(MC POV)
I'm not gonna lie… I got bored of the painting hobby after a month.
Not because I wasn't good at it, but it just got stale after a while, especially when I got constantly roped in by Tsuki and Elaria to help them draw their manga.
It's not that I hate it, but when your hobby becomes work, it kind of takes the fun out of it…
That's why I went ahead to pick up another hobby again.
"Ara, ara? What is Master carving?" Iris asked while peeking over my shoulder while I was seated in my pavilion.
I showed her my completed wood carving, "Just a simple bunny, nothing special."
"Ufufu~ It's really cute, Master~"
I looked back down at the crude piece of wood that barely had the shape of a bunny, "I don't think it's that good though…"
"Ara? But I really do think it's cute, Master~ Are you going to do anything with it?"
"Let me guess, you want to keep this too?"
"If Master doesn't want it, I most certainly do~"
I handed the carving over to Iris who, just like with my first drawing, received it with both hands before teleporting it away.
I then materialised another block of wood in my hands in preparation to start on another animal when the sound of footsteps echoed behind me.
"Masteeeeerrr!"
I turned back to see Bait running towards me with Eris, Laverna and Denna following behind her.
"Hello, Bait. What brings all of you here?"
"We just wanna hangout wit' Master! So wat' are ya' up to?"
Laverna took one look at the wooden block in my hand and tilted her head, "Carving…?"
I nodded, "I just recently took it up actually, would you like to try as well?"
"That sounds fun, Master! Could we do it with Master too?" Eris asked, settling down beside me.
I materialised four blocks of wood alongside the same number of carving tools to pass to the four of them.
"It's quite easy actually. You just need to visualise the object you are trying to make on the piece of wood in your hands and then carve out the excess wood to create the shape you are thinking of," I explained.
Well obviously it's not that good of an explanation but I'm still a beginner, cut me some slack.
To demonstrate, I started carving at the corners of the wooden block while they gathered around to watch me.
"Here, I'm thinking about making a sphere so these eight corners are unneeded, thus I'm carving them out from the shape. And since a sphere needs to be smooth all over, I would need to smoothen the shape out as well, like this."
I quickly carved out the shape and trimmed the corners before using a sandpaper to smooth out the rough edges.
Soon enough, I had a relatively smooth sphere in my hands.
Of course there were still imperfections on the surface since I did this quickly and I wasn't that experienced yet, but it should give Eris and the others an idea of what they can do to create the object they want.
"Dat's awesome, Master! Can we try?!" Bait asked excitedly.
Denna sighed, "It is this one's humble opinion that Master already intended for us to try by giving us our own wooden blocks… Is this one right, Master?"
I nodded, "Of course, feel free to use the blocks I gave you to try it out and get a feel for it. You can make anything you want so no need to hold back. Also, it's fine if your creation doesn't turn out like what you envisioned since you're just starting out."
The four of them then sat down beside me to start carving away at their own wooden blocks, leaving me to create another wooden block to start on my next creation.
This time, I suppose I could try carving a little puppy.
The sphere I had created earlier ended up getting claimed by Iris again after she asked me for it. I'm not sure where she's keeping them but well… I don't mind giving it to her anyway.
All of us then started work on our wooden blocks in silence, fully concentrating on the task in our hands.
I carefully scraped at the wood with my carving tool, aiming to carve out the outline of the dog I had envisioned first before I moved on to add in the details for the carving.
Since I still wasn't that confident in my skills yet, I intentionally chose a pose where the dog was laying down so that the shape was much simpler to carve out.
It was certainly a challenge as I tried to carve out its head and I wasn't even too sure if I got the shape right while I'm carving but that's all part of the fun. It's through all this trial and error that I could learn how to--
"Master! I'm done!"
"Me too…"
"This one as well, Master."
"Aye'm done too!"
I immediately turned back, wondering just what they carved to finish it so quickly when I have yet to even start on the details yet.
What I saw in their hands almost made me drop my wood block.
All of them had made small, intricate and detailed carvings of me in various different poses.
Eris had done one where I was holding my sword in a fighter's stance with the blade pointed parallel to the ground. You could even see my facial features really clearly as well.
Laverna had made one where I seemed to be standing with an empty bowl and a spatula in my hand while dressed in a chef's apron. The details on it were truly magnificent and not something you might expect a novice to make.
Denna had made one where I was seated on a chair and reading a book. And it wasn't just a simple chair but a decorated throne with its own decorations and runes carved on its frame.
Last but not least, Bait also carved out a similarly detailed figure of me where I was stuck in a three point landing pose with the ground cracked underneath me.
I raised an eyebrow at them, "Did you use your domains for this?"
"Of course not, Master! We merely learned from you and applied it to our own carvings!" Eris explained.
I could tell that she wasn't lying… Which meant that this was really their first try and they've already come up with such masterpieces like they've been doing this for years.
Meanwhile my own carving just looked unbearably mediocre as compared to theirs.
Geniuses are really unfair…
Maybe I should just find something else to do instead…
