I was not really part of the planning at this stage, so until I knew the basic plans would be set in motion, I checked what I could create with the workstation.

So much for my to-do lists!

I went to one of the spare rooms and set up the artisan workstation. Luke was set on training and working with Amy on some super-secret plans of theirs. Every time I went near them, they clammed up. I got annoyed at them.

Mike was going to try to sort out some contracts or boring administrative stuff. Julie was busy sorting out whatever she was doing with the Min Min and would get me a genuine contract to feel a bit more secure and get paid. We were still waiting for the others to come out of their enhancements.

Even though we were anxious, Julie said at least another day would be expected for a normal enhancement. Phillip was due back soon, so Jean and Rahsaan were helping to plan. There was so much planning going on that I felt quite left out, it was just not my thing.

Luke kept training.

I wanted a bit of downtime before things got crazy. I needed to clear my head and assimilate some of my skills and spells. Making something sounded like a good distraction.

My kit was beautiful and well-crafted. It had a portable desk with a strange-looking sewing machine and a loom, which were super easy to get out and ready for use. It took up a lot of space, but I made do with the spare room. It was eerie with the way skills and knowledge worked. When I first looked at it, I had absolutely no idea, then I consumed and used the skill crystals.

As I used each one, I felt intense heat in my brain, even though I knew that there were no nerves in there, so it was like an itch you could not quite reach a sting, then it ramped up to be paths of fire being cut into my consciousness. Suddenly it was an 'I know Kung-fu' moment.

Not Kung-fu, but I knew Fashion-fu. I started with Design: Fashion (Tier 2), which gave me an in-depth knowledge of the fashion design process and a whole new range of words to describe things. I thought I knew fashion before, but the difference made me feel embarrassed about how I had carried on. The process of learning skills and the feeling after was addictive. This insta-knowledge, I wanted more. I wanted to know everything. I wonder how far I could push it.

Hey, Solace, is there a skill and spell cap?

Solace: the number of skills and spells you can learn and retain is related to your racial tier, class tier, and main stats. There is no effective cap at Tier 5 with an Epic or higher class. The downside of multitudes of skills is that they dilute your responses and can cause a delay in using them as the choice of Skill becomes time-consuming. Analysis Paralysis or Choice Overload. How do you attack someone when you can choose over 100 skills that could be used? Which one is the best? Which one has the best Mana and Energy consumption? All these can be mitigated through training, experience and an excellent AI to crunch the data. Without the training, you get choice paralysis.

I sighed and disregarded Hydrox's advice about spacing these things out. It was not as if it could really hurt me. Luke survived. Not only did I want to use it now, but I wanted more. Fashion: Analysis (Tier 1) was less direct knowledge. I could now see the interconnections between how clothing items went together, even fabric choices that were both straightforward and esoteric. The rush this time also tinged my vision with a slight grey around the edges, and I felt lightheaded. It was so good. The brain burn was not quite as intense, but I could feel my individual neurons sparking. I had to blink slowly to clear my head. It was only a Tier 1 skill, so I assume that was why it was less of a buzz. If there were significant issues with my brain, I would also have expected Solace to butt in.

And yes, I was also ignoring Solace and her warnings. It felt that good.

Drawing (Tier 1) suddenly gave me the theory of how to draw and sketch. I could feel the muscle memory and movements I needed to make, the strokes and techniques to achieve the desired results for different styles. I also knew that my handwriting, which was already neat, would become distinctively neat, and my writing would be faster too. Again, I wanted more; the burn was becoming familiar and felt just right. Then I used the last Skill I needed today, Craft: Clothier (Tier 1). My vision went dim again, and my eyes watered as I sucked through the pain, and this time it was a real pain, the fire behind my eyes and as I gasped for breath. I grabbed a healing injector and demolished that, which eased the pain somewhat. I winced as I used the "OMG, Heal me, it hurts." to numb the burn behind my eyes. It was worth it. Fuck it felt so good.

