When Thomas awoke the next morning his body didn't ache nearly as much as the previous time he broke through the limits to become superhuman but it still ached a bit. Sitting up on his bed he checked his body over and let out a sigh of relief. Over the course of the night his bloated muscles had shrunk down and become much slimmer than previous. They were still larger than they had been when he first arrived, but he no longer looked like a muscle builder downing steroids like pez.
Climbing out of the bed, Thomas stripped off his clothing and examined his body from head to toe. Despite his muscles shrinking they were still packed with the same power, so maybe they were compressed? He could easily see the lines and definition of each muscle group visible to him. Frankly, his body was an impossible body. Everything about it seemed perfect from the shape to the definition of each muscle. He actually found it kind of depressing because it made him feel like his real body was 'inferior' to his digital body.
Shaking his head to dismiss such thoughts, it was just a game after all so who didn't want to be 'perfect', Thomas pulled on a fresh set of clothing to prepare for the new day. Thomas left his belongings in his room and paid Martha 189 gold for the next weeks stay up front. Though there was nothing to secure his belongings properly, he wasn't too worried. He kept the only valuable item he owned on him at all times, his psuedo-magical kukri. He had it attached to his belt and hanging at his side. It was his best weapon, who cares if someone stole his cheap clothing or crappy starter shortsword?
After breakfast, Thomas headed towards Zella's with only eleven gold to his name now. Some might say it was silly to have so little funds, but Thomas figured that in the worst case scenario he could just take a few hours at Rock's to make something and find another player to sell it to, but only if he had to. He was instead hoping he could make some more money at Zella's place. What was more important was that he now had a secure roof over his head, and since he intended to stay at The Swans Nest for the next few weeks at least anyway, it's not like he'd just wasted the money or anything.
----------------------------------------
After arriving at Zella's, Thomas approached Zella herself with a smile and a warm greeting, "Good morning!"
Zella turned to Thomas and gave him a warm smile in return. After Thomas had left last night she'd spoken to the other women working in the back room and had been informed that Thomas didn't oggle them like that other bastard, Drukker, and had focused entirely on his work. Such a report improved her opinion of Thomas so she decided to treat him better. "Welcome back."
Thomas looked around the currently empty storefront at the various pieces of clothing. He hadn't really paid too much attention yesterday, but today he could see that the majority of the items for sale looked like regular clothing. Nothing visible seemed to be of a rarity higher than normal. This made Thomas wonder what it would take to make magical clothing. Though he supposed it would probably take magical materials. He turned back to Zella to ask, "So what's on my agenda for today?"
Unlike with the Blacksmithing profession, Thomas really didn't have a solid idea of what to do to progress his Tailoring profession. He could only rely on Zella to guide him along for the time being. Zella nodded her head and gestured for Thomas to follow her before leading him into the back room. She fetched down a set of patterns and held them out to Thomas, "I received an order from a group of otherworlders calling themselves 'Heaven's Harmony'. They wanted me to make them all matching outfits. After talking to them we designed this pattern. I want you to use that set of cloth...", Zella gestures to a wall containing baskets filled with matching sets of cloth, "And sew as many uniforms as you can for me each day."
System Notice: New Quest, Repeatable Quest! Zella has requested that you make uniforms for the budding guild 'Heaven's Harmony'. You may repeat this quest until the order has been finished.
Rewards: 100 Exp, 25 gold per uniform completed with a grade of 'Above Average' or higher
Time Limit: None
Failure: For each uniform below 'Above Average' quality you must pay for the cost of materials.
Thomas accepted the pattern and started to look over it while Zella headed back to the front of the store. It must be good to be the boss and have others do the work for you. Not that Thomas would ever really want to stop working even if he had millions of employees. Thomas spread the patterns out over the work table and started to examine them while reading the notations. Although the notes were written in the language of the game, just like speaking, it was automatically translated for him. This was a common occurrence in modern VRMMO's, otherwise, how could players from other countries play together?
There were several clothing items broken up into several pieces each. There were both a set for men and women. The women's set included a nice blouse, a multilayered skirt, and a pair of spats. No panty shots for these girls. For the guys, it was a nice shirt and pair of slacks. The clothing was only designed to look good with no real functionality to them. Because the system resized clothing automatically there was no need for the patterns to be made in multiple sizes or for there to be fitting sessions, Thomas just had to sew the outfits according to the patterns and they would fit anyone.
Thomas pulled out a basket with the materials in it for a woman's uniform. He vaguely recognized it as something he'd seen the other girls in the shop working on yesterday. As he was getting to work, so were the other women working in the store, they were doing the same thing as him. The guy from yesterday, Drukker, hadn't bothered to show up yet. Following the directions on the pattern, Thomas pulled out a pre-cut square of white cloth that would make up the lowest layer of the skirt and spread it out to trace the pattern over it. As he traced the pattern he thought about stopping about an hour early today so he could visit Rock and place an order with him. He'd forgotten to do it this morning despite thinking about it.
