Chapter 269 Bookbinding for Dummies

"This is my Grandfather's suit?" Stahl asked surprised, and Sky immediately nodded his head. "Yeah, I'm actually pretty surprised that he hasn't repaired it yet. Although now that I think about it, he's only been wearing the leather apron and wool pants ever since then…" He muttered, before Stahl looked at him with a frown.

"And why is the suit completely ripped up like this?" Stahl asked curiously, and Sky could only scratch the back of his head.

"Oh, that… Yeah, that was a bit extreme, wasn't it… I don't know if he told you about it yet, but back in Handor there was this Shaman leading some organization, and he threw curses upon curses onto Eisen's arm. To avoid being taken over, Eisen then ripped his arm off…" Sky that with a wry smile, feeling awkward about saying something like that so openly, because it was a seriously crazy thing.

"O-Oh, that… Yeah, he told me about that…" Stahl answered, slowly remembering that he did know about it, before Sky continued. "Actually, it turned into some kind of weird magical mass afterward, a Mass of Yin, apparently. It's in the safe right now, but it's a pretty weird thing to look at, really." Sky explained, and Stahl asked a few questions about that 'Mass of Yin', although Sky wasn't really able to answer any of them.

"We literally don't know anything about it. There's probably a Mass of Yang that can be created somehow, but we just don't know how, or if that's a good idea, even." Sky answered before he sat back down properly, and then looked back at his book, "Anyway, just get to work again, I want to try bookbinding soon…" The Fey-Kin chuckled, and Stahl slowly nodded his head.

For a while, he made some different plushies in the shape of different animals, and when he finished five of them, he was nearly at Rank 1 already and placed the suit in front of him, quietly muttering to himself. "Alright, so everything is largely in one piece, it's just the one sleeve that isn't… Although it in itself is also in a piece, just that the place where it was ripped-off wasn't…" He quietly observed, before leaning back against the wall and thinking about what he should do.

"Should I patch it up? Or should I make a new sleeve? Or can I somehow just re-attach it to the main-body of the suit?" Stahl asked himself, before considering all three possibilities, before choosing to just take a look. Slowly, he laid the jacket of the suit down on the rock surface and laid the sleeve against the shoulder part where it used to be attached to, making sure that it was parallel to the other, still-attached sleeve. And then, he tried filling out the area inbetween the sleeve and the shoulder part of the suit with mana, to see how much fabric he would end up needing to use.

"Hmm, if I cut the rough parts here away, I should be able to attach a patch pretty easily, but it wouldn't look good in the end… except if I maybe…" Stahl muttered to himself, before starting to grin and getting a pretty good idea.

"Sky, do you know if my grandfather wanted to get rid of this suit?" He inquired, before the Fey-Kin boy looked up and shook his head. "No clue, but I doubt he wanted to do anything with it. Otherwise he would have long fixed it." Sky answered, and Stahl nodded his head, coming to a conclusion with what he wanted to do.

So, he placed the suit to the side for now, and then grabbed more fabrics to make another stuffed toy or two, because he just made the decision to use the Suit as a base for a pretty neat project on his own, once he got all the crafting skills he needed.

And once he finished another stuffed toy, his Tailoring skill ranked up to 1, so he moved on to Leatherworking. There wasn't much Rank 0 leather there, because neither Eisen nor his apprentices used anything below Rank 1 or 2 leather, but there was at least a little bit there that Stahl hoped to be able to use until he reached Rank 1 in Leatherworking.

"Okay, now…" Stahl muttered to himself as he sat down in front of the table, before looking over at Sky. "Alright, I'm starting with leatherworking now. I'll get it to Rank 1, and then we can get started on a book. But do you know anything that I could do with leather that takes up the least amount of material, while giving me the most amount of proficiency?" He asked, and Sky scratched the back of his head.

"Well, make something small and simple to start it off with… No matter what kind of item you make as your first, you'll only end up at Level 1 anyway, so you shouldn't waste it. Maybe make something that you can then later use as a part of something larger. The more detail something has, the more proficiency it should give you." Sky explained without looking up from his book, and Stahl slowly nodded.

"Coolio, thanks." The young man answered, before thinking about what he should do then. "Well… I guess I can make a leather bracelet or something and work more on that later…" Stahl muttered to himself, before doing just that. He swiftly cut out a strip of leather large enough for his arm, pressed a few lines into the edges, and then made holes into the two ends where he then put in some thick leather string, so that he could bind it shut.

And that quickly, Stahl managed to learn the Leatherworking skill. It wasn't a high-quality item, but just as Sky had said, it didn't need to be. It just had to be enough so that he could learn the skill. And now, the work really began.

"Alright, I want an occupation where I can do practically anything, so I need to be prepared for all kinds of situations. Maybe a tool-belt would be a good idea then?" Stahl muttered to himself, and swiftly grabbed a piece of paper, where he sketched a few ideas on, swiftly gaining the drawing skill as well.

