"Once you pull out this sword, you will no longer be human."
Golden waves of wheat rippled across the fields under a gentle breeze. In the middle of the field stood a rock, pierced by a magnificent king's sword. A girl dressed as a young man, her long hair tied back, grasped the hilt silently—only to be warned by the magician behind her.
"That's not all. Once you take it, you will be hated by the people of this land, and your fate will be a tragic death," the magician added.
That girl, Artoria Pendragon, was the chosen next king in the plan devised by King Uther and the court magician Merlin.
She was fostered by a humble adoptive father and raised in poverty. By day she trained in swordsmanship and courtly manners, and by night Merlin secretly taught her the path of kingship. She slept less than three hours a day.
Artoria hesitated before the sword and the warning, but when she thought of the people of the land, she shook her head with resolve.
"No. There are people who still smile. I believe… it can't be wrong."
The magician sighed. "You've chosen a harsh path."
———
Shirou continued his tale: "Later, this girl named Artoria Pendragon became the famous King Arthur of Britain. Knights of the Round Table gathered at her side. They were undefeated, crushing the tyrant Vortigern, repelling the invading barbarians, and even defeating the Sword Emperor Lucius in a Roman expedition…"
Xia Mi listened with her mouth agape. She knew there were many stories spun around King Arthur, but since when was there a "King Arthur was a girl" version!?
As the King of Earth and Mountain, and a timeless beauty from the ancient age, Xia Mi had deep knowledge of dragonkind's secret history. She also knew a fair amount of human history's real truths.
To most, King Arthur was a mythical character based loosely on some real figure—but Xia Mi knew there really had been such a legendary hybrid in human history.
Though she never met Arthur personally, she remembered the dragons Arthur had slain. That bloodline had to be at least S-class. Shirou mentioned that Arthur had "Red Dragon" blood mixed into his birth… it actually made sense if explained as some kind of bio-alchemy embryo engineering.
But a cross-dressing girl King Arthur? That felt… weird. Norton once said that King Arthur's bones were one of Odin's collected treasures. And Norton had been running around stealing relics of Heroic Spirits. Maybe she should ask him about it later.
Lost in thought, Xia Mi was only half-listening, trying to figure out when she could sneak off and contact Norton. She deeply regretted choosing this dumb research topic—but she didn't have the nerve to ask Shirou to pull strings and change it either.
She'd already begged her way into being his assistant. To go back again and say "Oops, I want a new project"? That would make her look immature and incompetent.
"…But is there really any magical value to be mined from old legends like this?" she finally asked after listening to the full tale.
Her topic, "On Discovering and Researching Historical Artifacts Useful to Modern and Future Magecraft," basically meant archaeology through a magical lens. Was she really supposed to study the dragon-blood embryo method used to create Arthur?
Seriously? Was the goal to find a safe way to birth dragon-blood babies?
"No, value doesn't always have to come from something tangible," Shirou replied. "Legends themselves can have worth. Do you believe that somewhere in the world, there's a metaphysical realm—a kind of ever-expanding record—where these stories are stored?"
"Mhm," Xia Mi nodded. She knew this very well. That metaphysical place—the Throne of Heroes—she'd seen it with her own eyes when Lu Mingze messed with it.
"These stories and myths are compiled together into unified records," Shirou went on, "and those records in turn influence the spirit they describe—the Heroic Spirit's form and identity."
He brought up the example he'd used before: Vlad III (historical figure) versus Dracula (fictional image).
"In other words, as long as something is believed in by people, regardless of its factual accuracy, it will be stored in the Record and can become real—resulting in different 'facets' of the same Heroic Spirit… assuming, of course, that it can even be summoned."
Most mages didn't believe Heroic Spirits could be summoned independently. Even the Clock Tower's Spiritual Evocation Department only taught techniques for borrowing a spirit's power, not full-on summoning.
The one who first researched the Summoning of Record-Realm Spirits was a mage named Makiri Zolgen. The Clock Tower laughed him off for his naïve theories. If Xia Mi based her paper on this stuff, it'd probably be seen as filler or pseudo-academic trash.
But in this worldline, a group led by "Odin" really was researching the Holy Grail War and Heroic Spirit summoning…
"Yeah, yeah, assuming you can summon them…" Xia Mi muttered while jotting notes.
Then she froze.
Wait a minute—she was one of the masterminds behind the Holy Grail War. Melusine was supposed to have been her summoned Servant! Norton only cut in because of an access error and let Nono grab her instead.
So this whole "if we can summon" doubt… was pointless. The summoning experiment had already succeeded!
But Shirou's theory that legends could reshape the Heroic Spirit's identity—that triggered a different idea in Xia Mi's mind.
Wasn't this exactly how Noble Phantasms could be altered through mental reframing?
Right! If you could use mental reframing to craft Noble Phantasms, why not use the same method on the Heroic Spirits themselves—who were, after all, spiritual entities?
Just take the base Heroic Spirit, and layer it with different legends or tales via mental reframing. Then a single Heroic Spirit could yield multiple distinct versions of Servants!
Wow! One fighter, but usable in many forms. That's a top-tier design from Master Shirou—she could totally steal this idea!
Odin's trash research team had nothing on this genius move!
———
That night, Xia Mi's silhouette streaked across dark streets like a shadow.
The JR Tokaido Line took 25 minutes from Yokohama to Tokyo. Xia Mi, as the Dragon King, covered that distance in a flash, far faster than any train.
She arrived at a remote mountainside. With a casual stomp, she disrupted the land's stress balance. The ground collapsed into a massive fissure.
She jumped in and expanded the space by punching and kicking out more volume, perfectly analyzing soil and rock tension to prevent any cave-ins. Her excavation skills put modern tunneling equipment to shame.
But she wasn't surprised—she was the King of Earth and Mountain.
Reaching the cavern's center, she drew a complex alchemy circle, filled it with mercury, and activated it with incantations from a small booklet titled:
"Practical Alchemy for Dummies—By Norton."
Just seeing that title made her nostrils flare.
The formation linked distant dimensions. Misty mercury rose into translucent curtains, and a familiar figure emerged faintly behind them.
Moments later, Norton's voice echoed in the cavern:
"…How's the leylines project going? Is the groundwork for the Greater Grail ready?"
Ugh. Straight to work. Typical boss talk.
Wait, no—he's not my boss! We're partners! I'm not some grunt!
"Zero. Progress is zero!"
Xia Mi said it with bold defiance.
"…Huh?" Norton's tone flared like a volcano ready to blow.
"I had good reason, okay? Norton, I found a major flaw in the Heroic Spirit Project—especially your Noble Phantasm manufacturing plan!"
Fueled by her stolen Shirou-inspired idea, Xia Mi finally had the confidence to push back.
"What flaw? Don't tell me it's just that Constantine and I took over the work and left you out."
Norton grumbled, already suspecting that Jormungandr was trying to weasel out of her job again.
"It's not that!" Xia Mi growled, tempted to kick his smug face through the mercury. "I mean your Noble Phantasm plan uses mental reframing—so why not apply that to the Heroic Spirits too!?"
She twisted Shirou's concept into her own words and pitched it like a genius innovation.
"That's… actually valid."
Norton immediately saw the brilliance.
"In short, we could extract multiple facets from a single Heroic Spirit and create a broader range of Servant forms. Historical aspects, mythical aspects, age-specific versions…"
"Right? Right?! Isn't my idea amazing!?" Xia Mi beamed with pride, thrilled to finally contribute something meaningful.
But then Norton's voice suddenly sharpened again.
"…This idea. You sure you came up with it yourself?"
(End of Chapter)
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