As Shirou sat with Faer, the girl couldn't help but wonder why the young man seemed to be staring at her with something approaching palpable confusion. When asked he didn't really reveal what she thought he was going to say. But at the same time her expectations had been completely different.

She kinda expected the boy to show her the difference between the two and beat swordsmanship into her since in an odd way he really reminded her of Tora-shinai.

There was definitely a curse on that thing, kinda like Fuyuki Park…

Regardless, after the last dream Shirou hadn't really found that anything had changed and in fact she had thought that nothing had happened until she noticed that her body was sore as if she had worked out when she went to start her morning routine. Though she couldn't let it stop her, otherwise Sakura-imouto would try to steal her kitchen again.

Cheeky little sister..!

So yeah, if one were to ask Emiya Shirou what it was like to encounter an extra dimension being through a dream she would honestly have to say it was oddly another mundane part of her day. Save that it came to her in a dream since she normally dreams about the Fuyuki Fire… Or swords… Or even more rarely, flowers…

What she was doing here was different to what she had been trying to do up to this point: master her craft at projection.

But from what she had been told by Faer… her student, she was likely using the wrong Circuits to cast, apparently while nerves could be used to cast magic and store it the reason she was having so much issue was because it was a single unit she was using.

And apparently her student had discovered this second nervous system made of premade magic circuits while he was training.

She was aware that some people were just effortlessly amazing and while she wasn't really jealous it would be nice to see that kind of growth for herself.

"And from what I was told earlier I think they might be able to store concepts in them as well."

She had to know more. There was just too much being thrown at the wall that she wasn't understanding and her student, who had never seen her brand of magic before obviously hadn't either.

It hadn't taken much to convince him to sit still so she could analyze him. Just mention something about strength or skills and the boy would sit without complaint. Kinda like a large grumpy dog.

It kinda reminded her of how some of Old Man Raiga's men would accept Taiga's whims when they first met.

Clearing her thoughts, Shirou focused her attention onto the foreigner. She had an idea of what she was looking for, something like nerve circuits but with a much higher output…

Placing her hand onto the broad boy's back, Shirou placed the hot iron rod down her spine again, and with practiced ease, she placed aside the searing pain.

Judging the concept of creation.

Male. Biologically 17 years old, chronologically 5 months old. A magical factory compared to the pittance of mana Emiya Shirou possessed.

Hypothesizing the basic structure.

A body had been spoken of that unnatural hardiness that spoke of biological manipulation likely on par with what Kiritsugu told her to expect from a Homunculus. With his magic circuits activated it was easy to see what he was talking about, but with how placid he was she felt no resistance as she scanned his hardened body.

It was as if he had been made for fighting, especially with how the ambient Od in his system didn't seem to be causing any damage to him.

Duplic_-_-_-_-_

Letting out a stream of hot air as the pain from her spell falling apart struck her to the core, but pain was a familiar thing to Emiya Shirou. Still with her magical observation done the amateur magus turns to see the boy practically cut from marble.

There had been a few major differences between the first and last time they had spoken, primarily being his premade magic circuits, but besides that there was his permanent Nerve Circuits.

The longest she managed to maintain one was 4 hours, though maybe she might be able to get it to last longer if she could manage to endure the pain of flowing od. Again highlighting how he had been seemingly built to fight, while she couldn't read much of how his Nervous system quantified pain she could see that it was… adaptive, she wanted to say.

It gave her a few ideas of how she might use reinforcement on herself given some of the left over scar tissue on his body. But that of course required her to figure out how to master reinforcement first.

But seeing as though Shirou had been going about her magecraft for about 6 years now it did make her wonder what she might be able to do after she opened her own circuits. To that end with the ambient Od in his system it would've been easy to find his Circuits since they almost seemed to be excess contained by some other mechanisms that she didn't understand.

But it did show her good areas to search for her own Circuits.

"Did that help?"

Faer Jaecar's body and mind were incredible, compared to a normal human's, like comparing a bicycle to a Yamaha Vmax. Everything from the electron exchange of synapses to the way his body got rid of the waste it couldn't use through some other redundancy. Was this how a normal magus looked compared to a normal human? Because while she was sure a real magus was capable of some incredible things, she was sure that whatever Faer was he was more than human even if he had some very human flaws.