And soon, Stahl came up with a pretty good idea for a nice utility belt, although it wasn't actually something that could be worn as a belt. In its size, it was also a bit more like a wrestler's champion-belt, so it really would be a bit annoying to actually wear, so it may end up being something he would just sling over his shoulder.

And so, Stahl swiftly began to work, cutting out all the pieces that he would end up needing first. For this Utility Belt, Stahl wanted to do something with 'bags inside of bags', where he would be able to simply keep smaller pouches just bound to the belt, so that he might be able to get a little extra proficiency out of this, as he would be making multiple smaller finished items that would end up coming together to one big item.

For example, he created in total four bags meant for 'Recovery Pills', like the Health or Mana Pills that Eisen gave him before, or similar items with effects that might be useful to have available at all times. Then of course there were also some small bags meant to just hold potions, which he could have done through simply placing some compartments into the belt itself, although that would require the potion bottles to have a single size that was shared amongst all of them so that they could fit perfectly into those compartments, but now he just needed to make a new small bag whenever he had a size of bottle that didn't fit into any of the other bags.

And then there were of course things like sheaths in a few different sizes that could be attached and detached depending on what kind of items he needed, and some small pouches meant for small collectable items like herbs or monster-drops, although they technically didn't drop anything and everything needed to be cut off of them.

Either way, each one of the small bags gave Stahl a good bit of proficiency in his Leatherworking skill, and when he attached a number of the bags onto the utility belt, placed the others onto it, and then saw it as finished, Stahl gained enough proficiency so that he finally ranked his Leatherworking skill up to 1.

[Customizable Utility Belt]

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[Description] A simple Belt made by a nameless Leatherworker. It has multiple places where numerous different bags, pouches or sheaths can be attached, depending on what kind of situation the user of this belt is in.

[Effect] None

"Nice!" Stahl exclaimed with a grin, before he looked over toward Sky with his arms crossed. "I'm done, let's work on a book now!"

Immediately, the young Fey-Kin placed his books to the side and jumped onto his feet, stepping over to the rock 'table'. "Alright, so what do we need exactly?" Stahl asked with a smile, and Sky just thought about it for a little while before answering.

"Well, paper, waxed thread, cardboard, glue and leather, I guess. Oh, and a little bit of cloth." He answered, and Stahl slowly nodded his head before stepping out the door to rush to the material storage, where he immediately grabbed all of those things and returned as swiftly as he could.

"Okay! My grandfather puts the paper into bundles or something, right?" Stahl asked before Sky nodded his head. "I think so, yeah. He puts five or six together, puts holes into them, and then just sews the paper together?" He said, trying to remember what exactly needed to be done.

"Right, I think so too. Hmm… how was the stitch again..?" Stahl muttered to himself as he closed his eyes, trying to remember what he saw in videos online before, as well as what he briefly saw through his grandfather's work.

"Anyway, let's first just get the paper ready to make a thin book." Stahl suggested, and Sky nodded his head as well, before both of them started to do just that. They each got about 10 bundles of five sheets of paper each, and put a few holes along the spines of each bundle, before Stahl tried to start. First, he tried to push the needles through the holes in the way that he thought to remember, putting it into the first hole on one end, pulling it out in the next hole, then putting it back in the next hole after that, and pulling it back out in the last hole, before moving onto the sheet of paper directly above that and repeating the same thing.

Sky tried doing the same, following Stahl's example as he did so, and after a little while, they both managed to sew all of their bundles together.

"And now I know what's next!" Sky exclaimed, now really sure what needed to be done, because he specifically remembered Eisen doing this next step. "Now we need to put cloth on the thin side here, I think Eisen called it 'Spine', and glue it on there… I think a little bit needed to go to the front and back as well, but we won't glue it there. Instead, we're putting a thicker piece of paper onto that." Sky said with a smile, and Stahl nodded his head.

"Oh, right, I guess that was it…" He muttered, glad that Sky managed to fill in, because he would have otherwise just glued the cardboard onto the sides.

"And now, I think it's the covers, right? How do we attach those, though?" Sky asked, and Stahl scratched the back of his head before remembering part of what to do. "Well, I think we can just put the cardboard on there, and then glue it onto the spine with more cloth." Stahl suggested, and Sky nodded his head.

"Oh, right! I think Eisen was using some thin rope, but that was probably just to make those thicker parts on the spine. I don't think that's necessary, so that probably works." Sky added, so the two of them did just that. They loosely placed cardboard a little larger than the sheets of paper onto the front and back, and then glued it onto the book with some cloth so that it could hold onto it properly.

And at last, it was the leather. This part was relatively easy to figure out, as it was now just a big, square piece of leather, with the edges slightly cut off, that was then placed onto the book and glued on there. After both Stahl and Sky did that, they looked at each other with frowns.

"Well, it's not the best book I've ever seen…" Sky muttered out, and Stahl nodded his head before looking at the item in his hand. "Yeah, but it's good for a first try without proper instruction, right?" He proposed, and Sky shrugged, before both Stahl and Sky chose to simply see the book as finished now, both of them getting the Bookbinding skill.