The two firmly shook hands, signing off on this ridiculous bet.

Nuri had to reclaim his pride, and he had taken the first step. He couldn’t wait to see Hugo’s defeated face when he brought back over 3 million Coins!

"So, we take it as you joining us, right?" Diana asked.

"Hmm."

He was still hesitant to join the party, mostly because of the XP and Coins he would lose. What if his mantis summon helped tremendously in hunting, letting him dispatch mobs faster? Even without the summon, he could use the Traits dwelling within it, which was honestly the greatest boon of Life Canvas.

While other Explorers registered a single Trait as an Imprint, Nuri’s summons were his Imprints. If his summon housed two Traits, he could use both while technically appearing to have only one Imprint.

Furthermore, the number of Traits a summon could carry depended on how many Stars its core had. If Nuri had a 5-Star Painted, it could house ten freaking Traits! That meant that, while appearing to have only one Imprint, he actually possessed ten — if he could fill that quota, of course.

In other words, Nuri was a one-man army.

However, right now he was nothing but a puny human facing a den of monsters. Being in a party, even a non-verified one like this, was a blessing for many newbies. First, there was free XP and Coins, as Hugo had said. Second, there was guaranteed survival.

The first few days of an Explorer’s first run had the highest recorded death rate. Leonard, for example.

’Well... not the best example. Guy probably spawned right where the mantises were.’ 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Nuri sighed. He had made up his mind.

"Alright, I’ll join. I’ll be in your care."

He held out his hand for a handshake.

Diana nodded and shook his head, satisfied.

"If any problems arise, you can voice them to us! Don’t be apprehensive about it."

"Yes."

Murray followed.

"Welcome to the family."

Nuri smiled.

"Thanks."

Hugo offered his hip flask instead of his hand.

"We might just make 5 mil this month! Here, have a sip."

Diana swatted his hand out of the way.

"Don’t be ridiculous!"

"Alright, alright," Murray chimed in before the two siblings could fight it out here. "We’ll leave in thirty. Get some rest."

The family split off to the corners, each gathering their things to prepare.

Hugo had already fallen asleep.

’Typical.’

In some ways, Hugo was similar to Nuri. Most of the time, they were carefree and unburdened, but when it was time to get serious, they got the job done. Hugo was simply a more happy-go-lucky version of Nuri, further toward that end of the spectrum.

Nuri would never have thought of drinking in the Labyrinth. Never. And he carried a big-ass shield, to boot. One hand holding that trusty old hip flask, the other gripping a heavy shield? What was this, some kind of drunken fighting style?

He chuckled to himself, imagining what it would be like to fight monsters drunk. He had been in plenty of drunken street fights when he was a prince, but they were always staged to curry his favor. Even a perennial drunkard could tell they were fixed.

In any case, Nuri had to prepare for the hunt. He couldn’t be a burden to the team. That would certainly wound his pride. At the very least, he needed to pull his weight.

’Let’s see if Painty’s done.’

He lay down facing the wall, pretending to take a power nap.

The world flipped from darkness to white in an instant, and he found himself facing that same enormous canvas. Before he could take a closer look, Painty popped up right in front of him.

"Nuri! You’re here!"

Her wings fluttered with excitement, and her expression bloomed with delight.

"I was waiting for you to make the final touches. I think it came out pretty good!"

Nuri nodded, sharing her enthusiasm. He had heard from Rosaria how the paintings would come alive, but as an artist, seeing it was incomparable to hearing about it.

"Thanks, Painty," he said, not forgetting to show his gratitude. "Alright, let’s see what you got!"

"Yes!"

Painty beamed and moved aside, revealing the beauty that was the mantis.

Purple rose from the bottom, taking shape as his eyes traveled up the canvas. A darker shade washed over the front abdomen segments, glossy and translucent at the seams. Folded close to her body were two scythes, the same color as her plating. Her perfectly slender forelegs rested beneath them, painted in a lighter purple.

The near-black upper plate sat neatly across her back, catching the light on its matte surface. Tucked beneath the plate, just visible at the seam, were two violet membranous wings. It was drawn just as he had instructed — beetle-style.

Her head tilted slightly forward, with wide mandibles and red compound eyes.

’...Wow. Painty outdid herself.’

Painty cleared her throat and bobbed beside him.

"Nuri! Wanna come take a closer look?"

Before Nuri could ask what that meant, she had already grabbed his wrist with both her tiny hands and pulled him forward.

The canvas met his face and merged with the white background. The paint parted like water, and the studio’s white spilled out into open space. He stood on the same grainy floor, but the mantis was no longer flat against the surface. It stood life-size before him on four legs, its head hovering just above his abdomen.

"Holy shit," he blurted out loud.

"Right!?" Painty hovered beside his ear. "Walk around her! Pick her leg up! Touch her—"

"Whoa, pause!" Nuri yelped. "That sounded really weird."

"Did it? My bad!"

Painty winked and scratched her neck.

Nuri turned his attention back to the three-dimensional mantis.

’It’s just like Mixer!’

Mixer was an open-source 3D creation suite widely used for 3D modeling, digital sculpting, and other art and graphics work. Essentially, it was an all-powerful tool Nuri sometimes used when he wanted to dabble in 3D work.

He circled the mantis like how he circled his models in Mixer, eye scanning for clean topology and accurate proportions. Here, the canvas didn’t use mesh-based or voxel-based sculpting; the paint itself carried the form.

He poked the seam between her thorax and abdomen. The surface gave under the pressure, soft and slightly tacky.

"...So if I want to edit her, I just... paint?"

Painty nodded.

"Correct!"

That made sense. In Mixer, he would have grabbed a sculpt brush, but here the brush was literal. A stroke laid down on her surface added material in that exact color and texture, and lifting the stroke removed it. There were no vertices to push and no edges to slide, only paint to add and remove.

It was so much cleaner than any 3D suite he had used.

Painty had nailed the bruise-purple gradient Nuri had asked for. The saturation deepened down the abdomen where it should, and the seams between segments caught a faint violet sheen only at certain angles.

He crouched and lifted one of her forelegs. The joint connected cleanly, and the chitin had weight just like a real exoskeleton.

’Damn. She even got the weight right.’

He moved to her left side and leaned in close to the scythe. On the tarsus was the small Painty in cursive, so cramped he had to squint.

"Painty Doesn’t Forget, huh."

"Looks good, right?" Painty bobbed.

He huffed out a laugh.

"More than good."