Time flew by for Sui. She didn’t notice as the minutes ticked by. She was entirely focused now. She had already unwound her pattern twice, but her third attempt was by far the most promising. Still sticking with the stockinette pattern she had gotten used to, Sui was able to drastically tighten her thread to the point that it looked like solid fabric.

Sui’s first attempt was actually a tighter pattern by the end, but Sui quickly realised that she had gone too far. The cloth turned out stiff, and uncomfortable, despite the nice thread she had acquired to ensure the stitches didn’t chafe.

The second was a step too far in the other direction. She had kept them looser, but by the time she had completed a few lines Sui could see the pattern was just a bit too visible. With this third attempt, you’d nearly need a magnifying glass to see the pattern.

Sui was cheating a bit technically. As she gained focus, she realised that even her rather thin thread was still wound a few times. Unwinding it had been a quick job, one she had hardly paid attention to but now it was yielding results

Her weave was miniscule, the cloth had plenty of give, and felt rather pleasant to the touch. At some point it had become less about practice and more about furthering her craft, creating the best swath of cloth she could.

At some point the sun had set, and the room was plunged into darkness. This didn’t stop Sui in slightest. With the sight gifted by her newfound power and her practiced movements allowed her to work unimpeded… until that the spindle ran out of thread.

As Sui instinctively reached to pull more thread her power felt nothing. Sui froze, and glanced over at the spindle with slightly more fear than she cared to admit. It was then that she saw nothing because it was a pitch-black moonless night.

Sui shook herself off and yawned, flicking the light switch on and making her way back to her room. In her still dazed state, she didn’t even stop to wonder why it was that the lights worked at all.

Once she was in her room, she started comparing her practice cloth to the one she had purchased for the dress she started getting ideas. Crazy, time consuming and likely bad for her health. But the kind of ideas she couldn’t just put aside.

Sui held her practice item against the bones of the dress and scowled. Dammit. Now that I can put my hand on it and examine the dress with my thread manipulation, I can tell how much better quality my own is.

Sui bit her lip. It doesn’t visually look that much worse… She tried telling herself but she couldn’t stomach it. This was supposed to be her BEST work, for one of her BEST friends. Doing anything less than that was an insult she couldn’t take.

Sui grit her teeth as she started to think of other reasons. I mean. There is no way I have enough black thread, right? I can’t hand sew everything if I don’t have enough. Sui thought to herself as she slowly opened the draw.

However… underneath her spindles full of colourful thread was an entire bottom layer of black. Why do I even have so much! Sui screamed as the answer came to her. Right… it’s because of that asshole.

Sui remembered the terribly rude customer who had ordered three hundred spindles of black cloth, payed, and then never came to claim them. I remember wasting hours trying to follow up with the bastard and we still never got in touch with him…

Sui tsked as she realised that not only did she have enough black, she had enough black all in the exact same type. Sui let out a long breath before she started to gather up the spindles. It took her five minutes to transfer them all to the table on large batches, and once it was done the table was covered in them

Sui looked out at the veritable see of thread, in a rare moment of clarity when it came to her poor decisions. Am I really going to subject myself to this? The answer was of course, still yes, but Sui realised she might be pushing it slightly.

The work she had done in the afternoon had left her a bit tired and groggy, it was likely past 8 o’clock and there was no way she was getting this done before tomorrow morning. Aw well. This is worth it. And so Sui sat down and got to work.

##

Massive chunks of time past. Sui was hardly cognisant of the events around her as the hands on the clock sped around. At some point Ito had sunk into her arm to sleep, but even feeling the spider on her didn’t distract her in the slightest.

During the night, she had passed the point of exhaustion where any normal person would have stopped for rest. Sui just treated it as another part of the challenge. She could also feel her ability to control thread slipping as the night wore on, but she simply grasped it firmly in her mind and didn’t allow it to budge.

And her efforts were rewarded in many ways. As she sunk further and further into her work she found herself moving more threads at once, increasing the speed at which the garment worked its way to completion, so that by the time she finally regained some modicum of awareness it was already late morning, but the dress was complete.

Well, complete wasn’t the term Sui would use to describe it. Twenty bolts of cloth and over twelve hours of work had given her a fine base to start with. She had created an extremely soft, but durable fabric that had come together to form the start of the dress.

It had long sleeves, as well as a section to wrap your fingers through, as well as a shirt skirt that flared slightly as part of the main design. She added a small amount of embroidery around the top of the dress but considering it was the same black thread only Sui could properly see it.

As the last of the black thread came into place Sui felt herself flag. Her grasp on her thread control being torn away from her as she slumped into her chair exhausted. She looked over her masterpiece and sighed. It’s a start, I guess. No, I’ll have to redo the stockings, and perhaps the hairband as well. Then I need to deal with the underlay to help support the skirts shape…

Sui was already coming up with where she wanted to go to complete her design… but it seemed that the system had other things in mind.

MAJOR ACHIEVEMENT

The New Wave of Fashion

Only one of its kind

To Earn: Create the first mana infused garment on ‘Earth’

Reward – Converts Garment into Soul bound and Upgradeable

Sui barely had time to read over the description when the dress glowed before disappearing. Sui felt her eyes lurch in their sockets, and she felt rage building. I swear, whoever it is that’s in charge of this system. If you’ve stolen my dress, I will find you. And I will kill you

As if on cue, the dress reappeared. Though Sui was not impressed. Her own clothes had vanished, and she found herself wearing the unfinished dress for Trina that was once on the table. Sui’s eye twitched as she reached up to grab her outfit. What… is going on.

Sui felt the dress carefully with her power. It was… strange, it didn’t seem that different, but her power was telling her that something was. Sui ran her hands over the fabric but found nothing out of the ordinary.

Everything was in place. Sure, the outfit was much too large on Sui. the part that was supposed to sit up on her shoulders had fallen down, and the sleeves bunched massively. The mini skirt was now a dress in its own right, but at least nothing seemed to be missing or changed.

Annoyed, Sui took off the dress and put it back on the table and stood up to grab something else to wear from her closet. Perhaps some pyjamas. Sui yawned. Yup, certainly pyjamas. But as Sui crossed the threshold into her bedroom there was a flash of light and the dress she had left on the table was once again on her body.

Sui gulped. Please don’t tell me what I think is happening is happening. Because if it is. It better not be. Sui carefully took off the dress again and placed it on her bed this time. She carefully walked backwards and watched it. Right as she crossed the door and was back in the hallway the dress shone and returned itself to her body.

“Well Fuck” said Sui