I sighed in pleasure as I suddenly knew how to use all the equipment before me. It felt good that I briefly considered using the rest of the crystals. With a sigh, I settled down to work with what I had. I knew it didn't automatically grant me success, just how to use the equipment. If I followed what I knew, I could achieve great things—time to design some stuff.

I was going to start with my sporty look. "Leaf of Broken Season: Sporty." This was my go-to comfort look and one I would wear a lot. It was my relaxed look. My day is done, and I get a comfortable look. Maybe even my casual kick chaos look. The things I was going to make had some must-have features; self-mending, self-cleaning and colour change. I was thinking of loose sports pants like upmarket tight track pants, a rugged T-shirt and some comfortable footwear.

Solace, have I asked you to remind me to get the cobbler skill at any stage?

Solace: No, Miss Sarah, you have not. I have, however, pointed out you should investigate this Skill due to your obsession with footwear. It would help if you listened to me more, not ignored my warnings. Remember that I am tied to you, and we should be partners. I am more than just a dumb AI! When you hurt your brain, it is very uncomfortable for me.

I could feel the exasperation.

Sorry Sol, can you remind me next time I go shopping, please? I think I will need one. I will try to listen to you more. It's not as if I could do some permanent damage to my brain learning skills. I'll get you something nice.

Solace: Yes, you could, Miss Sarah. You could do permanent brain damage. I had to divert some of my cycles to mitigate it today, more than I was comfortable with. I was unable to warn you while I was scrubbing some neural pathways. Indeed, I can remind you in future, and you should listen to my warnings. I will think of anything you can get me. Thank you.

What is with the Miss?

Solace: Nothing, just trying things out, testing your reaction to determine optimal interactions. How would you rate this? I was going for a slight reprimand.

Fine, I guess. Miss makes me pay attention, and you sound like you are a bit peeved and a bit more formal. Thanks for the brain assist. I got some stuff to make.

I was going to get into the zone. It happened sometimes. It was a skill, not a Skill, just a boring human one or something I had where I could concentrate on a single thing for a long time. The primary use I have had for it so far was mainly study-related. I could do an all-nighter and retain most of the information or smash out an assignment. It was like binge-watching an entire season of Below Deck Downunder – not something I would recommend. I will never get that portion of my life back. But I knew I could concentrate and do great things, and I kept telling myself I could.

Solace, can you give me privacy or space or whatever? I will concentrate on this for a bit and don't want interruptions. I'll let you know when I am done. Hey, maybe later we need to work on some privacy stuff too, like when I go to the bathroom, or perhaps when Luke and I are, you know, talking…

Solace: We can discuss that later. There are projects that I can engage in while you are busy. I am working with Sprite on our cultural preservation project. Just let me know when you are done, and I'll check in with you in a few hours. If you are busy, I will not disturb you. I will also be working on some investments and compiling an index of your culture for future reference. Do you mind if I divert some cycles for entertainment?

Sounds good. Later.

My mind was boggled at the thought of an AI wanting entertainment. I guess she said she was a sapient being, so I wasn't going to begrudge her some simple joy. I was both curious and scared, wanting to know what an AI would find entertaining.

I was going to start with a simple T-shirt. Maybe even some Baby Dolls. I had a few that I could take apart to make a pattern. With my new knowledge, I could quickly fold it on the table, pin it down, and draw the pattern onto the system design paper. I marked the neckline, armholes and hemline, paying particular attention to how I liked them. Some cheaper shirts I had looked fantastic, but the seams were crap and ruined an otherwise great design. Fixing that issue was straightforward with my new skills.

Once I had the pattern, I could either keep it as a paper pattern for one-off use or use my Skill to formalise it as a pattern that could be used with the clothier's Skill. As a one-off use, there were some bonuses to use it. As the pattern creator, I could make slight modifications and copies almost automatically. The best result was that I could sell the pattern to other artisans. I had no delusions that my designs would make any credits, but it was nice to know I could.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I was more interested in production. It took some time to make the pattern.

Finally, I was happy, and the Design: Fashion skill gave me an almost holographic view of the finished product where I could use the ability to make minor adjustments before committing them to the pattern. I was in pig heaven. What seemed like hours later, I had created something I thought would be perfect.

