He couldn't "talk to himself" and gain the buffs as well? That's how it works in most RPG games.
But well, I have never read about a "bard" as the MC so let's bookmark it!
Look at the cover. There's a katana there. We can already predict 95% of the whole thing just by looking at it.
And since I have bad taste, I'm bookmarking it.
This is a good example of what happens when you mess up your character's skill tree.
If he wanted magic he could just had put points in barehanded to be safe and all the rest into pure magic or ice magic. Ice magic is op af in most games or novels and pure magic is basically those wuxia magic...