Leonel undoes the ribbon that ties the scroll, and then lets the scroll roll open. Leonel reads it silently for a few moments, and then he lets out a sigh.
“That is actually easier than expected…” He mumbles. He then goes to the back room and grabs some feathers, a small piece of iron ingot, and a long, thin block of wood.
“Have you read the scroll yet?” Klaus asked.
“Yes, I have, master. Now I’ll try performing it.”
“I see. Good luck. Try not to overexert yourself again.”
“I’ll try my best,” Leonel replied before heading out back to the storefront. There, he then grabs the arrow that she left, and proceeds to sit on the floor. He then put the items he brought from the back room on the floor.
“All right, here I go…” Leonel then extends one of his open palm towards the arrow, and the other palm he extends towards the materials. He remembered the instructions written on the scroll:
1. Imagine a bubble encapsulating the object you want to copy.
2. You need to imagine the object inside the bubble as detailed as possible.
3. Provide the raw materials of the object you want to copy.
4. Imagine the materials encapsulated with a bubble.
5. Take in the natural energy, and then fuse it with your own energy.
6. Imagine that the object you are to copy goes in to your body from one of your palm, and then goes out from your other palm along with the fused energy.
7. After the last process, you have to chant ‘copy’ to finish the process. The materials should then be assembled to the object you want to be copied. If done correctly, the object should be perfectly copied from the raw materials.
Leonel closes his eyes and imagines the arrow encapuslated within a bubble, and he imagines the details of the arrow one by one; the fletching, the arrowhead, and the shaft. He tries to recreate the image of the parts of the arrow, and then, like he did yesterday when he learned Grunag’s magic, he sucks in the natural energy around him. He then tries to fuse it with his own energy, and like yesterday, he feels like something is inside his stomach, and then lets the energy flow onto his other palm.
“Copy.” Leonel chanted. He then feels the fused energy leaving his body through his palm. He then opens his eyes.
“How did it go, Leonel?” Mark asked.
“Well…” Leonel can only see at the items on the floor. It indeed copied everything, but unfortunately, everything is detached instead of perfectly assembled like the sample arrow.
“Buh…” Mark blurted out. His face grows red from trying to hold in laughter.
“…” Leonel doesn’t say anything; he only stares intently towards Mark.
“Sorry, sorry. It’s just that it’s somewhat funny for me. Ahh… Anyway, you know what went wrong?”
“Unfortunately, no, not at all.”
“Let me see the scroll,” Mark said. Leonel then gives it to him upon hearing his request.
“Hm, let’s see…” Mark reads the scroll for a few seconds and then takes the arrow goes towards the back room. After a minute or two, he goes back out holding an extra arrow and hands both to Leonel.
“How?” Leonel asked in amazement and irritation.
“I just followed the instructions, that’s it.”
“How come our results are different then?”
“Hmm… Before that, how did you imagine the arrow?”
“What do you mean, how?”
“Literally.”
“Uh… I basically imagined the parts and the details one by one.”
“Did you imagine the parts in a finished arrow?”
“I think I didn’t. I just imagined the individual parts.”
“Well there’s your problem. The scroll does say you have to imagine the object that you want to copy, that means you have to imagine it in its entirety, not just individual parts.”
“Really? I’ll try it again. Thank you for the advice, Mark.” Mark just lifts his hand as he goes back towards the glass making room. Leonel then goes back to the back room and grabs a few extra materials.
“Alright, let’s try again…” Leonel closes his eyes and repeats the process of the magic. The only difference is this time, he imagines a full arrow instead of individual parts.
“Copy.” He chanted. When he opens his eyes, this time there’s an arrow resting on the floor, but the parts are not as specified.
“Failed again…” Leonel mumbles. “So that means I have to imagine the individual parts conjointed together. Alright, let’s try one more time. If it fails I’ll ask Mark to teach me.” He then closes his eyes and repeats the process for the third time.
“Copy.” When he opens his eyes this time, Leonel finds an arrow exactly the same as the sample. He feels happy, but at the same time he remembers that the client requested a hundred arrows for tomorrow.
“Is this even doable?”
“As I said, just try your best, Leonel.” Klaus answered while poking his head out of the back room. “At least you already get a grip on the process.”
