Chapter 2.2, Ensemble

The next day, they were back in their apartment unit. Alice was preparing every necessary consumable item she can with every ingredient she had bought from Nora. She wasn’t sure when will her new ensemble arrive at their doorstep.

She felt excited and nervous. She shook her head, she had to be prepared this time. As she was about to resume her work, there came a sound of a few soft knocks on the door behind her.

“You can come in.” She permitted.

Jayce entered her room, with the goods that she had requested earlier.

“Here are the pots that you need to grow your herbs. So what are you making?” He asked, setting the pots down to where Alice had indicated with her index fingers.

She needed a few pots to grow some green herbs. Green herbs required at least three weeks to be fully grown. With luck, the herbs might turn out to be red herbs, but it had a twenty per cent chance to be produced from green herbs. Red herbs were the key ingredients to increase the potency of health potions and other kinds of potions, including poisons.

“Thank you. For now, I’ve made five health potions, five mana potions, and three antidotes.”

“That would be enough for this quest since you will be providing support for this quest.” He suggested, twirling the vial he had picked up, containing the concoction, and analyzing its quality.

Enough? We’re up against a camp full of bandits.

Suddenly, someone knocked on their door, it wasn’t Jayce this time.

Leaving Alice to resume her work, Jayce went to get the door, finding himself greeted by a delivery man.

“A delivery for Jayce.” He greeted, tilting his cap downward slightly.

“That would be me.”

The delivery man gave the package and asked for a signature on a document to declare the package was delivered.

He signed the document, and the delivery man thanked him before he took his leave. He brought the package to her and set the package to the top of her study table.

“It’s best you open it. It’s your new ensemble after all.”

Alice began to clean up her alchemy table after she finished creating every potion she needed, storing her ingredients and potions to her magic gloves. As for Jayce, he left her room and closed the door.

Alice was anxious; she was afraid whether the ensemble that Jayce had designed doesn’t suit her at all. She reached out to the package. She was hesitant at first, but finally, she mustered her courage to open it. The apparels were arranged neatly in the package. She withdrew them one after another and lay them on her bed as if she was putting them on a mannequin. As she did so, she began to smile.

The ensemble consisted of a hooded white one-piece dress, length up to her waist, and its colour transitioned, from top to bottom, from white to black with gold decorations at the chest and waist; a white long-sleeved coat with monochrome patterns around the wrists and gold floral pattern around the waist; a pair of black shorts length just up to her knees, a pair of long black socks, and a pair of hazel long boots.

She also found a paper inside the package—it was the schematic that Jayce had given to the tailor yesterday. She was at lost for words, the schematic was written every single detail regarding the procedures, including the conditions required to fulfil in order to tailor these apparels.

She went out of the room, a thought crossed her mind that Jayce had promised to apply enchantments to her new apparels. He was found sitting in one of the dining chairs and he stood up as he noticed her.

“So what do you think? I hope it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable.”

“I love it. I will treasure them.” She answered with a smile.

For some reason, that smile seemed somewhat different from the usual smile she had given to anyone else. Whatever the case, he was glad that she loved her new apparels. He extended his hand to her.

“So, may I have your permission to apply the enchantments to them?”

Alice nodded and handed over her new apparels to Jayce.

They went to Jayce’s room. He placed her apparels on his study table and brought her dress to his alchemy table. Alice peered over his right shoulder as he took out a blank card from one of the drawers from the alchemy table.

“Never done an enchantment process before?”

“No, but why are you using a blank card? I’ve thought the enchantment process was done by using engraving tools and alchemy table?”

The enchantment was usually done by marking runes onto apparels or weapons; it was a combination of both alchemy and blacksmithing skills. Most adventurers and alchemist refer to that procedure as runecrafting.

Marking runes with blacksmithing tools had to be done with precision and accuracy. One minute mistake will seize its function, so it had to be done perfectly.

“Oh, this, you’ll see.”

He showed the blank card to her momentarily, then brought it back to her dress.

He closed his eyes, removing every sense he had to heighten his concentration. Once he reached a point where he can’t see, hear and feel, he slowly infused his mana to the blank card.

To her surprise, instead of a string, the runes slowly appear throughout the blank card. When the runes stopped forming, he then taps the card to her dress. The runes immediately scattered across her dress, revamping the properties of the dress to add additional augmentation without disrupting the original properties of the dress. The runes gave a faint glow and gradually dies down.

