Why are the Talismans I Drawn Banned Again?! - Chapter 122
Chapter 122: Chapter 122 Aesthetic Assessment
Translator: 549690339
Jiang Cheng rented a house at Jade Lake Ming’an, which was a two-bedroom, two-living room apartment of eighty square meters.
Two-bedroom, two-living room generally refers to a house that contains a master bedroom, a secondary bedroom, a living room, and a dining room.
Since Snake particularly enjoyed basking in the sun, the well-lit master bedroom naturally went to her.
Although Jiang Cheng was the boss, and it was he who paid for the house, letting Snake stay in the master bedroom seemed quite unfair.
But to speak of fairness between a Qi Cultivation Stage cultivator and a Mahayana Realm cultivator is something more surreal than Cao Wang getting a date.
However, the more direct reason was that Jiang Cheng actually couldn’t stay here for long.
Once Lotus University officially started, Jiang Cheng would have to move to the dormitory.
According to Jiang Cheng’s plan, he wouldn’t be staying in the dormitory often in the later stages of university, because he needed to put in more effort to improve his cultivation level.
As everyone knows, working hard in a dormitory can be quite cruel to roommates. Therefore, Jiang Cheng decided to work hard in stealth, so as not to burden his roommates’ minds.
However, taking into account the necessary interpersonal relations and the image of a straightforward person, Jiang Cheng didn’t want to stand out from the group or be eccentric right from the start of school.
He was a person adept at blending into his environment.
Standing against his classmates was not something Jiang Cheng wanted to see.
Noon.
A breezy wind carrying moisture from the lake gently lifted the curtain of the balcony window, blowing into the clean, tidy room.
Jiang Cheng, carrying a packed lunch, called Liu Qing to the dining table to eat.
Liu Qing was not picky about food; after all, she would eat whatever Jiang Cheng fed her.
Picking up her chopsticks, Liu Qing asked a question that had been on her mind that morning.
“Assessment?”
“Went smoothly,” he said.
“Talisman?”
“Didn’t use it.”
Liu Qing looked at Jiang Cheng, puzzled.
“Ah, I mean I didn’t use a talisman, not that the talisman is useless,” Jiang Cheng explained, and opened his storage bag to take out the “Liu Talisman.”
“Look, it’s still here,” he said.
“Why?”
“Well… on one hand, the assessment was fairly simple, so I didn’t need it. On the other hand, there’s only one of this talisman, and once used, it’s gone. I really didn’t want to use it up,” Jiang Cheng admitted.
Actually, considering Jiang Cheng’s cautious character, using the Liu Talisman for a sure pass would have been the safest, but he truly didn’t want to use it. After all, he had only one, and once used, he would never have it again—it was a limited edition collector’s item.
After hearing Jiang Cheng’s explanation, Liu Qing did not say anything more.
As usual, she ate her meal quickly but in small bites, then went back to lying on the balcony.
It was only in the afternoon, when Jiang Cheng was packing up to go out for the assessment, that she lazily got up to see him off.
Then, Liu Qing went to the sofa Jiang Cheng had sat on and picked up a strand of his hair that had fallen.
She continued to sit there—in the spot where Jiang Cheng had been—and with her slender, jade fingers, traced mysterious patterns in the air in front of her.
These patterns solidified into reality in the air, and with a pinch from Liu Qing’s ethereal hand, a sheet of talisman paper identical to the “Liu Talisman” materialized.
In the end, Liu Qing placed Jiang Cheng’s hair on the talisman and crafted a “Jiang Replacement Talisman.”
Jiang Cheng has a talisman, and so does she, which is fair.
In the afternoon, Jiang Cheng, following the guidance signs previously set up by the Lotus University enrollment office, arrived at the venue for the aesthetic assessment of new students at Lotus Cloud University.
If the “character assessment” is the easiest of all assessments at Lotus University, then the “aesthetic assessment” is undoubtedly the most difficult.
Aesthetics is a very abstract thing.
It is a person’s ability to filter for beautiful things in the world based on his or her sense of aesthetics. It forms a part of artistic perception.
In a way, a person’s “artistry” and a person’s “comprehension” are interrelated.
Take the Talisman Master as an example; some Talisman Masters have a natural sensitivity to lines, naturally blending specific things into abstract lines. This sharpness and imagination with lines is their “comprehension” in drawing talismans.
Therefore, the aesthetic assessment is, in fact, an assessment of comprehension.
But comprehension is something innate, either you have it, or you don’t.
Thus, the questions in the aesthetic assessment are, to some extent, akin to math problems.
When pushed to the limit, people can do anything, except for math problems.
The same is true for the aesthetic assessment; if you can do it, you can do it; if not, you can’t, and there are no two ways about it.
This year, the venue for Lotus University’s aesthetic assessment is on the plaza next to the man-made lake on the campus grounds.
The assessment topic is “The Beauty of Water.”
The director of the admissions office, Li Youyuan, didn’t need to follow every single assessment closely.
But this year was different; the students enrolled at Lotus University were somewhat unusual.
Whether it was 1002, 1003, or 1016 (Jiang Cheng), or those who came later, like 1065, 1082, etc.
In short, this year’s freshmen were too remarkable, and Li Youyuan felt uneasy not being present to monitor the situation.
Before the aesthetic assessment, the first group of one hundred candidates, assisted by volunteers, lined up and entered the examination area one after the other.
The whole process was quiet and orderly, highlighting the high quality of excellent students.
The volunteers in charge of maintaining order in the examination room heaved a sigh of relief. Judging by the performance of these candidates, their work should be quite relaxed today.
The volunteers were almost all upperclassmen from Lotus University, everyone working for activity credits, which was pretty much enough.
Unlike the “character” assessment, the “aesthetic” assessment grading team was composed of professors from Lotus University’s Media and Aesthetics Faculty.
In comparison to other Immortal Law application faculties, the Media and Aesthetics Faculty, as the name implies, mainly handles two aspects—one is information dissemination, and the other is design aesthetics.
Many Immortal Techniques were created with only practicality in mind, without considering visual appeal. The Media and Aesthetics Faculty is responsible for beautifying and upgrading Immortal Techniques.
In this discipline, Qinghe Xuanran University currently boasts the highest level in Liang Kingdom. If we expand the scope to the entire Cultivation World, Taixu Sect is undoubtedly the pinnacle of aesthetic studies.
In Taixu Sect, some Immortal Techniques have evolved to a point where they prioritize appearance over practicality.
Although widely criticized by the major Immortal Sects for putting the cart before the horse, it is undeniable that Taixu Sect’s research on aesthetic cultivation is nothing short of extraordinary.
It is also the holy land in the hearts of practitioners related to aesthetic studies in the various Immortal Sects.
Because the character assessment in the morning started with candidate number 1001, to ensure fairness, the aesthetic assessment in the afternoon started with candidate number 1100.
Although it’s said to start with 1100, in reality, there are ten students being assessed simultaneously.
These ten candidates, upon the cue from the examination host and the guidance of the volunteers, each approached one of the ten erected screens—black cloths measuring one and a half meters wide and two meters tall, resembling blackboards.
The canvases were placed close to the water of the man-made lake.
Seeing that the ten candidates were ready, the examination host immediately read out the specific details of the Lotus University aesthetic assessment.
“The theme of this assessment is ‘The Beauty of Water.’ Candidates are required to use the available lake water to paint on the black cloths provided by the school. Content is unrestricted. The examination time is twenty minutes. Please note that the black cloth lightens when wet, until it becomes completely white. Let the examination begin! All candidates, please be mindful of the time!”