Emiya Shirou's hands grabbed Faer's face, moving the curly hair back revealing the roots of his hair.

From what she analyzed too his hair had changed in some small way, how she could say since there was so much information to process about his body but now she could see that the roots of his hair seemed like they were becoming lighter in pigmentation. There was a lot of small changes too that she noticed when she looked at the rest of hi-

"Shirou, you're a bit close aren't you?"

Ah, she hadn't noticed.

From this close she could see herself reflected in his hazel-green eyes, the corona seemed to be growing outward consuming the rest of the green pigment as his eyes continued to adjust to the light inside her dojo.

…

"R-right."

Shirou was a lot of things but the last thing she needed to be was someone who could be seen as clingy. Besides the fact that it went against the ideals she picked up from Kiritsugu the fact of the matter was that someone as fundamentally as fucked up as her shouldn't be leading anyone on.

Regardless of the fact that this entire simulation was happening in a dream it definitely didn't change that fact about her. It was her fault that no one else made it out of the fire and every moment she spent chasing after boys who should avoid her like the plague was another she should be using in preparation to save people.

Though it could be argued that was what she was already doing by helping Faer who had died last time he was here, in her house… dream simulation thing. Though it was entirely unavoidable because neither of them knew what they were doing and neither knew that "creating" Magic Circuits wasn't a thing.

However… it did give the redhead an idea.

Even if the efficiency return was terrible it was clear that eventually enough Nerve Circuits could be made to make up for a natural reserve, not that she had opened her circuits yet and knew what she was working with.

But that did mean that there were two things that needed to come out of this session that she had with the other worldly boy.

The first of them being teaching, Fuare-san how to use one of the three spells she knew.

The second being finding and unlocking her own circuits, which should carry over since she was pretty sure Kiritsugu said something about the unconscious mind having direct access to the soul at some point or another.

So even if the activation process ended up being something painful it would at least carry over when she woke up, at least she hoped.

Again remembering the fact that the foreigner in front of her had his heart pretty much explode when he first created a circuit here they both would start with something simple. Where the backlash wasn't liable to kill him, Structural Analysis, and seeing as though he wouldn't be casting with his regular nerves it likely wouldn't even hurt too much if he messed it up.

"Faer-san, how would you like to learn one of my… spells." She said breathily and immediately hated herself for it but he didn't seem to hate her as he loomed over her. Fuare-San might feel like pliable molten steel beneath her forge but that definitely didn't mean that she should be trying t-to-

The sensation of warm flesh against her lips registered in her mind along with the tightening of her stomach. It was warm, both whatever she had pressed her lips against and the sensation in her stomach and she-

A hand on her waist brought her back to reality (or was it the dream?), her vision snapping into focus her hawk-like vision found Faer's staring back, the hazel eyes almost glowing at he stared at her.

Shirou's eyes flickered down… she was… oh no… not only was she kissing him, she was practically straddling him. When had they sat down!?

Throwing herself back the girl froze as she tried to take in Faer's reaction, but if he had any, he didn't let it cross onto his face.

"I-I'm…"

Giving a dismissal grunt it seems that the chronologically five month year-old adolescent had completely ignored what she had just done. Maybe he didn't understand what was going on, yeah! That made sense..!

It totally didn't give the girl anxiety that he thought she was a bad kisser…

"Sorry… but umm back to teaching you my spell. I'll teach you… but only if you open up my magic circuits after you do that you do that!" There she managed to get it out, somehow it felt like her heart was getting ready to explode in her chest after that.

"Right then, Shirou, how do you want me to handle that?"

"Well, this spell I am going to teach you is called Structural Grasping, it basically should give you a detailed history of whatever you are pouring your mana into… tell you the basic structure, the material composition, the making of the item, the skill that went into its making, and its history…" Trailing off Shirou realized how useless a spell like this might be for someone like Faer who looked like they were built for combat.

Shirou could actually believe that after having taken a deep dive into how efficient his body was. Hah..! For a dream this was actually making her pretty hot and sweaty. Why were these dreams so realistic!?

