The center of the Grand Terrace had been transformed into an open-air tiered arena of living creation.
Suspended ten paces above the polished marble floor, held aloft by four floating silver pillars, was the Astral Vellum.
The thick parchment was a fifty-foot square of semi-clear parchment recovered from the underground ruins of the First Epoch.
Unlike mortal paper that merely held pigment, the Astral Vellum was an ancient physical manifestation engine.
Spiritual ink was applied to its surface. Then, the thick parchment’s ancient formation arrays read the brushwork, absorbed sky zhenqi. Then he projected the painted form into three-space-folding living reality for sixty seconds.
Grandmaster Dan Qing of the Painting Guild stood on the central podium, draped in golden robes stitched with mountain ranges and soaring dragons.
“Testers of the Gauntlet!” Dan Qing’s voice boomed across the terrace. “You stand before the final gate of the tri-guild trials! Sound awakens the soul. Calligraphy commands the will. But Painting is the divine art of Creation itself!”
Dan Qing gestured with his white phoenix-bone brush toward the hovering thick parchment.
