Chapter 356: Did I Say That Out Loud?
"I really need to find some time to have better clothes tailored," Lucas grumbled as he fought with the various belts, buttons, and collars (yes, there were multiple) that either held together or simply adorned the formalwear he had literally been stuffed into.
"Make sure you design something less awful for me, too!" Eris, who was fighting even harder with the frills, straps, and strings of her dress pleaded.
"Oh, come on you two, it’s not that bad," Christina, the one who was most used to dressing up like this, sighed as she watched her Senior Brother and Senior Sister struggle.
That wasn’t to say the princess found what she was wearing to be comfortable; far from it. It was just that in Christina’s mind, formalwear was supposed to be uncomfortable, that’s what made it formalwear.
What’s more, the bigger and more important the occasion, the more uncomfortable the clothes should be.
It all made perfect sense.
Such thinking might be normal for Christina, and she may have been able to convince Eris given enough time, but Lucas was never going to accept the stiff, pompous, and wholly impractical outfit he was wearing as proper clothing.
There were so many designs for more comfortable, more functional, and better-looking clothes in the young boy’s inherited memories, and although there didn’t seem to be one whit of information about how such clothes were made, Lucas was confident he could at least sketch them out.
"I need to find a proper tailor, preferably someone unafraid to try new things, then I can pass them my ideas and work with them to at least get a proper suit..." Lucas continued to mumble to himself, ideas popping into his head for everything from boxers to tuxedoes.
Other items like jeans, sweat pants, and hoodies also came to mind, all of which Lucas figured would not only make his life better, but could also be sold to the general populace for a hefty profit.
If he were to consider women’s fashion on top of that, with all the skirts, shirts, pants, blouses, dresses...
Well, the possibilities were simply endless.
Red would probably suit Eris and Master the best, and purple would work well for Tina, Lucas mused to himself, Although, they’ll need other things too, like proper shoes and...
"Come to think of it, I remember Sister Allina complaining about her..." A stray thought related to the subject suddenly came to him as he was in the midst of his musings, causing a deep blush to appear on Lucas’ face.
Suffice it to say, Allina had an outstanding figure, something Lucas had visually confirmed on the first night they arrived in Iron Rock when they had taken a bath together.
However, as a warrior who used a heavy, two-handed war hammer that required large, sweeping swings, Allina often had issues with her ’assets’ getting in the way.
She also grumbled at times about how her back and shoulders would ache after a hard fight, though Lucas wasn’t sure whether that was because of the added weight on her chest or simply because of the terrifying weapon she was recklessly wielding.
Currently, his Big Sister Allina dealt with this problem by using long, tough strips of cloth to firmly compress her peaks, but that was hardly comfortable given their immense volume.
What’s more, Lucas was certain Allina wasn’t the only one who suffered from this problem as quite a number of the women around him had rather pronounced curves thanks to their bodies being refined from constant, dedicated cultivation.
One might think that the strenuous physical activity most True Cultivators tended to engage in would only build muscle and reduce body fat, but for some reason Lucas still didn’t understand, instead of Martial Qi causing people to simply become buffer, it more-often resulted in men becoming more handsome and women being more beautiful.
Only those who took things to the extreme had ’disproportionate’ physiques, but Lucas hadn’t met many such individuals so far.
As a rule-of-thumb, the higher one’s cultivation, the more attractive they were, at least in Lucas’ opinion, that is. He didn’t discriminate against those who had... special quirks, but he also didn’t agree with them that things like tiny feet or fat faces were ’pretty’.
Unfortunately, while the standards for personal beauty were fairly well aligned with the boy’s tastes, the fashion sense of the Blue Sky Continent was even more backward than its technology, with the exception of Spirit Engineering of course, so ’solutions’ to the various problems with ill-fitting clothes didn’t exist.
Enter Lucas.
There was a fair bit of knowledge about items which could solve these issues in his head, one of which was perfectly suited to Allina’s specific problem.
It might require a bit of research to find appropriate materials; ones that were soft, strong, and flexible enough to withstand the stress a Complete Peak-Rank Initiate’s would exert on it in high-speed combat, but Lucas didn’t think that would be too difficult as such materials already existed. The problem was how to go about designing, producing, then distributing proper fitting feminine underwear without looking like a pervert.
The older women likely wouldn’t care. Hell, the only reason Lucas had even become conscious of this topic in the first place was because of Allina casually complaining about it to him.
How that particular subject had come up, Lucas had done his best to forget, but it clearly showed that she didn’t consider him a man, which made sense seeing how he was 10 and she would turn 122 in a few days.
Celestina, Vanessa, and the other female Spirit Initiates probably held similar mentalities, seeing Lucas as closer to a baby than a man; however, for Eris, Christina, Laura, Rebecca, Sasha, Victoria, and all the other lovely ladies who were much closer in age to him, Lucas wasn’t sure they would be as ’understanding’ if he were to ask to measure their busts, waists, and hips.
Glancing over at his Junior Sisters, Lucas could already imagine the two of them knocking him to the ground and kicking his ass repeatedly should he even suggest such a thing.
"Well... Eris might be fine with it given how much trust she has in me, but Tina..." Lucas muttered, his eyes unconsciously studying his pretty Junior Sisters’ figures.
"Hm? Did you say something, Lucas?" Christina, with her sharp hearing, half-caught the words he had just spoken and asked.
"Ah? Did I say that out loud? I mean, it’s nothing," Lucas hurriedly asserted, averting his eyes from the questioning gaze she was now directing his way.
Fortunately, before his loose lips could get him in trouble again, Lucas was saved by the loud shout of the herald, "Now entering! Young Master Lucas, Young Lady Eris Newton, and Princess Christina Rockwell!"
Immediately fixing their expressions, the 3 children straightened their backs and, with Lucas leading the way, strode into the grand hall before them.