With the Sub-Space Projection Orb established, the only way Vahn could ’balance’ his life was to co up with, at the very least, a loose schedule to follow. He needed to spend ti being a good father to Mordred, taking care of Illya, and splitting himself between the girls based on the situation. Fortunately, with how the day/night cycle was split within the Orb, Vahn could split his focus so that he was training and spending ti with Mordred and Illya during the ’day’ while, once night fell upon the Orb, Vahn would focus on learning and getting intimate with the girls. Though this wasn’t set in stone, as it would obviously depend on the situation, it was the easiest template to work from since the atmosphere within the castle varied greatly between day and night.
When it ca to his training, Vahn spent the majority of his ti ’learning’ from Scáthach, often spending upwards of ten hours at a ti being beaten by her as, after his ’success’ with [Laplace’s Key], she never showed any openings. Now, though she had alternated between using her fists and spears int he past, Scáthach completely changed up her fighting style at tis. She would use bows, scythes, flails, bo staffs, swords, daggers, and even katars to cut his body into ribbons. This was to ensure he was used to fighting against all kinds of different opponents instead of unilaterally getting ’used’ to being beaten in a specific way.
On one occasion, she had even used a set of bladed pistols at close range to break through his guard before firing spherical bullets that had various effects into his body. The purpose behind this training was to allow him to ’counter’ different kinds of Magecraft on the spot as, much like Illya, Vahn had the ability to deconstruct Magecraft and prevent its activation. As a result, Scáthach would embed various different spells into the bullets, giving Vahn only microseconds to react before his body would be torn apart by explosions, shocked to a charred state, or even frozen solid in an instant. She never once gave him any quarter and, the worst part of it all, Vahn knew she still wasn’t going all out. Since he had believed her thrashing him in the past was her being serious, when it wasn’t even a tenth of his current beatings, Vahn knew she was increasing her strength to prevent him from ever ’adapting’ to her current level...
Fortunately, Mordred was never allowed to watch his training as it always took place in a third Sub-Space Orb that had been created. In total, there were now three Sub-Space Orbs and seven Space-Ti Orbs present around Avalon. The third Sub-Space Orb had been created specifically for training with Scáthach, existing as another empty white space where there was no danger of damaging the surroundings. As for the Space-Ti Orbs, five of these were used almost entirely for growing herbs and other useful ingredients, each having a dilation ratio of 100:1. These lacked mory Fragnts to regulate the space, aning they were ’anchored’ using a five-elents formation, while the other two Space-Ti Orbs had ti dilation effects of 50:1, each with a version of Vahn and Fenrir within.
Since Fenrir did a lot for him in the ’real’ world, she was the first person that crossed Vahn’s mind when it ca to having a companion mory Fragnt. Though the purpose of the orb was for research and production, Vahn fully intended to ’download’ and ’update’ the mory Fragnts periodically so that he could expand his knowledge further. Since he wanted to avoid ’losing’ himself to feelings of loneliness and apathy, Vahn needed a companion to keep him focussed and allow him to relax. This would allow him to spend a lot of ti with Fenrir and, even though it might not be the sa ’quality’ as reality, they would eventually share thousands of years between the two of them...
As a result of these changes, Vahn didn’t spend nearly as much ti with Fenrir in reality as, the more ’focused’ he was, the more emphasis she placed on her own duties. Unless he wanted to see her, she would always be off training, playing with Mordred, or spending ti with Illya and Cath Palug. She also acted as a ’Big Sister’ to dusa who, sowhat against expectations, beca really good friends with Astolfo since she spent most of her ti with Catherine. Though dusa wanted to get stronger as well, she was going down a completely different route than Fenrir as, instead of pursuing the path of a ’Magic-Knight’, she was focused entirely on being a ’True Mage’. As a result, dusa spent a lot of ti studying with Catherine before expanding her ’circle’ to include Circe and rlin.
One of the things Vahn appreciated the most about his current situation was that everyone, for the most part, helped each other out. Though it was ’extrely’ common for Magi to keep secrets and only care about themselves, even Tristana had exchanged knowledge with dusa and Circe, albeit rarely. Of course, the two people literally everyone sought out for advice and knowledge were the duo of rlin and Scáthach. The forr could be extrely roundabout, talking circles around the questions you wanted answers to, but he would eventually help you understand if you continued making an effort. As for Scáthach, she was marginally more difficult to approach unless she thought you were ’worth’ teaching. For the Heroic Spirits, as they couldn’t really increase their paraters and obtain new skills, she had no interest in even sparring with them. The only people she showed an interest in were Vahn, Fenrir, dusa, Mordred, and, as a mber of the ’Imperial Family’, Illya.
