Shirou's sword magic was a special skill he learned from Roxy when he first came to this world.
Essentially, it uses the magic of this world to replace projection magic, allowing Shirou, who couldn't properly use projection magic at the time, to unleash the ability to project.
When Shirou later became strong enough to freely use projection magic, he basically completely abandoned sword magic, no longer using this lower-level substitute that was far less powerful than projection magic.
However, this doesn't mean Shirou completely gave up on sword magic.
Because for Shirou, what he has always wanted to do is surpass Servant Emiya, not to stop getting stronger after reaching Servant Emiya's limit.
Projection magic, in the end, is an ability that only becomes so powerful because of the existence of Servant Emiya.
Shirou wanting to surpass Servant Emiya in projection magic would undoubtedly be an extremely difficult thing to do.
In comparison, sword magic, based on the magical system of this world and born from systematic magical skills, undoubtedly has a higher limit and potential.
Moreover, since the principle of sword magic is to quickly forge weapons through magic, as Shirou's forging skills improve, the power of the weapons created by sword magic also continuously increases, even gradually approaching the level of projection magic.
Unfortunately, since Roxy left, Shirou has never encountered a magic expert to teach him further magic knowledge, leading to his sword magic currently being in a semi-abandoned state.
So Shirou is now very much looking forward to Ranoa Magic Academy, hoping that there will be someone in this school who can guide him to further improve his sword magic.
For this reason, he showed his strongest ability in the entrance exam.
"I Am The Bone Of My Sword!"
Under the gaze of the crowd, Shirou's sword magic quickly unfolded.
Hot magic power turned into flames, appearing around him, and the earth element from the ground was quickly extracted to construct the rough shape of weapons.
Shirou's gaze was focused on the space in front of him, without any extra thoughts for control.
But the surrounding environment was naturally enveloped by one sword after another, quickly turning into a domain full of swords.
"Crack!"
As in Shirou's past displays of sword magic skills, he now very simply completed his sword magic, placing hundreds of swords upright around him.
Every sword was newly forged, emitting a chilling light that made people's pores shrink.
Even the protective barrier in the magic university's training ground was instinctively activated because of Shirou's magic, emitting a bright light that reflected off the countless sharp swords.
The teachers present widened their eyes.
The students were even more dumbfounded, unable to understand what was happening before them.
"H-How did he do that...?"
The teacher who brought Shirou over looked shocked, with an expression showing he really wanted to know what was happening.
Shirou quietly explained, "This is a special magic I developed in the past, called sword magic. Its effect is roughly to combine earth magic and fire magic and create so many weapons out of thin air."
"Developed magic? Are you already a saint level?"
"No, I'm ashamed to say that my magic talent is limited. After so many years, I'm still stuck in the advanced level."
Shirou was officially recognized as an advanced magician by Roxy after showing his sword magic, but his achievements in magic stopped there, without any progress over the years. So when facing the magicians of the magic university, he was somewhat humble and eager to learn.
However, Shirou didn't know what kind of shock his magic had brought to the magic university.
The teacher in charge of the entrance exam was silent for a long time before accepting the fact that the school had finally welcomed another genius, and was extremely excited.
In his opinion, Shirou's sword magic was not only very creative, but also when he released the magic, he didn't chant for a long time, but used only a short phrase to activate the magic.
This shows that even if Shirou isn't a no-chanting magician, he has at least reached the level of simplified chanting.
Considering his age, this is undoubtedly a true genius.
The teacher in charge of the exam hurriedly reported the matter to his superiors, even directly informing the current president of the magic university, the wind king-level magician, Jinas.
Jinas was very interested in this and came to meet Shirou as soon as possible. After confirming his unique sword magic, he happily accepted him as a disciple.
In this process, Shirou unexpectedly learned that Jinas was Roxy's former teacher, and Jinas also learned that Shirou was Roxy's disciple.
Both sides thus recognized each other even more.
Jinas said that he would do his best to design courses for Shirou to research and develop sword magic.
Because of this, Shirou's path of cultivation at the magic university was very smooth. He didn't encounter the situation of being crazily targeted and even made things difficult for him by the Sword God at the Holy Land of Swords. But this made Shirou feel somewhat unaccustomed. For a time, he even missed the atmosphere of the Holy Land of Swords.
This overly outrageous feeling made Shirou wonder if he had some kind of masochistic tendency.
On the other hand, Jinas was also very concerned about Shirou's sword magic. Perhaps he was optimistic about Shirou as a junior, or perhaps because Shirou was Roxy's disciple, making him his grand-disciple, so he immediately started magical courses and training for him.
Headmaster Jinas is a middle-aged man. He simply had Shirou demonstrate all the magic he had mastered and assessed Shirou's magic level.
"Can you show me that sword magic again?"
"Okay."
Shirou nodded decisively to Jinas' request.
Without the slightest hesitation, he once again demonstrated his sword magic, creating countless swords and sticking them into the ground around him.
After watching Shirou's magic, Headmaster Jinas pondered briefly and finally asked, "Are these swords you create all weapons you've seen before?"
"This..."
Unexpectedly, Jinas would ask him such a question, and Shirou was immediately hesitant.
He thought for a while and shook his head, "No, these swords were created by my instincts and intuition. I didn't use too much imagination."
'Why don't you imagine weapons you've seen before?"
"..."
Headmaster Jinas' words suddenly stunned Shirou. He then realized that his sword magic didn't seem to be limited to creating fake weapons. Creating real weapons was also possible.
