After reading through the grimoire and grasping the fundamentals of the magic, Leon managed to get the hang of White Art with just a single morning of trial and error.
Thanks to the boost from Scholar's Heart, after several days of repeated practice and familiarization, his mastery of the magic could only be called rapid.
By now he could control these ice clones to perform some simple tasks, like sweeping snow.
Worth mentioning, these ice clones had no autonomous consciousness whatsoever, fundamentally different from the various clones in that one legendary ninja franchise, and you could even call them the "ultimate nerfed version." After all, this world had no special energy system called "chakra."
What Leon's White Art created was nothing but pure clones. Every movement of every clone had to be controlled by him, the caster, in person. To put it another way, it was like operating multiple units at once in a real-time strategy game.
Since it was Leon himself doing the controlling, the more ice clones there were, the more his control precision over each individual would drop exponentially. He had only one brain, after all, and to raise precision without cutting the numbers, he'd need to master a technique like Divided Concentration, which itself took a great deal of time to learn.
Clearly, the Leon of now was nowhere near the level where he could direct each clone as flexibly as his own body.
"Tch, the power's there, but at my current level, the most I can do in combat is have these ice clones stand in place and crank out Fireballs. Getting them to move with anything close to my own flexibility... that road's going to be even longer than I expected."
"Still, it's not bad. Even if all the clones can do is throw Fireballs together, that's plenty to give an opponent a hard time."
"Yeah, can't stop here either. Next I've got to officially put Divided Concentration on the schedule. Good thing I've got a bit of a foundation already, so picking it back up shouldn't take long."
Divided Concentration came from the same root as Concurrent Chanting, both centered on "multi-threaded operation," essentially like the coordination training of drawing a circle with your left hand and a square with your right.
Thanks to his earlier experience learning Concurrent Chanting, Leon's grasp of Divided Concentration wasn't slow.
But after just a few days, all he'd managed was to barely get a feel for it.
In this area, he wasn't even as solid as Aura.
...
"Phew..."
Leon waved his hand to dispel all the ice clones and let out a heavy breath of white mist.
He rubbed his slightly throbbing temples, a trace of fatigue passing through his eyes.
Controlling ten ice clones at once for the snow-sweeping work had put no small burden on him. In less than an hour, he somehow felt as worn out as if he'd battled a Monster Rex nonstop for three days and three nights.
It wasn't an exhaustion of stamina or spirit, but more like a weariness on the level of the mind. In a word: tired.
"Let's call it there for today. Head back inside and rest a bit, then flip through the tailoring and pharmacology books to switch things up."
Just then, the ladies noticed he'd dismissed the ice clones and knew his training had reached a stopping point.
Jeanne spoke up.
"Done? The snow's eased up a lot today, and it looks like most of the shops on the street are open, so we're planning to take Iri out for a bit afterward. What about you?"
Leon took the cup of water Aura handed him with a word of thanks, tipped his head back and drained it in one go, and only then felt a good deal refreshed.
"I'll pass, can't be bothered to move."
"Oh right, you're going to Tsubaki Collbrande's to get Iri's equipment custom-made, yeah? Perfect, do me a favor and swing by North Street on the way. There's a Fine Tailor's Shop run by an elder elf over there. Pick me up a few rolls of cloth and fur. I want to try making a Moon-Cloth Pack."
Aura and Laurier's eyes lit up.
"A Moon-Cloth Pack? That magic backpack you mentioned before, the one that looks small on the outside but has expanded space inside?"
"If you can really pull it off, things'll be so much easier for Aura and me from now on!"
Leon nodded.
"That's the one. But don't get too carried away. Even though this kind of pack expands a varying amount of space based on the material's properties, the thing still has a weight limit. It won't get much lighter just because the space is bigger."
"We know, we know!"
"Besides, the tech behind this kind of pack can be applied to waist-packs, leg-pouches, and arm-pouches too! In short... for a Supporter, it's an absolutely huge deal!"
"That's true enough."
...
A little while later.
Leon stood at the door wrapped up like an old man, cradling a teacup and draped in a quilted overcoat, seeing the ladies off as they headed out.
"Leon, we're off!"
He yawned and nodded.
"With the festival coming up, a lot of outsiders have come to Orario, so be sure to stay safe."
"Don't worry."
"Bye!"
"Bye!"
Leon watched the figures of all the lovely ladies, in their various shapes and sizes, slowly melt into the snowy scenery, then unhurriedly drew his gaze back.
"Time to study!"
...
...
On the single-seater sofa beside the fireplace, Leon sat in the dancing firelight, wearing the Gale-Force Reading Glasses, absorbed in the tailoring "magnum opus" he'd pulled out of a treasure chest: Tailoring: From Apprentice to Master.
Thanks to the marvelous effect of the Gale-Force Reading Glasses, his reading speed was boosted a full 32 times. Even though this book was as thick as an unabridged dictionary, after several straight days of focused effort, he was finally close to finishing it.
And yet, even with this one nearly conquered, he couldn't feel the slightest bit happy.
There on the round little tea table beside him, alongside a steaming cup of coffee, were stacked several more super-heavyweight tomes that looked rather aged but were just as thick.
You could glimpse the breadth of his reading just from the titles on the spines: there was Wondrous Potions: A Basic Guide, pulled from a treasure chest; there were practical reference works like the world-famous The World's Three Great Secret Realms: Encyclopedia of the Dungeon; and there was even Orario: History and Glory, an obscure historical work that few ever bothered with, which he'd gone out of his way to borrow from the Gnome's Great Library.
As one who'd slipped through the cracks of nine years of compulsory education, no one understood better than he did the weight of the words "knowledge is power."
In his past life, over a decade of grinding away at his studies had never made him a top student. Now, not only had he been reincarnated, he'd gotten a cheat too. If he was still just a reckless brute who only knew how to charge in headlong, wouldn't his whole reincarnation have been wasted?
So having come to another world, his ambition to become a top student hadn't been snuffed out at all. If anything, it burned more fiercely than ever.
This whole stretch, one thing after another had piled up, and the long bouts of frantic level-grinding down in the Dungeon had made him shelve his reading habit for a while. Now, with the chance offered by the grimoires and specialist works he'd pulled from treasure chests, he resolutely picked that pursuit of knowledge back up.
"Phew... this tailoring stuff really isn't much simpler than pharmacology, especially once it folds in a whole knowledge system tied to the Mysteries."
He lightly turned the pages, his eyes sweeping over the book's detailed array of hand-cutting techniques, from tool-making, basic patterns, transcribing and paper-cutting, to advanced skills like three-dimensional cutting, and even breakdowns of the pros and cons of each method.
Even with the dual aid of Scholar's Heart and the Gale-Force Reading Glasses, Leon still felt a headache coming on.
"Damn it, studying really isn't as satisfying as throwing Fireballs!"
"Argh!"