Congratulations. You have created a common quality pattern: A plain baby doll T-shirt for Earth Human: female.

You have been awarded 200 XP for this effort.

This pattern has been made available in the system store. You receive a small Karmic Boost and feel better for contributing to the fashion world. You will also receive royalties for each sale and an experience bonus each time it is sold and used to create an item. Continue to create.

That was pretty cool and unexpected. I needed clarification about the auto-adding to the store before I would be comfortable with it turned on. I spent several minutes finding the setting where I disabled the auto-add features.

After a brief thought, auto-adding gave you a Karmic Boost, which I needed, so I re-enabled the auto-add feature. I could always revoke the sharing later.

I spent some time in bliss and agony learning all the rest of my skills. Solace would not be happy. I felt the need to activate more of my skills. Instead of doing what Luke did, I was going to see if I could space them out. I know Solace gave me a warning, but if I took some time between them, I should be ok. I sat on the bed and did a skill, an injector and then a rest.

Doing it this way seemed to lessen the pain. I was smashing through the injectors and was also quite woozy from the skills now mushing around my head. The pleasure rush from the instant gaining knowledge was intense. My toes curled, and I could feel my heart rate speed up. I took an hour and had finally learned all my skills and spells and was ready to continue.

It left me in a bit of a pleasure daze, about a half bottle of nice whiskey and a great meal, almost coma. Once I recovered from my learning indulgence, I got back to designing.

The next thing I needed to do was make the T-shirt. The more I looked at the materials I had in bulk, the more I realised how the pattern was not the main thing I needed. I wanted the perfect material to create this with. I needed to understand my materials and how they all worked together. Earlier, I would have just chosen stretch cotton in different thicknesses. Now I knew more. It had to be soft, breathable, stretch, and support my boobs, almost like a more form hugging under-armour. I started looking at the nano-weave. It seemed to be ideal. From the feel of it, I was going to use this as my go-to starting point for many projects. This was similar to the under-armour that I was wearing as underwear. Luckily I had enough cuts for a couple of test runs. I knew from using my skills that it had a high chance of success with a common pattern. The material was considerably more exotic, which made it more difficult to make, but the higher-tier materials boosted my chances of producing something extraordinary.

The more I considered it, the more I wanted not just to use one set of materials. If I was going to add magical properties to fabric, I needed to understand how all that worked together. I was looking at combining Magical and Technology. I had yet to learn how you went about that for clothes. I knew from Magical Crafting: Items some of the theories for how to imbue mana and create different effects for items. I felt that with some practice, I could modify how I used the Skill to include fabric. As it sat now, the Skill would be fantastic when I went into accessories. I sat and thought for a bit.

I had the following skills to investigate the material; Identify, Mage Sight, Enhance Item, Minor Mana Manipulation, Scribe, Research, and Mana Syphon.

Once I recovered, I planned out what I needed, and I knew I could find something out by using my skills to examine the fabric. I spent some more time examining the nano-weave; it was a slick dark material that seemed to shimmer and almost move when you looked at it - out of the corner of your eye type movement. Very unnerving. Even though this was the same cloth I had for my under-armour, it was vastly different. Something in the creation process took this high-tech cloth and turned it into some comfortable material with energy and mana properties.

I started with identify.

Nano-weave™ Tier 3 Upgradable cloth.

This cloth is the basis of all Exoon Parmor adaptive cloth products. The fibre is made from a proprietary blend of system-connected nanobots and proprietary exotic fibres. Fabric made from this can be configured for various applications. It can be enhanced with system energy, mana or integrated technology. Capable of being crafted into Rare and Epic garments. Certified Artisans and Crafters Courses are available.

That sounded pretty cool and seemed like a good base for my pattern. I would have to look into doing the courses later. But I had a few other skills to try. I used my Mage Sight. One thing I was sure of was that I needed to use this Skill more.

With it active, I saw the threads of mana as they interacted and connected around things and objects as I focused on them. Whatever system ran this new reality I was working within certainly encouraged and rewarded experimentation and discovery. There were vague hints, with "Allows the user to see threads of mana and the interconnections of all things." In the description.

