Right after obtaining the Holy Grail, Lucian immediately teleported back to the garden of his little house by using Absolute Hit.
He was truly thankful for having Absolute Hit, as traveling back and forth across millions of light-years took only seconds. If not for it, let alone traveling between star systems, even traveling between cities would have taken quite a bit of time.
Seeing the familiar garden, Lucian sighed, then casually placed the dirty golden grail onto the polished obsidian table nearby before observing it while stroking his chin thoughtfully.
"I remember this thing ended up getting harmlessly processed by Screwllum and turned into an ordinary decoration, right?"
If even Screwllum had been able to modify it, Lucian felt that he also could.
"Summoning a bunch of Heroic Spirits for some Holy Grail War is pointless. Might as well modify it into a personal tool that can summon Heroic Spirits for my own personal use."
Lucian had never been interested in the Holy Grail War, since it was something he could end with just a single slap.
In the first place, the Holy Grail was already in his hands, so why bother with a Holy Grail War at all?
Besides, he did not want to be like Oti, who used the Holy Grail as a prize for a variety show, because the main reason he had taken the Grail was purely to summon Saber and see whether the Godly Bandage could work on a summoned spirit like a Heroic Spirit.
"First of all, I gotta modify it into a Holy Grail only I can use, so only I can summon the Heroic Spirits. Otherwise, if I don't get chosen and don't get the Command Spells, I'd have to go look for whoever ends up getting them."
And so, with this in mind, Lucian acted immediately, directly using the power of Elation to forcefully modify the Holy Grail.
He did not start from the principles of the item the way Screwllum did, but instead simply used brute force—forcing the Holy Grail's properties to change.
A massive, invisible energy immediately poured into the Holy Grail, making the dirty golden grail hum and tremble.
In the next second, the mysterious patterns on its surface seemed to come alive, twisting and reshaping continuously before finally settling into a design that was far more complex and that carried an eerie sense of attraction.
Soon enough, the strange aura lingering around the rim of the Holy Grail was forcibly suppressed and altered, becoming restrained and responsive only to Lucian's presence.
"Nice. All done..." Lucian nodded and spoke in satisfaction. "Now, only I get to play this gacha. My own personal Heroic Spirit Summoning Grail."
Just as his words fell, Acheron happened to return home from who-knows-where and happened to hear his words, as well as see the Holy Grail.
Feeling a bit curious, she slowly walked over to the garden without making a sound—even without anything suppressing her footsteps, she still moved like a ghost.
However...
"Acheron, perfect timing. Come take a look at the treasure I just modified."
Lucian, already sensing Acheron standing behind him, did not even turn around as he spoke.
"Treasure?" Acheron raised her brows in slight surprise. "It feels unusual. It seems to have some kind of summoning property..."
"Oh? You found out?" Lucian raised his eyebrows, then shrugged. "Well, not surprised. You always see through things with just one glance, after all."
"But I can't see through you."
Acheron retorted flatly, her expression equally flat.
"Well, the time just hasn't come yet," Lucian said with a shrug. "When I want you to see through me, you will."
Hearing this, Acheron fell silent for a moment before speaking again.
"What do you plan to summon with this treasure?"
Hearing her question, Lucian picked up the Holy Grail, breathed lightly onto its surface, and then wiped it clean.
Now, this Holy Grail was no longer any sort of wishing machine, but merely his personal summoning device.
"I'm summoning a worker from another world."
Lucian spoke casually, then injected a trace of Elation's power into the Holy Grail.
Immediately, the Holy Grail activated, and a red tattoo appeared on the back of Lucian's hand.
Needless to say, this tattoo was the Command Spells granted to the Master, capable of issuing forced commands to the summoned Heroic Spirit who became the Servant.
In the very next second, a summoning circle appeared on the ground, and Lucian began to chant an incantation.
"Let silver and steel be the essence. Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation—fuck it, I'm too lazy to say the whole thing. Just come!"
Lucian did not want to deal with formalities.
Given that someone could even summon a Servant while doing backflips, he did not need the theatrics.
In the next moment, the summoning circle glowed—soft but not blinding—and when the light finally faded, a woman in a long, black dress appeared.
At first, she looked around, somewhat dazed, and then, when her gaze landed on Lucian, she paused.
"Dreammaster...? Where... am I?"
"Asna?"
Lucian naturally recognized the Heroic Spirit before him, since he had dealt with her plenty of times in Robin's script.
Yes, she was none other than Asna, the first head of the Iris Family.
