Name: Item Box Moon-Cloth Pack Series, Hart Kindergarten Edition (Junk Tier)
Volume: 1.01x
Origin: Orario
Type: Bag
Effect: A bag made from magic cloth and leather, imbued with Item Box magic, possessing an interior space slightly larger than its exterior.
Description: A Wonder Pack whose volume just barely exceeds the original body. A certain tailoring apprentice's first attempt (and it really is only a tiny bit more).
...
The first magic backpack Leon had made with his own hands had finally, just barely, come into the world!
But the moment he caught sight of that merciless little dig in the item description, his whole face went dark.
"Like heeeell..."
"What do you mean, 'only a tiny bit more'? Don't you know going from zero to one is the hardest breakthrough of all! Who are you looking down on!"
"...Hmph. Whatever. As long as I've got my foot in the door, that's what counts."
Once Leon got his foot in the door of any technique, the problems that came afterward were no longer problems for him.
It was nothing more than pouring in time and energy, repeating the same dull practice over and over, and with the "diligence makes up for clumsiness" effect of Scholar's Heart kicking in, his mastery and understanding of the craft would naturally rise like a tide.
Whether it was understanding knowledge, mastering magic, or some combat technique, it was all the same.
By the same logic, the Moon-Cloth Pack made through tailoring was no exception either.
Sure, the description mocked him for the fact that the bag he'd just made only had 1.01x the volume, but as long as he kept grinding away at practice, that number would shoot up alongside his heavy practice and understanding, climbing until it approached the very limit the material itself could bear.
Of course, a morning of practice had done more than just get him into the basics of tailoring. The repeated practice had also given him a deeper understanding of the crafting materials, the properties of the raw stock.
"What I used to practice on was fur dropped by Lv. 1 monsters. Going by my feel and my reasoning, the bags made from this kind of material should cap out at no more than 2x volume. If the cap for Lv. 2 material is no more than 3x, then the volume formula for the bag is easy to derive..."
Bag Volume = Material Tier + 1
At the same time, depending on the tailor's skill level and condition during crafting, the actual volume would fluctuate somewhat, but the absolute ceiling was N + 1.
"Phew..."
Having worked out these basic principles and finally gotten a feel for the threshold of Moon-Cloth Pack crafting, Leon let out a long breath.
A solid morning of single-minded study and experimentation, and even though he was a Lv. 4 powerhouse with the Demon Lord's Crest backing him, the moment he relaxed he felt worn out in both body and mind.
He wasn't exactly a stranger to this state. Quite the opposite, he knew it well. So he didn't think, "As a proper Lv. 4 with my physical stats, just feeling tired after one morning of work has to be some kind of physical problem."
There was no need to panic, since he'd been through it countless times in his past life.
Take, for example:
Going shopping with the ladies. No matter how robust the man's physique, under the torture of shopping, after a while he'd usually feel exhausted, while the normally frail ladies would erupt with a strength no one could have imagined!
Or another: an athlete who'd built up real stamina, brimming with vigor and energy, gets trapped and tormented by an ocean of knowledge in a classroom for eight periods straight. Even if his physique was strong enough to tank a Spatial Slash, he'd still go limp and listless in class.
Leon right now was in a similar state. Tortured all morning by a field he was utterly bad at, he just felt completely drained.
"Glug, glug, glug..."
He tipped his head back and chugged a mouthful of his homebrewed alcoholic drink, Orange Fruit Wine, letting the cold liquor trickle down from the corner of his mouth, savoring the sting of it sliding down his throat. His whole body perked up.
"Ice Clone Magic!"
With a rapid crackling, one human-shaped ice sculpture after another took form, and driven by his magic, they quickly shifted to mimic Leon's expressionless face.
Watching these ice clones each strike a JoJo-style pose, the real Leon raised an eyebrow and, relying on his freshly-learned Divided Concentration, began clumsily controlling the clones to clean up the messy workshop.
"Fun. Feels like playing with a remote-control toy. Mm... I don't even have to lift a finger. Went straight from another world to the age of artificial intelligence in one step."
He leaned against the door frame, taking small sips of his drink, his narrowed eyes shining with the delight of a kid who'd gotten a new toy.
But the instant his attention slipped, those already stiff-moving ice clones lost their balance and, with a clattering racket, knocked over the shelves stacked with odds and ends one after another.
"..."
He looked at the ice clones sprawled all over the floor, a few of them with snapped-off legs and buried under the clutter.
Leon's face flushed crimson and he boiled over on the spot!
"Damn! What garbage magic is this!"
...
While Leon was hunkered down, channeling that pent-up drive into frantic practice of ice clone control and Moon-Cloth Pack crafting through Scholar's Heart...
A large force of adventurers, their figures bedraggled and even their armor worn to tatters, but with smiles they couldn't keep off their faces, filed out in good order from the entrance of Babel.
Standing on the steps and gazing out over the city, the blanket of silver snow gave the gold-haired Pallum at the front a brief pause.
"Huh, it's snowing?"
"Didn't even notice the season had come around to this."
Beside him, an elf with long green hair draped over her shoulders, dressed in luxurious elven-style robes and leaning on an expensive staff, let a hint of feeling cross her weary face.
"Yeah, time really does fly. A whole year's gone by fast enough that I barely felt it."
"Thank goodness, unlike before, this year we're finally not coming back empty-handed!"
Recalling what they'd gained this time, the smiles they wore could no longer be held back.
The moment these three appeared at the entrance of Babel, the gold-haired Pallum, the green-haired elf, and the thick-bearded dwarf, they instantly drew the eyes of the adventurers around the plaza, who were dressed in winter clothes and gathered in twos and threes, chatting.
"That's... Hss! It's the Loki Familia!"
"The Giant Killer? Weren't they supposed to be off on a deep-floor Expedition? They're back from the Expedition?"
"Counting the days, it's been about half a month, so the timing's about right."
"Wonder if they managed to clear the unknown floors."
"Came back right on schedule, and not missing any arms or legs either. Tch... looks like they pulled it off this time."
"Heh, after burning through that many resources, failing on top of it would be pretty hard to justify, wouldn't it?"
"Talking trash behind their backs is about all you're good for."
"Why you..."
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