"Eh-hem." Walking over to a wall brisk manner, Shirou grabbed a shinai off the wall. It was a shinai that she had analyzed before and this dream was pretty realistic so if she remembered right…

Running through the steps of analysis again revealed that the practice sword was the same in all the ways she could think of and yet to her it still registered as a different blade… well for the sake of this demonstration it would work.

Sitting back down next to the boy, Shirou grabbed Faer's wrist and placed his hand on the body of the blade, before placing her own next to it.

"Here, uh, try to follow along with what I am doing." Shirou wasn't really sure how to teach it but she slowly went through the process, from the tree being cut down to the last spar that she had with the boy the night before… and somehow she could feel that his mana was following along, careful not to displace hers as the girth and weight of his mana hung over her magic's metaphorical head much like the boy did in real life.

"Hah… Hah… You see Faer-san, that's Structural Grasping." Leaning against him the sweating girl couldn't help but despise herself at this moment, the entire night she had been acting like a… like a… a girl that hangs out with Shinji after he became weird…

Through her exhaustion she looked up at the boy who remained unflappable to her blunderings.

Yeah… that was about right, a girl as ugly as her couldn't get someone like her to notice her. Not that she even deserved that much.

Shifting away from her thoughts Shirou moves to stand to put the practice weapon away, but apparently she had been sweating way too much, the moment that she went to take a step she slipped in her own sweat puddle.

If there had been any chance of this guy not thinking that she was a complete waste of space, it was thoroughly down the drain. For all that she poked fun at Taiga at not being able to get a man and settle down, she probably would find herself in the same situation. Not just because she wanted to be a hero, but because she herself was just too much of a loser to not look like a complete girl-failure.

Still falling, Shirou also couldn't help but lament that despite her own reaction time being well and above most people's, she still had human limitations on her body. Eye's dilating, she looked over to the boy next to her as her impending embarrassment started to come to fruition, and besides having his eyes focused on her, there was no condemnation in his eyes or any of the second hand embarrassment that she thought she might feel if she was watching someone do this.

Well, it could be worse. Focusing her eyes forward, Shirou abruptly had plans thrown out, her momentum thoroughly redirected Shirou found herself standing chest to chest with Faer. Or rather face to chest since he towered over her…

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Shirou looked up to Faer's face, which had finally changed… colored with concern Shirou couldn't help but hate her own helplessness. Look at her, getting so worked up over a boy, and tired over a basic spell… how was she supposed to do anything when it looked like she was even failing at the basics.

"Take it easy, Shirou. Don't worry about the blade… its a dream, it'll probably put itself away." The large specimen said as he swept her off her feet and sat back down with his legs crossed.

He moved her like she was nothing…

"I think if I have a larger surface area connection with you it'll be easier to find your circuits…" With her body practically being swaddled by Faer, Shirou knew that no matter what she did, she could no longer simply say… well she wasn't sure what she would say, but everything was different now.

Faer's body became alight with red cackling energy that reminded her of lightning as he his magic circuits turned on and before long she could feel his mana bear down onto her body with all the weight of a leaden blanket and all the heat of sitting under a kotatsu but with how hot her body was already running it made her feel feverish rather than give her some type of comfort.

Still despite the surface level discomfort she felt there was definitely something about this experience that she definitely wouldn't mind being subject to again, it was like her brain was melting out her ears but in a good way.

Relentlessly pleasure and heat settled in her core as the foreigners mana went through her body with a far greater ease than hers ever did.

With the heat growing she could almost feel her-

"N-gh!"

As Shirou sat in the after throes what just hit she couldn't help but notice her clothes just didn't feel right like they were excessively damp, yet sticky.

…

Did she just..! Trying to open her eyes, despite the heavy exhaustion she was feeling Shirou could do nothing more than be witness to the absolute mess she had made after her post coital movement.

And her body was running way hotter than it was before… Looking at her body she could see that her skin had a myriad of green and red lines crossing it…

Oh she had…

【 Simulation Complete】

【Magic Circuit Level Up 18 - 21】

Faer had never seen a girl react like that before, at all. it was interesting, he definitely would have to see if he could replicate that experience at some point in time.

Looking up from the veranda of the shrine Faer had noticed that the rain had stopped and it was just before day break. In the stillness of the predawn air chill, Faer was reasonably sure that something was watching him. Not out of anticipation to strike him down but more out of a sense of curiosity.

