The research on the Greater Grail didn't last very long.
"I suppose this is what you'd expect from a limited edition Third Magic—this level of soul materialization can't even be considered mastery."
After his research, Ryuga was somewhat disappointed.
While it wasn't that he gained nothing, the results were far from what he had expected.
Overall, the Winter Saint's mastery of the Third Magic: Soul Materialization was probably only at an instinctive level.
Here, this wasn't praising her mastery of soul materialization as reaching an instinctive level of perfect control, but rather indicating that she had no systematic research or theoretical understanding of soul materialization whatsoever, only able to use it instinctively like a beast swinging its claws.
Such instinct wasn't useless, but it could never improve through accumulated experience.
No wonder the disciples of those Third Magic users back then all abandoned this rare creation.
The Winter Saint was like a completely unanalyzable black box—no growth potential, pathetically low output power, equivalent to having no future whatsoever.
Continuing research down this path would be difficult to see hope.
The Greater Grail's structure was the same. After research, Ryuga discovered that the structure here was purely a product of soul materialization, containing no knowledge related to creating such products.
Trying to rely on remnants like the Greater Grail wasn't sufficient to reverse-engineer the complete Third Magic.
According to Ryuga's speculation, to master a complete Third Magic that would satisfy him, most likely only personally reaching the Root would be possible.
With key information missing, no matter how high Ryuga's comprehension, even if he could reverse-engineer and complete most of the information, it would still be impossible to directly achieve enlightenment and ascension.
Otherwise, he wouldn't need to seek the Grail—he could achieve enlightenment of the Third Magic just by finding any random Servant, or even just sitting and daydreaming.
"However, I did learn quite a bit about interfering with spiritual cores."
Thinking of this, Ryuga was still fairly satisfied.
The effect of the Third Magic's soul materialization could be simply understood as using an immortal soul as a template to create a corresponding physical body.
But in reality, neither soul nor body were such simple concepts.
The so-called soul—in the Far East there was the theory of three souls and seven spirits, in the extreme East the theory of one spirit and four souls, and while the West generally believed souls were granted by God, within mystical studies they were also divided into different levels.
For example, according to human energy field divisions: the etheric body, emotional body, mental body, astral body, etheric template body, celestial body, and causal body—seven layers.
Therefore, to research soul materialization, one had to study what constituted a soul, and exactly which part of the soul was to be materialized.
Among these, the existence of Servants themselves was a product of a degraded version of the Third Magic.
The reason it was called degraded was because Servants still required magical energy supply from Masters, clearly not meeting the definition of infinite magical energy.
The reason it was related to the Third Magic was because Servants truly achieved materializing spiritual bodies from the Throne of Heroes into the present world.
Just as Divine Authorities determined the basic structure and power of gods, spiritual cores also determined the basic structure and power of Servants.
Regarding the most core part of the Third Magic—how to package mythological information bodies as Divine Authorities, how to package information from boundary records as Servant spiritual cores—Ryuga currently didn't have sufficient intelligence.
However, in the field of interfering with spiritual cores and even Divine Authorities to alter the structure and power of Servants and gods, Ryuga, who already had some research, made further progress through studying the Greater Grail.
For example—
"Saber, come here for a moment. Let me see your spiritual foundation."
After gaining sufficient insights, Ryuga decided to do some practical work.
"Ah?"
The Ahoge King was stunned on the spot.
What did Master want to see?
"Don't worry, just stand still."
Ryuga directly reached out and placed his hand on Artoria's head.
"Yes! Master!"
Although unclear about what Ryuga intended to do, out of trust in her Master, Artoria didn't resist, standing obediently in place waiting for Ryuga's examination.
"Not the structure of a traditional Servant... but no matter, this spiritual foundation can still be expanded."
After probing, Ryuga remembered that the Ahoge King before him was different from those deceased Servants—she had become a Heroic Spirit while still alive.
Although Artoria in this state also had a spiritual core, she wasn't the type where everything was completely determined by the spiritual core like other Servants.
Ordinary Servants had structures similar to Heretic Gods, while the Ahoge King's structure was similar to Campiones, like the structure of a living god.
Therefore, modifying her spiritual core would be more complex.
Fortunately, Ryuga was someone who had repeatedly experimented on himself and personally researched how Divine Authority structures affected the physical body. This level of difficulty wasn't much to him.
Half a minute later, feeling the power within her body strengthen several times over again, Artoria opened her eyes wide in shock.
"Master, why have my physical limits improved so much? I'm actually several times stronger than at my previous peak!"
With her Red Dragon heart, she was already physically superior to ordinary Servants. Under Ryuga's magical energy enhancement, her Strength had already reached A+ level, with Agility and Magical Energy similarly doubled.
Even among the three knight classes, this was quite excellent standards.
But now, under Ryuga's further enhancement, her power in all aspects had gained tremendous improvement again.
She even suspected that her current physical parameters had reached EX-rank exceptional levels, and the magical energy provided by Ryuga was inexhaustible.
Just a few dozen seconds of modification could improve her power to this extent?
Was this the great power of a divine lord?
Facing Artoria's shock, Ryuga wasn't surprised.
"You originally had Red Dragon bloodline and already had the potential to reach this level. Besides, it's just divine beast-level physical condition. With physical prowess alone, you might not even beat a boar."
Even after Ryuga's spiritual rank adjustments, not counting the Star Holy Sword, Artoria's power level still remained at second-tier Holy Knight level.
It's just that previously she struggled somewhat to keep up with divine beast physical condition, while now she herself possessed ordinary divine beast-level physical prowess.
If combined with Excalibur's power, ordinary divine beasts no longer posed a threat to her, and she could even directly engage Heretic Gods.
This was still without Ryuga granting her any divine protection.
It had to be said that in combat, she truly had great potential.
After expanding Artoria's spiritual foundation to its current limit, Ryuga remembered she seemed to be missing another piece of equipment.
"Avalon isn't in your hands right now?"
The scabbard Avalon, capable of rivaling the Star Holy Sword and unaffected even by the Five True Magics, could be said to be Artoria's other exclusive cheat.
In mythology, if she hadn't lost the scabbard, the final outcome at the Hill of Camlann would probably have been her single-handedly massacring all the rebel forces.
Among numerous mythological armaments, this Noble Phantasm was also among the most special types.
At least, ordinary Conceptual Armaments couldn't simulate effects completely identical to it.
"I apologize, Master. I have already lost the scabbard."
Mentioning this matter, Artoria's ahoge drooped somewhat.
Losing the scabbard could be considered one of the key turning points that led her life toward its end.
"It's fine. If it's lost, we can just find it again."
Ryuga shook his head quite calmly.
Having come all this way, he wouldn't give up on this crucial item.
According to his knowledge, the scabbard Avalon should be perfectly preserved in the present world—it just needed some searching to find it.
Now that Artoria had become his knight, her scabbard was naturally Ryuga's scabbard too.
With just this point, Ryuga could establish a spiritual connection and locate Avalon's true form.
Soon, Ryuga confirmed the location of Avalon's main body.
"The other side of the Earth, Central Europe, in a German forest?"
To be continued…