"You're refusing to participate in the Fuyuki Holy Grail War?"
"I see..."
A distant bell tower chimed, its sound echoing across the London suburbs.
A flickering flame bloomed at the man's fingertips.
Staring at the black-haired young man seated across from him, Lord El-Melloi II slowly lit his cigar, took a drag, and exhaled a plume of ethereal smoke. His calm face betrayed no surprise.
"A predictable answer. I already told those old fools you wouldn't be interested."
"After all, even the chance to have a wish granted by the Holy Grail and reach the Root is of little consequence to you."
It sounded like a wild exaggeration.
But Lord El-Melloi II's tone was one of absolute certainty.
Because the black-haired young man sitting before him was an undisputed magus genius, a being whose very existence made Waver, with his third-rate Magic Circuits and constant overtime, lament the unfairness of fate.
In the profession of magi, Waver Velvet, the Lord of the Department of Modern Magecraft at the Clock Tower, had almost absolute confidence in this cheap disciple he had practically picked up off the street.
The reason was simple...
He had personally watched Su Shu ascend from a complete "Muggle," who knew nothing of magecraft, to the rank of Pride at the Clock Tower—in a single year.
Grand, Brand, Pride, Fes, Cause, Count, Frame.
These were the ranks of magi passed down by the Mage's Association.
Waver himself, a Lord, was currently only a Fes.
To put it charitably, it was an "Honorary Fes," a rank bestowed upon him for his outstanding achievements in teaching disciples. In truth, Waver's aptitude as a magus was pitifully poor, barely reaching the level of Cause. He'd struggle to even hypnotize an old lady. His own foster sister, Reines, had once sharply criticized his Magic Circuits as "non-burnable trash."
One could say his rank was more of a "Freeloader."
His current long hair was a trick to conserve a little more mana. Even the cigar he smoked was a type of Mystic Code, a "Mystic Spirit-Particle Cigar" of his own invention. Being the fifth-generation model, he had named it the "RELX V."
Verdict: A certified "Saint's Widow."
...To put it bluntly, although he held the esteemed position of one of the twelve Lords of the Clock Tower, Waver's personal worth as a magus was not very high. His power level felt... lower than Gudako's. This was why, when he had to moonlight as the great detective Lord El-Melloi, he needed Gray by his side as a personal bodyguard, lest an enraged culprit decide to silence him permanently.
In stark contrast to Waver's own pathetic aptitude, his disciple Su Shu's Magic Circuits were a natural mutation located within his brain, possessing, it seemed, both extraordinary Quality and Quantity. It was a fact that made Waver so envious he nearly had a heart attack.
And that was to say nothing of his terrifying speed, reaching the rank of Pride in a single year. Even the Wizard Marshal Zelretch, a figure of legend, and that other one... "Aoko the Blue," had likely never shown such an absurd level of progress in their careers.
The Clock Tower's ranking system places great importance on a magus's own craft. In short, being a good fighter is a key factor. But more important evaluation criteria are one's contributions to the expansion and innovation of magecraft, the understanding and construction of spells, and one's personal casting ability.
Of course, if you're the scion of a great magus family, the rules are different—the Clock Tower has very flexible evaluation standards.
In his promotion assessment's simulated battle, Su Shu had easily defeated Bazett Fraga McRemitz, the enforcer known as the "Strongest at the Fes rank," an astonishing feat in itself.
But the main reason for his rapid promotion was the research paper he wrote: "A Structural Approach for the Participation of Artificial External Micro-Magic Circuits in the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Process." The paper was so world-shakingly revolutionary that it startled several old monsters out of their seclusion at the Clock Tower and nearly earned him a Sealing Designation.
Thanks to his well-documented year of study, along with the powerful guarantees from the El-Melloi and Animusphere families, Su Shu narrowly avoided being "preserved for protection" as a specimen under the Bridge. Instead, he was awarded the rank of Pride in an unprecedented move.
He thereby became the first Chinese national in the history of the Clock Tower to achieve the rank of Pride.
Subsequently, the paper that had cost Su Shu so much effort was sealed away as a top-secret file at the Clock Tower, never to be published.
This outcome made him lose the last shred of patience he had for the Clock Tower's antiquated ways.
Laughable. Lamentable. Pathetic.
