"Behold" Yet another customer started.

"Yes. Yes. I'm Triss. What do you need? Let me guess, a robe." I interrupted the man in front of me.

Being the singular provider of cultivator made clothes was great. Sometimes. Sadly my work was just about as boring as work got, all I had to do was create the same robe over and over again.

Well, at least I had much more free time than ever before. After all, all the qi I shoved into the robes I sold had to come from somewhere.

And normal cultivators couldn't get qi all that fast. Cultivators weren't even real wizards, but still kept secrets like they were! Or I assumed they did at least, after all I found the thought of no other human or beast ever trying to speed up their cultivation by purifying qi ridiculous.

My eyes focused back on the man in front of me. Tall, dark robes. Geh, boring.

"So, you part of a clan?" I asked, extending a tendril of my aura from my body, and convetly checking his cultivation. Still first realm.

"Yes. I am the great great"

"Stop it." I said, interrupting him again.

"Just the name of your clan. You can even add your own if you leave out the embellishments."

I added a silent "Can't you read?" because I had a sign outside. 'Spirit Seamstress, no grandiose speech allowed!' outside. It was a really pretty sign too. And of course he heard my whisper.

"Of course I can read." He said, getting agitated.

"Why did you not read my sign then? It's there for a reason." I asked.

"No one reads shop signs!" He exclaimed.

I could only shake my head in sadness. One day! Someone would read that sign one day!

"So. Your name. And what to you want? I guess a black robe like yours? Ever thought about adding a little color? Black is quite obvious in the dark, a dark green, or blue, hell even a dark red would be better." I said.

"I am Ti of the Moonless Sky Clan." He finally answered.

Quite the accomplishment. Most cultivators that visited me took far longer to get to that point. Well, to be fair he was the first out of town cultivator to visit me.

All of my other customers of the last five months and a few days had been from here. There really were a lot of first realm cultivators in this town. Far more than I thought, and all they did. was search the forest for treasures, and them to the mayor.

Well, and me too. I got a really pretty flower standing in my living room. Sure, it was supposed to be used as cultivation aid, but the pitiful amount of qi inside didn't make killing it worth it.

Anyways. My stuff was in hot demand, simply because qi filled robes had a lot of protection compared to simple cloth robes. Not that it really mattered, because those idiots just went somewhere else, somewhere more dangerous and came back for new robes every other month.

"Arms out, back straight. I need your measurements." I said. "And what about those colors?"

Yeah. Color. Every cultivator wore robes, but needed it to be made out of a different color. It was maddening! And I couldn't even buy robes, because qi applied after the creation process worked far worse. Which was why I now had a loom in a corner of my cellar.

I never used it really, after all there was no reason to do more work without more revenue.

"Why do you think I'd be up in the night, and want to be seen less?" He asked.

He took a step back, and his eyes started scanning the room.

"Why would you wear black otherwise?" I asked. "Anyways, I don't judge, I'm just a seamstress after all."

The man, Ti, probably going for Tiger too, like so many of them, nodded, and returned in my clutches. Good.

"So Ti, what can you tell me about the world? I've never left the town myself." I asked.

While he thought about that, I turned around, getting something from my desk. I returned with a book, containing lots of colorful strips of cloth, something I stole from the big furniture retailers from earth.

"You can look through this while you talk, find a color you like." I commanded.

"I have not travelled all that far myself, to be honest this is the first time I am leaving the city myself. I plan to stay here for a while, and gather some spiritual treasures in the forest." He explained.

"Them tell me about the city. And you should totally think about getting a second, colorful robe not for fighting. If you wear it all the time you can easily avoid situations like the one we just had." I told him.

"That's a good idea. Hmm, the city. There's not much to tell really. It's huge, far bigger than this town. And we had walls, really big walls. Yeah, that's about anything I can think of." He 'explained'.

I had to suppress a snort, there was much more to a city than its size and walls. Well, I'd have to see myself. In time.

"So, you made a decision?" I asked.

"Yes. I'd like this one. You labeled it as dark blue." He answered.

"Perfect." I said. "I'll need some time to make that, and fill it with qi, so see you in about a month." I continued.

"Very well, I will return in a month's time." He said.

I looked around the room, and had to admit something to myself. I needed a new house. I simply lacked the space to properly work.

