“Welcome back Elliot!” My mother said, once again standing in front of me.

“Good to be back! So, what're we gonna do today?” I asked.

“Well, since you just learned about blue, I thought it would be nice to focus on the other primary colours, as for today, yellow. Even if your special colour is blue, understanding the other two can help you improve your painting.”

I nodded to show that I understood. “Okay then, let’s go!”

Like last time, we slowly descended. But unlike last time, we landed on a sunlit prairie. The form of a 3-feet tall chimpanzee assembled itself before my eyes.

“This is Yon, the chimpanzee of the Chromagarde. He will be teaching you the art of painting yellow.” my mother said, as she floated away, leaving me and the chimpanzee Yon alone.

“Ah, so you must be Elliot, descendant of Alice! I’m really excited to get to teach a host of Tsara! Let’s get started!” Yon exclaimed.

“O-Oh… um yeah, let’s get started!”

I still wasn’t used to talking animals. Can’t blame me! Ignoring my stuttering, Yon proceeded to explain.

“Pay attention to the yellow grass in this prairie. Try punching it. Doesn’t work does it? You might be hitting the grass, but it's very flexible. So flexible, in fact, that even if you hit it, it won’t do much of anything. Another example is the wind. When the wind blows the grass, the grass bends to the wind, effectively negating the damaging effects. If the grass was to stand up and stay rigid, it would fall onto it’s side. But it can also be deadly. The grass can give you minor cuts, and with a lot of them, you can die. Sunlight. If you sit in it for a long time, you can get burned. See, yellow affiliated painting is all about bit by bit painting your opponents in and tiring them out, all while nimbly dodging and negating their attacks. Caught that?”

“Pretty much.” I replied.

Yon closed his eyes for a few seconds. He seemed like he was gone, somewhere else. When he opened them, he announced, “Well, still got quite a while before your friend the crab exits his chroma center by my energy readings. Might as well actually teach you something useful, like how to paint!”, he laughed, maybe a little too hard at his own joke.

“Nice! Finally!” I excitedly shouted. Colour theory is great and all, but nothing beat real life application!

“Alrighty then! Painting is like the opposite of accessing your chroma center. To access your chroma center, you gather the energy around you through your energy channels and focus all of it into your chroma center. For painting, you have to focus on spreading the energy of your chroma center into your energy channels, and then what you want to do with the energy. In combat, this is your target and your painting technique, and for construct, this is what you want to make and it’s use, as well as painting technique. There are three main painting techniques, the stroke, which is just like it sounds - a stroke of paint, medium ranged, the splash, area of effect, short ranged, and the dot, long ranged and fast but weak. Your energy flow into the tip of your brush, letting out a little bit every second for the stroke. Compress energy into the brush, and then release the pressure from the tip for a splash, and simply let a tiny amount of energy flow through and out your brush for the dot. The figures on your crab friend's shelf are sequences of these three techniques, designed to help you learn them. I never used them though, I just discovered my own style of painting, based on yellow painting theory!

The more you practice, the better your energy channels will be allowing faster attacks and reactions, and the more control you have over the structure of your spiritual energy. If you have enough control, your splash can be more widespread by compressing it more, your strokes can become longer with easier energy flow, and your dots can be mini explosions by compressing it a little. 

Keep in mind that painting channels and the energy channels used for your chroma center are different, so even if you are the ultimate painter, you may still have trouble with your chroma center, and vice versa.”

“Wanna try it out?” Yon asked me, a bit hopefully. He probably wanted to see Tsara in action!

“I would, but I don’t have Tsara right now.” I answered, trying not to disappoint him.

“Ah! You didn’t know yet? Ever since you accessed your chroma center, you could simply call Tsara to your hand! Give it a try! Send out a bit of your energy into the atmosphere, Tsara will come to you!”

I tried to send out my energy, but it was hard. There was this barrier blocking my way. I tried to flow around it, but I couldn’t. Luckily, I found a little crack, so I was able to let a little energy out. Apparently, enough for Tsara, since she appeared in my hand.

“Nice!” Yon applauded with his chimpanzee hands. “Now try your hand at painting!”

I tried, focusing on a nearby piece of wheat. I could feel my energy flowing out of my chroma center. Only to be stopped by the same barrier. The energy flowing out of the crack wasn’t enough to paint!

“Can’t paint huh? Don’t worry, you’ll get it when you need it! It's what happened to me!” Yon told me, patting me on the back. “Anyways, you’ve already spent enough time here. Go do your thing in the world!”

Hoping he was right about my painting, I exited my chroma center.

I awoke, shielding my eyes to the light. Finding Hermit still sitting, probably in his chroma center, I decided to go outside. It was still noon, and I wanted to take a walk to clear my mind. I made sure to stay near the river in case I got lost. Along the way, I saw a baby wolf cub.

“Awwwwwwww! It’s so cute!” I thought, following it as it padded along. The sound of the river slowly disappeared.

“Eh, I can just retrace my steps back to the river later!” I reassured myself. The cute little wolf cub sat down on some twigs, looking around. Was it lost?

That's when I noticed a mud camouflaged hunter.

“Is that a human in the forest?!”

He had with a loaded crossbow, aimed at the wolf cub.