With her [Wisdom of the Haunted Ground], Scáthach was suitable for teaching practically anything, including the thod to obtain skills she herself couldn’t emulate. The only pre-requisite for learning from her was that, once you beco her student, she had borderline sovereignty over your actions. If she wanted you to have a specific diet, or wake up at specific tis, there was absolutely no room for debate. Though you were allowed to quit whenever you like, that would be the sa as losing your value in the eyes of Scáthach since it showed you simply lacked the willpower to reach your full potential. After all, though she pushed you far beyond what you believed your limits to be, Scáthach never pushed you beyond the breaking point. Thus, so long as you had enough willpower, there was no limit to the amount of growth you could achieve by studying under her...
Of the people that Scáthach was willing to teach, dusa had only lasted a few hours before she ultimately quit. She had been given the task of inscribing a magical formation either one-thousand tis or within five seconds. Though this in itself wasn’t that difficult, Scáthach would periodically flick you with a thin red switch, often drawing blood as a result. This was enough to break the focus of most people, especially soone who lacked patience like dusa. After that, Vahn was forced to console the pouting Gorgon, both after the lesson had ended and when Scáthach refused to teach her a second ti. Even if dusa also had ’limitless potential’, it didn’t matter to her at all since she placed more focus on her own emotions than her desire to improve...
Fortunately, rlin was far more agreeable so, even after losing Scáthach as a teacher, dusa was able to pester him to teach her every now and then. Since the airy Magus had a penchant for cute things, he wasn’t able to hold out long whenever dusa invaded his tower and refused to leave without learning sothing new. As a result, though her progress wasn’t all that remarkable, dusa was steadily growing stronger in her own way. The most important thing was that she was learning and having fun, at least from Vahn’s perspective. Though he might need dusa to increase her strength at so point, the main reason Vahn had brought her with him was to observe her hidden Innate. He still had the distinct impression that dusa’s fate was sohow linked to him through an Innate, even though there wasn’t even the subtlest fluctuation of ’Fate’ around her body...
When it ca to Innates, Vahn knew there was no end to the amount of research he could put into them without fully comprehending them. The only thing that was ’absolute’ was that they were linked to the soul yet, even if there were infinite instances of a person with the sa Innate, each could have subtle differences. Ultimately, the only thing that seed to matter was the individual’s understanding of their Innate as, so long as it was within their comprehension, there were seemingly infinite ways in which Innates could manifest. As even The Path wasn’t able to see through them, even though it was an existence beyond Tier 9, Vahn could intuit that Innates were the product of sothing on the sa level as The Path itself...
With that in mind, Vahn actually spent a great deal of effort on training his own Innates, using his [Will of the Emperor] and [Eyes of Truth] almost constantly throughout the day. As for things like [Rakshasa Body] and [Keeper of the Akashic To], Vahn’s reserves couldn’t sustain prolonged use of the forr while the latter had only been useful for test-naming a pendant he had forged back when he was working Rin’s bas.e.m.e.nt. Since it was actually his most Source Energy-intensive skill, Vahn had only been able to elevate the pendant to the B-Rank, aning it was around A-Rank if going by the standards of Danmachi. Though this wasn’t that bad, Vahn had been going for S-Rank yet had ultimately failed to achieve it. Now, his Od was steadily increasing and, with the ti dilation of the Sub-Space Projection Orb, Vahn was intending to get so use out of it when he tries to produce equipnt of similar grade and quality to a Noble Phantasm.
One of the things Vahn wanted to try was reproducing Artoria’s [Excalibur] and, though it was a bit ambitious, the ’key’ that was used to access the [Gate of Babylon]. Even if he couldn’t steal Gilgash’s [Gate of Babylon] itself, having access to a similar ability to essentially weaponize his Inventory was sothing that fascinated Vahn more than a little. Though the speed left sothing to be desired, Vahn felt he would be able to improve upon this weakness by using [Primordial Rune] Magecraft to multiply the speed and montum of objects in motion. He already had so marginal success by pulling swords out of his Inventory but it was difficult to control the orientation of items placed into his Inventory without ’setting’ them in certain positions when he placed them inside. It was significantly different from the golden spatial gates that were produced by the [Gate of Babylon] so Vahn knew he had a bit of work ahead of him. Fortunately, with the knowledge he had obtained just by having access to the key for a short period of ti, Vahn was confident he would be able to pull it off if given enough ti...
