[2.48] Artistic Pride (Part 1/3)

[Contract complete]

Angelica woke up in the middle of the night, at a time when most would roll over, look at their clock or phone, feel elated by how much sleep they could still get, then slip back to slumber. But not her. She felt wide awake, with absolutely no desire for more. This was thanks to a new Order she’d given herself, one that she’d always wanted to try but had also been genuinely afraid of: a sleep Order.

The idea of forcing herself to lose consciousness for a specific amount of time was definitely a scary thought, and if mishandled, could be disastrous. But she’d been so exhausted after her meal with her mother, and yet couldn’t fall asleep no matter how much she tried, so it became worth the risk. Fortunately, even in her sleep-deprived state, she’d been able to work out the wording she felt confident with.

“Once you next get settled in your bed after being given this Order, sleep until you reach peak restfulness within a half-a-day period. Make unconscious bodily adjustments as needed to maintain comfort and prevent injuries during sleep. You may wake early if there is an emergency consisting of potential damage to self or home, or if anyone, including Cherub, is demanding your attention with an urgent matter, be it through phone, knocking, telepathy, or any other method that would normally pull you out of sleep.”

All of those caveats had felt extremely necessary, even if none were used. The time limit was definitely critical, or she could potentially never wake up if she never reached the peak restfulness condition. In all, she’d only slept for roughly seven of the allotted ten hours. While it should be that more sleep equaled more rest, for whatever reason, bodies were dumb and that was never the case. It acted more like a bell curve that then went all wiggly at the end. But she couldn’t argue with the results, feeling genuinely refreshed.

No part of her body ached either. She wondered how much she adjusted in her sleep, or if she’d slept like a corpse the entire time. Maybe her Demon constitution didn’t need such contingencies, but she didn’t want to risk waking up with a terrible crick in her neck or back.

Then the emergency wakeup clause was definitely the cinch at the end. If Cherub was in pain, or her landlord suddenly came by, or her Cult or mother reached out for some urgent reason, yeah, those were valid reasons to wake that could be devastating otherwise. Imagine if someone came into her room and she wouldn’t stir no matter how much they shook her. She’d wake up in a hospital, diagnosed with a coma. A short-lived one, but still concerning for everyone involved, plus unneeded medical bills.

Overall, it was a rousing success. Yet at the same time, she still feared what would happen if she used it consistently, like getting addicted to sleep pills? Would the Order somehow become less effective overtime, or would she become unable to sleep without it? Was that even a concern? Shouldn’t she always be able to give herself Orders? There were only two times where she could think of where it would be finicky, either if she got an Order from a stronger Summoner that would somehow conflict, or if she was under some sort of mind-control magic which she already knew existed.

She had no idea the odds of running into such a thing, especially if followed through on sticking to her quieter life as much as possible. Make as few enemies as she could. Though, even if outside factors weren’t at play, would she have the confidence to believe that her own powers would never fail her? Angelica had been giving herself less Orders lately. As her Worth as a Demon improved, they’d been feeling less crucial, no longer requiring that crutch.

But maybe that was the wrong way to look at the issue. It was through those Orders that she learned and improved, to the point that she no longer needed them at that level. So maybe it was more about using them to go beyond her current capabilities now that she had a good foundation. Part of her still didn’t want to become wholly reliant on them, but to leave the ability, her distinct advantage over all other Demons and Summoners, untapped, felt wasteful.

Perhaps she could find a good balance of shifting the scales. Use Orders to regularly improve while leaning into her learned and natural abilities to maintain what she’d gained. And of course, she’d still always have them in her back pocket for “oh scuff” moments where she needed to make her body move without thinking. Named Orders were still terrifying, so that would take more convincing before she regularly relied on them.

Overall, though, it sounded good, so she slid out of bed and over to her computer to tweak her lifeplan document, altering her general ideology with Orders while also adding the training method for Discerning Palate. While probably not perfect, it’d do for now. So she refreshed the Order, which she’d neglected to do the previous day before finally falling asleep.

[Summoner Rank: Novice Lv.14]

Fritsing hell. Five levels in one go? Just how much trauma had she faced yesterday? Well, reuniting with her mother had in fact been one of the specific bullet points as part of that Order, which she’d now changed to regular meetups. So in the eyes of the DGS, she’d apparently directed Gelic to accomplish some great feat. It was nice to know even the demonic system saw it as a major triumph for her.

And speaking of triumphs, now that she’d obtained Auto-Color, it was time to get to work. Angelica actually had a few chapters of Merlina’s Boutique still in the backlog, but she planned to pull them from the scheduler on her serial website and scrap them for now. They were… fine. Not terrible ideas or execution, but not her best. Admittedly, during the last few weeks, she’d been drawing more out of commitment than desire, wanting to keep to her serial schedule to not let down her few fans. But they deserved her best.

So she’d start fresh, right then in the middle of the night, and get the next chapter done before it was supposed to go live in a few hours. But first… she unboxed the new laptop that her mother had given her. Even inside, there wasn’t any sort of branding, not on the lid nor the instructions. Getting the device set-up was a breeze, however. She never considered herself much of a computer whiz beyond internet browsing and the software she used for art, but even she could tell how much smoother and sleeker everything was. Gone were the clunky icons of her previous operating system, and it even came with its own proprietary drawing program.

The computer didn’t even need to go through any sort of updates, ready to go right out the box. Angelica had the blank document ready in minutes. So she folded the laptop’s screen to the best angle for drawing and popped out the stylus. Her instincts wanted to draw Merlina as the baseline to test Auto-Color, but she decided she should start simpler than that. So she went with a simple ball; a circle with basic shading and lighting.

