Aiven was indifferently watching four needles, seamlessly flitting around his craft as they pierced the patterns together. Each end of the thread was connected to one of his fingers.
Well, it is...distracting to say the least. Much better than being a depressing useless piece of...
When he realized that his mind started to wander on his darker thoughts again, he took out another one of his needles and traced the thread with mana for his control, making his mind blank again and filled with nothing but repetitive patterns under his template.
It had felt like ages since the last time Aiven had contemplated on his own situation. A week at most, and he had found the morbid bliss of 'not thinking' to be the best course to pass the days, which only happens when his mind was busy with his stupid class.
Barely noticeable above the canopy of leaves, Aiven flicked his finger as the new addition to his threads looped into another stitch.
This makes it...five needles then. It was a welcomed improvement to his tailoring.
Pleased with his work, Aiven made himself comfortable at his chosen branch which was three boulders from the ground.
His crafting and training was progressing more productively than he would have had imagined. At first, he could only produce three full-set wardrobe, starting from cloaks, hats, then armors.
An insane amount of linens and wool threads later, he could come up with about ten sets of wardrobe in a daily basis.
Templates for boots and shoes came to him by the end of his fifth day grinding levels.
The technique to his efficiency was due to multi-tasking, which came from using multiple needles.
As with all newly-initiated tailors, he started with only one needle, then he tried using the same skill on [cross-stitch] where he could use multiple needles in midair. Unlike the attack skill where there were only two point of directions for the movements, the one he devised for stitching were complex. Fortunately, it was repetitive, so a workable pattern was used with the help of his [thread guide] skill. His proficiency in [cross-stitch] attack also rose.
But still, a huge part of his concentration was needed. His maximum was ten needles, but there would be a lot of missed and crocked stitches at the end of the day if he pushed that far in numbers.
[Mana Manipulation] was one of those base skills he had a knack for and so far, more useful than his combat levels (which basically consisted nothing but speed and running away).
From the start, he had never entertained the idea that he'll become a tailor. His mana might be dysfunctional before but it was still possible for him to land a job-based class, be it the scholars' or the artisans' grounds at the Cessine Training Grounds. Reaching for anything more would be a hassle.
But somehow tailoring suited his way of using mana. Before, he had no choice but to strain even the last bit of his skills. Instead of the normal burst of mana for skill activation, he used a long but thin stream of mana operating throughout his body to regulate the spells.
Basically, the mana expended outside of his body looked like strings of mana. It was efficient and mana-conserving and right now that same streams of mana made it possible for him to led the needles into his control, giving him the impression of a puppeteer.
His current needlework was enough to make a consistent quality while still capable of surveying his surroundings.
Trees. Forest. Marshes. More trees. And the unmistakable shouting and screams of agony from below.
Hmmm, they're finishing late, he thought as his [Detection] zoomed to a couple of people fighting a few spans away from his hiding place. His cast easily spotted Simos. He should be worried knowing that his friend was one of those fighting in the fray, but Aiven was completely calm.
Another searching scan from his map and he saw two of the bandits had fallen. It looked like Simos' group doesn't need any support for now. With only six familiars under Simos' lead, they were now against ten standing bandits out of the twenty-three original count.
Normally, he wouldn't even bother watching Simos' sparring exercises with the undeads but he made an exemption for this one. Afterall, this was techinically a dry-run for his craft.
The flashiest of the familiars, Ulna was already wearing the costume he made earlier. Her silver hair, which split into a feather-tip, spun fluidly as she speared someone through the neck. The colors worked well with the black and white motiff the conventional maid costumes. Actually, all the familiars present were in maid-outfits, and instead of focusing on the bandit-subjugation, Aiven shifted unconsciously in looking for flaws in the equipment he had crafted.
Her [corpse armory] was easily integrated with the lightweight armor that was tatted with [Runescript: Chaos Rune] for additional 10% attack and [Runescript: Wind Breathe] for speed.
The rune ornament varies from those that were directly dyed on the material and the ones stitched to form the runescripts.
The dyes would tend to evaporate within activation, while the stitched ones were in continuous effect.
The complexity and quality of threads also factored in the veracity and affectivity of the runes. From the t1 [Cotton Wool] to t3 [Transcend Vine Threads]. The threads were also picky in what rune they should be embroidered into. Conflicting affinity would often fail based on his experience so far.
He opened his skill sets and checked on the skills he used for runescripts.