"Thanks…" his words disappeared into the night, and with it the attention of whatever had been watching him.

【+5000 Conflict Points】

What the actual fuck?

Faer was reasonably sure that whatever he had done didn't do anything to warrant those points.

Could things just straight up give him Conflict Point? If so, that was huge.

【Quest received: Free Money..? You have now discovered that certain entities can give you conflict points outright. Figure out if this is different from the typical method of receiving conflict points. Reward: Quest: Knowledge is Power 1 of ?】

Well there was a dilemma , Faer wasn't necessarily sure what constituted giving Conflict Points besides some type of Conflict. While that one time in the hallway had given Faer something to work with the amount was really so small that he would need tragedies in order to farm it. And well, the issue with that was the same as before.

It was just too short term to be worth it.

Sighing, Faer relaxed his body. There was no point in trying to get anything more physical work done at this time. Besides, the dark skinned boy was kinda in the mood to just relax.

Focussing inward Faer could see it. His magic, the pool that existed originally, the channels that were now carved through his soul and the two that he had physically attached to his body.

The sensation of riding them was completely different to the process of awakening them. It was like he was going from a river to a small creak to being pushed into a still ocean.

The process stripped him of his sense of time and in truth it was probably the closest he had gotten to relaxing for some time.

Just… letting… go…

…

As his meditation eventually began to wear off Faer noticed that he had missed the dark hour, the sounds of morning bird song having met his ears as the sun had yet to completely peak over the horizon.

The orange glow reminded him of something. Shirou. Who he thought was originally male was female. And not only that, had a… embarrassing moment on his lap.

Faer had used the spell the tomboy had taught him inadvertently during his meditation, its utility being unparalleled for actual meditation.

The redhead had definitely left something behind with her reactions.

Seriously, he had never seen someone act like a dog so eager for attention before he had met that girl, besides Chie but that was completely different… the way that girl kept looking for approval…

Seriously! Who did that! Not that he was complaining and he wasn't even really sure why he wasn't complaining but still what the fucking hell…

Standing up abruptly Faer felt his head begin to swim as he tried to get his bearings.

Belatedly he realized, he was panting extremely hard and was about to fall back to his knees, breath hitching Faer forced himself to cycle his breathing. He had to find an equilibrium, he had an entire day ahead of him and an investigation to get through.

He was already behind on time as it was.

With a cursory look around the shrine, Faer felt his lip curl as he saw some of the broken floor boards and encroaching vegetation.

…

Leaving the shrine behind the boy adjusted his clothes as he made his way down into the town.

The town of Inaba was pretty quiet with most adults still getting ready for the morning if they were even awake with the occasional senior citizen already going about their days. None of them looked his way.

Sensing nothing and seeing less Faer had decided that the best place to try to pick a trail might be back where he started beneath the bridge.

By the time the sun had rose the young man had found himself scanning the area, mentally recollecting the last fight that had nearly taken his life.

"SHISHOU…!" From behind came the familiar sound of his apprentice… shouldn't she still be in school still?

"Chie… you're early."

"Well, yeah! We gotta find Yukiko! Its been awhile and I've been to worried so I ditched school to help you look."

Well that's fair, school was pretty boring. Especially when you were learning shit that you already knew.

"Right. Well, there's nothing here. So we'll have to move on."

"Right!" Skipping up to him the girl easily fell into step with the pace that Faer was setting. He wasn't exactly sure where this river led but the fact was, those demons had been following this landmarker for a reason. After he knew where it led, if it wasn't a direct lead he could try a series of 90 degree offsets from the path.

Taking off into a jog Faer moved at a speed that was definitely way too slow for him but for his apprentice it definitely would be a decent workout/warmup.

An hour passed, and surprisingly the spritely girl kept up.

Another hour passed, and whatever resolve she had was enough to keep going.

By the third hour, the girl started to flag.

It had only been a few days, and was sure that when they started she hadn't had this much endurance.

But she had nearly fallen before he swept her up and kicked up his pace to a comfortable jog for his own ability. At that point it didn't take much longer to come across something odd as he got closer to the ocean.

