Fate/Beyond Chapter 10: Noble Phantasm. (Patreon)

After regaining his bearings Noah finally noticed the line of notifications on his peripheral, begging him to look at them. Finding no problem in doing so Noah obliged the notifications and looked into them.

[ Hidden stage: Swordmaster's tomb cleared!]

[REWARD: Kishigatana]

'I'm guessing that's the sword laying next to me.'

In typical RPG fashion, this dungeon of course had a hidden stage. I wouldn't be surprised if I was given a minimap and a floating fairy nagging me at this rate.

But regardless of the reward, Noah was disturbed. I had nearly died. I had just recently danced on the molecularly thin line between life and death.

And my opponent wasn't even strong enough to qualify as the weakest servant. I nearly got killed by a random guy with a sword. My second chance nearly got robbed from me by a half-naked man using a sword.

Laughable.

How long did it take me? A month or two? To get to where I was. To best just a guy with a sword and barely at that. How strong would I be after a year or so when the Holy Grail War arrives? Probably weaker than the weakest of the servants. 

'I need to get stronger faster.'

I was thinking about getting stronger too linearly.

I just thought: Work out, learn some magic and you will become strong. But that's not really the case, is it?

A wizard can work all his life on his craft yet a random who doesn't even know how to do mage craft properly can be so mentally ill that he manages to create something that is basically the pinnacle of all mage craft.

You can be the most talented motherfucket out there, work for all of your life just to end up the same as a second-rate magus just because you were born at the wrong time. At the same time, someone who puts in less than 10th of the effort you put in will be tens of times stronger than you simply because he was born at a time when proper shitters weren't even invented.

You can focus on becoming a destructive powerhouse for decades, sacrifice basically everything to be able to destroy entire buildings with one blow. And then some random gets born with funky eyes that can wipe out city blocks with no practice.

You can be the absolute most talented, live for thousands of years, and dedicate your life to magecraft to be the strongest modern magus by a long shot. And then a girl gets born with what is essentially virtually omnipotence for no fucking reason.

It is not about how much talent you have, how much effort you put in, how long you try. It is about breaking the system. You get stronger by abusing the exploits within the system.

There is a reason why all orthodox magus are either dead or irrelevant. Because the world isn't fair. No man is made equal. Some are just made more equal than others.

With renewed determination, I got up. 

I dragged myself over to the fallen blade before trying to pick it up. But the moment my hands touched the blade a sharp pain shot through my arm. Like a searing hot rod of iron was briefly inserted into my veins. 

[Weapon Bound: Kishigatana ]

I picked up the weapon once more, inspecting it this time. In was a rather long oriental blade with slight rusting and a coat of dried blood coating it. With that, it was supposed to be dull but it wasnt, in fact, it was razor sharp. But what I saw as the window popped up made my jaw drop.

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[ Unbound Noble Phantasm: Kishigatana ]

[Grade: E-]   [Type: Anti-Unit]

Differing from most other noble phantasms, the Kishigatana is a legend that is not bound to any individual.

A bloodthirsty blade forged by an unknown swordsmith. This blade was passed down from one user to another. Usual from the corpse of the previous wielder. It is said that this blade lures in people and when they pick it up it binds itself to them, driving them to violence and bloodshed.  

Its power comes from the first wielder who was a cursed demon warrior.

Properties:

Curse of Bloodthirst: Using this blade saps the wielder's vitality.

Cursed blood aura: When infused with mana and vitality this blade produces its own aura similar to mana burst.

                               ---{Noble Phantasm}---

{ Rivers Of Blood - [E-] }

Classification: Anti-Unit

When activated it takes up to 50% of your vitality and amplifies the next slash in Iai form by a factor of up to 10x.

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'There aren't enough words on the English lexicon that could be strung together to express how SPLENDIDLY  E R E C T  I am at this moment.'

This was a GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING noble phantasm! I have a noble phantasm! In terms of noble phantasms, it might be as bad as my magic circuits but it was still a *bang* GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING noble phantasm!

Granted, using it would probably be a mistake at this current moment seeing as it drained my vitality the more I use it, and from what I gather from the description it might affect my mentality too if I use it too much. So I just wrapped it up with a generous ton of bandages and clipped it to my belt. I got up and moved down the floor after resting.

I had arrived in the last floor of this crypt. The enemies had definitely gotten tougher. Now I needed to really on proper strategies when I go into a room.

The most troublesome of the enemies was definitely the skeleton archer. Now it was strong, it wasn't skilled, and it sure as hell wasn't on the level of the words master. So why are they a threat exactly?

Because, while they aren't exactly sharpshooters they still have bows with them. And even without much skill or whatever, I was still made out of weak and fragile flesh.

And if one of those arrows happens to hit the wrong spot it will dislodge me from the mortal coil once more. If that wasn't enough already, the archers had meat shields in the form of lesser ghouls.

Lesser ghouls, they are basically zombies who sacrificed what little iota of brain matter they had left for more muscles. Leaving behind a basically mindless shell of tough stuff.

So with the meat shields, skeleton soldiers and archers, I could no longer confidently stroll into a room and slap shit around. Instead I had to really on guerilla warfare.

...So... Remember what I said about objects exploding when under to much magical pressure from reinforcement?

Then, theoretically, you could reinforce a steel ingot just stable enough to retain reinforcement for a couple of seconds then throw it, and once the mana destabilizes it explodes into hundreds of metal shrapnel. 

Yep, ladies and gentlemen, I present you the mana frag grenade(Improvised version). With that, I have really completed my kit for guerilla warfare. Granted, I tried using the bow of one of the skeletons but alas low quality bows against mountains of muscle and skeletons wasnt very effective.

I also discovered something else.

Conventional weapons do not work against the enemies here in a proper manner.

They still damage them but SIGNIFICANTLY less than weapons that are either reinforced or enchanted. And I have a theory about that. Technically, skeletons, ghouls, and such should technically be classified as phantasmal species which are basically anything that isn't a human that is thought to be fiction or myth by humans.

And, I have no idea if this idea is correct or not but could the lack of mystery in those weapons hinder them from damaging phantasmal beasts which possess mystery, or whatever the fucking things are as they disappear like apparitions as well.

Regardless of what the hell I was fighting, I was struggling. I am going through my nutri bars like... I can't think of a clever line to say, I am just going through them concerningly fast. My body was also covered in scars from the number of times I got tagged by arrows and blades. At least undead hunter II was about to be finished. 

Resting against a wall trying to catch my breath I opened my stats to check my progress.

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Statistics:

Strength: 5,22[E-]

Endurance: 6.51[E-]

Agility: 4.92[F+]

Luck: 0.8[F]

Circuit Quantity: [E-]

Circuit Quality: [E+](F--)

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I am considerably stronger than when I went into this dungeon. I don't know if there is time dilation in this place but the results are way, way faster than simply working out. If only my circuit quality got enhanced by killing mobs but alas.

By this time most mobs have stopped giving me stats either because I have hunted too many of them or because my stats were too high. But frustratingly all of the undead in the crypt are dead now and they don't seem to respawn. Meaning my task is stuck at 248/250. And the only door left is the final boss.

Hyping myself up I went up to the intimidating double doors and pushed them open.