Chapter 13: Illustrator

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

“Ding. You can do it, you have ran 4 kilometers, elapsed time 42 minutes 12 seconds.”

The fourth kilometer, Meng Fan managed to keep it below 10 minutes.

Not only that, he still had the stamina to keep going!

Once he finished the fifth kilometer, Meng Fan felt his perseverance had made him into a deity!

“Eh?”

When Wu Tong, who still roamed the track field heard Meng Fan’s phone app’s announcement, she stood frozen for a moment. This guy actually ran for 5 kilometers.

This is fake right?

Wu Tong clearly recalled the state Meng Fan had been in just a few days ago. As if that kind of physical state could finish 5 kilometers in one go. She couldn’t believe it.

However, it did seem that every time she saw the guy, he had gained significant progress. Could it be, his improvement was really this great?

“You’ve improved… A lot.”

Wu Tong caught up to Meng Fan as she saw him stopping, jogging alongside him, she asked: “Did you used to be an athlete?” She spread her arms and gestured to his figure. “I mean before your body changed.”

To Wu Tong, this kind of change could very possibly be because Meng Fan had originally been an athlete, who had possessed a strong physical and cognitive foundation in sports.

The more she thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. At least his likeness to a professional athlete would have been justified.

As for what caused him to become what he is now, she had no theories.

Seeing Meng Fan shake his head, Wu Tong became even more confused. “Then you have made too much progress.” She stopped pursuing though, smiling at Meng Fan before accelerating and running off.

…

After stretching, Meng Fan experienced no pain in his knees and joints. Leisurely, he strode away, even having the stamina to buy breakfast to recharge his energy.

During morning class, Meng Fan spent most of his time sorting out content for the novel. He extracted more features from it and then went to the studio after class to find a corner and started drawing.

The number of characters to be drafted was not small, as excluding the male and female protagonist, there were supporting cast, as well as two cute pets to create… Based on the requirements he’d received, the number of characters to design was around eight to twelve…

He began drawing… First, he searched for the feeling of the male character. He searched for a while with no progress, so he swapped to designing the female character. As he drafted, Meng Fan unconsciously thought back to the image of the speedy girl from the track, incorporating her image into the design.

So, this was the biggest similarity between the speedy girl and the main character.

“Beep!”

Around the same time, Meng Fan had solidified a concept and had just begun to draw the first illustration, an alert sounded off in his head.

“Beep. You have unlocked an accomplishment task [Illustrator].”

“Task requires completion of 1000 book illustrations.”

“Upon completion, you will achieve the title [Illustrator] (Drawing Skills +10, imagination +3)”

This is definitely acceptable!

To Meng Fan who was currently studying animation, this sort of achievement reward could not be any more perfect.

The task phases were separated into four.

Task phase 1: Complete 10 illustrations; reward: Score +10, drawing skill +1.

Task phase 2: Complete 100 illustrations; reward: Score +100, drawing skill +2, imagination +1.

Task phase 3: Complete 500 illustrations; reward: Score +500, drawing skill +3, imagination +1.

Task phase 4: Complete 1000 illustrations; reward: Score +1000, drawing skill +4, imagination +1.

Relatively speaking, the difficulty of this achievement task was much easier than the previous [Wealth Distribution Cherub] and [Travelling Deity]. At least for Meng Fan right now, no matter how he looked at it, his hand speed would increase by 16 points.

If it had been before, for Meng Fan to complete a high difficulty illustration, counting coloring time and background, it would take three to four hours at the fastest. Now, he can finish it under an hour.

Moreover, according to the completeness of the illustration he had just finished, the “system”‘s standard for completion was not too high. Meng Fan felt that as long as the idea was solidified in his thoughts, he could easily complete a piece in half an hour, even faster if he needed to.

Scrolling further down… Meng Fan saw the extra prompt below the tasks, similar to that of the [Travelling Deity] taskbar.

Drawing equipment.

There was only one, a pen.

It required 100 points to redeem.

He took a look at the description of the pen. Meng Fan’s eyes suddenly lit up. Another black magic item, huh.

According to its description, this is a universal pen. It combined all the hardnesses of every type of pencil, ballpoint pens and ink pens, markers, colored pencils, lead… Even an eraser function. And it could be converted at will.

To put it simply, having this pen is the equivalent to having every brush in the world.

Also, this pen had an additional attribute bonus, drawing skill +1.

“What a great item, but I only have two points left!”

[A Good Person] awarded a total of 111 points, and the running shoes cost 100 points and the headband cost 10, while the [Travelling Deity] task phase 1 had only awarded 1 point.

“Work hard!”

With this achievement task in progress, Meng Fan was more encouraged to keep drawing.

Twenty minutes later, another female character had taken shape, and next to her was a cute furry pet as well. This pet was called an Aka in the novel, due to its love for swinging up and down. According to the novel’s description, Meng Fan took inspiration from the ‘Hou’ in Shan Hai scriptures, a mythical beast resembling a dragon and a lion.

Looking back and forth, Meng Fan was satisfied with his work. He sent a picture of his work into the class group chat, asking everyone for their opinions. They all felt it was very cute, so Meng Fan separately sketched Aka.

Two hours later, he had sent out several more female character concepts alongside Aka, trying out the male characters once more. The result was still touching. But with the second male character, as well as the second female character that followed closely, Meng Fan felt they just weren’t right. However, the major villains materialized very smoothly, so much that even Meng Fan was very happy with it, even more so than he was with the female lead.

“This one looks great, domineering and beautiful, she looks kind of like Thor’s sister, Hela.”

“I don’t know if I should say or not, but doesn’t she remind you of someone?”

“Are you saying… The witch?”

“I’m a coward, I didn’t say anything.”

“You don’t say, it kind of looks like her!”

“Not just kind of, it looks a lot like her!”

“Fatty definitely used the witch as his inspiration!”

“I only thought Meng Fan was fat in person, I didn’t know his courage was this fat too, hahaha.”

“Hey, did you forget our lovely sweet adorable professor Qin is also in this group chat…?”

Seeing the group chat fall into silence, Meng Fan felt the sweat on his forehead drip down.

As this was mentioned by his classmates, Meng Fan also began to agree, it did look a lot like her. Especially the details. Did he really unconsciously draw it in the image of the witch?

This… As long as it looks good since she was the one who gave him the job in the first place.

“Eh… Well someone must have taken it into their own hands and drawn it, yes, it should be like this!”

This was also Meng Fan’s response to the question Qin Jiao had sent in their group chat.

Qin Jiao’s reply also came soon in the form of an eye roll emoji.

Zhang Zhou Wei also sent a WeChat message, asking about their lunch plans. Meng Fan was too ecstatic to feel his hunger, so he quickly turned down the offer.

He put down his phone and continued to draw.

“Beep. You have completed 10 illustrations, completing task phase 1 of [ illustrator]. Rewards: Accomplishment score +10, Drawing skill +1.

As the prompt appeared, Meng Fan’s stomach also growled in protest. He looked up; it was already 2 in the afternoon.

“You’re an… animation student?”

Wu Tong entered the studio, habitually settling down in a corner. Just as she looked up to Meng Fan who was still drafting, her sentence was interrupted halfway by the loud rumbling of Meng Fan’s stomach.

It was a little awkward.