As the duo arrived at the beach Faer placed the girl down who had immediately pulled out a snack and started eating. Scanning from right to left Faer tried to see what it was about this place that was so weird. But all that was in front of him was an open ocean for miles and a beach that led into the forest on both sides of the river that they had followed to get here.

"Keep your eyes open, Chie."

While there wasn't a threat he could hear or see, anything sticking out would be nice at the moment. Taking his time to walk the beach Faer tried to commit everything to detail. The beach was too massive and trying to see it all would lead him nowhere.

If only there was a way…

That might work.

Flipping on his magic circuits and nerve circuits Faer flooded the ground and water with his mana as Structural Grasping reached out. Further and further the boy dumped his mana… and eventually, somewhere, miles away from him, beyond the 3 mile horizon his mana had started grasping something magic that acted as a barrier.

Well then, he could work with that.

Problem was, he wasn't sure that swimming there was viable. Not for him but for Chie. Even though he doesn't really care about the girl's presence, the fact was he also owed her his life and she wanted to save her friend. If they didn't have some kind of transport to get there then whatever rescue operation she was going to do simply wasn't going to happen.

On top of that. Even if swimming would likely increase his stats further, it wasn't like he was immune to being tired. So if he had to try to make it workout the only thing he might be achieving is dying slightly stronger but much more tired than he would be by taking some kind of vehicle.

"Chie, I got something, but right now it's beyond us."

"Do they have super strong defenses or something?"

Well considering that crossing the ocean wasn't happening at the moment. "Or something."

"Does that mean we can't do anything?"

"No."

Sweeping the girl up onto his back, Faer considered something.

"Hold on."

「Status」

【Name: Faer Jaecar】

【Level 11】

『HP: 283/393 10hp/hr』

『MP: 68/68, (31*21)651/651),(2*1)2』

『Str: 14』

『Agi: 14(23.8)』

『End: 23』

『Int: 12(150fps)』

『Mag: 17』

『Dex: 9』

『Luk: 7』

Available Stat Points: 0

Conflict Points:1115

Was he fast enough to run on water?

Taking a step onto the water Faer realized that he was in fact, more than fast enough to run on water. And to add on that if he sprints…

Something burst around his ears as the world blurred around him.

It was the sound barrier.

But for how fantastic that this speed was Faer understood why he had to be more careful. Even if he could move this fast, even with 150 frames per second to react to what he was seeing there was way too much delay between his ability to move his body and process what was happening.

His mind was too slow to use this kind of speed for anything but travel, let alone trying to fight with it.

Moving back down a much more manageable speed that he could actually control he checked on his apprentice who appeared to be wearing a pair of goggles, who opened her mouth to say something. But at the speed he was moving at, the girl had no choice but to swallow them.

It would also do no good if he killed her from the speed of the whiplash. But given how she was actually unhurt: no signs of sunken features, burst blood vessels, or glassy eyes, Chie must be stronger than he thought.

Or have better physical potential than he thought she did.

Looking forward, Faer focused back and within a few minutes they had found themselves back where they had started before Chie joined the investigation this morning only to find themselves looking at a scene where a familiar adversary and two newcomers could be seen fighting against them.

A short Navy haired girl wear8ng some type of combat body suit with red and gold accents and filigree, pushed a figure wearing white onto the defensive. Though Faer couldn't hear it break the sound barrier, the speed that the oversized golden hammer moved at easily gave the appearance of being capable of turning the average human into pink mist.

The White wearing figure braced himself; he easily withstood the physical force with an annoyingly familiar durability.

Though for his efforts he was kicked in the side of the head by a petite silver figure. As the imparted force sent the figure on the defensive flying back the silver figure came into focus.

Faer wasn't sure if she was a girl dressed as a robot knight, a robot designed to look like a girl or a full merge cyborg. But the red gauntlets did look pretty cool.

As the confrontation blurred in front of him Faer realized they had likely been keeping their adversary zoned.

As the first girl laid into the man with speed and precision aimed at closing off his escape routes and field of vision, the mechanical maiden had come in from behind, with a flipping slam of her oversized ax that their adversary had narrowly evaded.

