally has to capture his fear.
But... the main reason people feel fear is the same as what causes the Darkness Devil from Chainsaw Man.
It is the fear of the unknown.
Human fear is the fear of the unknown.
Whether it's a manga or a horror movie, the reason people are scared is because no one knows what terrible things will happen in the next plot.
And the moment the horror truly appears, the fear in people's hearts overwhelms their reason.
But if you've seen a horror movie and you see it for the second time, you'll know exactly when ghosts and murderers will appear.
Will you still be so scared? No, at least not as much as the first time.
Ren is like that now. He has read the horror manga he read more than once in his previous life, and all the plots are under his control.
How can he feel fear from this? Therefore, when Ren draws manga, he cannot use the ability of [Drawing the Dragon's Eyes (Master)] to instill so much fear.
Therefore, the ability of [Drawing the Dragon's Eyes (Master)] seems to be invalid.
"This is not good."
Ren said with some dissatisfaction, "The fans will be dissatisfied because they're not scared enough. I can't deceive people like this. After all, Chief Editor Takashi has given me great hope!".
So he must rely on the system again! First of all, of course, the system must give him another ability similar to [Drawing the Dragon's Eyes (Master)], but specialized in fear emotions.
Second, if he had to draw another manga again, and also take care of the serialization of Chainsaw Man, the required time would not be enough.
Therefore, this time he wanted the system to give him another ability to increase his drawing speed.
"The skills that increase drawing speed by at least double are as follows: [Human Printer (Gold)], [Human Printer (Platinum)], [Swift Star (Diamond)]. Please review in detail which skill you need."
"The skills that intensify the host's fear and inject it into the painting are as follows: [Painting Hate (Platinum)], [Emotional Frenzy (Diamond)], [Drawing the Finishing Touch (Master)], [Like Living in a Painting (Master)], [Fear Supernova (Secret)]. Please review in detail which skill you need."
The system directly listed several skills according to Ren's requirements.
Ren first reviewed the detailed effects of each skill.
[Human Printer (Gold)], as its name suggests, doubles his drawing speed. In fact, the system had already updated it before, but he didn't redeem it at that time.
After all, he didn't have enough points at that time, and he felt that the [Humanoid Printer (Gold)] skill was of little use to him.
He exchanged it for some items he needed at that time.
[Humanoid Printer (Platinum)] As its name suggests, it is an advanced version of the [Humanoid Printer (Gold)]. It allows him to double his drawing speed and increase accuracy accordingly.
There will be no situations where the drawing speed is too fast and the quality of the painting decreases.
As for the [Speed Star (Diamond)], Ren thought it was simply an advanced version of the [Humanoid Printer (Platinum)].
But he didn't expect...
"Can it increase reaction speed by four times?" Ren said in surprise.
Actually, it's normal. If you only speed up the painting speed, but not the reaction speed, it won't keep up and you won't know what you're painting.
However, after [Swift Star (Diamond)], there is no skill higher than master.
It seems there is an upper limit to the skill.
For example, the previous [King of Journalism (Diamond)] shows that the value of the skill in journalism can only reach the diamond level at most, and there is no skill higher than master.
The same goes for improving painting speed. The fastest can only reach [Swift Star (Diamond)].
If it's faster and reaches a skill higher than master, it's probably a superpower like Quicksilver in the Marvel movie.
And it's obvious that this world does not allow the appearance of superpowers.
But that's fine. Ren doesn't have to worry. At the same time, with the points he has now, he can buy skills lower than diamond with his eyes closed.
In fact, he can afford the master-level skill.
Except for the outrageous [Prophet's Dream (Master)] skill that costs 3 million points, he can definitely afford most of the master-level skills.
And he looked at the skills listed by the system that can inject fear into paintings.
[Painting Hate (Platinum)] can actively draw a character or a plot in a painting to make it look hateful and scary.
This... To put it bluntly, this skill is not bad, it can create a character or a plot that makes people hate and fear.
But that's all, it doesn't make Ren feel satisfied.
There's no need to look at the next [Finishing Touch (Master)], he looked at [Emotional Frenzy (Diamond)] and [Living in a Painting (Master)].
The [Emotional Frenzy (Diamond)] skill is a weakened version of [Finishing Touch (Master)], which also requires Ren to pour his emotions into it, but the effect is not as good as [Finishing Touch (Master)].
It requires manga fans to have a deep feeling for the manga and the plot to connect with them and be infected by Ren's emotions in the manga.
So, the only option left is [Like a Painting (Master)]. After all, even if they sold it, he couldn't afford that secret-level skill now...
Ren looked at the last option [Like a Painting (Master)] and then slowly opened his eyes.
"Damn! The painting will give people a sense of reality and give them psychological cues, as if the characters or monsters in the painting are going to disappear at any moment or follow them all the time! Awesome!" he said in disbelief.
Although it is said that the psychological cue lasts up to three days after the introduction of this skill, and then the effect begins to weaken, lasting at least 12 hours.
But this... If used in a horror manga, imagine seeing the scary ghost from the manga and, after reading it, feeling that the characters will chase you at any moment...
How do you think that feeling will be? Ren's eyes suddenly lit up, and he was a little scared to say it.
But... How great!
It's just the skill he's looking for! "System, there are no such skills in the mall, right?".
However, Ren was also very clear about the nature of the system. The few skills mentioned here... hmm... definitely not!
He has to do a draw, merge them, and strengthen them.
Then, he can spend a lot of points to get the skills he wants.
Then, the system panel instantly changed to the system store, but to Ren's surprise, this time the skill he was looking for was indeed there: [Like a Painting (Master)], the skill he longed for most.
"Huh? System, are you so kind this time?" Ren asked in disbelief.
"It has nothing to do with the system. It's a product that the store automatically updates," the system replied coldly.
"How lucky am I?" Ren said with a smile.
But what he didn't notice was that one of his skills, called [100% Luck (Silver)], turned out to be... Today is his zodiac sign's day.
[Like a Painting (Master)] requires 300,000 points to redeem directly. Ren now has 2 million points, so there's no problem redeeming it.
Then he used the additional 500,000 points to buy some novel items and obtained the [Swift Star (Diamond)] skill through lottery and fusion enhancement.
[Futures Market (Master)] gave him some future science products, and Ren exchanged them without hesitation.
One of them was, obviously, the [Simultaneous Interpreter], the [AI Smart Butler Glasses], and the [Digital Life Chip] of future technology. Ren thought they were amazing and bought them.
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