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In what felt like the blink of an eye, nearly three months had passed within the Sub-Space Projection Orb, equating to just over two weeks since the end of the Holy Grail War. Vahn found himself laying on a slopped hill beneath the canopy of an apple tree, one of the most common types of trees on the island of Avalon. He was relaxing with his hands behind his head, enjoying the warm rays of the sun shining down from above, even though the air temperature made it very clear that it was Winter. This didn’t really bother him at all and, based on how she was drooling on his chest with a silly smile on her face, it didn’t seem to bother Mordred either. She had really embraced being a child over the last couple of months and, though she trained hard every day to beco a Knight, the tis they spent together as father and daughter had been increasing lately. Though she still had a ’slight’ preference for her mother, the fact that the latter always forced her to train hard, while Vahn often played with her, had slowly been shifting the odds in his favor...
Seeing the happy face of his sleeping daughter as she lightly clung to his tunic, Vahn couldn’t help but smile as he allowed the gentle breeze, made warr by his domain, to wash over them. The only ’complaint’ he had about Mordred was, after realizing she could get away with quite a bit, she had defaulted to wearing form-fitting shorts, often with a ’cut’, punk-rock style, while her tops usually consisted of a loose camisole or a tank-top. Though he had convinced her to wear sports bras and tube tops underneath, Mordred never liked wearing restrictive clothing and even ran around without shoes on more often than not. She reminded him a lot of how Fenrir used to behave in the past, a fact that brought the two ’wild’ girls together as Mordred considered Fenrir her ’best’ friend. They would even take naps together, cuddled up in a sunny area within the castle, much like what he and Mordred were doing right now...
There were only two things that could make Vahn ’happier’ right now, excluding having Rin, Sakura, and Gray coming to stay with him. He finally had an understanding of how often the Summoning System could be used, at least without a catalyst to reduce the interval. The standard cooldown was a startling three years in real-ti, aning twenty-one years within the Sub-Space Projection Orb, while the only reliable ans to reduce the amount of ti was to use sothing on the leve of the [Divine Energy Cube] he had been given by Akasha. This could ’instantly’ reduce the amount of ti, sothing she had likely taken into consideration when giving it to him in the past. Because of this, Vahn was able to quantify how much a Heroic Spirit cost from the perspective of OP, making a single summon worth around 2,000,000,000OP.
One of the things Vahn needed more than anything right now was a ans to increase the amount of OP he was able to earn, sothing that was surprisingly difficult even though he was in a Tier 5 Record. The only ’reliable’ ans seed to be striking a deal with Akasha and her superiors or, acting as the second biggest issue he was facing in the present, getting the help of Alaya. After a series of rather peculiar events, Vahn now had a good idea of how much each of his body parts and their constituent biomass were worth. He also knew that his s.e.m.e.n had a startling 300 tis the amount of ’mana’ compared to his blood, making it only marginally less valuable than outright exchanging his heart or brain to Alaya for Magical Energy. His heart had been worth around 400 tis the amount of his blood, by volu, while his brain had beaten it out by having an exchange rate of 418 tis blood alone.
Since it wasn’t exactly viable to continually produce brains and hearts for Alaya to process, the most cost-effective and ’efficient’ ans was to give Alaya his s.e.m.e.n. Using a manner similar to what he had previously used with Scáthach, however, proved that there was a significant reduction in the ’energy’ contained within the vital fluid. His ntality and intentions seed to considerably affect the potency of his s.e.m.e.n, much like how his blood was more effective when he was ’happy’ during the ti he was still imprisoned in his first life. With Alaya taking in concentrated spheres of s.e.m.e.n or sucking on his finger, the ratio was reduced to between 60-100, making it three-to-five tis less efficient than more ’direct’ ans. However, this was still far more efficient than having her suck his blood so Vahn had created a specialized ’pouch’ with a vein that ran near his neck. Alaya would latch onto his neck in much the sa way as before, sucking a c.o.c.ktail of blood and s.e.m.e.n from his shoulder with a persistence that would make a leech blush...
Though he had gotten used to her presence, Vahn was also troubled by Alaya as it almost felt like she was slowly becoming a part of him after more than three months together. During the monts they were separated, Vahn would have the strangest feeling that ’sothing’ was wrong as he rolled his shoulder to release tension that didn’t go away until she latched onto him again. Even now, as he looked down at Mordred’s sleeping face with a smile, Vahn had a small blue furball tucked into the nape of his neck, even smaller than she had been in the past. She looked like a baby squirrel that was latched onto his neck like a pup suckling a teet. Her eyes were closed as if she was ’very’ focused on the process, at least until she knew Vahn was paying attention to her. During monts like this, Vahn could see her glowing violet eyes silently asking, ’Do you need sothing?’ as if he was the one bothering her...
Of the two things Vahn needed a ’solution’ to, dealing with Alaya was a slightly higher priority as he had a growing urge to just be separated from her again. Even if he knew it was for the best that she continued to drain his bodily fluids, as more Magical Energy ant more potential uses, Vahn felt like he was developing a strange dependency on her. His body would feel colder when she wasn’t near and he was always ’aware’ of his movents so as not to disturb her too much or dislodge her from her perch. The only occasion in which this incongruity went away was whenever he was training with Scáthach as, during monts like that, he simply had no ti to think about such things...
