"I really made one myself…" Sky muttered out to himself quietly, staring at the quite roughly made, small notebook in his hands. With a smirk, Stahl nodded his head and looked at the blue-haired fey-kin. "Is that really so important to you?" Stahl asked, and without hesitation Sky nodded his head.
"Of course it is. I like books more than people, after all. Well, more than most people. Except for Bree, Eisen, my Mother… and you're not too bad either, I guess." Sky said with a wry smile, and Stahl just grinned at him.
"Ooh, look who loves me all of a sudden~!" He exclaimed, and immediately Sky looked at him with a wry smile. "Alright, I take it back, you're horrible." Sky answered, before the green-haired boy simply laughed again.
"Dude, I'm just kidding. So, wanna return the favor of me helping you out with the book?" Stahl inquired, and Sky looked at him with a frown. "Hey, I don't owe you anything! I gave you some tips as well!" Sky protested, but Stahl just shook his head.
"Not what I mean. I just want you to give me some pointers on the Scribe skill. I wanted to go see Evalia in a bit and ask her to teach me about art skills, and writing is an artistic thing, right? It should be useful for Crafting, Art and Magic anyway, so it's a good skill to know." Stahl pointed out, and Sky swiftly nodded his head.
"Oh, that's fure sure, yes. You know how Art skills work with charisma, right? There's a lot of books written by famous artists with their charisma infused into it, so you feel more strongly about what's going on in the story. It's obviously useful for magic if not for the fact that you can make things like magic contracts, then because it's a good way to make a quick enchantment circle, which is where it goes into crafting as well. So you have a point." Sky explained as he fiddled with something in his pocket before pulling out a simple ink pen.
"But all I can say is to just write into that book for a while, and soon enough you should get the skill, and then after that you will be told when you can make magic scriptures, contracts or scrolls, and you should be able to ask Xenia about that as well. She does know more about that area of Scribing than me." The Fey-Kin explained, and Stahl nodded his head before graciously accepting the pen from Sky.
"I see, thanks then! Then I'll be off! If you want to practice bookbinding some more, there's still a bit of Rank 0 leather left. And we can buy some more when we stop the last time before heading off to the islands." Stahl pointed out, before stepping toward the door with a smile, and Sky slowly nodded his head, as the two of them soon split up.
On the way, Stahl managed to see a worried Bree and depressed Kiron, who seemed to be in that state due to the fact that Eisen wouldn't be waking up for a few more days.
And with a wry smile, Stahl just continued walking, because he really didn't know what to say to those two. He wasn't really feeling all that great about it either, as he did really know the reason behind his temporary leave. Stahl himself was incredibly nervous and scared, so he didn't feel it in him to cheer people up that were showing it so openly. So for now, Stahl wanted to distract himself with a self-given task, which was to learn all kinds of skills and gain an occupation that allowed him to become an omnipotent Deity of this world!
With that in mind, Stahl then happily made his way over to the place there Evalia was working most of the time. It was directly in the center of the water surface, and had a thick, mana-crystal window directly in front of it so that she was able to safely watch what was going on above water and below water at all times. It was really a great sight, especially in the areas with especially clear water, or at night when you could see the colorful shimmer of luminescent sea-monsters ignite the bottom of the ocean. No wonder Evalia liked to be here that much.
"Eyo, you're hopefully decent, cuz I'm comin' in either way." Stahl exclaimed just as he opened the door, and was immediately met with a rather extraordinary sight. There was a small, incredibly colorful monster, most likely temporarily charmed by one of Evalia's skills, following the ship and swimming directly in front of the mana-crystal window, as if trying to show its scales off to the beautiful young artist standing in front of her easel as she was humming a quiet song.
A sight like that made even the distracted and usually so confident Stahl stutter for a little bit as he simply stared at what was in front of him at the moment. And a few moments later, Evalia seemed to have noticed him as well, looking over to him with a big smile.
"Oh hello there! Didn't expect you to come by so soon!" She exclaimed and soon returned her sight to what she was painting, and Stahl slowly stepped closer as he scratched the back of his neck. "Hah… Yeah, I just finished learning a few crafting skills, so I wanted to move onto Art next, because it overlaps in a lot of areas… So… here I am!" Stahl exclaimed, and Evalia nodded her head, keeping up her smile.
"Alright, that's fine by me! Just wait a second, I'm about to finish this painting up, so go ahead and take a seat!" She exclaimed with a smile as she, for just a moment, looked over toward the small table and chairs in the corner of the room. At first Stahl had thought that his grandfather made them for her, but that was rather unlikely.
