The Gentleman at the End

Chapter 137: Chapter 136 Depth

[Swan School]

All the gentlemen present, including the students who had failed the test and were disheartened, raised their heads at this moment, looking up at the young man floating in the air.

He floated up to the height of the roof, and if the roof hadn’t been there, he might have even flown out of the school.

Yi Chen had reached a depth of consciousness that transcended normality, perfectly harmonizing with the Thought Space drawn out by the Principal, and constructed a true spiritual scene that was indistinguishable from reality.

All senses would be 100% restored within Thought Space, making the test more direct, realistic, and effective.

Underneath the Crying Mask, the Principal’s gaze also changed, as she rarely saw a brain as intriguing and a student with such deep thinking.

…

[Rainy Night Gallery]

“Very clear, very real… hardly any different from reality itself.

It’s entirely unlike the hazy, uncontrollable, and fuzzy sensation of being passively extracted into the old world, it’s just like something really happening.

Speaking of which,

the Thought Space constructed by the consciousness, which was upheld by the Principal according to my weaknesses, looks rather dark, doesn’t it?”

Hand taps the sound of the rain,

Phantoms outside the window,

And a series of bizarre and unsettling abstract paintings, like “Mesa Dela Woman” featuring a woman with her head tilted at a 90° angle, out of place among the people around her, standing in a bustling street with eyes filled with blood, staring out of the painting’s frame.

Yi Chen habitually tried to open his briefcase to retrieve the Hand Axe and a gun but found nothing in his hands.

He couldn’t get any response when trying to use plants either,

as the consciousness brought into Thought Space was restricted by the Principal to an Ordinary physical body,

However, Yi Chen pinched his arm hard and didn’t feel pain but itching… indicating that what Zede teacher taught him remained unaffected, as this physical essence change tied to the soul’s essence could not be blocked.

“Although I’m not sure if the flow of time here is consistent with reality, I should hurry up nonetheless.”

Since this is a gallery,

no matter how eerie or bizarre, Yi Chen instantly stepped into the role of an [Audience] coming to partake in an art exhibition, sincerely appreciating each painting.

Before starting his Appreciation, Yi Chen first took a quick glance around.

A square gallery formed by four corridors, with no visible entrances or exits.

Although each corridor was the same in length, window placement, carpet color, and other details, Yi Chen still used the paintings at the beginning and end of the gallery for differentiation, labeled with numerical codes.

The number of paintings in galleries 1 through 3 was equal,

only gallery 4 had a missing painting in the middle, leaving a blank white wall, but upon close inspection, it appeared to be just an ordinary wall with no peculiar features for the time being.

The only [difference] that caught Yi Chen’s eye could very well be the key to a Breakthrough.

Next was to appreciate the paintings one by one.

Unlike his usual precise memory of scene details, Yi Chen did not attempt to imprint the visual patterns of the paintings in his mind,

since it’s impossible to fully remember and replicate such artistic formats just by memory.

Instead, he tried to understand, perceive, and appreciate the Essence of the paintings, combining their names with his efforts.

When he stopped in front of the fourth painting, “orange abandoned baby,” a flash of lightning streaked across the window, followed by the sound of shattering glass.

An unexpected disturbance forced Yi Chen to turn his head to look.

The square window in the center of the gallery, due to the startling thunder, now bore an exaggerated crack.

『A disruptor, perhaps?』

Yi Chen showed no change in expression and prepared to continue immersing himself in the Appreciation of the paintings.

However, when his gaze returned to the “orange abandoned baby,” the infant that should have been under the orange tree had disappeared, leaving only the spread-out swaddle.

The change in the painting put Yi Chen on high alert instantly,

WaWa!

A cry echoed from the deep corner of the corridor, extinguishing all nearby candles.

Slowly,

a yellow baby, its skin replaced by orange peels, crawled out of the darkness,

its mouth torn to reveal insect-like venomous fangs, and its abdomen even had powerful appendages like a grasshopper’s.

The instant it appeared, it leaped at Yi Chen, its fangs Locking onto his neck artery.

“Is this…”

Yi Chen, drawing on his combat experience, instantly executed a swift sidestep.

Completely avoiding the attack,

his body coiled like a bow,

his hands turned to hammers,

and he struck down vertically! He landed a perfect hit on the orange abandoned baby mid-air, smashing it to the ground with great force.