The worst part of his current situation was that Vahn could ’rationalize’ things in a way that had him having s.e.x with Alaya, potentially increasing the efficacy of his s.e.m.e.n beyond 300:1. Since he could extend his ejaculation virtually without end, having her intake his s.e.m.e.n ’directly’ for a few hours each night would be the sa as having her latched to his shoulder for the whole day. He had even suspected that she had ’skewed’ the numbers a bit to make this apparent but, as his own analysis with Sis had confird things, Vahn knew it was the truth. Unless he could alter his ntality to place just as much emphasis on having s.e.x as having her suck fluid from his neck, it was impossible to bring the potency to the sa level. It was all a ntal thing but, as Vahn simply couldn’t place the two on the sa level, for various reasons, there was no simple solution to the problem...
Though Vahn had increased the rate of Magical Energy transferred to Alaya from around 200,000 per hour to around 12,000,000 per hour, it was still a far cry from the potential 60,000,000 he could be transferring. As he grew stronger, this number would increase and, if he placed more ’emphasis’ on the exchange, it was possible to greatly increase the exchange rate. This would, however, require him to actually develop feelings for Alaya but, as she fundantally lacked the ans to reciprocate such things, it would always be a one-sided dependency on his part. He had even tried to use his [Hands of Nirvana] on her previously but, unless she ’let’ him affect her, Alaya had no reaction at all. Then, just as quickly, she could dismiss what little progress he had made the mont she determined there was no longer any value in continuing.
As a result of Alaya’s unique nature and constitution, Vahn knew that anything between them would almost be akin to him having emotionless s.e.x with a doll. He felt this would pervert his experiences with the other girls, especially if he was sacrificing ti that could have been spent with them just for the sake of ’efficiency’. Since Alaya already had now stored around 22 billion units of Magical Energy on his behalf, a number that was both massive and infinitesimally too small, Vahn found himself unable to make a decision. As a result, Alaya continued to leech off his shoulder while, as much as possible, Vahn pretended she didn’t exist. Though this reduced the efficacy of the transfer even further, he would rather focus on his happiness rather than dealing with a source of potentially infinite stress.
Fortunately, Vahn had plenty of sources for happiness and, even though twenty-one years was a long ti, it wasn’t as if he ’needed’ to summon more Heroic Spirits. Increasing his power and spending ti with everyone he was currently involved with was more than enough for the present. As he began to get involved with the affairs of the Mage’s Association and the Holy Church, Vahn felt that most of his problems surrounding the Summoning System and Alaya would gradually resolve themselves. The Clock Tower was apparently built atop the corpse of a mountain-sized True Dragon that had tried to dig its way through to the Reverse Side of the World in the past. As a result, there was a structure not all that dissimilar to the Dungeon of Orario located beneath the Clock Tower, filled to the brim with progressively more powerful monsters the deeper you went...
In much the sa way, the Holy Church had a ’trial ground’ that was used to help train prospective mbers of their Exorcism departnt. By sealing away powerful Daemons throughout history, regardless of whether or not they were good or bad, there were a lot of deeply rooted ’grudges’ and ’living curses’ located in their trial grounds. As a result, various ’demons’ and other forms of pseudo-spirits like ’ghosts’ would manifest in the area, allowing Exorcists to practice their Sacrants, the most powerful form of Thaumaturgy in the world due to the Holy Church’s influence. By using verses that were powerful by faith and conviction, they were able to kill demons and spiritual entities using nothing more than words and holy-elental Magecraft that they claid to be divine providence.
Vahn knew there were several Spiritual Lands located all over the world so, once he entered open conflict with the current powers of the world, it would be possible to secure a few for himself. He had no doubt that things like monsters, demons, and spirits would be able to grant him OP while also providing him a ans to gather resources and train. Since he had been able to bestow his ’blessing’ on Rin, Fenrir, dusa, Mordred, and even Illya, Vahn knew they would be able to increase their strength considerably if they fought against enemies and gained ’experience’. Even though he was in a different world, the blessing should work in a relatively similar way as, much like all forms of thaumaturgy, such things were strengthened by belief. Since Vahn ’knew’ his blessing worked, there was absolutely nothing to prevent anyone with his blessing from becoming much stronger than normal, in a significantly reduced ti. After all, even more so than sothing like the Welsh Dragon, he could be considered his own source of Mystery, rivaling other gods even without an active Divinity...
(A/N: Alternate Titles: ’This chapter feels like a fever dream’)
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