That evening, Kamiyā Yuu uploaded a practice piece he had drawn on the computer with his consciousness that afternoon to the 'BIUBIUBIU' website. To avoid unnecessary trouble, he had created a new account called 'Blank'. The account's sole purpose was to upload illustrations he drew for practice.
This time, he uploaded fan art of Akemi Homura from 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica'. Only simple lines were used to sketch the basic outline of the character, and many mistakes that only beginners would make were still visible, such as improper linework, distorted character outlines, structural imbalance, and so on. Overall, it was barely recognizable as fan art of Akemi Homura.
Kamiyā Yuu's ability as an illustrator ranked among the very best even in Japan, yet when he practiced drawing with his consciousness, the difficulty increased by more than an entire level. He had to pay attention to the computer system's code, the changes in the drawing software's data, and only then could he focus on the actual drawing. The mental effort required for every single stroke was equivalent to using his consciousness to type tens of thousands of characters on a computer.
This piece, which looked like something a beginner had casually scribbled, had taken him more than three hours to create. Even after finishing it, he felt a sense of exhaustion he had not experienced in a long time.
Kamiyā Yuu basically used his consciousness to draw one illustration every week to keep track of his progress. His second piece of Akemi Homura fan art did not look much better than something drawn by a beginner, but it was still vastly superior to the "incomprehensible scribble" he had uploaded the first time.
[Username: Blank
Level: 0
Activity: 10
Following: 0
Followers: 3
Submitted Works
Videos: None
Articles: None
Novels: None
Illustrations: 2
Recent Reply: [Illustration] 'King of Knights' @British Army Commander: Holy shit, my eyes! How the hell is this any different from an elementary school kid's doodle!?
'King of Knights' was the first illustration Kamiyā Yuu had submitted using this account. It depicted Saber wearing a long blue dress, standing on a grassland with her sword planted before her.
Unfortunately, while the ideal was beautiful, reality was cruel. Just as that user had commented, the illustration's overall quality really was no different from the random scribbles of a child.
······]
"I can clearly feel my computer illustration skills improving. Not bad."
"Should I try submitting a novel too? Something like 'Battle Through the Heavens'. If the novel becomes popular, it could also boost the popularity of BIUBIUBIU's fiction section. Maybe I could directly introduce the whole beginner-friendly Chinese fantasy webnovel formula to this world. With my current ability, updating fifty thousand characters a day would only take about half an hour, so it wouldn't really cost me much energy."
Kamiyā Yuu stroked his chin with considerable interest. As a hobby, the idea seemed quite feasible.
In his previous world, 'Battle Through the Heavens' could not be called the progenitor of beginner-friendly Chinese fantasy webnovels, but it was unquestionably the single most representative early example of the genre.
Kamiyā Yuu was quite interested in the beginner-friendly style of webnovels. Even after webnovels had developed for decades and established a mature market environment, such works remained one of the central pillars of the entire webnovel industry.
In his previous world, he himself had tried writing novels in that style. However, he had been unable to capture their particular flavor and characteristics, and eventually gave up.
To sum up beginner-friendly webnovels, they were all about being straightforward! Easy to understand! Satisfying!
There was no need to spend too much time considering elements such as the intelligence of the characters, the depth of the plot, or the story's structure. Even the Chinese term for the genre itself carried somewhat ambiguous connotations.
Yet such novels were by no means as simple and crude as their name suggested. Countless novice authors had already taught the webnovel community this lesson through painful experience: it was an even more fiercely competitive genre, one that placed even greater demands on both the quality of the work itself and sheer luck.
There were countless examples of well-written beginner-friendly novels that completely flopped, while there were also cases of thoroughly ordinary works becoming phenomenal hits.
The market for this type of webnovel was among the hardest to grasp. To survive in the genre, an author needed either great wisdom, tremendous perseverance, or extraordinary luck.
As the backbone of web fiction, although "beginner-friendly webnovels" was merely a broad and somewhat ambiguous classification, their role was equivalent to the foundation of the entire webnovel industry. Without them, the webnovel market could never have expanded so rapidly, nor could the industry itself have developed so quickly.
To put it in a common saying, "Who didn't start as a newbie?"
That was precisely why Kamiyā Yuu had come up with the interesting idea of reproducing 'Battle Through the Heavens' in this world to accelerate the development of beginner-friendly webnovels. Moreover, in his previous world, China's animation and comics communities had developed to a considerable extent by relying on the growth of web fiction.
"Yuu, what are you doing?"
Seeing Kamiyā Yuu smiling as he stared at his laptop, Kamiyā Sora, who had originally been lying on the bed using her own computer, crawled up behind him. She wrapped her small arms around his neck as her soft body leaned forward and pressed tightly against his back. Looking curiously at Kamiyā Yuu's laptop screen, she asked softly.
Her small face rested against Kamiyā Yuu's cheek. When she noticed that he was logged into BIUBIUBIU, a hint of unnaturalness entered her otherwise soft voice.
"You're looking at that website again?"
Kamiyā Yuu smiled. "Ah~ After all, I suppose I'm one of the founders of this website."
Kamiyā Sora's cool gaze fixed directly on Kamiyā Yuu's face, and her small arms tightened around him.
"Yuu, do you still care about your identity?"
—Identity?
Kamiyā Yuu froze for a moment. Realizing what Kamiyā Sora was thinking, he shook his head helplessly.
"I stopped caring about that a long time ago. Sora is the most important person to me now, so don't let your imagination run wild."
After all, Kamiyā Yuu was still ethnically Chinese. Ordinarily, he would probably have cared a great deal about his identity. Perhaps the Kamiyā Yuu who did not possess memories of his previous world really would have cared deeply about it.
But now, he genuinely had no interest whatsoever in his origins. If Kamiyā Sora had not brought it up, he would almost have forgotten that he might still have a mother or father somewhere in this world.
As for the mother who had left him to be raised by her first love, Kamiyā Yuu mostly found the whole situation absurdly amusing.
After hearing Kamiyā Yuu's answer, Kamiyā Sora lifted the arm with which he was holding the laptop.
"Keep your arms like this."
She released her embrace around Kamiyā Yuu, slipped into his arms from the side, then lowered Kamiyā Yuu's hands and laptop again. After adjusting herself into a comfortable sitting position nestled against him, she turned her head and gave Kamiyā Yuu a warm, adorable little smile.
"Yuu, teach me Chinese."
"I really can't say no to you. I can teach you Chinese, but you're not allowed to give up halfway. Otherwise, no snacks for the next month."
Kamiyā Yuu adjusted the laptop into a stable position. Although he did not know why Kamiyā Sora wanted to learn Chinese, given her intelligence, it probably would not take her very long.
"Mm. If Yuu is my teacher, I won't."
When Kamiyā Yuu had learned Chinese, he had gone through the motions to avoid attracting unnecessary suspicion. During that period, he had spent almost every day holding Chinese-language books and reading them—or simply used "studying Chinese" as an excuse to do other things.
Furthermore, Kamiyā Yuu's own memories already contained some knowledge of Chinese. That knowledge had not come from his transmigration. His nominal mother had taught him some Chinese herself.