Author's note: crafting the leather set was harder to describe than first thought. Any additional tips/reference material for future leather crafting are MORE than welcome!
I decided to not post the stats of the half finished leather equips as it would just add a large amount of meaningless boxes in the chapter.
As always, enjoy!
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Zaran started making his way to the leather working guild when a voice called for him.
"Master Karaz! Please wait!"
Zaran ignored it and increased his walking speed.
"Master it's me, Nuvahn, please wait!"
Zaran instantly stopped when he heard the name 'Nuvahn'.
A male harpie wearing leather light armour landed in front of him and dropped to his knee. "Nuvahn greets master Karaz!"
Even though his face looked rather average, a large scar ran from the top of his head, across his right eye and only stopped at the bottom of his chin. His silver hair dropped to his shoulders and his grey-greenish eyes seemed to continuously draw you in. At 1.70m tall, he had a rather slim build as barely any muscle could be made out, this was quite offset by his imposing silver colored wings that stretched from his back. His hands and feet were claws but he still had the ability to wield weapons as only the fingers itself had the features of a claw.
Kirin growled at Nuvahn and Cindarrah was ready to shoot a web-ball towards Nuvahn.
Zaran told Kirin and Cindarrah to calm down and Zaran quickly picked Nuvahn up. "Nuvahn, me being your master was of a lifetime long ago, there's no need to treat me as your master anymore. I'm still rather glad to see you though, although i do wonder how you managed to start reincarnating. No... the important question is which god did you choose?"
"Isis! She came up to me personally and said that you were already in her service so I decided to serve her as well. As for how I started reincarnating... after your death a global war started between the two grand alliances. I had a hand in stopping the war and... that's pretty much it."
Zaran chuckled at Nuvahn's answer. "So mysterious about it Nuvahn. Don't worry if you don't wish to talk about it I shall not pry any further. Regardless why have you searched for me?"
"I wish to follow you once more and increase my mastery over the 'dance of the butterfly' style. I've tried to gain the mastery you have over it but still... I am nowhere close to your mastery level. Trying to create a skill of my own bore no fruit and I couldn't find any skill more profound than yours. Thus I decided that should I ever meet you again I would ask you to take me under your wings once more."
"Hmm..." Zaran thought about it for a while. "I'm not sure if you'll be able to keep up with me. I'll be sleeping the bare minimum and play this game as much as possible. If you can keep up than you may follow if you can't... I won't be waiting for you!"
"That speaks for itself. If I am unable to keep up I am unworthy to follow you. That said where were you going to?"
"I'm going to the leather working guild to craft myself some armour. After that is done I will be heading to my blacksmith master to create my signature weapon. You should still remember it right?" Zaran said as he started walking towards the leather working guild again.
"You can craft it?"
"I drew the design and the game accepted it as a blue print so I am rather sure I can. My blacksmithing is already at the advanced level so creating a somewhat decent one should be possible."
"Master, could you create one for me as well?"
"Sure, just bring me 50 kilograms of iron ore and I'll make one for you."
"I already have that much on me so that won't be a problem. Since there seems to be a rather limited supply... I found it a better idea to keep a fair amount with me at all times."
"Limited supply? How do you mean?" Zaran asked with a shocked expression.
"Haven't you heard? Mining spots don't respawn. If it's mined, it's gone forever. Thus there are already a lot of people who are mining frantically as the prices are bound to increase."
Zaran pondered for a while before a thought suddenly struck him. "What about drops? Couldn't you get ore that way?"
"That... I don't know." Nuvahn said as he shook his head, making his silver hair dance along with every shake.
"Guess we'll find that out later then... regardless, what are you going to be doing while I'm crafting?" Zaran said as they had arrived at the leather working guild.
"Thought I could just tag along and catch up with you a little, I think we could talk for a lifetime right now and still not have caught up with each other." Nuvahn chuckled.
"Fine by me, let's see if there's a free room."
Zaran soon found an empty crafting room and registered it under his name for the remainder of the day.
Nuvahn took a seat on the windowsill as Zaran started working on a leather shirt. He'd start by making plain leather armour here and then add a very light plating to it when he went over to Eoric's place.
Before Zaran started crafting Nuvahn suddenly asked "Can you still speak the language from back then?"
"Yes it's one of the few I actually bother remembering. Why?"
"Let's conversate in that language... Gotta make sure no one listens in."
"Sure enough." Zaran replied with a chuckle.
Zaran and Nuvahn started to talk about past lifetimes in the language they used ages ago as Zaran started taking out pieces of already cured grey leather, some thread, a needle and some buttons. He had bought cured leather since it was far more convenient than curing it himself and it would save him a tremendous amount of time.
Cutting one of the largest leather pieces in nine different sized parts Zaran started making a leather vest. The parts existed out of the back, two parts from the front that he would hold together with buttons, two parts for the arms, one part to connect the arms, back, and front parts together, one part to connect the previous named parts together at the bottom of the vest and four sturdy parts that were to be used to hold the light armour plating he would add later.
He put the back piece on the table first and then started adding the first front piece to it, then adding the second piece. As he was done with that he took the strip of leather that would be used to connect the back, front and arms together and stitched it to the back and front pieces. Afterwards he took the pieces for the arms, cut it in the correct shape for his arm and then stitched it to the already connected pieces. Finally he only needed to add the bottom strip and the buttons to finish the basic design.
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After finishing the basic design he opened the leather vest. Now he took the other four parts of the leather and cut one of the parts in two, both equal in length to cover the front parts. This left him with two parts for the sides and back. Zaran loosely attached the leather pieces to the vest, ensuring that he could still insert the leather plating in to them later on.
