Eisen frowned and tilted his head slightly at what Morrom just told him. "What do you mean, I can upgrade them?"
With a smile on his face, Morrom began to explain. "Well, it's pretty simple. I'll teach that to you as well when you come here again soon, but a part of what I do here is Enchanting. You can't enchant Mana Crystals directly, but it is possible with these pearls that have a high affinity with Mana Crystals. So I enchanted the pearls with the absorption ability and combined them with the Mana Crystals, which you then used to make thread. This itself can't be upgraded yet, but once you make an actual item, like the dress, out of it, you can practically 'feed' it more Crystals. Basically, every type of crystal works, although the easiest to get are Mana Crystals. I've tried giving a few different items the absorption ability, and it only worked once, when I enchanted the base materials for the item rather than the item itself."
"I see… So the more Crystals I feed the dress, the stronger it gets?" Eisen asked, wondering if he understood this right, and Morrom simply nodded.
"Exactly. It works like leveling up, basically. And every Crystal holds a certain amount of experience, of course, the bigger and higher quality they are the more experience there is. All you need to do to put a crystal into the item is to infuse it with Mana and push it against the item, and the crystal will slowly be absorbed. Simple, right?"
Eisen nodded in response. It really was quite simple. There was just one issue left. Eisen had no idea where to get Mana Crystals.
Morrom sighed closed his eyes, "Right, sorry. I forgot you lost your memories. Well, basically every monster has them. They can usually be found near the heart for low-rank monsters, and for some high-rank ones, it sometimes even replaces the heart completely. The ones you used to make that thread are crystals coming from rank 4 monsters. From rank 8 upward, most Mana Crystals have some kind of effect on them, usually an elemental one, but sometimes it has to do with the skills that the monster uses."
His eyes closed as he scratched his beard, Eisen nodded. "Thanks for that Info, Morrom. You sure you don't want money for the materials?"
"No, that's fine. They would have been lying around in that box forever anyway. Just come here with Bree sometime so that I can see the finished product."
"Thanks for that, Morrom. If you ever need my help, just ask away."
"Well, let's see if you're as talented with Alchemy and Enchanting as you are with other crafts, and then I might need your help with some projects if you don't mind." Morrom explained while Eisen carried the rolls of thread to the front of the store with a small wooden crate.
Eisen laughed softly and agreed to help with whatever Morrom needed him to.
"I'll see you in a few days, then!" Eisen yelled as he was on his way to the Inn, where he went to his room and practiced his skills a little bit more, especially the combination of A Dwarf's Hands and Mana Hands.
That was until he noticed one skill that has been sitting at Level 99 for a few days now. Appraisal. It seemed like it would only take a few more tries until it would Rank-up, and Eisen was actually kind of embarrassed that he completely forgot about it. Thus, he looked at the box in front of him and used his skill.
[Thread]
[Appraisal reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1]
[You will now be shown more information]
[Due to Ranking-up your Appraisal Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS]
Eisen was stunned. He literally only needed to appraise one more item, and it would have ranked up long ago. Eisen grumbled to himself and then tried to appraise the same threads again.
[Infused Magic Thread (Absorption)]
The old man sighed out loud and continued Appraising Different things, such as the book on Mana Manipulation he got from Morrom, his Backpack or his Tie.
[How to Control your inner Mana by Romeo Julié]
[Red and Black Backpack]
[Fine Tie]
"Well, it's more than it was before. I'll have to find out what I can see when appraising other people now." Eisen told himself as he took off his suit and set it down on his nightstand, folded up neatly, before going to bed.
---
The next morning, Eisen walked down the stairs of the Inn toward the restaurant while wearing his crafting outfit and his Suit Jacket over it, since he couldn't stuff it into his Backpack like his other clothes. He was carrying the box filled with Magic Thread and set it onto the ground next to him before sitting down.
Shortly after that, Bree came over and asked for his order, and came back a few minutes later with two plates.