After getting a good visual, she drew the circle and… What the scuff was that?! Angelica clutched at her head, reeling, not from pain but exasperation from use. As it turned out, Auto-Color was a bit of a misnomer for the Skill. The result was as described. Once the circle was complete, the coloring magically appeared, and it was just as she’d envisioned in her head.

However, in practice, the process to use it was certainly not automatic. The coloring hadn’t actually been magically generated as the Skill details had implied. Rather, it was closer to “semi-automatic.” The Skill still did the work and manifested her desires, but she had to input the commands. The coloring, the shading, the texture, they were all selected by her in what could only be described as her brain’s own art program. Even the motions to create the gradient and splotches of shading had been mimicked without fault to what she would normally have to do physically.

In the moment that she’d completed drawing the circle, it was like a full minute of thought had passed in her mind. So in reality, this Skill was not a magical cheat but a time-saver. It made sense now why it specifically mentioned not being able to surpass her own artistic capabilities, and why it grew with her personal skill rather than through the system. It also explained more why the Legacy Bonus had both triggered and been so high.

But that was fine. She would not improve if it did all the work for her. In fact, this was the best of all worlds. It still saved her just as much time as she thought it would, while also not stunting her growth. Nor would it create fake art that she had no proper hand in making. It was all still hers. All that had changed from this revelation was how much of a learning curve there was. It wouldn’t save her time if she had to pause after each stroke and rest from the taxation it caused her mind.

However, this is where her new Order methodology would come into play. She’d need to figure out the precise wording. But first, since this was clearly going to be quite the endeavor, it was best to get her day started properly so she wouldn’t have to stop midway later. She tweaked the wording a few times while showing, then a bit longer while eating breakfast.

For the meal, she’d actually spat up what remained that had been on her plate yesterday. While everything in the serving dishes had been boxed and was currently overflowing in her fridge, she’d thrown the remainder of already-served bites on her plate into Second Stomach. And they were still as warm and fresh as the moment she’d put them in, which meant slightly chilled since it had all cooled a bit while talking with her mother.

“Strive for perfection while training Auto-Color. Mistakes are fine, but learn and improve from each one. Utilize this ability to complete a new chapter of Merlina’s Boutique no later than half an hour before it’s due to be posted. Fully-colored, with a story and art that you’re proud to post.”

Yes, that should do well. It gave her a deadline to push her, set the expectations while allowing wiggle room for error. And most importantly, it wouldn’t let her compromise her own artistic integrity.

Her hands got to work immediately, with her mind sent into rapid-fire thoughts to keep up with the coloring. The first scene drawn was a bit of a slog. It honestly wouldn’t have taken her as long as it did if she’d just completed the panel normally, even with adding some light coloring. It just took her a good while to get used to the increased mental strain and persistent decisions she had to make. The end result turned out to be far superior by letting her magic, well, work its magic.

She was completely satisfied with it… or so she thought. Angelica should be moving on to the next scene, having already fallen behind her timetable, but something was bugging her about the art, which she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Was the DGS giving her some sort of hint again, her Order really leaning into the perfection part, or maybe her own self-critique not letting something minor slide? Regardless of the origin, she knew what it wanted her to do.

Scrutinize. Ah, that’s it! A few pixels on her screen started to glow in her vision. Merlina’s knee wasn’t right. More specifically, the joint was much a fair bit higher than it should be, making her legs look disproportionate. To Angelica’s defense, she rarely drew knees for the girl. Merlina was almost always in flowy dresses, so there was no need. However, in this new arc, her character sported a stylish high-low skort which added for a lot more maneuverability on this grand adventure, much more fitting for the theming.

She felt immense satisfaction from fixing that error, and something more tingled in her mind. Checking her DGS screen, which she had been keeping a close on for a while now, the experience for Auto-Color finally budged, by a notable amount too. She hadn’t gotten so much as a decimal point until then, despite performing fantastic colorations. But that was because that relied solely on her existing talent, but with this, she had improved as an artist.

The next several scenes flowed a lot smoother, and before she knew it, panels had turned into pages. Now that she was getting used to the mental burden, Auto-Color could be used without slowing down her sketching. And it also worked for the outlines themselves. It would automatically adjust the style of the lines according to her whims, so she never had to worry about the thickness or brush type. By the end, she was pumping out panels faster than ever before, and at a much higher quality.

When she got to the end, with plenty of time to spare before her deadline, it was truly a piece she was proud of. Without a doubt, this was the best chapter of Merlina’s Boutique to exist, and would be the first of many. She’d just started a long arc where Merlina was sent to a strange land and befriended a one-eyed pudgy bat who helped her find her way back. And since she was planning to go into an even deeper story, she’d increased the page count a bit this time as well, with plans to extend it further as needed.

[Auto Color Lv.12]

[Inspiration Lv.6]

[Creativity notably increased]

[Competence increased]

[Fabrication Attunement notably increased]

Inspiration had triggered when she was doing a once-over of the chapter, leading to her adding a lot of additional details that she probably would have left out otherwise, really tying it all together and bringing it to another level. Pride was welling up in Angelica, genuinely astonished by the piece she’d made with all the love poured into it. Sure, she could have made something to this degree before, but it would have taken her a week at least. The experience had left her mentally drained, though, but that didn’t dampen her smile.

She went ahead and scheduled the chapter, ready for a break, maybe a nap with another Order to rejuvenate her restfulness. Except there was one problem. No way would she be able to sleep right now, because Inspiration was still active and burning brightly. That was so strange. Normally, the effect only lasted a few minutes, but it had been running non-stop for nearly half-an-hour and showed no signs of slowing.

[Warning: Your emotions have triggered an anomaly, overclocking your Inspiration Skill, running it at a much higher level than your current capabilities. If you do not calm yourself soon and end the anomaly, you may commit a Sin]