Job Title: [Dressmaker]
Skill Set I: Ornamental Appraisal
Skill Set II: Rune Stitching > Rune Embroidery
Skill Set III: Ornamental Engraving > Rhinestone Engraving
His [Dressmaker Job Skills] have already surpassed intermediate tier, twice as fast compared to how he levelled his other tailoring job titles.
Not really surprising since he had been working with runes the very moment he had spoken his first word. Working on these armors were the same as when he was producing scrolls before.
As for the design, it would be boring if all costumes would be identical, so he played some parts of it. Not for any aesthetic designs per se, but generally for the sake of his sanity. Regurgitating one hundred maid outfits repeatedly could be straining for his questionable mental health. Just thinking of it was already draining him.
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For Ulna's Right Arm troop, he sticks to the conventional maid costumes since Delica was unhealthily pushy about the matter. They were mostly attack and strength oriented, so an easy to move garb was not too bad. Amazingly, all Ulna's group were made of females.
One of Ulna's [Familiar Arts] was [Ars Valkyria]. If his history was right, valkyries were all female warrior-reapers ready to choose the fallen warriors in battle from Old Norse, so he won't be surprised if everyone under her unit were all females.
But a nagging feeling kept bugging him, especially whenever he saw that rabbit-beastkin. If he wasn't mistaken the rabbit-inherent was called Distal.
When he was distributing the clothes, some of the girls in the Right Arm unit started dressing Distal in the maid outfit. Did he made a wrong assumption? He was sure the rabbit was male, but maybe he was wrong.
There's actually a suit made for the rabbit-inherent undead, but when Ulna and the triplets started a full-length speech on the greatness of the Demon Army, highlighted with singing praises of their mistress, his head started to hurt and he easily snuck out of the impromptu gathering.
The Left Arm unit, which was headed by Acromion were mostly in butler-style, suit and tie--- a design similar to a tuxedo. Aiven even made a feminine version of the tux to suit the females. But they still looked intimidating. Basically, they looked like a mafia. The group was mostly made up of beastkin, so they could easily pass as yakuza, with beastial characteristics here and there.
Lamina's group, which were long-range mages and archers were mostly made up of elvens. In the end, he decided to design a costume inspired by kimonos. It was a bit nostalgic on his part that he started being engrossed with the crafting.
As for the practicability of his designs, so far, long skirts were very uncomfortable to watch, with not much room to move. He'll have to work on the slits better. As for the balloon design, there's a lot more place for the opponent to get hold on to, so that also needed some trimmings and revisions.
"Basically, less clothes, more skins," he murmured to himself.
"I knew you were pervert."
When Aiven looked up, just one branch above him, he saw Mieu with her feet playfully dangling in the air, smiling innocently at the on-going battle (which he had conveniently muted out) below.
"..."
His eyes were fixed on the stuffed doll the demon lordling was cradling on her arms. It was made from the excess materials Aiven made from the costumes. It actually had the same design as the baroque automatom that his mother used to make, except the materials were all made of white leather and some fine textiles and it had no mechanism of the simulacra used for automatoms.
The clear manastone placed on the doll's choker glint a faint blue and Delica's voice came out, "Hmpf, I am grossly disappointed."
His brows twitched at her, or more specifically, at the doll's unwarranted opinion which was instantly translated as, right, says the person who wanted to dress all undeads as maids.
"Maids are the epitome of loyal service and excellence! Why should I not want that for my master?" The doll was starting to rot with the miasma flowing erratically from the gem. He could easily visualize Delica berating him with her nagging.
Aiven replied by squinting his eyes more. Before he could question her reasoning, Mieu had gently tapped the head of the doll and her mana started enveloping the doll-Delica. The mana was so pure, that not even a tiny leak from a lich's miasma could be detected.
"Nee, isn't it fine, Delica?" Mieu said while giving her typical brilliant smile. The little girl lifted the doll and faced it towards her,"and Ainee did gave me this doll for you. Aren't you happy?" she asked, their foreheads almost touching.
The gemstone, which was originally the inventory necklace Delica used to house her body, glowed on and off for awhile as Mieu held on to the doll-Delica. The toy's features were the generic face of porcelain dolls, doe-eyes, impossible lashes, and pouted lips dimpling in a smile that would have made his mother's doll automaton proud. Aside from the small-fitted victorian dress and the golden fine threads he used to create the drill-like curls on the toy's head, there was nothing that stood out from the doll.
