Shirou spent two years finally breaking through from Advanced Swordsman to Sword Saint.
While it sounds simple, it actually involved countless hardships and struggles.
Learning the Longsword of Light wasn't something that could be done overnight. Instead, it required spending a lot of time practicing every day, making sure every movement and every detail reached perfect standards, imitating the godly essence possessed by the first Sword God.
But this so-called Longsword of Light was essentially just the first Sword God's basic attack.
The first Sword God could perform a perfect sword swing through instinct alone.
Later people rely on imitation and practice, spending a lot of time to reach the starting point of the first Sword God, which shows how difficult the path of swordsmanship actually is.
Countless corpses pile up on both sides of the road. Only those who give everything and try their best have the chance to reach the top and see that brand new view.
Shirou is such a climber who barely reached the top, spending ten years finally climbing to the summit called Sword Saint.
But he then immediately realized how small his current location was.
Sword King, Sword Emperor, and even Sword God—each subsequent level, each mountain peak, is far more difficult than where he is now. Mortals may never see the true appearance of god-level swordsmanship in their entire lives!
However, Shirou would not become discouraged or even choose to give up because of this.
For him, even if the road ahead is full of difficulties and challenges, there is only one thing he needs to do: to try his best to overcome obstacles and reach the end of swordsmanship!
By the way, Shirou didn't focus entirely on swordsmanship during these two years.
His forging skills have also steadily improved.
After forging the previous three famous swords, Shirou released several new works under the name of Muramasa, and the interval between each weapon became longer and longer.
The reason is that Shirou realized that simply forging weapons can't improve his forging skills.
Forging also requires striving for excellence, putting all your will into it, to have a chance to make a slight breakthrough.
Of course, the reason why Shirou's experience is so torturous is that he unknowingly reached the peak of all blacksmiths.
The name Muramasa has even become an insurmountable mountain in the world of forging masters, just one step away from forging god-level famous swords and being on par with the three great sword makers in history.
However, although this step is just one step, countless blacksmiths and sword makers in history have been stuck on this final path.
Perhaps only extraordinary miracle workers have a slim hope of forging a famous sword that can only be forged in a completely superhuman realm.
Although Shirou has amazing talent in forging, which is not enough to express with the word genius, he has only been studying forging for a few years. Even with outstanding talent, it will take longer to polish and refine, like the forged sword itself, to experience countless strikes before he can make a breakthrough and cross the barrier between mortals and gods.
Therefore, Shirou's later weapon forging no longer focused on pure swords.
After discovering that simply forging swords couldn't give him enough improvement, he began to try forging some different things, such as armor, shields, and even magic tools.
The reason for this idea is that when Shirou searched the Unlimited Blade Works armory, he found that even Servant Emiya's Unlimited Blade Works also had some weapons that couldn't be considered swords, such as the shield-type Rho Aias, the magic tool-type Rule Breaker, and even Servant Cu Chulainn's spear, Gae Bolg.
Projection is not limited to sword skills. As long as you can see the shape, understand the structure, and reproduce it, you can create it.
It's just that Emiya Shirou's origin is the sword, which gives him a unique advantage in projecting swords.
In fact, Shirou is fully capable of projecting weapons that are not swords, but the amount of magic power consumed will be far greater than sword-type Noble Phantasms.
In forging, it's more about skill, and there are no restrictions on the shape of the weapon, so Shirou can naturally be more free to create various weapons to improve his forging skills.
Therefore, in two years, Shirou released many more works under the name of Muramasa, and each creation subverted the previous impression, refreshing people's expectations of the blacksmith Muramasa again and again.
Unknowingly, Muramasa's reputation has reached the point of being world-renowned, and even the Demon Continent, which is completely disconnected from other continents, can often hear Muramasa's name.
And obtaining Muramasa's sword has been equated with names like hero and demon king, having that level of influence.
Obtaining a sword forged by Muramasa is equivalent to obtaining a demonic eye bestowed by the Demon Emperor, and there are even such rumors circulating.
In reality, weapons forged by Muramasa are definitely not comparable to a demonic eye bestowed by a Demon Emperor, whether in terms of effect or practicality.
But Muramasa's weapons have a characteristic that infinitely magnifies their value.
That is, Muramasa's weapons have no restrictions, no restrictions on race, no restrictions on identity, and even humans and demons can use them freely.
You should know that normal Holy Swords or demonic swords will restrict the identity of the user.
Humans use Holy Swords, and demons use demonic swords.
This can almost be said to be common sense.
But Muramasa's weapons generally have no distinction between holy and demonic. Except for a few, such as Galatine, which has an instinctive killing power against dark-attribute demons due to the characteristics of its small sun, most weapons do not restrict the user, and even demons can use them.
Unknowingly, Muramasa's weapons have even been given the name of evil swords.
Regardless of identity, regardless of status, weapons are weapons, tools for killing.