“For individual arrows. I’ll try making a bulk next time.”
“Good, that’s the spirit. Take the materials that you need from the back room. I need to go and see Grunag for a bit.”
“Understood, master.” Leonel replied. Klaus then heads outside of the workshop. After Klaus left, Leonel heads to the back room and grab quite a few amount of feathers, wooden shafts, and small iron ingots. He then puts the items together and sits down on the floor.
“Now I need to try for the mass copy…” Leonel then arranges the materials and lines them up; 3 rows of materials with one row having one each of the ingot and shaft, and three feathers.
“Let’s try…” Leonel then closes his eyes and imagines the arrow again. The only difference is this time he imagines the arrows produced are not one, but three arrows at once. He tries his best to imagine the individual parts of the arrows conjointed together, and when he feels that he managed to do that, he chanted “copy”. The result is two perfectly copied arrows and one malformed arrow.
“Have you managed to do it, Leonel?” Mark asked.
“Not as well as I hope it to be.”
“Let me try,” Mark said while sitting down besides Leonel. He then places the materials in front of him like Leonel did, then closes his eyes and concentrates for a few seconds.
“Copy,” Mark chanted. Because Leonel was always closing his eyes when he concentrates, he couldn’t see how the spell works. Now that Mark is performing it, Leonel looks in awe as the materials shape and move themselves to produce 3 perfect arrows; the ingots reforms themselves, and the shaft and feathers installs and attaches automatically once the arrowhead is formed. Mark then opens his eyes.
“Looks like I managed to get it right,” He said.
“So it seems.”
“Let me help you in making these then.”
“Are you sure? Don’t you have your own work to do, Mark?”
“That can wait. This one, as master said, is more important.”
“Should I help too?” Hans suddenly said as he appears from the back room.
“You’ll just create unusable arrows and waste our materials with your lack of imagination.”
“Guh…” Hans recoiled. “As much as I’d love to deny that… I’ll just get the materials from the back room here then.”
“Thank you, Mark.” Leonel said.
“Don’t mention it. It’s the least I can do to help.” He then heads back to the back room, and Leonel can hear some clanging sound from inside. After a few moments, Hans reappeared while bringing a mountain of feathers, wooden shaft, and small iron ingots.
“Let’s begin, Leonel. Don’t force yourself to do what you can’t.”
“I will, thank you for the help, Mark.”
Mark and Leonel then spends the day copying the arrows. In the end, Leonel can only copy up to three arrows perfectly, while Mark can make up to 7 if he concentrates perfectly. By the time the sun sets, they managed to make significantly more arrows than requested, their number totaling 250.
“Looks like we overdid it…” Mark said while scratching his head.
“Should we hide this from master?”
“Hide what?” Leonel and Mark visibly shrudders when they hear Klaus’ voice from the door. “Were you unable to do it?”
“No, on the contrary, we made too much…” Mark replied.
“How much is too much?”
“We made 250.”
“Two hundred and…” Klaus lets out a small sigh. “Well, what’s done is done. Just gather and clean up everything, and we’ll see if we can ask for more money tomorrow.”
“Master, I thought you said that we’re not to ask for more payment once we’ve accepted a price?”
“That was because we were talking with a gentleman. You need to be able to determine someone’s character, Leonel. It will help you reach far in this world.”
“What about the client this time, then?”
“She’s not someone who I’ll call a lady, that’s for sure. Although she’s not a bad person, she’s not refined either.”
“I see…” Leonel can only nod to Klaus’ statements.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Clean up and let’s go home.”
“Yes, master.” Leonel then spends some time cleaning up the remains of the failed arrows and the unused materials before heading home together with Klaus.
The next morning, when they have just opened the shop, the client arrives at the workshop.
“Good morning, is my request done?”
“Good morning, miss. Yes, it’s done, all one hundred of it.”
“Good, thank you very much. Now give it to me, please, we don’t have much time.”
“Slow down, miss. We still have something to talk about.” Klaus answered.
“As I said, we don’t have time! Haven’t you heard the news? The dragon took flight this morning!”
Yuuto's story vault | 勇虎（ゆうと）の宝箱 