They seemed kinda off balance as if there was something missing to their synergy, not that they didn't work well together but the opening Faer could see looked like it was them getting out of the way for a setup that was supposed to be happening.

As for who they were fighting, it was that troublesome monk.

Shiki.

Good, Faer was reasonably sure that at least with his mana reserves he'd have more than enough gas to break him beat him enough to talk.

「Sukukaja」

With a mental command Faer set down his charge without a word. He didn't use the spell on himself, he was confident that things would go differently this time. But… he couldn't have Chie getting in the way or getting herself killed.

Hesitating for a moment he considered this. Shiki had almost killed him, as an afterthought. Vastly more durable than he was then, Faer had to consider that Chie's head might explode if she got hit with something like that.

And that made him cautious.

"Chie. Get out of sight."

Walking into a sprint from about 400 meters away, Faer blasted to the fighting trio. While the duet appeared to be extremely strong he didn't let that stop him cutting into their duet as the oversized ax and hammer slammed into Shiki with some kind of magic.

He arrived within a natural gap of their offense, this time it was the long haired robot girl that was aggressive while the short hair moved to set into the next phase of their coordinated effort.

Too Slow!

Leading in with a knee to his face and following up with a spinning back kick, Shiki had demonstrated that same durability that he had before, but unlike time the speed behind his attacks had been enough to send the man into the grassy hill with a violent crash that almost surprised him.

Holding his evoker in one hand and using his hand as a pistol in the other, Faer unleashed a nine shot Spirit Gun Volley that had caused a veritable cloud to be kicked up from the explosions that rang out.

Impatient, Faer darted in again, this time from the bottom of the berm, with his speed trivializing the inclination, Faer comes in again, charging up another spirit gun that catches the once robed man in the chest who almost looked ready for a retaliation.

The blast exploding in his chest sent the man violently flying back in a tumbling arc.

Releasing a breath of steam it took Faer a moment to realize that while Shiki was still in one piece, he was not standing back up anytime soon…

Fuck.

【For properly timing an ambush receive +1 Dex.】

"Woah, did you see that Big Sis Labrys!? He was like zoom. Bababababooom. And that priest guy was oof, ack, bleh…" The short girl with the comically large hammer said with no regard for his space as he found her leaning on his shoulder.

Walking forward Faer ignored the girl, lasering in on Shiki. While he couldn't be 100% sure, he thinks that Chie might be able to give him a heads up if they decide to attack him from behind.

Wait, she was about 400 meters away still.

"Yeah, that's Shisou for ya!" Chie shouted out.

On one hand that's some impressive speed on the other God damn it Chie… "He turns all red and gets super strong after. Then he's all like grrr- hmmmm. HYAT! Kinda scary but he's avenging his master so it's kinda expected for him to do that."

"Vengeance? Where did this kid come from? Big Sis, did you see where she came from?"

Arriving in front of Shiki, Faer looks at the priest. Burned all over his body, Fear was reasonably sure that you might see someone like this after they get dragged out of a house fire.

A groan escaped the lips of the burned man.

Prodding the man with his shoe, Shiki elicits a groan, eyes barely opening with consciousness.

"Being burned alive sucks, doesn't it?" Faer asks rhetorically, placing his weight onto the man's shoulder gets the man to scream loud enough to silence the clearing.

"Alright Shiki, I've had a pretty bad couple of days. And a few more live debts I could have gone without." Faer explains while the man's screams start to turn hoarse. "But you know who is responsible for them, because they wanted to kidnap people off the street while I was doing my job."

It was obvious that Faer hadn't done this before, but it was also clear that he was well past caring about sentence structure.

"I have a half a mind to blow your brains across this clearing and see how you like dealing with that. But I have one thing that I need to know before I kill you."

Shiki, delirious from the spiritual burns from the almighty energy was in no condition to amount much of a defense. Mental or physical. A stark contrast from when Faer first encountered him. To be honest, it kinda pissed him off.

Where was the tough physically unbeatable opponent that had dismantled him summarily. Was it because he was fighting three opponents? If so Faer was embarrassed that he had ever been beaten by someone like this.

His jibberings were getting annoying to listen to, it almost reminded him of when ** ****** **** **** ****** ** *** **** and they actually didn't deserve it. But this guy…

"Talk Shiki!"