She seemed to be staring at the box most of the time Eisen and Bree were sitting there, and soon, Eisen sighed out loud with a soft laugh following it instantly. "Those are some items I need for today. They'll make your dress extra special." He winked and swallowed the last of his eggs, while Bree's face turned from curious to completely ecstatic, a light pink forming on her cheeks.
"Okaay~!" She said happily and finished her breakfast as well. After bringing the plates back to the Kitchen, Bree came back out and the two of them made their way through town back to the Tailor shop Beautiful Clothes.
"Good morning, Eisen! You brought the threads, I see? You can come right with me." Folmirra said instantly she saw the crate in Eisen's arms, waving at him and Bree to follow her. She led them through the workshop to another, smaller room, where a few looms stood, most of which were already working on producing fabrics.
Folmirra led Eisen over to one that wasn't working on something and began explaining how the loom worked. "This is a machine that was created to make fabric production far easier. It is more expensive as well, but since I can afford it, it's not a problem. These work on Mana that was stored on crystals. They seem to be something different from mana crystals, but you'll have to ask Morrom, I really don't understand magic very well, haha." Folmirra laughed and pointed at a few sockets.
"You'll have to place the rolls of thread onto these sockets, and the machine will do the rest." She explained, and Eisen got to work. He placed the rolls onto the sockets like explained by Folmirra, who then simply pushed a button.
Instantly, the rolls began to turn and the threads on one of the sides stretched out to the other side, were cut off on the roll's side, which then moved tiny distance further to the side, repeating the same process over and over again, until all of the rolls on one of the sides were empty, and the center area of the loom was covered in threads so tightly packed it already looked like a whole fabric if one didn't look closely.
After that, one of the rolls on the other side perpendicular to the first also began turning and the thread moved forward, up and down and up and down through the threads already there. Once it reached the other side, a wide piece of wood moved forward in the direction of the first threads, pushing the just woven one further to the end. And again, this process repeated over and over again, switching between the threads moving up and down to them moving down and up.
Whenever one of the rolls was empty, it was discarded and the next one in the row was used to continue the weaving.
After about an hour, the large piece of the fabric was finished. Eisen was sure he could make something decent out of this, but he still had three fourth of his thread-rolls left, so he placed more onto the loom and watched it finish two more large pieces of fabric, and Eisen decided to keep the last fourth as a backup if he needed it, as well as for sewing the pieces of fabric together.
Eisen turned to Folmirra after looking at the pure white fabrics, with Bree staring at them with wide open eyes and mouth, and asked. "So, do you have dye baths? I need the fabrics in dark green, as well as some of the thread to be pink like Bree's hair."
"Alright, follow me then!" Folmirra smiled and brought them to a room directly next to the one filled with looms, that was instead filled with a few different tubs reeking of paint.
The middle-aged dwarf walked up to a wall in front of which stood five big tubes. They were filled with different powders, each holding either red, yellow, blue, white or black.
"You said a dark green and pink?" Folmirra asked, and Eisen nodded, after which she immediately mixed together some of the yellow and blue, having them fade together into a dark forest green, and then mixed the red and white together until they faded into a bright pink.
She showed the cups filled with the two powders to Eisen, and asked, "Are these good?"
"Yep, they're perfect!" He responded with a nod and a smile.
Folmirra chuckled as she walked over to two of the tubs filled with clear liquids, and poured one of the cups into each of them. Instantly, without Folmirra needing to stir the paint around in the slightest, they turned into the colors desired.
She grabbed two of the sheets of Magic Fabric and placed them into one of the tubs, and took some of the rolls of threads and unrolled them into the paint, making sure they wouldn't intertwine.
After a few minutes, Eisen noticed that the coloring of the paint-like liquids in the tubs slowly faded as they were pulled into the fabrics and threads.
When the paint was completely clear again, Folmirra grabbed the fabrics with some tongs and held them up for a few seconds and held her hand forward with her eyes closed, after which they dried fast that you could see the process. Eisen made sure to remember asking her about this later, but first continued watching her work, as she grabbed one of the ends of the, now pink, strings and held them against one of the rolls.