So he quickly tried to create real weapons using sword magic.
Shirou first chose the pair of swords he was most familiar with, Kanshou and Bakuya. As Servant Emiya's best weapons, Shirou himself also uses them as his main battle weapons.
However, to his surprise, he was unable to successfully create Kanshou and Bakuya using sword magic.
He told Headmaster Jinas his doubts.
The latter was also immediately hesitant and quietly explained:
"So-called magic is the technique of turning imagination into reality. Only after a principle is first generated in the mind can it be turned into reality. The reason why humans can become the only race after the dragons to fully master a set of magic theory is that humans are second only to dragons in creativity, able to understand reality and transform reality on this basis."
"Shirou, the biggest reason you can't create weapons you recognize may be that you don't understand the principles of the weapons' birth, nor do you understand the source of the weapons. You only created weapons by following your instincts, but those weapons' shells only match your imagination, and the inner workings may be something completely different. Things that don't exist cannot be born in this world, and magic cannot be born with them."
Hearing the old magician's words, Shirou suddenly understood.
He then completely understood why his sword magic has still improved over the years, even though he hasn't actively refined it.
It turns out that compared to the past him, the current him understands the essence of weapons more deeply and has also mastered many of the principles of the birth of swords through forging.
So the swords created by sword magic are becoming more and more real.
However, even if Shirou achieves this, there is still a limit to the reality he can understand.
The simplest example is that he has not yet mastered the principles of the weapons Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, so he cannot project them through sword magic.
In contrast, there are also many weapons that Shirou understands.
He tried to recall the weapons he had forged with his own hands and create them through sword magic—
"Clatter!"
As hot flames appeared in Shirou's hand, a red spear, like a bolt of lightning piercing the night sky, appeared in his hand.
Gae Bolg, the Barbed Spear that Pierces with Death.
The weapon Shirou once forged for Ruijerd. Because Shirou carried out the forging process entirely, he completely understood the weapon's creation process.
Now, without using projection magic, but only sword magic, he was able to make its prototype be born in his hand!
"This spear... the tip seems to be made of anti-magic stone."
Headmaster Jinas was insightful and immediately judged the essence of the magic-piercing spear.
Shirou nodded, "This is a weapon I once forged with my own hands. Because it was the smoothest forging, it wasn't too difficult to replicate."
"Sure enough, Shirou, since you're good at this kind of magic, your forging skills must be unusual."
Jinas didn't understand the occupation of forger, so he didn't connect it to Muramasa. "Magic is like a person's personality. Different people have different personalities and are good at different magic. As the president of the magic university, what I hope is to develop each person's strengths and thereby improve the human race's magic skills even more."
"A great idea."
Shirou said from the bottom of his heart.
Although the actions taken by him and the Sword God were completely different, they were both extremely good educators. The reason why the human race can survive in such a dangerous world, and even defeat the demon race, must be due to the efforts of such people.
This feeling didn't last long, and Shirou quickly continued to study his magic with Headmaster Jinas.
In front of Headmaster Jinas, Shirou used sword magic to replicate many weapons he had forged in the past.
But the success rate was quite subtle.
Moreover, compared to projection magic, sword magic is not only slow to activate, but the weapons created are also quite unstable in completion.
In the end, what was born was like a pure lower-level substitute for projection magic.
If it were for someone other than Shirou, this might be an extremely unique and valuable magic, but for Shirou, who already masters projection magic, the meaning of sword magic doesn't seem to be that great.
Is everything he has done just a waste of effort?
Is it fundamentally impossible to surpass Servant Emiya's projection magic?
Shirou even began to have such doubts in his heart.
Although projection magic is his secret, Shirou, being too troubled, still told Headmaster Jinas his thoughts.
He didn't directly say anything about the existence of projection magic, but only mentioned the many flaws of sword magic, saying that magic of this level was not worth using in actual combat.
Especially for Swordsman of the Sword God Style, even if you create countless weapons with magic, it's not enough to block the unresolvable Longsword of Light.
Headmaster Jinas was also very concerned about this issue. After thinking for a while, he couldn't help saying, "The pain point of magic is the slowness of activation and the unstable way it takes effect. Since the magic university was established, predecessors have been constantly researching this issue, but they have never gotten an answer. Because of this, magicians have always been firmly suppressed by Swordsman in the human race. Because even if magicians' magic is strong, it's not as good as the sword that Swordsman swing at will. Except for the three magic nations, most of the countries in this world promote swordsmanship, but not magic."
"If that's the case..."
"But that doesn't mean magic is necessarily weaker than swordsmanship."
Headmaster Jinas suddenly became extremely excited, as if he had been concerned about this issue for a long time. "The three magic nations can rule the north by relying on magic because people have gradually discovered that magic is often more advantageous than Swordsman in fighting against monsters and national wars. Because the advantage of magic lies in group battles, with a large range of activation. There also exist some extremely powerful magic that can instantly kill god-level experts. Although the shortcomings are obvious, as long as the advantages of magic are brought into play, it is not impossible to compete with Swordsman."
"Advantages..."
"Yes, of course, I'm just putting forward an idea, providing a way of thinking. How to research specifically depends on your own choice, Shirou."
Jinas looked at Shirou with gentle eyes. "The progress of magic often requires first deciding on a direction and then moving forward in one direction. Are you planning to start from the breadth of space, creating magic that is large in scope and covers a wide area, or concentrating on one point, unleashing enormous destructive power in an instant? After deciding on this matter, come find me, Shirou."
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