Back in the script, when other heads had questioned him, she had spoken on his behalf and had been the second person, after Serfina, to submit to him.
It seemed this Asna had memories from the script and even remembered Lucian as the Dreammaster.
Remembering the past, Lucian decided to pull Asna in again and put her back to work for him.
"Come, wait over there," Lucian said while gesturing with his hand. "I'll talk to you after I get the pull I want."
"Pull?"
Asna paused for a moment, then nodded and quietly stepped aside.
Even though she did not understand what Lucian meant, she obeyed as always—even without using a Command Spell, she had always listened to him.
Lucian sighed, then activated the Holy Grail once again.
*Zing—*
Light flashed once more, but this time, a scruffy, artsy-looking man appeared.
"Grady?"
Asna called out instinctively when she recognized the summoned Heroic Spirit as the failed Penacony film director.
Meanwhile, the man named Grady was still confused about what was happening, but before he could even speak—
"Go back."
Lucian did not even give Grady a second glance as he sent him back.
Grady's body stiffened, his face filling with shock, and before he could protest, a flash of light swallowed him whole.
"Next."
Lucian continued summoning, and a few moments later, a humanoid wolf wearing a black suit, black glasses, a fedora hat, and a tobacco pipe held in his mouth gradually appeared within the summoning circle.
"Hmph!"
As soon as he appeared, the wolf let out a somewhat cool-sounding snort, looking somewhat aloof.
"Hanunue?!"
Asna called out once again, recognizing the newly summoned Heroic Spirit as well, who was none other than the leader of the War of Independence and the very first head of the Bloodhound Family.
"Go back."
Lucian still used only two words, making Hanunue vanish just as quickly as Grady had vanished.
Sadly, Hanunue was a 'he-wolf.'
If he were a 'she-wolf,' Lucian wouldn't have minded recruiting 'her' as his worker.
"Tch..."
Lucian clicked his tongue in annoyance, growing a little impatient.
And so, light flickered repeatedly as he continued his summoning relentlessly, without even a brief pause.
A pepeshi holding a giant hammer was sent back before he even finished introducing himself properly.
A Xianzhou native holding a crystal orb was sent back before he could manage to speak a single word.
A little girl riding a tiny, snake-like beast vanished together with her beast in the very same instant.
All of them came and went—big, small, and all kinds of shapes—turning the garden into something resembling a rapid-fire job fair.
Seeing his trash gacha result, Lucian wondered whether this Holy Grail was actually a scam—or perhaps his forced modifications had caused some unexpected side effects?
"Screw it—last one. If this pull's still trash, I'm done..."
Lucian muttered in irritation, then increased the output of his Elation power as he started summoning once more.
Unlike all the previous summonings, however, this time the glow of the summoning circle grew more intense than ever.
As pure golden light illuminated the entire garden as brightly as daytime, in the next second, the air seemed to freeze, filled with a solemn, cutting sharpness.
A few seconds later, the light slowly faded, revealing a figure at the center of the summoning circle.
On the once-empty summoning circle now stood a beautiful young woman with golden hair tied into a large bun, a braid neatly wrapped around it.
Her golden hair fluttered gently in the lingering energy, while her pair of emerald green eyes, as pure as the calmest lake, carried a regal authority that seemed to judge everything that came into view.
Her body was clad in a navy blue dress with a cutout that exposed her chest and back, revealing a white corset underneath, while her legs were clad in a pair of black pantyhose, a black strap with a golden buckle wrapped around her right calf, and black, high-heeled laced boots tied with black ribbons.
Her posture, unlike that of a typical woman of her age, stood straight like a sword.
As the figure of the young woman was fully revealed, an invisible aura spread outward from her, making Asna instinctively hold her breath and take a step back.
Even Acheron slightly raised her eyelids, looking seriously toward the woman who did not belong to this world.
"Finally, a damn gold pull... Fuck Hoyo's gacha..."
Lucian could not help but complain.
In his original world, he always needed pity somewhere around the 70th to the 80th pull if he wanted to get a golden pull in the game, and now, even as an Emanator with broken conceptual abilities, he actually still needed to pull that many times—utterly ridiculous.
Next time, he would just use Sham Diviner directly before pulling.
As Lucian complained, his voice caught the young woman's attention, making her beautiful emerald eyes lock precisely on him.
In the next moment, she stepped forward and then spoke up with a clear voice, yet one that was filled with undeniable strength, breaking the brief silence of the garden.
"May I ask—are you my Master?"
===
[A bonus chapter for every 500 Power Stones.]
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