After working on it for two hours it was finally completed. Then he went on to make two leather gloves which required him to cut out nine pieces from a piece of leather for each glove. Five parts were used to cover the beginning of his fingers while the other four pars were used for the palm, the back of his hand and the sides of his hand. As the design he used was rather simple and not all too complicated he was done in less than an hour with both gloves.
Continuing he started making some leather pants. These required him to use eight parts, four long parts of identical size for the legs and the other four were used for the area around the crotch. He started by stitching the leg parts together with thread. Afterwards he connected the four parts necessary for the crotch and lastly he connected the crotch and the legs area completing the third piece of his leather set.
As a final piece he took out a thick piece of leather and some leather that still had fur on it. He cut two elliptical shapes out of the thick piece of leather, that would serve as soles for the boots he was about to create. Then he cut two half moon shapes for the tips of the boots and attached them to the soles. He quickly cut another six pieces of leather, one long one for each side of the boots and one smaller one for the back of the boots. Afterwards he cut a piece of leather in a rounded v-shape, which would serve as the top of the boot. After adding all the parts together the boot was coming along nicely but still looked like a shoe. Cutting another two pieces, he shaped them so they would attach to the curved V shape and then curve towards the back, which caused the boot to be fully formed.
Making sure all the pieces where fitted tightly together Zaran cut another two half moon parts and kept them apart for now. When he went to Eoric's place he would add some light plating to the tip of the shoes. As for the soles, Zaran took out a piece of hard leather and carefully cut it in two cylindrical shapes and attached them to the bottom of the boots, creating a sturdy sole.
During all the crafting Zaran and Nuvahn had talked about events in past lifetimes and both had been surprised about the other's adventures. Nuvahn was especially intrigued about this "Battlefield of the Gods" event that Zaran had been talking about.
As a result of the crafts Zaran's expertise had increased several times over and he had reached beginner level 7 in leather crafting. Nuvahn was so kind as to let Zaran temporarily store the leather parts in his storage ring. Zaran's storage ring was completely full and nothing else would fit in it anymore.
Seeing as all the crafting that needed to be done in the leather working guild was over Zaran exited the room and explained to a nearby instructor that the room was available from here on out. As he stepped outside the leather working guild Zaran decided to first head to Eoric's place and start working on the armour plating so he could finish his new armour set. Taking in account that it was only light for a few more hours he thought it would be a good idea to head over to Henry's place after he had finished the armour plating and ask Henry if he knew a way to increase the amount of items that could fit in his storage ring. He had only barely started crafting and he was already having severe issues with the amount of items his storage ring could hold.
After leaving the leather working guild, Zaran explained his plans for the following day to Nuvahn, who happily tagged along to Eoric's place. Mere minutes later they arrived at the smithy, which much to Zaran's surprise was had smoke rising from its chimney. Eoric had told him before that it had been a rather rare occurrence for him to work in the smithy the past few years, hence his surprise.
Zaran pushed open the door of the smithy and noticed Eoric casting a silver coloured liquid in a tiny ring shaped mold.
"Good evening Eoric." Zaran said with a friendly tone.
"Ah Zaran! Nice timing!" Eoric replied in an excited tone. "I was just making something for ya!"
"Making something for me?" Zaran said with a confused expression. He hadn't asked Eoric to make anything for him so why was he doing so?
"Last time you were here I noticed that your storage ring was of the worst quality possible. And because you can't get a better one from the guilds I decided to make you one myself. However it took me a while to procure the ingredients and I could only make one just now. I'm quite lucky that you came along as I had heard that you weren't been seen in the city for a few weeks now." Eoric only now noticed that someone was with Zaran. "Oh, who's this fella? "
"That's Nuvahn Alakhaarni, an old friend of mine."
"Nuvahn Alakhaarni? What a peculiar name..." Eoric muttered as he extended his hand towards Nuvahn, who likewise extended his and gave Eoric a firm handshake.
Eoric shifted his gaze towards the ring again and noticed that the liquid had almost completely cooled down. He took the mold and took the ring out of it and immediately put it in the slack-tub speeding up the cooling process dramatically. Moments later a silver colored ring emerged from the slack tub.
"Almost done!" Eoric said as he carefully put the ring on the table and took out two charms. Eoric pricked himself in the finger with his dagger and let a few blood drops fall on both the charms and on the ring. Instantly a huge amount of magic burst from the charms and quickly entered the ring. Faint runes started to appear on the ring, quickly becoming more visible. After waiting for a few minutes the runes were clearly visible and it was at this point that Eoric picked up the ring.
"All done... Try it on and check out the difference!" Eoric said as he urged Zaran to put on the ring. Zaran took off his own storage ring and tried on the new one. After checking his inventory slots Zaran was utterly flabbergasted. This new ring could hold a massive two hundred items. Seeing the surprise on Zaran's face, Eoric started to grin.
"Can't let a disciple as good as you run around with a worthless ring now can I?"
Zaran immediately cupped his hands. "Thank you Eoric, I appreciate this gift from the bottom of my heart! It was just what i needed too as I was already running out of space in my old ring."
Eoric just smiled. "So what brings you here?"
"Ah I was looking to craft some light metal plating to go inside a leather vest and create two swords from the designs I have shown you earlier."
"Oh? That'll be rather interesting. I look forward to seeing your progress. Make sure to tell me when you start, I'm rather curious to the crafting steps. So both of you will be using this weapon?"
"Yes. It suits both our tastes and it fits our battle style." Zaran replied.
"Well then feel free to use my forge. This old man needs a nap but do wake me up when you start creating the blades."
"I will certainly do so!"
Eoric left the smithy after confirming once more that Zaran would wake him up. Seeing that Eoric had left and wouldn't return for now, Zaran started to prepare the forge for his own crafts.