Wu Xiaoming would be a fool to not recognize the potential of hostility from the two sculptures, that was why he waited behind the corners with his staff raised. Just as the footsteps got close enough, he burst out from behind and swept the staff horizontally at the creature behind it.

The metal staff collided with a glass arm. The engravings on the staff glowed in dim light blue as its impact shattered the arm and shoulder of the dancer sculpture completely. Flying glass shards burst everywhere, scratching Wu Xiaoming in the arms and shoulders, even his cheeks. This kind of minor injury no longer bothered Wu Xiaoming at this point. He did not stop his attack or even hesitate, as his right leg mounted a heavy kick at the dancer sculpture’s lower body.

The glass body crashed against the wall and the floor, crumbling into hundreds of pieces. Right at the same time, a completely wooden spear with a dull edge thrust at Wu Xiaoming’s left shoulder. He barely recovered from the two successive attacks, and thus wasn’t able to dodge or defend himself. He stumbled back a few steps from the impact of the dull wooden spear. It was as if someone bashed his left shoulder with a wooden mallet. He lost the feeling of his left shoulder for a minute, before the intense pain assaulted his senses and weakened the muscles in his limbs.

This was the wooden tribal warrior sculpture. Lucky for Wu Xiaoming, it had short limbs and its wooden body parts rubbed against each other when it moved, therefore its movement was not as fast as the faces from the painting. The wooden sculpture charged forward again, swinging its wooden spear at Wu Xiaoming’s face.

Wu Xiaoming ducked then swept his staff at the Wooden sculpture’s short legs. Splinters burst from its left knee. It was unprotected by a kneecap and therefore the joint was exposed. The connection between the wooden thigh and calf broke, and the tribal warrior sculpture tumbled on the ground. Wu Xiaoming turned and lunged at the back of his wooden opponent, kicking its back right before it could get up. Its wooden body slid across the ground and flew off the edge of the stairs through a gap between the wires.

“Bang!” Several wooden parts broke off as the tribal warrior sculpture hit the concrete floor below.

A sharp paint shard left a long gash on Wu Xiaoming’s left shoulder - his follow up attack exposed his back to the painting’s line of fire. He leapt down the stairs to get out of the range, while aiming his short staff at the tribal warrior sculpture’s head.

The head was a solid piece of wood, even with the momentum of the fall, the strike only left a thin crack on the back of it. Wu Xiaoming knelt on the sculpture’s back, put all of his body weight on it before whacking at it repeatedly.

After at least twenty swings, the head of the tribal warrior sculpture became a pile of flattened, broken wood debris. Wu Xiaoming rolled over to take a breath and check on his status.

He gained another level, and a skill point. Unlike some other ARPGs, the game he was working on did not grant the character full recovery on leveling up. Right now, he had only the Confucianist Tree unlocked, so he could only assign this skill point to the first skill in this tree: “Learned: increase the effectiveness of your aura, engraving, written word and symbol skills/items, increase experience gained.”

From the get-go of the game, each major tree was designed to be able to boost each other. Both the Buddhist Tree and Confucianist Tree would grant access to aura skills, and all three trees, as well as some minor skill trees, would let him access skills that had to do with engravings, written word and symbols, like making talismans, sigils, blessed plaques, etc.

The short staff should count as an item with engravings as well. Now with the skill point assigned, the symbols and words etched along the shaft appeared to be just a tiny bit more intelligible.

After defeating the two sculptures, the overflow experience filled almost 1/5 of the level 2 experience bar. And they were only the summoned mob of the painting. Should he defeat the painting itself, maybe he could even gain much more, maybe even level up once again.

He checked his currency counts - 625 Spirit Fragments and 20 Vision Slivers, a good bump from his previous numbers.

He took another breath before getting up and ready to go up the hall again. The wounds on his body had mostly stopped bleeding already. It was quite strange that he would bleed at all in this realm.

Considering the painting’s ability to attack him from a range, he would probably need a shield. The body of the tribal warrior sculpture looked like it could suffice. He picked up the wooden spear dropped by the sculpture.

“Dull Wooden Spear”, its description said. No other information. 

He walked up the stairs again. Bits and pieces of the dancer sculpture were everywhere. He would need to be careful. 

The paint shards on the floor seemed to have softened and melted, leaving the wooden floor with pools of colorful paint.

After taking a peek through the corner, it would seem the heads had retreated back into the painting. There was no way to tell if there were any other creatures hiding in the rooms on both sides. But it did not matter, he had already made more than enough Spirit Fragments coming here. Even if he died, he was still in the black, resource wise.

After a few deep breaths, Wu Xiaoming burst out of the corner, the short wooden spear in his right hand, the metal short staff in his left and the body of the tribal warrior sculpture under his left armpit. With almost every bit of his power, he tossed the wooden spear at the painting at the end of the hallway, then switched the short staff to his right hand, while holding up the tribal warrior’s body like a shield.

A blob of paint emerged from the painting to block the wooden spear. The blob caved in on impact, then cracked and shattered. The spear bounced off to the side, leaving a small dent on the painting itself.

Three heads shot out from the painting at Wu Xiaoming, all with long necks of paint behind them. Before any of them could begin spitting paint shards, Wu Xiaoming’s staff had already reached the face closest to him in a full force swing - the face of the young man.

The symbols on the staff glowed in light blue, a thin layer of energy coated the entire shaft. This energy coating instantly combusted the moment of contact, exploding the face into hundreds of pieces and droplets of paint.

The other two faces screamed. The face of the young woman opened its mouth and conjured a long thin blade made of paint, while the child face began spitting out sharp paint shards at Wu Xiaoming again.

Wu Xiaoming turned his “shield” against the paint shards, then used the short staff to block the paint blade. Paint tentacles shot from the painting itself, aiming right at his waist. Wu Xiaoming lowered his body and rolled on the floor again. This time, he rolled towards the painting itself.

“Die!” Wu Xiaoming kicked the ground with full force, launching himself at the painting with his staff swinging right at his target.

The symbols on the staff glowed once more, but this time not as bright and with small sparks bursting from the notch created by the collision against the paint blade.

“Crack!” The painting conjured another blob of paint to protect itself, but it was instantly shattered. The tip of the staff sunk into the painting itself, the front part of the shaft followed, tearing a long strip of canvas off.

The remaining two heads screamed. Cold blades and shards sunk into Wu Xiaoming’s back. But the sharp pain had only aggravated him. He screamed and roared, swinging his staff at the painting again and again.

The face of the painting turned into broken rags in less than a minute. The two faces behind Wu Xiaoming let out a final scream before collapsing into pools of paint.

Wu Xiaoming stumbled out of the hallway and found a corner to sit down. He could feel his blood as well as paint smeared all on the wall behind him. His injury was quite severe, as he understood. There was no telling if the paint itself was poisonous, yet either way he had no means of dealing with it.

His experience bar was just a tiny bit away from level 3. He checked his currencies - 2350 Spirit Fragments and 42 Vision Slivers, not bad. The metal staff was bent now, and cracks crawled all over the entire shaft. In his Inventory panel, it was red - meaning that it was damaged beyond repair.

It was still a worthwhile exploration. Wu Xiaoming leaned his back against the wall, closed his eyes just as the darkness took him.