In the past, Holy Swords and demonic swords opposed each other, which could still ensure that weapons were used by the right people. Now, Muramasa's weapons don't even restrict the user, so they will naturally be given the name of evil swords.
Even if Shirou requires buyers to be of good character in advance, the person who obtains his weapon may lose it due to an accident, eventually leading it to fall into the hands of evildoers.
Under such extreme circumstances, some negative news about Muramasa also began to grow.
Of course, those things had no impact on Shirou himself.
He didn't even inquire about the whereabouts of his weapons, and devoted himself wholeheartedly to forging, trying his best to forge a piece of equipment that he really wanted to recreate.
That is King Arthur's scabbard - Avalon, the Distant Utopia.
Every weapon has a scabbard.
But King Arthur's scabbard is completely different. It is less of a scabbard and more of a Noble Phantasm. The scabbard itself has a more powerful effect than the sword. It is an extremely incredible item.
After holding the scabbard, the user will recover from any injuries, and even the process of aging will stop.
In addition, by releasing its true name, the strongest guardian barrier will unfold.
Any interference can be invalidated. It is the ultimate defensive Noble Phantasm.
In Servant Emiya's memories, Emiya Kiritsugu once put King Arthur's scabbard into his body, which caused Emiya Shirou's origin to be unknowingly influenced by the scabbard, and even directly turned into the sword itself.
And in the later Fifth Holy Grail War, Emiya Shirou summoned Saber Artoria, which completely activated the power of the scabbard, allowing him to survive several near-death situations.
All of the above is enough to show the strength of King Arthur's scabbard, Avalon, the Distant Utopia.
Shirou wants to recreate King Arthur's scabbard. Even if he can't recreate its original attributes, he at least wants to create a similar defensive Noble Phantasm.
In this way, it can not only be paired with his Sword of Promised Victory, so that he doesn't have to wrap the Sword of Promised Victory with cloth every day, but also save the people he wants to save at critical moments, and even allow himself to take a step further on the path of forging.
It can be said to be a win-win situation.
Unfortunately, Shirou's forging talent may have been consumed too much in past forging. When he was forging the Distant Utopia, he couldn't think of any good way to replicate King Arthur's Noble Phantasm.
The forging plan was put on hold for more than a year.
Until one day, the old blacksmith who led him on the path of forging brought him an automaton made by a master, which gave him an idea.
Although the puppet is an ordinary puppet, it is engraved with a large number of magic circle patterns. Through special self-charging magic, the puppet can move on its own without external energy.
Seeing this puppet, Shirou immediately had an inspiration. He realized that he shouldn't just focus on materials, but should think from a magical perspective to recreate an effect similar to Avalon.
But Shirou's magic level is quite worrying, at least he can't recreate such an exaggerated large magic.
While troubled, he thought about many people who could give him ideas.
Finally, he undoubtedly thought of his teacher, Roxy, who led him on the path of magic.
If it's Roxy, maybe there will be a way.
Having this idea, Shirou tried to use the Boreas family's power to find Roxy's whereabouts, and found it wasn't difficult, quickly locking down Roxy's location.
The other party was still staying in the Kingdom of Shirone, and her identity was the tutor of the Kingdom of Shirone's prince.
Shirou approved of Roxy being a teacher, feeling that she would definitely teach very well.
So he immediately wrote a letter to Roxy, inquired about her recent situation, and also raised his idea of making the magic tool Avalon.
The reply time was very long.
The transportation efficiency of this world is understandable. Paul's letter to Ghislaine even took almost a year.
This time was much better, and Roxy's reply arrived within half a year.
When he got Roxy's letter, Shirou was frankly a little excited. He even took the letter from the maid with a slight tremble, only to find that it was more of a package than a letter.
The package was filled with many strange things, including a letter, a book, some handwritten materials, and many strange rune stones.
The things were prepared very cleanly, and even smelled of a girl's fragrance.
Shirou tried his best to restrain his excitement and opened Roxy's letter.
The content of the letter was not long, but it was very concise, almost succinctly explaining Roxy's recent situation, and her ideas on making the Noble Phantasm Avalon that Shirou proposed.
Roxy even borrowed many related books from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Shirone, and then hand-copied all of them, and also handwritten a whole outline, and packed them all for Shirou.
Seeing the information that Roxy had organized for him, Shirou almost quickly had an idea for making the Noble Phantasm.
This made him respect Roxy even more, and his gratitude was really beyond words.
If they weren't separated by thousands of miles, he really wanted to rush to Roxy, give her a big hug, and try his best to repay her kindness.
Unfortunately, the overly long distances in this world still can't be crossed.
Shirou couldn't see Roxy immediately, so he could only focus his attention on the forging in front of him first.
Someday in the future, if he can meet that petite but knowledgeable teacher again, he will definitely repay all her kindness as much as possible, no matter the cost.
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