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In the end, Dark purchased 《Van Dee's Art of Wood Carving》.
By all means, it wasn't because of Angelia's presence.
After careful consideration, he found that this wood carving book was indeed helpful to him.
Although there were various types of [Armour], the most common one was the full-body armour. And the base shape of an armour, especially the close-fitting soft armour, naturally had to conform to the structure of the human body.
The most important thing in learning new knowledge was to lay a solid foundation.
He wouldn't be able to improve his skills just by building castles in the air.
His current foundation was practically zero, and furthermore, he still had to learn everything by himself. It was too difficult for him to directly go into armour making.Therefore, he would start from learning how to carve the human figure!
Moreover, 《Van Dee's Art of Wood Carving》 wasn't limited to human body carvings. There were also plenty of demi-human-type carvings… such as the Beastmen.
If one mastered the skill to carve the body of Beastmen, then they would undoubtedly be familiar with the body structure of animals.
All in all, this book was surprisingly comprehensive.
……
After buying 《Van Dee's Art of Wood Carving》, Dark didn't stay in the goblin's antique bookshop for too long.
He quickly bid his goodbye to Senior Sister Angelia and continued to purchase materials on Traveller Street.
It wasn't until late in the evening that he finally summoned Gatomon from the dormitory. With its help, he brought the mountain of packages back to the dormitory.
The door of dormitory 201 was like a huge mouth, constantly swallowing without spitting out anything.
After unpacking the packages and sorting the materials into different categories, Dark finally took a breather and went into the bathroom to wash his body.
Refreshed by the shower, he directly lay down on the bed and flipped through 《Van Dee's Art of Wood Carving》.
Although he had subconsciously shied away from it at first, the fact was that with his current concentration, it wasn't a big problem for him to observe these wood carvings. After all, despite looking very exquisite, they weren't the real thing.
It wasn't as though Dark Demon was a real innocent fledgling.
……
However, just as he started reading the book, little Eevee and Sylveon snuck onto the bed and snuggled him on both sides of the face, pestering him.
As expected, before long, the two magical spirits were attracted by this book of wood carving art and refused to budge.
……
Time quickly passed by.
Starting from this Sunday, Dark officially embarked on the road of wood carving study.
Beginning with the most basic identification of materials and getting to know the uses of the tools, he gradually indulged in it.
Boys seemed to possess a natural interest in this sort of manual work.
That feeling of creating a work of art from his own hands made him unable to stop himself.
And under his intentional indulgence, [Greed] was steadily increasing.
However, there was no goal that could be reached in one stroke.
After a whole day, he achieved no other results aside from accumulating a few more junks in the dormitory.
But at nightfall, he suddenly recalled something and summoned [Meowth]!
As a result, right then and there, [Meowth] succeeded in one go and showed him what a [Technician] was.
In merely half an hour, [Meowth] skillfully mastered all kinds of carving tools and then proceeded to carve out a lifelike bighead carp under the watchful eyes of Dark and the other magical spirits!
"Meow~!"
Meowth, who had successfully completed the carving, bit the bighead carp in its mouth and proudly stood with its arms akimbo.
In this round, Dark Demon suffered a total defeat！
……
"Perhaps this is what a real genius is."
[Envy +1]
The [deadly sin] drifting right before his eyes was [Envy], which hadn't made an appearance for a long time.
Suddenly missing it a little, Dark reflexively reached out to touch it.
Needless to say, his touch didn't land.
Afterwards, as he looked at Meowth who was showing off all around the place with the carp in its mouth, a flash of inspiration suddenly lit up in his mind. But it went out in a blink, as if leaving an itch in his heart, out of reach despite his outstretched hand.
"What was it that I thought of just now?"
Dark sat down on the spot, pondering hard.
But sometimes, the more you want to remember, the harder it is to grasp the thread.
Despite desperately thinking about it for a whole night, he still failed to catch the glimmer of inspiration.
……
The new week commenced with Professor Silver's lecture.
As the last trail of Valentine's Day completely dissipated, the students put their focus back into their studies.
Dark also regained his daily rhythm.
He shortened the time allocated for wood carving study, limiting it to only three hours at night.
Something that differed from the past was that whenever he returned to the dormitory, he would summon [Meowth] and let DemiDevimon and Gatomon, who were the most proficient at writing, take turns teaching it.
And in turn, during the three hours of nightly "wood carving session", he would practise carving with Meowth.
Even though all the wood carving knowledge Meowth learned was conveyed to it by Dark, it was always able to grasp everything in no time, leaving Dark, its master, far behind it.
It had been a very long time since Dark last felt this way.
In the field of wood carving, Meowth was like a hare to his tortoise.
Only with persistent efforts would he have the chance to reach the same line as the hare.
Yet sometimes, it was actually a fortunate thing to have a back to chase after.
He clearly felt that the efficiency of his learning was much higher than what it had been last Sunday.
After a week, he was able to carve a decent human body out of a chunk of cork.
Although it was still far from being fine, it already had a complete structure.
His technique was also constantly improving.
He finally seemed like a proper carver.
Even when Meowth was becoming more and more smug this week, he didn't care about it.
……
The last Sunday of February, three days before the end of the month.
Half past seven in the evening.
Dark looked at the wooden figure he had personally carved on the table, slowly closed 《Van Dee's Art of Wood Carving》, and let out his breath.
"In a week's time, considering that I started from scratch, my progress is actually pretty quick—if I don't compare it to Meowth's."
He let out a small smile, then put aside 《Van Dee's Art of Wood Carving》 and took out another book on wood carving—《Elven Craftsmanship—Wood Carving》!
"《Van Dee's Art of Wood Carving》 contains many more details about human body carvings. There's even a technique on how to soften the material to emulate the corresponding body parts. But as of present, I've no use for these techniques just yet."
"Now that I've learned how to carve a simple human figure, I can finally start adding 'armour' onto the figure. For starters, let's make the most basic clothing."
"In this aspect, 《Elven Craftsmanship—Wood Carving》 should be of more help to me."
Flipping 《Elven Craftsmanship—Wood Carving》 to the relevant page, Dark once again picked up his carving knife and measured the wooden figure with it.
After thinking it over for a while, he finally started working.
"Let's start by carving a skirt!"
……
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