Chapter 41

No wonder Vivian would subconsciously think that way.

After all, this scene was truly extremely shocking.

Just a moment ago she had subconsciously furrowed her delicate brows, and the next moment, the other party released such terrifyingly swelling magical energy.

Especially inside this cramped carriage, with the two so close, and with the other party displaying it without reservation, Vivian's sensation was particularly intense, as if the one she faced were a god or demon, his Magic Furnace Core seemingly driving and operating the Pangea of the world.

Under such circumstances, she couldn't help but accept the other party's absurd words——

Could this fellow have truly achieved sudden enlightenment in one morning……

And directly become an Immortal?

However, very soon she discovered something was off, and Xia Zhi didn't cling to that pretense, preparing to continue the act. There was no meaning in it; he had merely just tasted the fruit of cultivation, catching a slight glimpse of the path to immortality.

Especially since he walked the Magic Path route brought by Index, referencing that Empress's example, Xia Zhi was quite confident in his judgment; he recognized very clearly that the distance between his current self and that vague and illusory "Immortal" Realm was still far too Distant……

——At most, he had just entered the "Qi Refining Stage"……

——At the very limit, he merely possessed an "Outer Elixir" of decent quality……

————

"...... In other words, you weren't actually in a coma before, but were inexplicably summoned to another parallel world in your sleep, and participated in a Holy Grail War as a Servant?"

At this moment, the carriage was still proceeding slowly amid the jolting, the loyal Familiars pulling the carriage outside, faithfully and uncomplainingly fulfilling their mission.

Vivian gently propped her chin, gazing at Xia Zhi opposite her, listening to him recount what had happened earlier, and summarized thoughtfully:

"And everything you gained in that world was also brought back along with your return, reflected on your body here?"

"......"

"......"

Inside the carriage, Index and Tetelot both held their breath in concentration, pressing close to the side like curious babies, listening to this story with full anticipation.

When the Golden Hair girl reached this conclusion, the two little fellows also synchronously turned toward the youth, their gazes focusing on him, eagerly awaiting his response.

"Basically that's correct, although I don't know how it was done either; just that after the Holy Grail War ended, I inexplicably had this kind of feeling, knowing I was going to leave, knowing what I could bring back……"

Xia Zhi pondered for a moment, then definitely nodded, indicating it was indeed exactly so.

"Before that, there was completely no such feeling, one should even say that before that, I wasn't even sure of my state at the time, once mistakenly thinking I had been summoned over in a complete Entity."

So in the early stage, he was that cautious, careful as if treading on thin ice.

After all, a one-life clear and playing Contra with thirty lives are completely Two Different Things; adopting prudent and appropriate different response strategies for different cognition situations is Naturally a matter of course.

Until everything settled——

He only then suddenly realized he might have misunderstood something.

"Although you are not a Heroic Spirit in the strict sense, your situation can perhaps be regarded as a kind of unconventional Heroic Spirit Summoning phenomenon; at least not mentioning the Essence, just from the external manifestation and operating Mechanism, it is very similar……"

Vivian pondered for a moment, then spoke her view.

"Heroic Spirits are existences separated from the time axis; they are summoned to all eras, whether past or future. But only the 'World' can summon the Heroic Spirit Main Body; humans cannot summon the Heroic Spirit Main Body, only able to summon Servants as Avatars."

"Borrowing Intelligence from the Heroic Spirit Main Body on the Throne of Heroes, pouring this Intelligence into frames called 'Classes', the produced Heroic Spirit Avatars are Servants……And when everything ends, the Intelligence composing the Servant also returns to the Heroic Spirit Main Body on the Throne of Heroes."

"Your situation is very similar; the only difference is, your Main Body is not on the Throne of Heroes, but here……And even if the Servant Avatar's Intelligence returns to the Heroic Spirit Main Body, the Heroic Spirit will not have any further growth."

Speaking here, the Golden Hair girl paused, her gaze intently fixed on him.

——This is precisely the most prominent difference.

No matter how many times summoned, active in however many vastly different World Lines in Servant form, no matter how many stories and sceneries witnessed……the Heroic Spirit Main Body forever remains fixed at the moment recorded by the Singularity Record, with no growth whatsoever.

Acquiring a brand new Skill in a certain specific summoning, gaining never-before-had power, and thereby updating the Main Body record on the Throne of Heroes, prompting the Heroic Spirit Main Body's ability parameters to once again achieve cross-over development and improvement……

Very regrettable, such a possibility does Not Exist.