And to market myself. That sucked, but while I really liked my house, I had to admit it was lacking.

And getting the needed changes would probably cost just as much as a house in a better location. Like near the beach. Because getting my saltwater turned out to be really hard to do unobserved, because I could only do so at night.

Well, now I just had to plan my house, have the mayor approve it, as well as the location, and either finance the building myself - which would be costly, and take quite the long time, or hope he would.

So what did I need? I knew I had the right to have two stories. Everyone had access to a single story above ground - even mortals - but you needed to be a cultivator to get another one.

Meaning first realm cultivators could have two floors, and a cellar, if they were useful enough.

Second realm cultivators could have three floors, and so in. It was yet another way to discriminate the normal population, and I didn't like it one bit.

Anyways.

The second floor would be for me, my living space. What did I need? And how big could I allow my house to be? Well, a small bedroom plus wardrobe were a must, as well as a kitchen with place to store food.

A living room to entertain guests, a smaller, cave like room to cultivate and a bathroom. So five, and a hall to connect them.

What did I need on the first floor? Well, a workroom, a storeroom, though two would be better. A room for my shop to entertain and advise customers. A room for them to change, next to the shoproom.

And another hall, to contain the stairs up and downwards, and to connect the rooms.

That did sound good. Now I just needed to create a rough floor plan, and go convince the mayor I needed that. And rid my house of suspicious stuff, like all the saltwater in my cellar, and the salt I managed to create so far.

Which was a pitiful amount compared to the time I had been at it. Not even a kilo in five months! It really was too sad.

Getting a new house was really annoying. First, I went to the town hall to get myself a meeting with the mayor, but being there already, I decided to ask the nice secretary how I could get a new house.

She didn't know, but send me to a person who knew. Someone who actually worked for the mayor, just to plan his town's development, and plan the town.

"Hello, what can I do for you child?" He asked.

Damn my body, I really needed to get older! Just so everyone would start treating me like an adult.

"Hi. I may or may not need a new house. Which I already declined." I said.

I decided to be honest here, just so it couldn't come back to bite me in the butt. The woman rose one of her eyebrows. Damn! I wanted to be able to do that to, now I'd have to waste time on training it!

"What is it? Do you need a new house or not." She asked.

"I need one. I can't work at my best as it is." I said.

"Good. That's a reason I can buy. Now what was that about already declining a new house?"

"Well, you see. My mother died, and the mayor asked me if I wanted a new house. I said no, because I missed her and didn't want to leave my home." I explained.

The woman looked at me in surprise.

"You met the mayor? What's your name child? And what do you work as?" She asked.

"Yes I did. I needed his explicit agreement to work as a spirit seamstress. And I'm Triss." I said.

"I see. What do you need? Did you think about that already?" She asked.

"Of course I did, here, let me show you." I said.

I stepped forwards, and took out a scroll of paper. I had wisely decided to take my floor plan with me, just in case I needed.

"So, as you can see here, I" I started explaining.

I made the plan as clean as possible, with the house being a rectangle and the hallways being parallel to each other.

"I also have this plan, which would be better for me, but I didn't know how feasible building it is." I said.

Unrolling the second scroll, I didn't start explaining, after all I had already explained her how to read plans like that.

"I should have everyone bring me those, they're really useful." She mumbled as she poured over both of my plans.

She turned to me after a few minutes, and nodded to herself several times.

"Yes. We can do both. If you say the second one is better for you we'll make it. Where do you want that house to be?" She asked.

"Well, all my customers always rush into the forest after I finish my work anyways, to get ot destroyed." I started. "I near the forest, I don't care, you can put me on the edge if you want. Other than that, I really like the sea, so put me as near to the ocean as possible."

"I see you put quite some thoughts into it, that's a good idea. I'll run this by the mayor, but don't see him disagreeing. You'll probably have to supply some stuff for the guard as payment, but building houses isn't all that expensive. Mostly materials as it is honestly." She finished.

"Thank you for your help. Do you need that first plan still?" I asked.

"I'd like to keep it if you please. I want to teach it to my people, so we can use that as a standard, it conveys all you need to know at a glance, and even normal mortals can understand it." She said.

"That's fine. We'll see each other." I said, excusing myself.

This went well, now I just had to wait. Perfect, things were looking up.