The description for mage sight was as ambiguous as it got. Why were the different threads and interconnections of different sizes and colours? Why were some static, others vibrant and moving? I would hopefully learn some magic theory when I got to the Mages Guild to explain this. I was absolutely mesmerised by my new vision capabilities. I watched some threads float without movement while other lines seemed to pulse with almost hypnotic patterns. Some threads changed size and colour. I had never taken serious drugs, but this is what I imagined a psychedelic trip might entail. It was very cool. To say that the Nano-weave was alive with mana was an understatement.

I lost myself in the patterns, seeing colours and combinations of light as the threads wove in and out of each other, connecting, rebounding, and joining in a way that defied any simple explanation. There were hints I could feel in my brain, memories that were mine, yet not, like on the edge of consciousness, about the differences. I did not have the Skill or knowledge level to unlock this nebulous ability fully. I could feel the drain on my energy stores. There was a slight pull on my mana as I shifted my sight around the cloth. I was so engrossed I started to feel this almost physical exhaustion. I loved the feel of using mana and energy.

I had Mana Manipulation (Tier 2), which would allow me to manipulate mana from the name of the Skill. What if I wanted to pull and change the threads? That was what it was for, wasn’t it? I combined my mana sight with my Mana Manipulation skill. I suddenly had control over ghost-like hands that appeared in my HUD, or maybe they were real. It was so hard to tell, and did it really matter?

I could intuitively move them, make the hands bigger and smaller and rotate them around, zooming in and out to get a better view. It took me some time to understand their purpose, but they allowed me to grasp mana threads and alter properties. It was similar to some of the 3D design software we used back at school. You had pop-out menus to adjust the properties of the threads in real-time. This was the tool that, with time, I am sure I could use to catalogue the different colours, sizes and intents of the mana. It gave you mental access to something that reminded me of drag-and-drop coding.

Years ago, I made a game in Scratch, which was like this, drag and drop code. My game had some simple icons and graphics, a cute cartoon girl on which you could put cute outfits. The funny thing was that I had a look at the game later in the same year, and my idea of cute had changed. This was really similar to that drag-and-drop coding. I could mentally grab property tags for the mana and place them on other threads, or I could edit the property, increasing or decreasing the values.

Say I wanted to add elemental fire to something, I knew, thanks to my Skill, that I just mentally formed the Fire tag and added it to the strand using the ghost hands.

Ironically, when they say don't play with fire, it is because they know what they are talking about.

I wish I had chosen a less volatile element to practice with. I had formed the mental image of the fire tag and merged it with one of the pulsing mana threads.

SYSTEM WARNING: Mana Manipulation Critical Failure.

MANA INVERSION.

Personal Mana channels are overloaded.

Personal Mana channels burned.

Ambient Mana levels are increasing.

The resulting explosion, implosion and shock wave knocked me into the wall.

CONDITION STUNNED ADDED: 90 seconds

CONDITION BLINDED ADDED: 180 Seconds

CONDITION CONCUSSED ADDED: 24 hours

CONDITION MANA BURN ADDED: 3 Days

High Negative Karmic Imbalance.

UNSTABLE MANA WARP DETECTED (Mitigated by Mana Syphon)

CONDITION UNSTABLE MANA (WARP) ADDED

Primary safety override engaged.

ERROR LOCAL SYSTEM: EMERGENCY DISCONNECTED FROM SYSTEM.

Local Resources Initiated.

ALL SYSTEM SKILLS AND SPELLS ARE ROUTED THROUGH LOCAL RESOURCES.

WARNING: YOU HAVE LEFT THE EMPIRE.

Local: YOU HAVE LEFT THE EMPIRE SYSTEM.

Error: database offline pending reconnection.

Error: Storage Capacity Compromised (Unstable Mana)

Insufficient.

Insl….reos…local inte.ion

Solace: So sorry, hang on. Rebooting

Rebooting

Emergency Initialisation: Local integration (V1) Local Node Enabled

Emergency Beacon Protocol Enabled