He gave the monster no chance to recover, stepping down with the sole of his shoe.

Smack—Ignoring the slime on the sole of his shoe, Yi Chen continued to appreciate the next painting.

Furthermore, he used part of his brain capacity to quickly think about the events that had just occurred,

“I didn’t expect the ‘Spiritual Test’ initiated by the Principal to also be dangerous. If I were to die here, the test would probably be a direct failure.

As for the materialization of the paintings, based on the recent situation, two reasons can be deduced,

1. The lightning flashing outside the window

2. My subjective appreciation of the painting

If both of these conditions are met, it should lead to the materialization of the paintings… Next time the lightning flashes, I’ll try not to look away. Maybe I can avoid such a situation.”

Moreover, I need to speed up.

The gallery is not stable; if these windows with cracks are to break, the ghostly shadows crawling outside will flood in and the test may as well end in failure.”

As he thought, white steam again overflowed from Yi Chen’s brain, and with his concentration increasing, he gradually sped up the pace of his art appreciation.

The intervals between each flash of lightning were almost the same,

By the time Yi Chen was appreciating the ninth painting—”Maze Phantom” —lightning flashed followed by an even crisper sound of glass cracking, with a larger crack appearing on the window.

But this time, Yi Chen did not turn his head and stared intently at the painting in front of him.

The humanoid body and the sunflower-like head of the creature remained within the painting and did not come out to cause trouble.

“Nice! As long as I keep my eyes on it, and my subjective consciousness remains unwavering, the things inside the painting can’t come out… This is indeed purely a Thought Space, where subjective consciousness plays a significant role. How interesting.”

Having reached a conclusion, Yi Chen no longer had any distractions and discarded all interference, completely immersing himself in the art appreciation.

After completing the appreciation of galleries number 1, 2, and 3,

he finally arrived at the slightly different Gallery 4,

In the middle of the corridor, directly opposite the window, there was a missing painting on the wall.

Crack! Lightning flashed.

The violent thunder shattered a small piece of the window full of cracks, and rainwater couldn’t wait to pour in, filling the gallery in streams.

Unaffected, Yi Chen, ignoring the water covering the soles of his shoes, proceeded at the fastest pace for the final appreciation.

As his gaze left the last painting,

Segments of paintings that had been understood and digested rapidly flashed back in his mind, weaving together effectively and joining each other to form something entirely new. @@novelbin@@

Yi Chen moved to the middle of Gallery 4,

carefully staring at the blank space on the wall,

trying to imprint there what had come together in his mind, waiting for an opportunity.

Crack!

Yi Chen blinked as the lightning shone brightly.

On the wall that was originally empty, there unexpectedly appeared a new painting… This painting was precisely the one that had formed in Yi Chen’s brain, a result compounded from all the other paintings.

Named “The Door.”

Painted within the frame was a brand new iron door, the ‘exit’ to the outside world.

At that moment,

Boom! The window behind him completely shattered.

As the broken glass flew past Yi Chen, ghostly hands reached out towards him.

Unfortunately for them, with his step forward, all the hands missed.

Unaffected, Yi Chen continued to gaze at the painting, approaching it calmly.

When there was less than ten centimeters between them,

perhaps because he was so focused on scrutinizing the iron door within the frame that he felt he had seen it somewhere before,

or perhaps his engrossed art appreciation led him down into a deeper area of consciousness, even surpassing the value set by the Principal.

Suddenly, some strange brain signals emerged,

directly affecting the current Thought Space, like black threads crawling towards “The Door.”

The iron door in the painting became increasingly real, even showing rust scars and a metal doorplate full of scratch marks.

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Yi Chen, unable to control himself, instinctively reached out to touch.

As his hand touched the cold iron door in the painting… creak— the sound of the door hinges echoed within the brain domain.

The gallery, rainwater, and phantoms ceased to exist,

but he hadn’t returned to Swan School… instead, he fell into an even deeper layer of Consciousness Space, an Independent Space derived from his own consciousness.

Even more real and undisturbed by the outside world.

Yi Chen widened his eyes; he had never been so panicked and afraid before.

“How could this be… Why did I end up here!?”

His increasingly agitated emotions caused thin black threads to spread within his pupils until his eyes were entirely blackened.