They were incredibly beautifully carved, as if each piece was taken out of a single block of wood, and there were so many intricate, tiny parts in its decorative nature that it really didn't seem like anything his grandfather would make. He was more utilitarian, and this was obviously made by an artist, so they were most likely created by Evalia herself.
Either way, Stahl quietly sat down on one of the chairs and continued watching Evalia while trying to work on a small item that he thought would give him a useful skill. He grabbed a small block of wood on his way to this room, so that he could carve something out of it to gain the woodworking skill. Carving was a sub-category of Sculpting, counting toward that skill, so he would be able to gain proficiency for both the Sculpting and Woodworking skill whenever he worked on wood in an artistic way, although the latter would gain a little less compared to the former.
And when Evalia finished her painting, Stahl had finished a relatively small, straight wooden ruler, which really just required him to straighten everything out and make some markings. It wasn't anything special, but it was enough to do its purpose, and Stahl immediately gained the Woodworking skill. And so, he stood back up and placed the ruler down on the table before approaching Evalia to take a look at the final product.
And now that he took a look at it, he really wasn't sure what exactly he was looking at. In any other scenario that meant that a painting was so bad or abstract that it was hard to know what was supposed to be shown, but in this case, it had another reason.
The paint on the canvas was literally flowing around, copying the movements of the small colorful monster that was still swimming next to the window. That was exactly where Stahl didn't know what he was looking at. Was he currently really looking at the painting, or rather at the monster swimming outside? It was a bit weird to see a painting like that, but after a few moments, he somewhat got used to it, and instead looked over at Evalia, who was looking at him, earnest for his opinion.
"This is just… amazing… seriously… I knew you were great at such things, but this is on a whole other level…" He muttered out, before noticing another peculiarity, although now not on the painting, but rather on the painter.
"Were your eyes always that colorful?" Stahl asked suddenly, and Evalia slowly stumbled back a bit before looking at him in surprise. "Well, I surely didn't expect you to take that chance to flirt with me…" She chuckled, and Stahl immediately realized what was going on.
"O-Oh, no! That's not what I mean! Well, you do have beautiful eyes in any situation, but right now I meant that your eyes seriously were 'colorful'… As in every color there is…" He explained with a light blush on his cheeks, before Evalia remembered what was going on. Obviously she didn't miss the 'beautiful eyes in any situation' comment either.
"Ah! This is my element, you know? I infused it into my eyes, and that lets me see more vibrant colors than usual. It's pretty useful when I want to draw beautiful sceneries, because I can make my paint just as vibrant as I see the world in that moment, so that I can show it in my art." Evalia explained, and Stahl slowly nodded his head, just continuing to stare at the slightly shifting colors in her iris.
"Anyway…" Evalia then said after a little while. She enjoyed such direct eye contact with Stahl, but there was something else that the two of them needed to do now, so she didn't want to push that away either. "You said you wanted to learn Art skills? What kind? Music, Painting, Sculpting?" Evalia asked, and Stahl began to scratch the back of his head.
"Well, I want to learn one of every kind, if possible. I know how to play the Guitar already, so that would take care of music. I'll just have to take care of learning that skill. I guess I just need some pointers on drawing and sculpting, then." Stahl answered, before Evalia sighed loudly.
"Just Drawing and Sculpting? I was giving some examples, not three choices, you know?" Evalia said quite clearly, before Stahl looked at her confused. "The artistic skills that I have are different music skills for different instruments, singing, acting, dancing, sculpting, drawing, photography, , and a few different crafting skills that I use for artistic purposes. If you want to be taught by me, I'll have you learn all of these skills. Well, beside the instrument-specific music skills, I guess. Just having you get one sub-type of each of those should be enough." The young artist explained, and Stahl slightly tilted his head to the side with a wry smile.
"…Eh…?" He asked, and Evalia crossed her arms with a chuckle. "What, you think that I'd let you half-ass through learning my passion? Think again." She laughed, so Stahl slowly nodded his head.
"Y-Yeah, I get it, I was just a bit surprised… So, what are we starting with?" Stahl asked with a smile, before Evalia just chuckled and stepped over to the corner of the room, where she swiftly grabbed the Guitar that Eisen made for her a little while ago.
"Let's start with what you can do already, I guess. Just play me something. If you keep playing constantly for about twenty to thirty minutes, you should get to Rank 1 with it. That's the rank you wanted those different skills to roughly have, right?" Evalia asked, and Stahl slowly nodded his head, before starting to pull on the strings of the guitar, slowly starting to play a relatively simple song while Evalia began to explain a few different important things about artistic skills.