In every summoning process, although the experiences carried and Intelligence brought back by the Servant Avatar can be fully comprehended by the Heroic Spirit Main Body, these precious Information cannot cross the boundary, Reverse continuing into the next summoning.

This is the reason why, under general circumstances, Servants do not have records of other summons.

Every time they are summoned, their existence form is a Heroic Spirit Avatar reconstructed and initialized based on memories before becoming a Servant; one could say every time is a brand new beginning.

"Maybe because I'm still alive……"

Xia Zhi pinched his chin, pondering: "But generally speaking, this is a good thing, isn't it?"

"If you put it that way……"

Vivian slightly knitted her brows, pondered carefully and felt it made sense; no matter how you look at it, the changes happening on this fellow are undoubtedly a rare piece of Good News, especially amid the current turmoil in the Fairy Kingdom, even more so.

After all, this fellow is a Lifeform from beyond the Realm……

After all, visitors from Other Worlds often possess incomparable Advantages on the physical·Magecraft level, their unfathomable Mystery coexisting with noble Existence status……

Therefore, considering the above factors, no matter how bizarre the changes occurring on this fellow, they all seem to have become understandable and acceptable……

Gently shaking her head, the girl calmly glanced at the other party, simply unable to explore the reason behind it, and for now could only leave it at that. Moreover, judging from the situation the other party described, this isn't worth obsessing over too much.

Parallel worlds are originally established existences……

Time Travel is also possible in this world……

Take herself for example, didn't she also accept the entrustment of a "self" from another world, this also involves the domain of Spiritron Transfer, so thinking carefully, this matter is actually not small if you say it's small, not big if you say it's big, it's just that.

Simply having persuaded herself, Vivian no longer wasted mental energy thinking, but directly shifted attention to another question——

"How strong do you think you are currently?"

"......"

"......"

"This is hard to say; in terms of magical energy, it's roughly basically enough, numerically speaking there should be several hundred million, and my current conversion Efficiency is also very high, so this power isn't one-time use, no need to worry about being unable to recover after consumption……"

Xia Zhi pondered for a bit, examining himself as objectively as possible——

"And with such vast magical energy, exercising the effects of Miracle becomes very easy, like interfering with the physical world on a large scale, including apples falling down from trees, light propagating in straight lines, these laws can all be modified……"

"But the magical energy consumed is also a lot, and I strongly suspect this is originally a Function of the Holy Grail, distorting the world through massive amounts of magical energy, probably belonging to the form of Wish Granting realization……"

Pausing slightly, he then recalled another matter:

"Besides that, the amplification of magecraft strength is probably terrifying too, after all it uses Pangea to drive magecraft — no matter what magecraft, the efficacy will far exceed the level driven by a small source……"

Simply put, his spell power has been stacked to a terrifying value.

To the extent that simple curse bullet magecraft, originally only used to curse others' health, requires a fairly excellent magician to deal bullet-like physical damage……

He can amplify it to be like firing an orbital cannon — fingertip aims, intent locks on, magic power erupts, a simple single strike is no less than a Noble Phantasm liberation……

"Anything else?" Vivian listened while silently noting it down in her heart.

"That's basically it, I need to systematically learn some more concrete skills…… oh, actually there's one more thing."

The youth had just shaken his head, but immediately recalled another matter.

"In my current magic furnace core, there's still stored the data of Servants summoned throughout history. I tried it, and it seems I can analyze their class abilities for my own use. As for their personalized abilities or Noble Phantasms, I haven't confirmed whether they can be analyzed……"

"Class abilities, huh…… that's also very good."

Vivian pondered for a moment, feeling this was equally worth attention, though she didn't know how the other party did it.

Even in a normal Holy Grail War with only the conventional seven classes and no other strange classes involved, those class compatibilities are equally extremely useful abilities — all gathered together, they cannot be underestimated.

—For instance "Magic Resistance", if the rank is high enough, it can directly invalidate magecraft attacks of the same rank or below……

—For instance "Riding", if the rank is high enough, then even phantasmal beasts and divine beasts can be controlled……

There are also abilities like "Territory Creation", "Item Construction", "Presence Concealment", etc. — they're actually all very useful.

"Then regarding my own personal abilities, that's basically it……" Xia Zhi also nodded, and after tallying up his gains and progress with Vivian, he looked toward the girl on the opposite side with slight anticipation.

"How about it? After I digest this harvest, is there anyone in the current Fairy Kingdom who can still speak loudly to me?"

