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Chapter 18 - Chapter 18: Still Imperfect Projection

Rin smiled with satisfaction and swung her right arm.

Perfect. In that case, Projection Magecraft should also be fine.

As for why Rin is so obsessed with Projection Magecraft, besides understanding its potential, it also contains a personal sentiment. For any Type-Moon fan who loves Fate, there's no one who wouldn't be deeply impressed by this cheat skill of the original work/canon protagonist. Its overpowered level is comparable to the Shadow Clone Jutsu in Naruto! Once Unlimited Blade Works is activated, everyone kneels, even the King of Heroes, Gilgamesh, who is hailed as the strongest Heroic Spirit and capable of ending the Holy Grail War overnight, knelt!

Although in fanfiction about Fate online in her previous life, few people mastered this technique, Rin didn't want to miss out.

After adjusting and imbuing the magic power with the Reinforcement characteristic, Rin began a new attempt: "Fantasy creation concept, basic skeleton conception, formulaic material composition, hypothetical production technique, historical reliance on experience... Projection start!"

Emerald Magic Circuits spread with converging electric sparks! Reinforced magic power rapidly gathered in Rin's hand. What was fed back into Rin's consciousness was a pair of black and white swords, which are the husband-and-wife swords often used by Red A in the original work/canon: Kanshou and Bakuya. And these two swords had only one reinforceable point in Rin's mental structure diagram, and the information this reinforceable point fed back to Rin was: Reality!

That's right, this was the reason why Rin had failed before. No matter how miraculous Projection Magecraft is, it is still fundamentally a construct of inner fantasy. To truly materialize it, what was lacking was "Reality"!

The hollow of "Reality" swallowed the End Magic with the Reinforcement characteristic like a bottomless black hole. In just an instant, it consumed seven-tenths of Rin's magic power. The hollow was filled with magic power and transformed into a point of light.

With the clang of a drawn sword, a pair of black and white blades, two feet long, emerged from the void into Rin's hands. White on the left, black on the right, with Taijitu patterns etched on their tsuba, their blades emitted a chilling, captivating gleam under the light of the jewels.

As Rin tightly gripped the sword hilts, an indescribable sense of familiarity flowed from her hands to her heart. They felt completely natural in her grasp, as if she had already fought with them a thousand times.

Immediately after, Rin's consciousness was drawn into a mental space. What met her eyes was a blank expanse, with only a silhouette in the center, whose details were obscured, ceaselessly wielding two dual blades.

The dual blades moved with extreme speed, their black and white glints merging into a single blur. The swordplay was fluid and natural, yet interdependent, like a pair of divine eagles soaring and striking the endless firmament!

Each swing of the twin blades was directly imprinted in Rin's heart, leaving a deep mark. Rin suddenly understood that this was the highest application of Projection Magecraft, projecting the'skill' of the target.

By relying on Projection, the past user's experience and techniques of the projected target were also projected. In the original work, Emiya Shirou only reached this level in the Heaven's Feel route after obtaining the Heroic Spirit's arm, directly projecting Heracles's "Nine Lives". "Nine Lives" as a noble phantasm is not a physical weapon, but a martial arts style like "Tsubame Gaeshi", projecting Heracles's axe-sword to attack nine times instantly, slaying the B-rank servant strengthened by the Black Holy Grail in one blow. Truly worthy of the name, a complete cheat!

This accompanying experience was actually more valuable than the projected weapon itself!

The reception of skill experience was complete. It seemed to take a long time to absorb the thousands of experiences from Kanshou and Bakuya, but in reality, only three seconds had passed since Rin's projection.

Rin raised Bakuya in her right hand to observe it repeatedly, and quickly discovered a very serious problem! Before she could even think, she suddenly felt a drain in her body, stumbled, and the twin blades shattered into magical fragments, dissipating into the air. Her magic power was exhausted.

Rin leaned on a chair and slowly sat down on the plush carpet, sighing with a hint of disappointment as she muttered to herself, "It's no good, still no good. As expected, there's no comparison with the protagonist."

Following the disappearance of Kanshou and Bakuya, she felt a blankness appear in her mind. Rin knew that it was the experience she had just received, and because the experience of Kanshou and Bakuya was projected, this part of the experience would also disappear when the projection ended.

But this was not the problem Rin had found. The problem Rin had just mentioned was that the Projection Magecraft she performed relying on End Magic was just Projection Magecraft!

Although it was a mouthful to say, Rin also discovered the limitations of End Magic. End Magic could instantly complete any spell to its limit, but it could not bring about change. End Magic could make a spell perform its best, but it could not break through the spell's inherent limits!

Just like the Kanshou and Bakuya projected by Rin's Projection Magecraft now, although it reached the highest standard, projecting the target's history and techniques, the two projected blades themselves only had four-tenths of the original item's effect! Because this was the limit of Projection Magecraft; as Projection Magecraft, this step was already the end.

It was at this moment that Rin truly remembered that Emiya Shirou's Projection Magecraft was not true Projection at all, but a degraded version of his Reality Marble: Unlimited Blade Works. Although the two had many similarities, they were conceptually different from commonly known Projection Magecraft.

Emiya Shirou's type of projection also had serious flaws: it could not use alteration magic that was inconsistent with the concept of Unlimited Blade Works, nor could it use the ability to "strengthen existing items through projection" found in orthodox Projection Magecraft. Additionally, because they inherently possessed the'sword' attribute, it was very easy for them to project items with the'sword' attribute, and their precision was significantly greater than works of ordinary Projection Magecraft.

The Reality Marble "Unlimited Blade Works" contains the elements of all swords formed in this world. This reality marble can replicate weapons seen once and store them within the reality marble. This reality marble can replicate weapons seen once and store them within the reality marble. Therefore, Emiya Shirou's projection is not projection; it is merely taking weapons out of the reality marble.

Weapons within Unlimited Blade Works are imitations crafted within the Reality Marble based on real objects. The precision of the imitation completely depends on the operator. In the original work, it is said that projected weapons drop one rank, but if one concentrates all their effort into crafting, who says a fake can't defeat a genuine article?

Therefore, Emiya Shirou's 'projection that isn't projection' can be infinitely improved to approach or even surpass the genuine article, but for regular Projection Magecraft, four-tenths of the original quality is the limit.

Furthermore, the projected item itself cannot be further strengthened by enhancement properties, because essentially it is just a projection and does not possess traits like "sharpness" or "hardness."

"It seems I still have to rely on myself in the end, but I won't give up. If Emiya Shirou can have Unlimited Blade Works, I don't believe I can't develop a deeper application of projection."

On the surface, being able to project four-tenths of a noble phantasm's power seems quite good, but the input and output were not proportional. Under the impetus of End Magic, any magic is displayed in its final state. The ultimate Projection Magecraft completed the projection the instant the concept was finalized. The projected Kanshou and Bakuya possessed four-tenths of the original's power, but also instantly consumed seventy percent of Rin's magic power reserves. And because it was a materialized projection, it also relied on magic power to maintain, so the remaining thirty percent of magic power was consumed within the next five seconds.

High completion also means high consumption. Current Projection Magecraft is basically completely impractical.

"Sigh... I'll keep trying." She then picked up a copy of "Healing Magic" beside her and began to read.

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