Because there weren't any zippers the skirt pattern was a little longer so it could overlap and be held closed with a set of hooks. Pretty simple and classy stuff, in Thomas's opinion. After the pattern was traced, Thomas cut it out with a pair of scissors and began to arrange the fabric so it would be easier to work with. To Thomas, his actions felt smooth, but to any professional watching, it was plain as day that he was not working in the easiest way possible and was just giving himself extra work.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Thomas folded a small section of the fabric at the edges over and began to use a topstitch to hem the edges. The whole point of the process was to simply keep the fabric from completely unraveling and to bind any loose threads. After hemming the edge of the underskirt, Thomas repeated the process for the remaining parts of the skirt as well starting from tracing them out on the proper piece of cloth. It took Thomas nearly an hour to trace, cut, and hem every piece of the skirt before he could start stitching the pieces together. Thanks to the well drawn out plans and notes it wasn't too hard for Thomas to follow the directions step by step. After a solid hour and a half of work he completed the first skirt.
System Notice: You have created a Normal cloth skirt. Quality: Excellent. You have gained 65 Tailoring experience.
The skirt in his hand was rather simple but still looked pretty nice. The outer layer of the skirt was a dark red with the white underlayer. With the extra length, the skirt overlapped nicely to be clasped together so that even if the person wearing it was to spin in place no gap would be shown in the skirt. Looking at the experience he gained he couldn't help but frown. It took him an hour and a half just to make a single skirt only to get 65 experience. If he spent the same amount of time making the purses he would have gotten quite a bit more.
Unfortunately, just completing the skirt didn't complete the quest. He still needed to make the blouse and the spats to be worn under the skirt. He started on the spats next. They were even simpler than the skirt to create. They basically amounted to just two pieces of cloth shaped like shorts sewn together. Thanks to automatic resizing elastic bands wouldn't even be needed for a nice snug fit. The shorts took significantly less time since he didn't need to hem some of the edges, like the skirt, sewing the seams together had accomplished much of that for him. The only seams he had to hem himself were the top and the bottoms of each leg.
System Notice: You have created Normal cloth spats. Quality: Excellent. You have gained 65 Tailoring experience.
Thomas set the white pair of spats on top of the completed skirt. He'd only spent a total of two hours working now, and maybe the experience wasn't quite as terrible as he had imagined. The problem was the next thing he had to create, the blouse. The main body of the blouse wasn't an issue, it wasn't going to be much harder than the spats. The problem was going to be the buttonholes. Fortunately, there were only a few going about a quarter of the way down the front of the blouse, but each of them would have to be reinforced by hand and it was going to take a bit of time to do.
Gritting his teeth, Thomas got to work by tracing out the various pieces of the pattern onto a sheet of white cloth before cutting them all out. The majority of the uniform was made from plain white material, only the outer layer of the skirt was made from a different color. Overall, Thomas rated it as a rather bland design as far as color scheme went. It wasn't his call to make though. He was just here for the experience and the money!
With the pieces cut out, he began to hem the edges that wouldn't be part of the seams to prevent them from unraveling. Once that was done he began to stitch the pieces together forming most of the blouse. The most annoying part was creating and reinforcing the button holes on the piece of cloth that would be the front of the blouse. It took the most time for him to complete that step, but once it was done he was able to easily attach the front of the blouse to the rest of it and stitch it together. The very last step was sewing on the buttons, though not nearly as annoying as the buttonholes, they still took some time to make secure.
System Notice: You have created a Normal cloth blouse. Quality: Excellent. You have gained 98 Tailoring experience.
System Notice: Quest Complete, Repeatable Quest! Zella has requested that you make uniforms for the budding guild 'Heaven's Harmony'. You may repeat this quest until the order has been finished.
Rewards: 100 Exp, 25 gold per uniform completed with a grade of 'Above Average' or higher
Time Limit: None
Failure: For each uniform below 'Above Average' quality you must pay for the cost of materials.
System Notice: You have gained 100 experience.
After turning in his quest to Zella and receiving his rewards, Thomas returned to the back room of the shop to repeat the quest again. It took him just over three hours to complete one set of the female uniform, so with that in mind, Thomas grabbed another basket prepared for a female uniform. Why focus on the female version? While it was more complex it also had more parts that were more complex to create, which should generate more experience than the relatively easier shirt and slacks of the male uniform. Right?
Over the course of the next six hours, Thomas completed another two complete female uniforms earning himself a total of 456 Tailoring experience, 200 experience, and 50 gold. Seeing his rewards Thomas was a little stumped. In two days he'd managed to push tailoring up to rank sixteen already. It had taken him a bit longer to push Blacksmithing that high. Something felt... off about it. Of course, he knew that he was going to need a lot more experience to get to rank 25 from here, it just felt too fast and he couldn't help but wonder why.
Thomas continued to contemplate on why training Tailoring seemed so much easier than when he was blacksmithing as he headed over to Rock's place to discuss what he wanted Rock to make for him.
Spoiler: Character Sheet
Name: Thomas Darkrose Experience Gained: 4,423 Experience Spent: 3,790 Experience Remaining: 633 Power: 14 (+) 150 Exp Endurance: 14 (+) 150 Exp Agility: 14 (+) 150 Exp Magic: 14 (+) 150 Exp Innate Abilities:
* Transmutation ( A ) // Rank 1 // 0/20 Exp
* Quick Learner ( C ) // Rank 12 // 21/130 Exp
* All Seeing Eyes ( S ) // Rank 5 // 2/60 Exp
Skills:
* Serenity // Rank 7 // 35/80 Exp
* Blacksmithing // Rank 25 // 93/260 Exp
* Tailoring // Rank 16 // 155/170 Exp
Abilities:
* None
Titles:
* Magical Blacksmith