He asked probing with a teasing tone.

Actually, seeing the girl not show much delighted reaction, he could roughly understand — perhaps he had improved enormously, yet still not enough to solve the Fairy Kingdom's problems. Right now he just wanted to confirm.

"I'm afraid there still are……" Vivian sighed, answering somewhat helplessly. She also knew the other party's intention.

"Alright, looks like this Britain Island's trouble is far more severe than I expected……" Xia Zhi nodded thoughtfully. "Looks like I'll have to find opportunities to have a few more epiphanies — perhaps then I'll have sufficient ability."

A few more epiphanies……

Is that kind of thing so simple?

Vivian's gaze instantly turned somewhat suspicious. Though she also felt that if one referenced this epiphany's magnitude, perhaps really just a few more epiphanies and this fellow would possess the ability to solve this Fairy Kingdom problem.

When the time comes, even if dead gods crawl out from under the island, they'd probably be forcibly stuffed back in by him.

"That, Index, wait — please write out the rest of that grimoire for me?"

The youth casually turned his head, looking at the silver-haired little nun with an expectant face, and said with a smile.

"Eh…… th-this urgently?" Index hesitated. She'd actually wanted to transcribe the whole grimoire from memory before, but as Xia Zhi finished reading those fragments, he fell into a long sleep and wouldn't wake — she was scared too.

She thought the other party had truly been corrupted by that forbidden knowledge, destroying his brain and consciousness or something……

Although Xia Zhi has now woken up saying it wasn't that reason, the little nun still hesitated somewhat……

"I want to improve too badly……"

The youth said with a deep expression.

"And you know, this Britain Island is very dangerous. I have no other method……"

"So I can only ask you, Index. Wait — I'll make you a sumptuous feast, to reward your hard work……"

"Mmph……" Faced with such a blatant bribe, the silver-haired little nun couldn't help biting her sleeve.

"Good then. What do you want to eat? Wait — I'll make it based on the remaining ingredients, tell me……" Xia Zhi said with a beaming smile, deciding to fire all the sugar-coated cannonballs in one go, not giving Index time to properly consider.

His gaze shifted to Tetelot, then moved away tracelessly.

Though he wanted the other party to replicate a "Moving Church", it probably wouldn't be that easy, and saying it too directly wouldn't be good either. He'd need to find another better opportunity to bring it up very naturally.

His gaze fell on Vivian again, watching this quiet girl. Xia Zhi also recalled something, blinked, and said:

"Right, Vivian, can I ask you for a favor?"

"What is it?"

"Can you help me manufacture two dolls…… mm, like this." He deliberated, casually pulling over a sheet of parchment from the side, and with a slight thought, projected the image in his mind onto the paper.

Handing the paper to the girl, he pulled out a second sheet of parchment and continued the simple mental transcription work.

Vivian reached out to take the first character illustration. Just one glance and she couldn't help furrowing her brows tightly. On the paper was a silver-haired, red-eyed beauty with an exquisite face neat as a doll's, noble in temperament.

Th-this……

She pursed her lips: "You…… are you dissatisfied with your current body?"

"No, don't worry. I'm not preparing a body for myself…… here, this is the second one." Xia Zhi smiled, knowing the girl had misunderstood something. He explained simply and passed over Ilya's portrait.

However, Vivian did not feel reassured by his explanation——

Instead she became even more vigilant.

Looking at the two character illustrations in her hand — vastly different in charm, yet both silver-haired, red-eyed, crystalline-skinned and snow-fleshed, mother and daughter — she raised her eyes expressionlessly and looked at a certain someone opposite: "You really like silver-haired girls?"

"Cough cough, can't say I really like them……"

Xia Zhi coughed. He really wanted to explain he's actually a staunch black-long-straight enthusiast, but thought better of it and didn't seek death. Instead he changed the subject: "These two count as allies I found. But we need to prepare bodies for them……"

"Allies?" Vivian didn't quite believe it.

"Yeah, since this Fairy Kingdom is so troublesome, we naturally have to accumulate every bit of strength we can……" The youth nodded seriously: "The situation is undecided, you and I are both dark horses. We just have to work hard."

"What 'Xu Kun undecided'?" Vivian asked doubtfully.

"Oh, sorry, I meant — the situation is undecided, you and I are both black pieces."

——————

(PS: Happy Chinese New Year's Eve everyone, going on shelves next Wednesday)

(Chapter End)