Chapter 1 Painting Class

Inside the painting classroom, the lesson had already begun in a calm atmosphere.

Slender, silver lamps hanging on the walls emitted warm light, scattering over neat picture frames and illuminating the classroom with its long, wooden benches.

The air was filled with the faint scent of paint and canvas.

Senior Art Professor Mogut, dressed in a black vintage suit, with a red silk bow tie shimmering subtly, appeared even more dignified and serious in the soft light. He held a painting, a work with considerable depth and a sense of mystery, waiting for a student to volunteer an answer.

The classroom was quiet and filled with a sense of oppression.

If no one volunteered, Professor Mogut would randomly select someone to begin the first round of answering.

However.

At this moment.

A hand unexpectedly shot up.

All the demons' eyes turned towards the direction of the raised hand—

Hyperion was standing there with her right hand raised, her amber eyes wide, seemingly unable to believe her own actions.

It was as if her arm was being forcibly controlled by something.

After a moment, she seemed to realize something.

She turned her head and saw an eagle-eyed demon sitting to her right, his pupils focused on her, the bright light in his eyes particularly striking in the small classroom.

Clearly, this eagle-eyed demon was the source of her sudden hand-raising, using mental magic on her!

If Hyperion started.

Then, rotating clockwise.

The eagle-eyed demon would be the fifth to answer in the first round.

He would have the most time to analyze.

"Then let's start with you," Professor Mogut said.

Professor Mogut clearly knew what had happened.

But that was the rule of the classroom; to use one's strengths, and using strategy was allowed.

Hyperion's expression immediately turned somewhat grim.

She had no means to counter or defend against such close-range mental magic, and if she started answering, Ranch, sitting to her left, would be the second student to answer.

She looked at Ranch apologetically, feeling like she had dragged him down.

At the same time, Hyperion turned her gaze to Professor Mogut, and she really couldn't tell the quality of the painting in the professor's hand.

"..."

Could she only rely on guessing?

There was a fifty percent chance of surviving this round, or failing immediately.

Just as Hyperion's mood plummeted into an icy abyss.

"It's painted by the professor," Ranch whispered from the side.

Immediately, his words drew snickers from the demons.

In this classroom, there couldn't possibly be a student who could identify it so quickly; it was obviously a wild guess.

And the demons around him wouldn't be foolish enough to believe his joke and gamble their lives on it.

Professor Mogut simply held the painting expressionlessly, not giving the students even a sliver of a chance to glean anything from him.

"Painted by the professor," Hyperion answered without hesitation.

She trusted Ranch.

Moreover, the greatest guarantee of her cooperation with Ranch was absolute execution.

"Oh? Correct," the professor said.

The professor put down the painting, but glanced at Ranch in surprise.

There were no rules in this classroom prohibiting students from telling other students the answer, as it was essentially a seminar.

The key was whether the student answering was willing to believe it.

Professor Mogut had never seen a student so decisively certain of an answer, or one who would so firmly believe another demon.

However, Ranch's speed of answering made it seem more likely that he was guessing, just with a very decisive attitude.

...

Following the clockwise answering order.

The next one should be Ranch.

Just as Professor Mogut picked up another painting from the cart.

"Painted by a student," Ranch answered confidently as soon as he saw the painting clearly.

"...?"

The other students stared blankly at the Radiant Demon.

Even Professor Mogut hesitated, half-holding the painting, before slowly putting it down and nodding.

"Correct."

This surprised several other students in the classroom.

Was he a gambling addict? Or could he really tell?

At this speed, even the professor probably couldn't do it!

"..."

Hyperion at this moment also stared at Ranch with great confusion.

She had unhesitatingly believed Ranch earlier, her reaction faster than her thought process.

But now, thinking back carefully, she couldn't figure out what cheating technique Ranch had used to find the answer so quickly!

Ranch's spell library had been shown to her, as his teammate, beforehand.

She knew that Ranch, apart from the magic cards he had used before, only had elemental magic and mental magic, and there was no way he had a card that could identify paintings like this!

While Hyperion was racking her brains, the answering turned to the student to Ranch's left, a female demon. She frowned slightly, trying to observe the painting that Professor Mogut had taken out again.

With the previous six paintings as a reference, identification was naturally a little easier.

But she hadn't expected that this clockwise start would reach her so quickly.

Based on the information so far, it was still impossible to identify it through magic.

"Painted by a student," Ranch whispered to remind her.

"?"

The female demon student seemed a little hesitant, not daring to believe Ranch.

But she thought about it and felt that the painting lacked spirituality.

She hesitated for nearly five minutes.

Until the moment she had to answer.

She finally replied:

"Painted by a student."

"No problem," Professor Mogut nodded in approval, while again taking a deep look at Ranch.

If the first two times could be luck, then this was the third time.

The probability of it being luck was gradually decreasing.

He had never seen such a student, making him feel a little unfathomable.

It was the fourth respondent's turn.

The demon student sitting in the corner of the classroom stood up, staring at the painting in Professor Mogut's hand, and simply didn't know.

He was proficient in magic identification, but didn't have much confidence in painting appreciation.

And he was very unlucky, not encountering any familiar magic that had appeared on the previous few paintings.

The corner demon glanced timidly at Ranch, wondering if Ranch would help him.

"Still painted by a student," Ranch told him the answer casually.

After hesitating for a while, the corner demon student gritted his teeth and answered:

"Painted by a student."

"Correct," Professor Mogut acknowledged again.

The corner demon sat down in surprise, nodding gratefully to Ranch.

Now, the circle had turned.

Finally, it was the eagle-eyed demon on the far right's turn.

That was the demon who had used mental magic to control Hyperion's hand-raising at the beginning, on Hyperion's other side.

The eagle-eyed demon examined the painting in the professor's hand.

He believed that Ranch would never tell him the answer.

Because he saw Ranch entering the classroom with Hyperion, and the previous mental magic had also harmed Ranch to some extent.

However, at this moment, Ranch, with a kind smile on his face, said to the eagle-eyed demon:

"This time it's painted by the professor."

"...?"

All the demon students present knew that it was unlikely that Ranch would have good intentions towards the eagle-eyed demon.

Then.

This act of giving the answer, which was of unclear intent.

Now seemed very psychologically manipulative.

Because it had gradually turned a painting appreciation or magic identification question into a psychological analysis question!

Whether this sentence was true or false required the eagle-eyed demon to make a judgment!