Kohaku and Hisui watched their Master's "dignified" eating (manner of eating) with regretful expressions. She was gnawing on a greasy beef leg with one hand, while the other held a bottle of '73 Romanée-Conti (the world's number one wine), which she drank straight from the bottle like a bull. This manner of eating was simply horrific!
After gulping down the remaining half bottle, Rin's eyes were hazy with drunkenness, and her cheeks were flushed crimson. She shook the bottle in her hand, tossed it casually behind her, where it brushed past Hisui's hair and landed on the carpet, thankfully without shattering.
"Hisui, the wine..."
"Yes..."
At this moment, Hisui truly hated himself for speaking up earlier! How did he manage to provoke his Master like this? Trembling, he handed an unopened bottle of wine to Rin.
Rin, with swift efficiency, directly bit the mouth of the bottle! With a "crack," she spat out the glass bottleneck onto the floor, tilted her head back, and downed another half bottle!
A case of wine, a whole bull, plus an entire table of dishes—all went into Rin's stomach. Kohaku and Hisui were very confused to find that after consuming an entire bull, their Master's lower abdomen showed no change. Where did all that beef go?
The last empty bottle was placed on the table by Rin with a loud "BANG!!!" Rin suddenly stood up, her drunken appearance changing instantly! Her previously hazy eyes became sharp as knives in a flash. Rin reached out, grabbed a nearby trench coat, draped it over herself, and walked out.
"I will be back very late tonight. Don't wait up for me."
Rin left this message and disappeared into the night without looking back.
Since she couldn't break the stalemate, she might as well overturn the entire chessboard!
Since Aoko needs a powerful enemy to force her awakening, then I will be that enemy! I will corner Aoko, and to provoke her, I will kill Alice in front of her. If that doesn't work, I will tell Aoko the whole truth and then kill Touko in front of her!
As long as the Fifth Magic can awaken, everything can be reversed. If even this cannot make you awaken, Aoko, then dying by my hand is far better than dying by the hands of a Magus trying to steal your Crest.
Rin, who no longer wanted to suffer in the scheme laid out by the Old aozaki Magus, decided this time to burn her bridges! Although she spoke of killing, Rin couldn't truly bring herself to do it, but she was confident she could severely wound someone to the point of near-death without killing them.
Once Aoko awakens the Fifth Magic, I will turn and run. It is a shame to lose this rare bond and affection, but if it can be exchanged for a perfect ending, then this experience will have served its purpose.
The reason Rin was willing to sacrifice herself to help Aoko and Touko was not because she was a "Hero of Justice" like Emiya Shirou, who suffered more when others were in distress than when she herself was. She was doing this ultimately for herself.
For Rin's dream: to change all tragedies and regrets... If danger, fear, risk, uncertainty, the unknown, difficulty, cost, and sacrifice are enough to make me stop, then my dream is nothing more than this!
Rin decisively left the Tohno Family residence and walked toward the deep mountains and dense forests outside Misaki City. This time, she wasn't trying to break the stalemate; she was going to completely overturn the chessboard of the Previous Generation's Old Magus Aozaki!
Dealing with Aoko was relatively easy, as Rin had trained her herself, but Alice and Touko were not opponents she could easily defeat. Alice possessed countless Fairy Tale Familiars and the Moon Oil as her trump card, while Touko had the highest-ranking Phantasmal Species remaining from ancient times by her side: the Golden Wolf.
Rin wasn't confident enough to think she could guarantee a hundred percent victory against them. Moreover, they weren't completely ignorant or unprepared regarding Rin. Relatively speaking, Rin had a greater chance of losing than winning.
You see, one has Familiars, the other has a Phantasmal Species, and there's a pile of Puppets under her command—they all rely on summoning and group fights. Why should I insist on fighting them alone?
Therefore, Rin decided to find a decisive trump card before making her move. She went deep into the mountains, opened the Misaki Ley Line Distribution Map that Touko had given her, and stood before a mountain rock face. After silently chanting a few incantations, a passage leading underground opened in the rock wall.
This was the passage leading to the core source of the Misaki Large Distorted Ley Line. At the end lay the Great Source of Life Energy, almost equivalent to "infinite mana." Rin came here specifically to utilize this mana source.
Her Magic Circuits activated, and mana flowed to the back of her left hand. A magical Crest that had been hidden for a year finally reappeared on Rin's hand: the Command Seal!
That's right, Rin intended to use the great source of mana from the Misaki Ley Line to summon a Heroic Spirit!
The mana required to summon a Heroic Spirit should typically come from the greater grail in Fuyuki after it overflows, using the Command Seal as an output mechanism and the greater grail as the mana source for the summoning. Relying solely on one's personal mana to summon a Heroic Spirit is undoubtedly a fool's dream; the unimaginable mana consumption would instantly drain the Magus's life force, turning them into a mummy.
However, the Misaki City Large Distorted Ley Line is inherently on the same level as Fuyuki's Underground Ley Line. Therefore, using it as a source of mana to summon a Heroic Spirit poses absolutely no problem. This was also the reason Rin originally asked Touko for the Misaki Ley Line.
It's a bit of a pity, though; she had originally planned to summon him after the Holy Grail War began.
Without the greater grail overflowing and opening the gate to The Throne, forcibly summoning a Heroic Spirit from the Hall of Heroes using only a relic would greatly affect the Heroic Spirit's attributes and abilities.
For an example, refer to the foolishness committed by the Einzbern Family during the Fifth Holy Grail War, summoning Heracles ten years early. This resulted in the ancient hero, famous as the God of Strength in mythology, only having A+ strength after being defined in the Berserker Class. Although this is the highest known level among Heroic Spirits, it was only achieved after the B+ rank Mad Enhancement buff. His other attributes barely reached A. Does this mean that without the Mad Enhancement effect, Heracles' Agility, Endurance, Mana, and noble phantasm would all only be B, or B+ at most?
That's ridiculous! Even when Our King was summoned in the Saber Class, without the Mad Enhancement buff, her ability parameters were mostly guaranteed to be A or higher. Are you telling me that Heracles' physical fitness as the God of Strength in life was inferior to Our King's?
I truly feel sorry for Uncle B. He was completely screwed over by the trashy Einzbern faction, not only having his attributes lowered but also being assigned the most unsuitable Class. Before the fight even began, ninety percent of his power was crippled by his own side. If the proper procedure had been followed, and he had been summoned in the Archer Class, the Fifth Holy Grail War could truly have been field-slaughtered by Heracles alone. Even if all his noble phantasms and skills were countered by Gilgamesh, he wouldn't have been unilaterally curb-stomped, and the possibility of a desperate comeback wouldn't have been zero.
She threw all that messy speculation to the back of her mind. It was more important to solve the immediate practical problem. The only Heroic Spirit Rin could undoubtedly summon right now was Lancelot. Without a relic, nine times out of ten, she would summon Red A. If Red A, who already has generally low attributes, gets further nerfed... Seriously, how is she supposed to play this game?!
Author's Note: Please don't complain about my settings. Nasu, that dog-f***er, retcons things constantly. Being too fixated on the original setting will definitely result in being slapped in the face. The Nasuverse setting in this book is based on the original work but incorporates The Throne's personal understanding. There is no reliable truth from the original work; it is entirely speculative, purely fictitious, and any resemblance is purely coincidental.
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