"Trace, on."
From the shadows of the warehouse came a man's voice, as though he were reciting an ancient incantation. The metal sword in his hand was enveloped by a profound field. "Basic structure, material composition, understood... Alteration, reinforcement."
And so, certain phenomena occurred without anyone noticing—
Elements churned in the darkness, and an invisible, powerful magnetic field emerged, as if an enormous unseen furnace had been assembled between heaven and earth. The fire of the mind danced across the weapon. The old metal was "killed," and new metal was "reborn."
A successfully reinforced dagger was freshly forged. Its edge was sharp and gleaming, clearly possessing a keenness beyond that of ordinary steel blades.
"Whew... Reinforcement successful."
He casually swung the dagger, tracing a leisurely arc through the air as it effortlessly pierced a thick metal plate. On the ground beside him stood dozens of standard longswords of varying lengths, each just as chillingly sharp.
Holding the newly born dagger, he saw its smooth blade reflect its maker's delicate features. As the blade turned over, it revealed his slightly dark red hair and what he was wearing—
A color-block raglan-sleeve UNIQLO shirt, with a black-and-white Adidas tracksuit jacket over it.
This kind of outfit was considered a classic mainstream style in this era. But when paired with certain specific elements, such as Reinforcement Magic and Projection Magic, one fact became indisputable.
In other words...
"I transmigrated into Shirou Emiya."
It had happened a while ago.
He had transmigrated the moment he closed and opened his eyes.
One second, he had been complaining to online friends about how Fate/Grand Order was a cash-grab, had long dead periods, and suffered from low production capacity. The next, he had become Shirou Emiya, the protagonist of Type-Moon's Fate series.
When he had first arrived, he found it hard to believe. But his appearance and clothes matched, and he could also sense the astonishing power spread throughout his body. That should have been the magical energy generated by his Magic Circuits.
As a first-generation Magus without any inheritance, Shirou Emiya's aptitude was fairly outstanding.
Then he tried Shirou Emiya's specialties, Reinforcement Magic and Projection Magic. He found that he could easily reinforce all kinds of metal weapons very quickly. As for Projection Magic, after fumbling with it for a while, he estimated he would soon get the hang of it as well.
So-called Reinforcement Magic was magecraft that enhanced an object's properties by circulating magical energy, such as increasing the sharpness of swords and blades.
In Emiya's view, his Reinforcement Magic was already fairly proficient. Next, he needed to improve its efficiency, completing it rapidly without chanting, while also raising his proficiency in Projection Magic.
Projection Magic was a technique that used magical energy to create imitations of real-world objects. Since items made by this magecraft usually lasted only a few minutes, it was considered an extremely inefficient and magic-wasting practice in the Magecraft world.
But Emiya knew he was different. When projecting swords and other weapons, he could project anything he had seen. It also required very little magical energy, and the projected objects could exist for a long time.
The reason Emiya could do this was because he had awakened an Origin called "Sword." Once a Magus awakened an Origin, they would possess extraordinary talent in that aspect. Emiya's Origin of the Sword affected his Projection Magic, allowing him to break through the limitations of ordinary Projection Magic.
Honestly, compared to Reinforcement Magic, Projection Magic was Shirou Emiya's true specialty with the greatest room for growth. The only problem was that he had not inherited any memories and still had to learn everything from scratch.
"Following the projection steps once more... Analyze the concept of creation, imagine the basic structure... sympathize with its growth experience..."
Shirou Emiya was once again enveloped by an invisible field. However, his attempt to "conjure a weapon from thin air" without relying on materials failed. The chanting of those ancient-sounding words seemed to stall, as though some crucial prerequisite were missing.
What exactly was missing?
Shirou Emiya was briefly at a loss.
He thought it over carefully again. In the original work, Rin Tohsaka had said that failed projections resulted from the Magus's imagination not being solid enough. Qualified Projection Magic first required a thorough understanding of the material, properties, and even history, making the imagined object more concrete.
So before projecting Noble Phantasms, he needed to analyze them first? But he did not have any Noble Phantasms on hand.
Troubled, Emiya left the warehouse and returned to his bedroom to go online. If all else failed, perhaps he would have to rely on the all-powerful internet users.
"Hey! Justice guy, it's been ages since I saw you online. Are you coming out to work again this time?"
An avatar of a beautiful blonde, blue-eyed girl popped up, accompanied by a flashing message. "Unfortunately, I don't have any commissions I want to assign lately. But if you can lower yourself, this young lady wouldn't mind offering you a butler position—"
The person chatting with Shirou Emiya had the ID "Genius Girl Charlotte." Charlotte was a typical Western name. Shirou Emiya had no idea which Charlotte she was. Surely she could not be Charlotte Corday from the French Revolution, right?
"Miss, please stop making fun of me. And Justice guy really isn't a very good nickname..."
Shirou Emiya's online name was "Ally of Justice." Perhaps because he often lurked without responding, the young lady had become unhappy and given him such an unpleasant nickname. His avatar had remained unchanged for ages—a lonely figure with a billowing cape. At first glance, it had a certain heroic charm, though it also looked rather shabby. In comparison, Charlotte's avatar, decorations, and profile page were all incomparably lavish, overflowing with the air of someone who spent money freely.
The "online persona" Charlotte had built for herself was also that of a Noble Family's young lady, though Emiya had no idea whether it was real... In the chatroom, she shared many upper-class topics with another user whose persona was a young nobleman from somewhere, "Governor of Gaul."
For example, which restaurant under the command of their family served rather mediocre food and should really be reported to the elders so they could send evaluators to reassess its star rating; how the guest list for recent social dances had grown longer and longer; how several newly purchased private estates had been added, yet after careful inspection there were only a handful of entertaining places; how last year's birthday gift had been a pair of Desert Eagles, and how they hoped not to receive a playboy-type sports car like a Bugatti Veyron for this year's birthday...
Charlotte and Governor of Gaul would also occasionally complain about their unreliable elders. Charlotte probably had a stubborn grandfather devoted to academic research who always assigned his granddaughter a mountain of schoolwork, while Governor of Gaul had a stallion of a father who never behaved properly and had different women around him every day—
The tone in which he spoke did not sound like complaining so much as brewing with grim hatred...
Shirou Emiya never joined such discussions. After lurking and observing for a while, he silently labeled the two "a lively young lady" and "an arrogant, flashy young master." As for why he did not participate, the reason he gave was also more than sufficient and powerful.
—His parents were both dead.
"Now hiring a butler, excellent compensation. Young Hero, are you really not considering it? You can sell yourself, but not your talents." Charlotte sent a grinning emoji.
"Thanks, but I'm really not considering it." Automatically ignoring the last, somewhat suspicious line, Emiya felt his teeth ache.
For a moment, he had the strange feeling of Luviagelita Edelfelt smiling brightly and beckoning to him—if he remembered correctly, in one timeline, the blonde-drill-haired young lady of a Finnish Noble Family had hired him as a butler... when in reality, she wanted his body.
Before you continue