Although the Mage's Association's primary principle is to "Conceal Mystics," even a little brat like Reines knew it was just a pretext. Upholding this "noble cause" was a convenient way to suppress freelance magi. After all, when the Clock Tower sets the industry standards, they can sanction whomever they please.
The principle of "Concealing Mystics" was merely a useful excuse. After all, even Sealing Designations could be resentfully revoked. The Department of Policies was powerless against that woman known as "Aoko the Blue."
In the end, it all came down to the simple truth that might makes right.
On the surface, they claimed to be restricting his paper's publication to "Conceal Mystics." But Su Shu knew the real reason all too well: the Clock Tower, with its obsession with bloodline inheritance, refused to see worldly technology advance. It would turn the magecraft they controlled into a laughingstock.
It was like when artificial diamonds were deconstructed; natural diamonds could only maintain their value through marketing hype. Just like the Department of Modern Magecraft, which had been looked down upon and ostracized by the aristocratic factions ever since its founding in the 19th century.
The Clock Tower's final decision deeply disappointed Su Shu.
They dared to perform human alchemy, break taboos, and conduct bloody rituals in their pursuit of the Root, yet they didn't dare to publish a single paper?
Couldn't someone just swoop in and claim his research as their own? Su Shu didn't care about attribution or empty honors, so long as the paper was published to advance the world.
His motive was brutally simple: he just wanted to live.
After all, this world was on the verge of destruction.
Su Shu, 24 years old, was a transmigrator.
While writing his doctoral thesis, he had been struck by a splitting headache, passed out, and was rushed to the ICU. A CT scan revealed a blurry shadow in his brain, suspected to be a malignant tumor, and his clinical symptoms matched the diagnosis.
He was diagnosed with a terminal illness in the prime of his life.
After the initial shock, disbelief, and outrage, Su Shu accepted his reality with a storm of complicated emotions. He gave up on the torturous chemotherapy and decided to finish his thesis, to live out the final chapter of his life properly.
However, upon walking out of the hospital, he wasn't greeted by the bleak, gray sky of his city, but by the drizzling rain of an English street.
He had transmigrated to London of the Type-Moon world, in the year 2002.
His East Asian features drew stares from the people on the street. WeChat and Alipay on his phone were useless. Thankfully, his spoken English was fluent enough that Gray, who was out buying bread, mistakenly found him and took him home. Eventually, through a letter of recommendation from El-Melloi II (i.e., pulling some strings), he entered the Clock Tower, becoming a rare specimen: an exchange student from the East.
It was a good thing Londoners didn't speak Japanese, or he and Waver would have just stared blankly at each other.
After his inexplicable transmigration into the Type-Moon world, Su Shu discovered that he had awakened a talent called Clairvoyance.
In the early stages, before he had stable control of it, he would occasionally foresee blurry, indistinct visions of the world's future in his sleep, accompanied by severe headaches.
...They were all blood-pressure-raising scenes.
A Bloodborne-esque plague, a fissure to the Demonic Realm, a lost empire, a Pruning Protocol, an insectoid swarm invasion, a Subspace storm...
Are you telling me this is fucking Type-Moon?!
Send me home!!!
In the not-so-distant future, all manner of bizarre and terrifying disasters would descend upon this world, ultimately turning the land into a living hell.
Even worse, Su Shu discovered that his Clairvoyance had never been able to observe a future beyond the year 2016...
...which most likely meant that humanity in this world would go extinct in 2016.
The collapse of order, the withering of life, the end of civilization...
The history of humanity was about to end.
Those desperate visions of the Collapse of the Human Order showed Su Shu the tragic fate that awaited this world. Seeing such a future left him feeling numb. He had become a transmigrator, just like the overpowered protagonists in trashy light novels. He should have been living the good life, showing off and building a harem. He should have been welcomed by a dream-like, happy time...
Why? Why did it turn out like this?
Having transmigrated to the Type-Moon world, his terminal illness now had a potential cure within this new reality of mystics. Yet before he could even feel happy about it, he learned the world was going to be destroyed in less than a decade.
It was like suddenly being transported to Terra, excitedly preparing to build a huge harem of animal-eared girls, only to discover it was Holy Terra!
Holy crap, I just got isekai'd into Type-Moon!
Join my patreon For Early access to Chapter : patreon.com/TheWorldGod
Tiamat 130 Chapter
Honkai 100 Chapter
Lobotomy 100 Chapter
MushokuTensei 30 Chapter