"That's bull! Does she think it's easy to enter the flawless Caster stages in a season?" Cronix complained.

"Relax, it isn't that hard. I mean, I did it easi..." A pillow hit him before Cayden could finish.

The thrower being Lapsa, who also had something to say, "Cayden, you don't count. You've been destroying and repairing your stars for years, you can't place that type of expectation on us normal people."

"Lapsa, screw our stars, just focus on our mental energy, and we can beat any flawless Caster," Cronix said, before leaving for his room.

Lapsa didn't know how to respond to that, but he also left for his room, leaving a speechless Cayden by himself.

When Cronix entered his room, he grabbed the book of water spells. Despite what he said, he knew he couldn't fully rely on his mental energy. Skipping through the pages, he tried to find a spell he liked, but as he was searching, he was suddenly reminded of another spell he had in his magic bag.

Searching through it, he took out a manual called The secret Mist Technique. Cronix looked at Kara, who was picking at her feathers, “Does learning spells even help with our stars?”

She looked up at him with her beady eyes for only a moment, before she continued to pick at her feathers.

Cronix sighed and began reading.

…

Lapsa sat on his bed staring at the employee clothes given to him by Wendril, unlike the other two, he actually listened to what she said about them. About their durability, and ability to stay clean and comfortable despite hard labor.

Their traits may not seem like anything special, but this was a real example of what mystic tailoring was supposed to be and it was right in front of him.

So, now he was stuck between two, either he keeps the clothes in good condition, which would mean he’ll be listening to Wendri and he’ll have clean clothes to change into, or he could destroy the clothes and maybe find a way to learn how to create his own.

After a few moments of thinking it over, he whispered, “I’m sorry Wendril, but this is more important,” before grabbing the clothes, but he then suddenly froze.

And he asked himself, “Do I even know how to make normal clothes? I mean I’ve seen the laundry demi-humans make them, but… Okay fine, I won’t destroy anything yet.”

Putting down the clothes, Lapsa grabbed the tailoring manual. He already read through the book five times, going piece by piece, word by word, but he still didn’t understand a lot of it.

What he understood was the terminology and the theory of how everything was supposed to go, but practically, he couldn’t do anything right. Even the blanket he first created, the one he gave to Cronix, was sloppy at best.

The laundry demi-humans would be so disappointed in me.

However this was still the basic normal stuff, his knowledge was even worse when it came to the mystic part of mystic tailoring.

Nothing made sense.

First off, it seemed he was supposed to somehow infuse the threads with magic or mental energy, yet there was no clear explanation on how it was supposed to be done.

Not that there were absolutely no explanations, there was one. However, it was only one, which was for the magic method, and even then it was extremely vague.

As for the mental energy method, there were visual examples of how it was supposed to look after the deed was done, but there was no explanation.

There were barely even words on the paper for the mental energy method, just a caption indicating it was for mental energy. It was like the author didn’t want people learning how to tailor, but they needed to at least try creating the illusion of teaching.

Lapsa sighed, and crawled off his bed, before going to the only person he knew who dealt with a similar situation: Cronix.

Cronix’s room was strangely quiet, in the other residence there were constant bangs of formations exploding, yet now it was pretty peaceful.

The silence was broken by the sounds of Lapsa’s knocking, and Cronix quickly opened the door, a blast of cold air following his moments, yet there were beads of sweat on Cronix’s forehead and his breathing was heavy.

“Can you help me with something?” Lapsa quickly asked.

Cronix silently nodded and moved aside so he could enter. The air inside Cronix’s room was very humid, and the temperature dropped.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“What have you been doing here?” Lapsa asked, holding his arms close to his body.

Cronix didn’t bother hiding anything, “Remember how that woman from the carriage before we reach O’Kairo created mist and used it to fight me? I’m trying to do something like that.”

“Oh, your control over the water elements must be amazing!” Lapsa said, a bit amazed at what Cronix was trying to accomplish.

But Cronix looked confused, “What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re trying to create mist so you’ll need the water elements to all be completely separate from one another but close enough for they can be visible. Did the spell book not explain that?”

Shaking his head, Cronix said, “The book is a bit… Confusing.”

Cronix then looked at his failure in the form of the bubbles on his palm and fingertips as he thought over what Lapsa said.

Maybe this could help, but is it really as simple as that?

Cronix turned away from his thoughts and looked at Lapsa, “You said you needed help with something?”

While handing Cronix the book and flipping through the pages, Lapsa explained his problem, telling him the line that stumped him, “It says we need to coat the thread with magic, like a magic crystal, but I have no idea what that means.”