Delica became quiet, "true, and this disguise is quite convenient, but can't I really be a cleaning corpse? How can I serve master like this?" she whined. "But this also made it easier for me to be always on master's side. And this doll is too cute! But, but, being carried by master is too much, ayaaaaahh."
At this point Aiven shut his ear away from Delica's monologue.
"Oi, we're finished here," someone shouted. A second later, Simos was leaning leisurely to the tree Aiven was resting on with, arms crossed and perfectly contented with his morning exercise.
Aiven's train of thoughts were still on equipments that when he saw his friend, Aiven automatically scanned Simos equipments. There were no ripped parts or anything abnormal on the affinity and the runescripts but he noticed that Simos was no longer carrying his weapons.
"Your broadsword?" Aiven asked.
"Oh that. It broke," Simos shouted back again. Realizing the piercing gaze from Aiven, he explained, "okay, I know it's new but the handle had started to deform. Well, the edge got chipped long before that so it was not a loss," he shouted in reply.
"Is it done? Should we start?" Mieu asked excitedly. The little girl hurriedly stood up, balancing herself at the length of the grey stoned branch as she tip toed, placing one foot forward to after the other.
"My preparations were complete, my lady. You Aiven?" Simos announced.
Aiven nodded and tucked his needles away. He stuffed his other materials to his inventory and straightened his gloves in the process.
"Yay! Finally!" And Mieu, without prior warning, jumped from the tree, and was smoothly caught by Simos. Aiven soon followed, but he broke his fall by stepping on each branch he encountered during his descent.
The group was waiting on him when he touched the ground and dusted a bit of dust from his clothes. Aiven went to Simos and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Try to limit yourself a little," if not, Simos would halve all the weapon loots from Rust Iron army by the end of the solstice.
On his palm was Simos inventory bracelet which was securely on Simos' wrist awhile ago. The blonde shook his head exasperated, "stop doing that," he said and snatched his bracelet, and automatically equipping it. When Simos reached for his item list, he saw that his weapons were restocked and his expression became more conflicted. "If I didn't know any better, I could have mistaken your on for a thief."
He glanced at the mess from the bandit subjugation and reflected at how easy it was taken care of by a handful of undead.
Compared to them? I think that could be taken as an insult, he thought, however, they haven't encountered a high thief yet, or even a high novice among the bandit's ranks, so dissing a whole class build could be reckless. Not to mention, he'd rather not badmouth the dream class of Simos infront of this sword-head.
At the other side, Mieu went to where the majority of the familiars were standing in formation. She touched the inventory necklace and Delica sprung out of the doll. Her blonde tassels were striking that the doll's hair which was made of actual gold seemed lacking.
A simple obeisance towards Mieu and a wink to Aiven, and Delica was off in her hyper normal state of bubbling energy.
"You've done well! What a wonderful run!" Even at this pace, he could hear Delica praised each and every one of the familiars.
"Thank you, High Mistress! All hail the demon king!" they cheered. At the appearance of the girls, the undeads started to become unruly.
"Delica." Aiven tried to get her on track before she started petting and spoiling her summons.
"Yeah, yeah," the lich answered half-heartedly, "same drill?" When Aiven answered her with a nod, she summoned another one of her familiars.
A flash of a magic circle and mana expended later, a woman was standing infront of them and was kneeling. "This vessel is Cuboid, my high mistress, I await your command," the newly summoned familiar said.
The newly-summoned familiar had brown hair braided to the side, her eyes were black and she has a very motherly expression as she took her bow.
What made her eerily incospicuous was her dress. Tailored in grey, that covered her feet up to her neck. She's wearing a scarf and gloves that the only skin exposed was her face. She stood up and when you look closely, her skin was pink and not the normal undead color of grey marble, and her lips were also pinkish.
The culmination of all their efforts of three-days experimentation in making make-ups, just to make an undead look human.
"Wow, good job Aiven," Simos said taking a closer look at Cuboid.
"Airbrush paint, this time," Aiven said, showing off a contraption with a valve and air pocket that was originally a high-class perfume of Delica. When he squeezed the air pocket, a spray of paint was sent through the air. The demonstration was to avoid any unnecessary follow up, Simos might come up with.
"It does have more texture now than before," Simos said.
"Undead don't sweat or have oil. It made it easier for painting," Aiven said
"Painting, huh? I don't think this is painting anymore," Simos said in awe.
Aiven on the other hand was not that satisfied with his work. He had seen what cosmetics could do, and truthfully, this paled in comparison. But still, they needed to know if it'll pass.