Test of Sewing (1)

Orihime looked within her Hakusui and beamed. Not only did the food contain high density spiritual power, but it contained a trace of life. After consuming so much of it, her little world began to form soil and a little sprout with a single leaf. She was suddenly reminded of the concept of the cinnabar fields, or dantian, in eastern cultivation. Orihime wondered about the compatibility of spiritual power to Qi and Chakra. Regardless, having a dimension capable of holding life would be incomparable to any other power.

'Perhaps this universe is actually just a dimension inside of an even more powerful being…'

Orihime shuddered at the thought, but pushed it down to the back of her mind. She walked through the kitchen and out the back door. There was a thick golden platform hovering a few inches off the ground waiting for her. She stepped up onto it and it began to float upward. She was being taken to the next layer up.

She arrived in front of a normal looking building. She entered and there was a long hall with several curtains made from various fabrics with different designs along the way. When she reached the end of the hallway it was a circular room with stairs that led up to a large bed. The bed was veiled in several unfolded bolts of cloth from the top of the high ceiling. Sitting on the bed was Senjumaru.

"Orihime, you're here earlier than I expected. It seems Kirino finally met her match in eating… Come sit down."

Senjumaru patted the bed and signaled for Orihime to set next to her. Orihime was a bit warry but still walked over and sat down. The bed was extremely soft and comfortable. The sheets were made out of a material she didn't recognize. It was so comfortable to touch she wasn't paying attention to Senjumaru. Suddenly, she felt herself being grabbed and look up.

Senjumaru had her arms around Orihime's waist. She tried to pull away, but her artificial arms popped out from behind her and grabbed her shoulders and legs. Senjumaru's strength was still higher than Orihime's, but she was ready to go all out. Senjumaru moved her arms up and down her body for a minute and then pulled back.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Here, you'll need this."

Another set of arms came out from behind and handed her a sheet of paper. On it there were a list of numbers and locations listed. After looking it over she instantly understood what just happened. Senjumaru had measured her shoulders, bust, waist, hips, and arm and leg length. Orihime almost shouted at her for not telling her directly, but held herself back.

"You seem disappointed… Anyway, your test will be to create a set of clothes for yourself. However, this will not be a simple process. Follow me to the loom. Once the test starts, you must weave the bolt of fabric from a special thread, then hand sew the outfit. There is only enough material for ten tries, and I will reject anything that isn't flawless."

Senjumaru lead Orihime into the next room where a gigantic loom sat silently. There were various strings already in position ready to be weaved. She walked over and began to explain the features of the loom. The shuttle was dubbed a 'Spirit Shuttle' since it could only be controlled using Reiatsu. The thread cannot be simply touched. One must cover their hands with Reiatsu at the perfect density. Too little, and the threads will fray, too much and they will snap. As for the winch and pedals, they had to be controlled by Reiatsu as well. The task of weaving cloth required one to control four separate moving parts with Reiatsu at the same time!

"After you have weaved the fabric, you have very little room for mistakes. You will use your Reiatsu to cut out the pieces and then use this golden needle to do the sewing. The needle changes in size and is the only material that can carefully sew this fabric without breaking or ruining the work. Any questions?"

The needle she received was more like a knitting needle than a sewing one, but Orihime quickly figured out the mechanism for changing its size. She was also given a spool of thread with the same material as the bolt would be made in. Orihime noticed that the threads were white, and wondered how she would make the shihakusho black.

"I bet you're wondering how you're going to dye the cloth? I decided to make it easy and provide some dying vats. Just dip the cloth into whichever color you want!"

Eight large barrels with different colors were revealed from behind a curtain. Orihime took all the information in and was very excited. Although this test seemed very difficult, with her natural endowments and hogyoku's power, she will easily reach perfect control again. However, the limit of ten tries was very steep. Senjumaru didn't give her any requirements for the design so she decided to just make her previous style. She had already gotten comfortable with it.

After playing with the loom for an hour, she marveled at the construction. It was no wonder that Senjumaru created those artificial arms. Needing to control various moving parts with Reiatsu is difficult.

'It's like patting your head and making circles on your stomach. Your mind will attempt to coordinate your limbs automatically, causing you to pat both, do circle on both, or do a weird half-circle half-pat.'

The action takes a bit of practice to get used to it, but is fairly easy for most people once they try it. However, this was doing four completely different tasks and staying concentrated on the product to ensure no mistakes. Orihime failed a few times by mixing up the shuttle movement left and right with the winch rotation. However, after creating a long enough bolt of cloth to make a full uniform, there were several holes and frayed or broken threads.

The first bolt had to be discarded. Orihime practiced carefully with her concentration at one-hundred percent. She could feel the poor control over her spiritual power increasing slowly but surely. The victim of her training was the second bolt, also discarded. She didn't know how long it's been but it is not a short amount of time. Having such a huge amount of spiritual power and even containing life in her Hakusui, Orihime no longer felt hungry. Perhaps she would need to eat eventually, she thought.

Unknown to her, a whole day has already passed while she put together and threw away two bolts of cloth. She was so engrossed in the work; she didn't take her eyes off of the loom except to check the bolts of cloth. On the third bolt, she was confident in the quality and couldn't find any flaws. She cut the bolt in two carefully with her Reiatsu and dipped the longer portion in the black dye. However, what she didn't expect was the volatility of the dye.

…

"Haha, so you just stuck it right in and it exploded? I must say, you look quite humorous covered in black dye. Don't worry, this stuff isn't ordinary dye. It is very conductive to Reiatsu, which prevents for clothing malfunctions when using powerful skills. You can use your Reiatsu to wipe off the dye. The fabric is made out of a very special material, so you need to carefully control the dye to cover the fabric slowly or it will explode like that."

Orihime returned to the loom with frustration. Although the dye came off easily, the experience was still frustrating. She had wasted both bolts because she placed the other half too close to the vat, so the explosion ruined it as well. However, having practiced it to this point three times, she was able to complete the fourth bolt a lot quicker. She even noticed that she had made a mistake on the third bolt which she fixed this time around.

After carefully dying one half black, she cut out the shapes and began working the needle. It was a lot easier than learning to use the loom. Perhaps it was due to her control having reached a higher standard. Her control was in the upper eighties now, which is low considering she was over a hundred before. This test has given her a lot of time to experience the growth of her control and she came to realize that perhaps the standard of control isn't correct.

Although she can reach hundred percent control over her own spiritual power, people like Yamamoto and the royal guards surely have control over a hundred just based on their skills. Therefore, why isn't something like that available to learn? Orihime had already bashed the students of the academy before for not matching up to their predecessors, but isn't this blatantly teaching them incorrectly?

She was distracted by these thoughts for a moment and made a mistake, ripping a large hole in the fabric. She noticed that after the stitching was done, the structural integrity of the clothes becomes stable. It will no longer fray or break from touching it. She wanted to test the tensile strength of the cloth that was stabilized, and couldn't even pull the threads apart a little bit. However, such a small needle created a fist sized hole from a single mistake.

"Sigh, alright, I should practice with what is left first, and the discarded cloth from before. Then try again with the fifth bolt."