She slowly rolled them back up while they dried immediately since she was doing the same thing she did to the fabrics.
Folmirra handed the fabrics back to Eisen and took the rolls of thread into her hands, before walking to the door. "I'll help you carry the stuff over to your table. But show me the finished dress. Morrom added something pretty interesting into the mix there, huh?" She said.
Eisen laughed and followed behind her, agreeing to her notion, while Bree looked at both of them with a tilted head, confused over what they were talking about.
"Alright, I guess we'll get to work then, huh? But first, what-" Eisen was about to ask Folmirra how much he owed her for the dye, as well as letting them use the loom, but was promptly interrupted. "Don't even ask, Eisen. It's nothing much, so just work on the dress and show it to me later."
"That's exactly what Morrom told me as well, haha." He laughed and nodded with a smile on his face, then turned to the materials in front of him. He took off his Jacket and placed it to the side, cracking his knuckles before grabbing his tools.
Eisen first grabbed some of the design paper and drew out three different templates, taking a good look at Bree to get the proportions right, one for the chest area of the dress, one for the shoulder straps, one for the belt-like center part going tightly underneath her chest, and one for the flowing bottom parts that were supposed to reach to Bree's thighs.
After cutting them out, he laid them onto the sheets of green magic fabric and carefully cut them out, trying to take advantage of every single bonus he could through the use of A Dwarf's Hand and Tool Connection. This even gave Eisen enough proficiency to rank-up his Tool Connection Skill, giving him another INT and WIS.
He laid out the two pieces he cut out for the chest and sewed them together using the leftover white magic threads, and soon after that added the thin straps to hold the dress up. During the process of pushing his needle through the fabric, again and again, he made sure to expand an extra amount of magic to pour as much mana as he could into the Magic Threads since he was sure that would end up giving some kind of small bonus as well.
After that, Eisen placed the rectangular piece of cloth under the chest part and sewed them together, closing the belt-part in the back.
And lastly, Eisen was only left to sew on the rest of the dress, the main part that would cover Bree's lower body.
Since now the base of the dress was finished, Eisen moved on to the decorations, the pink flowers that would cover the dress. He put the pink Magic Thread through the needle's hole very carefully and pushed it through the fabric. Up and down and up and down, Eisen stitched a small flower into the dress' bottom. He repeatedly stitched these same flowers, creating a rim on the bottom and filling basically all of the central belt-part.
Soon enough, Eisen cut off the last part of the Magic Thread, finishing the dress at last.
[You created a Magic Dress]
[Magic Dress]
[Quality - Perfect][Level - 3]
[Description]A high-quality Dress made of Magic Fabrics by the Tailor Eisen. Since the materials used to make the fabrics themselves were infused with the absorption ability, the Dress is able to grow by feeding it different magical crystals. Due to its nature as a Dress made of Magic Fabrics, it is easier to be affected by positive spells, and less by negative spells, and the defensive capabilities grow the more Mana the wearer possesses.
[Effect]+10 END; +5 WIS; +5 INT
[Level - 1 (0%)]
[For creating an overwhelming quality item, you gain +1 INT]
----------
[Eisen]
[Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][Occupation - None][Level - 7]
[HP - 350][MP - 250][STR - 22][END - 28][AGI - 36][INT - 18][WIS - 18][CHA - 10]
[Titles]
-[Original of the Mechanical Arts]
-[Limitbreaker II]
[Skills]
-[A Dwarf's Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 29]
-[A Giant's Strength][Rank - 0][Level - 1]
-[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 2 ]
-[Blacksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 58]
-[Drawing][Rank - 0][Level - 87]
-[Mana Copy][Rank - 0][Level - 23]
-[Mana Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 48]
-[Mana Manipulation][Rank - 1][Level - 23]
-[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6]
-[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 1]
-[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49]