“One down. On to the next apparel–” He stood up, switching her dress over to her vest.

“Umm...”

Knowing what kind of question she was going to ask, he gave a short explanation of his action. “A new way to execute an enchantment process. It is the same process as creating your CID. Also, two enchantments were embedded in your dress.”

“Two? I thought that this process created one enchantment.”

“It all depends on the capacity of the apparel can hold. As for the enchantments, your dress is now able to absorb any shock from any attacks by a medium margin and it’s waterproof. Now, we need to enchant your coat.”

Alice found it hard to believe that he had found an exploit on one of the government’s alchemy methods. She knew he built his own hybrid weapon of scimitars and bow.

Her coat was then enchanted with the same augmentation as her one-piece dress with the addition of cloaking enchantment; long boots were applied with muffle enchantment. As he handed over her apparels, he suggested her to change at her room.

When she left his room, he moved on to the final apparel, her gloves. He gazed upon her gloves, thinking about suitable enchantments that might be useful for her. Of course, he was aware that she prefers a long-range approach rather than close range. After a long, deep thought, he had reached a conclusion for the augmentation.

“Alright, guess I have to use that…”

                                                           ____________________

After augmenting Alice’s gloves, Jayce returned his attention back to his weapons at his disposal.

“Now, what kind of enchantments should I use for this quest?” He muttered to himself with a hand to his chin.

Thinking back to the description of the quest, the strength of the bandit leader, security, and the surrounding environment of their camp were unknown to them.

“Guess we have to gather information from the Moon Village.”

After collecting his thoughts, he returned his attention to craft runes onto his weapons and apparel. Cloaking enchantment on his coat, muffle enchantment for his boots. As for his weapons, they were good for now.

“So what do you think?” interrupted Alice as Jayce was applying enchantment on his armours.

He turned around. His eyes widened at her appearance. When he was designing her apparel last night, he told himself that he shouldn’t be too nervous. To his amazement, despite he was the one who designed her ensemble, it really suits her.

The apparels were designed to provide better manoeuvrability for the bearer. The materials used to create this set were well made, as expected from tailors’ proficiency.

“They look great on you.” He answered blatantly.

“T-thank you.” She replied with the crimson spread across her face.

“There is one more thing you need.” He handed her over a pair of gloves to complete her new ensemble.

“But… what about the magic gloves you gave me yesterday?”

“These will be your new magic gloves.”

“Huh…?”

“Is something wrong?”

She remembered her conversation with Lysette regarding magic gloves: This is the newly invented magic gloves by one of the Academy’s students.

Before she knew it, the next words came out from her mouth.

“Are you the one who invented these magic gloves?”

Without anything to hide, he nodded. He later confessed to her that he was also the very person who invented the blank card system, too. Although they were discovered by accident while he attempted to improve his arsenals and items with alchemy.

She looked at him dubiously.

“So… how did the government know about the blank card system?”

She heard rumours a few years ago that the government officials had implemented the blank card system for Adventurer’s IDs. Not to mention, that was three years ago, meaning that Jayce was twelve years old to discover the blank card system, but Jayce soon told her his reasons.

“I suggested it to them. Only IDs. I’m not going to share about the enchantment process you had just witnessed to them. I’m pretty sure that kind of information will change the economics of this country.”

She later understood what he had meant. The government will use it to gain incomes for themselves, and there will be risks when it comes to adventurers come to steal information and abuse its power.

“Before we head out, there is something I need to tell you.”

She snapped back to reality as Jayce was about to tell her something important.

“Your new pair of gloves have the same enchantments as my gloves and also fits with your current ensemble. You’re now able to produce magic arrows or daggers as your close-range weapons. I don’t want something happens to you as our last battle with Chima.”

She was ready for that, but she felt embarrassed about it. But, what comes next was not what she had expected.

“It’s okay.” He patted her head. “You learn new things every day. If something happens to you, I will be there to protect you.”

Instead of feeling guilty, her face reddened immediately and instinctively turned her back to him.

He tilted his head, not sure whether he had upset her. He later noticed that they had to head out now. “Anyway, we have to go. While the sun is still up, we should be arriving at Moon Village by 7:00 PM.”

She equipped her new pair of white magic gloves, and thus, they began their first quest.