Cronix closed his eyes, and tried to make room in his mind for Lapsa’s problem, “I guess that means to… Um… surround it with magic or something, I have no idea.”

He then shifted his attention to the other method.

“As for the mental energy method,” Cronix looked over the visual the book provided and faintly smiled, “It's similar to the structures of a formation.”

Lapsa frowned, and asked, “How so?”

Pointing his fingers at the image, Cronix said, “Look at these patterns, the mental energy is supposed to travel through them and create the effects that the creator wants, just like a formation.”

Lapsa nodded, but before he was able to thank Cronix and take the book back, an exhausted sigh came out of Cronix’s mouth, and he said, “You shouldn’t work on the mental energy method, I don’t think you’re strong enough for that. Go ask Cayden for help with the other method.”

“Oh… Okay.” Lapsa took back the book and walked to the door, but he then looked back at Cronix for a suggestion, only to see him supporting his head with his hands, his fingers rubbing his temples, and his body leaning against his bedframe, “Are you okay, Cronix?”

Lapsa only received a weak thumbs up from him, but Cronix didn’t even raise his head. Lapsa looked around the room looking for Kara, yet he couldn’t find her.

“Cronix, I don’t think I should leave you alone, or maybe I should get you a pill.”

Cronix waved him off, and said, “I’m fine and we need to save everything we can, besides Kara is going to come back any second. Go talk to Cayden and learn how to tailor.”

Lapsa hesitated for a few moments, Cronix could feel Lapsa’s eyes on him, but he didn’t say anything, he was too preoccupied for that.

Lapsa tightened his grip around the tailoring book, still thinking about what he should do, but his thoughts were interrupted by tapping on the window.

A relieved breath came out of him as he walked over and opened the window letting the silver-patterned crow into the room.

She dropped a bag at Cronix’s feet before landing on a drawer. Lapsa made his way to the drawer and whispered to Kara, “Keep an eye on him.” Before finally leaving the room.

Lapsa found Cayden in the living room, trying his best to read a children's book given to him by Wendril. Information tablets were spread out around him.

But when Lapsa approached Cayden, he noticed a large amount of dirt on the floor, and how particles of dust were being drawn from the air towards the badger.

In front of Cayden, a little dirt rabbit formed with a larger fox following along. Judging by the cover of the book, these were the two main characters.

But they collapsed when Cayden’s ears flickered, and he looked up from the book and turned to Laspsa.

Lapsa sat next to Cayden, and asked, “What’s that?”

“It’s a book called ‘You’re My Friend’ it’s…” Cayden shook his head a little, “A pretty weird story between a rabbit and a fox.”

Lapsa laughed, and pointed at the dirt pile in front of them, “I could tell.”

Cayden smiled and shrugged.

“Anyways, can you help me with something?” Lapsa asked, getting to the root of why he was here, he then proceeded to tell Cayden his problem.

Cayden was silent for a little while, but then he randomly asked, “Do you know how I create magic crystals?”

“No.” Lapsa responded.

“I do it by compressing all my magic into a single space.” Cayden said, using his fingers to demonstrate, “Magic crystals are concentrated magic that forms because they have nowhere left to go.”

“Okay… so you’re saying I have to concentrate the magic around this string until it has nowhere else to go but into the string?” Lapsa asked, “Is that why I need a special type of material because anything normal would just have a crystal form around it?”

Cayden nodded.

But Lapsa wasn’t satisfied because he immediately found out another problem he’ll be having, “I’m not strong enough for that.”

A faint smile found its way onto Cayden’s face, “That’s true, you’ll need to be at least a four-star Caster to do it properly, but you should be focusing on your stars anyway.”

“But can you show me how it’s supposed to be done first? You know… for motivation.”

Cayden chuckled, “I don’t think so.”

“Come on Cayden, how am I supposed to get passionate about completing my stars, if I don’t see the benefit?” Lapsa argued.

“What do you mean, ‘no benefit’? Don’t be stupid Lapsa.”

“Please Cayden,” Lapsa begged.

Cayden let out an exaggerated breath of air, “Fine, but you better start working on your stars immediately.”

Lapsa quickly nodded and gave Cayden a piece of thread. He watched as the badger grabbed the thread, and gathered magical energy into both his palms.

With the magical energy, he centered in on the thread, forcing and compressing every little bit into the space the thread was occupying.

After several minutes, all the magical energy disappeared, and the thread was faintly emitting a very small aura.

“There, take it,” Cayden muttered, putting the string in Lapsa’s hands, who blankly stared at it in a trance-like state.