I came back to the waking world exhausted from staying up all night and decided to sleep in early instead of practicing my magecraft, which might have been for the better because the Lesser Grail would definitely notice something and stay behind to take care of her "senpai". Now you may be wondering why I keep calling Sakura the Lesser Grail, and that's because I don't care about saving her. I know, I know, that's not very humane of me, but what can I do?
Unlike other Shirou inserts, I don't have a convenient system or true magic out of my ass, just Shirou's talents with better circuits. The only time I can save her is after my battle with Archer, cause at least I'll have his projections in my Reality Marble for me to use. Otherwise, with my current abilities, I'll just be used as a puppet for the fucking worm Zouken to torment Sakura with.
Enough about that, I woke up again at night today and re-began my experiments on trying to reinforce food, where I was met with continued failure. For other people, they would get demotivated or unconfident in their abilities, but if there's one thing Shirou and I have in common, it is that we never give up. I cannot lose motivation otherwise I'll die in my first encounter with Lancer and I do not intend to be saved like Shirou was.
I intend to build my own path and become a real heroic spirit, one that has actual good stats, and can qualify for the Saber class. I know you need to be remembered as a legend with the blade to be a saber servant, but if Elizabeth Bathory can be a Saber servant, then motherfucker so can I.
With that declaration in my soul, I continued to experiment on reinforcing food until after many days and nights, I mastered it. The taste and energy I got from eating reinforced food was magnificent, and with my improved circuits, I may never stop eating it. Especially now, since I've mastered the art of reinforcing food, I can efficiently use reinforcement without the slightest waste of magical energy.
With experiments on food done, I set about reinforcing my own body. Suicide, I know, but you can't survive in this world without taking risks. I analyzed myself and tried to take my already healthy body and raise the bar somewhat, into territory my future self would find so easy. I couldn't do it as the process was slow and disgustingly inefficient in mana use that I couldn't help but cringe. I was stumped, everything before this was so easy, yet I hit a roadblock now? who cares, maybe a good night's sleep will help.
The cycle continued, I would regain consciousness and practice, fail, and repeat for 4 days straight. At this point I was kind of frustrated with my lack of progress but I didn't let that get to me and tried thinking of another way to reinforce my body. That's when it came to me, Shirou's element and origin are both swords, so maybe, if I imagine a sword being reinforced instead, the process would work a lot better.
I did exactly that, and lo and behold, I could now reinforce my body to superhuman levels with just a simple visualization. I then spent the next 7 days practicing with my reinforced body, just to make sure I knew how to move without flailing like a child. Once I got the basic movements down, I started practicing acrobatics and parkour by jumping across rooftops. I can't be a servant if I'm not nimble, that's for sure.
With that, 2 months have passed by since I was transmigrated into this world, and so far it's been very fun using my magecraft and fighting imaginary opponents while reinforced. With all preparations complete, it's time to get started on my bread and butter, my greatest magic, tracing. I go to the floorboards where the Thompson Contender is, and begin the seven steps to trace this thing.
Trace On
Judge the concept of creation.
Hypothesize the basic structure.
Duplicate the composition material.
Imitate the skill of making.
Sympathize with the experience of its growth.
Reproduce the accumulated years.
Excel every manufacturing process.
As the image was formed into my mind and the weapon started to appear in my hand, I could almost hear the Unlimited Codes UBW theme play. As the theme reached a crescendo, the gun appeared in my hand, along with the memories associated with its creation. I didn't think seeing Kayneth lose his circuits would give me chills, or the satisfaction Kiritsugu had when the bullet worked.
Looks like the tracing worked too well, because now I know how to do everything Kiritsugu did with this gun, especially kill. Eh, I wasn't too bothered and started tracing the bullets that came along with the gun, just so I could make more in case I ran out.
With that done, I went to the other floorboard that covered the cache of guns and knives and traced those too, letting me record the experience Kiritsugu had in their use so I knew what to do when I used them myself. I also traced each and every bullet so I would never run out when facing villains to make my legend.
At this point I was getting very tired from using tracing as it was my first time with it and the tracing of guns didn't help because Shirou spends barely any magical energy tracing swords and spends more on everything else. Also, since this was my first time tracing, my mana efficiency wasn't the greatest and I feel like I need more time before even thinking of fighting others with these skills.
I go to sleep and wake up at night the next day feeling reckless, like I had something to prove. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, I don't know what propelled me to go out that night and become Batman, but I think the real reason was that I was bored of training and just wanted to punch people. I'm glad I did, and at the same time aren't, because it helped but was so scary at the same time.