The journey of dragon transformation starting from Demon Slayer

Zouken smiled twistedly, "Hehe... You have never trained before. It's hard to say whether the magic circuit you have placed on you can be used. Do you still dream of becoming a Master who commands a Heroic Spirit?"

“No! This is not some wishful thinking! Zōken!” Kariya suddenly interrupted, “Just use your secret technique! You have it, right?”

Hearing Kariya say this, Zōken narrowed one of his eyes slightly, while the other one widened.

He asked coldly: "Do you want to die? Yanye..."

Yan Ye suddenly laughed: "Oh, you said you would let me go, how could you bear to let me die?"

“Huh~?” Seeing that Kariya had successfully controlled him, a trace of surprise flashed in Zang Yan’s eyes, so he smiled and said, “Yes, you are an important tool for me. It would be a pity to let you die so early!”

"Even if you can't become the Master, you can still be my next spare body..."

"But if you lower your standards and practice a little, you should have no problem meeting the minimum targets..."

When Kariya heard Zōken talk about the spare body, a hint of fear flashed across his eyes, but knowing that he couldn't escape, he quickly made up his mind.

This is indeed like trying to get something from a tiger. In the worst case scenario, he might not even get anything.

As he said this, Zōken turned around and turned back to Kariya and said, “My request is to take back the workshop and Matou Sakura. I won’t ask any more questions about the rest!”

"If you can really get that imperfect Holy Grail, that would be the best! Then you can do whatever you want with that little girl! I won't interfere with your daily life anymore..."

If it weren't for this personal grudge with the 'Adventer', Zōken would have certainly tortured Kariya until he was no longer human.

After all, Zang Yan is so ugly now. He can allow his descendants to live a mediocre life, but he cannot allow him to make heroic moves in front of him.

Because of this comparison, the rotten and dirty inkstone looked even more unbearable, which only made him more unhappy.

Just like in the original world line, Zōken saw that Kariya could stand up for a little girl and return to the path of magic that he hated, so he subjected him to inhuman abuse in the name of transformation but in fact it was torture.

Although Zōken transformed Kariya into a qualified magician, he actually did not teach him any magic skills. He simply tortured Kariya day and night, consuming his vitality in exchange for considerable potential.

Thanks to Zōken's transformation at that time, if we only talk about magic circuits, Kariya at that time was already above the level of a second-rate magician, infinitely close to the first-rate. However, doing so was also very risky, as Kariya could be eaten to death by the crested worms in his body at any time.

If Zōken was willing to teach Kariya magic skills and prevent him from falling into madness, then Kariya should have a chance to grow up correctly.

However, to Zōken, Matou Kariya is undoubtedly a traitor.

Now that he has fallen into Zang Yan's hands, Zang Yan will definitely not have any mercy on him and will naturally treat him as cruelly as he wants.

But if one considers the actual situation, without his workshop, Zōken would have to make careful use of the resources at hand, pour his heart and soul into Kariya, and try his best to make him grow into a barely qualified magus.

Now Zōken is no longer the wealthy lord of Matou, and the resources he has at hand are pitifully few. He can only have the opportunity to raise funds by going abroad.

A year is too short.

Even with a rote learning process, it would be impossible for Kariya to master many sophisticated magic tricks under his instruction.

Learning complex magic often requires a deep understanding, and the more complex the magic, the longer it takes to learn.

Due to Kariya's aptitude, if he wants to become useful, he will probably need ten years of study.

And now Zang Yan also needs to cultivate the insect swarm, which makes time even more urgent.

Cultivating insect swarms requires corresponding resources, and what Zang Yan lacks most right now is resources.

As long as there are resources, accelerating the growth of familiars becomes the specialty of magicians like Zōu Yan.

However, Zang Yan has no resources now, so he has to raise funds first and then talk about other things.

Putting aside the issue of investigating intelligence, the first goal is to leave Fuyuki and find a good relic for Kariya.

After that, he would have to teach Kariya magic and how to perform magic battles.

Not to mention making him successful, at least he needs to know how to hide and evade, and change his current way of thinking.

In short, all these things came together, making Zang Yan sigh that a year is too short.

However, it seems that the tight time also provides Zang Yan with sufficient challenges, making this weird old man enjoy it.

In this Holy Grail War, Zōken is ready to fight in person.

Of course, personally taking part here does not mean that he has to be the Master, but that he has to assist Kariya in secret and control the overall situation at the same time.

If Kariya fails, he will retire to the mountains and plan the next Holy Grail War.

Kariya here is not aware of Zōken's considerations.

He knew he couldn't escape, so he could only retreat in order to advance.

Seeing what Zang Yan said, Kariya’s eyes were firm: “Zang Yan! You said that!”

Zang Yan snorted: "Humph, I'm not going to deceive a little kid..."

"Come with me, I will take you to the nearest temporary workshop..."

As Zōken transformed into a group of pitch-black insects and flew up into the night sky, Kariya followed behind him, staggering towards the mountains.

Under the moonlight, Kariya murmured.

"Don't worry, Ying... Uncle Kariya will definitely free you from that guy..."

--------

The next day, in the magic workshop located in the basement of the Toosaka Mansion, Toosaka Tokiomi was observing the specific situation of the Matou Mansion through his familiar.

Just yesterday, Toosaka Tokiomi heard from Aoi about what happened to Sakura in the Matou household, and he was filled with grief.

However, although he wanted to take his daughter back immediately, his remaining rationality forced Tokiomi to be cautious.

"What went wrong? Why did Sakura become the 'Master'?"

With a bang, Tokiomi gritted his teeth and pounded the table heavily.

It was hard to imagine that he, who had always maintained an elegant demeanor, would rarely show such a loss of composure.

Just the day before yesterday, Tōsaka Tokiomi learned the news about the new Master from Kotomine Risho, and because of this news, he never slept well again.

The specific situation was that Kotomine Riki received a strange phone call the night before, and after answering it, she found out that it was from Matou Zouken.

After a while of communication between the two old men, Zōken finally reported that Sakura had become the Master, and claimed that Matou Sakura was the contestant of the Matou family in this Holy Grail ceremony.

When hearing the three words "Matou Sakura", Kotomine Risei was stunned for a moment. After recalling the meaning of the name "Matou Sakura", he couldn't help but fall into deep shock.

Isn't Matou Sakura Tokiomi's daughter? If you calculate carefully, she is only five years old this year, right?

Even when the Holy Grail War began, she was only six years old...

How could such a child become the Master of a Heroic Spirit?

Could it be that Matou Zouken was joking with him?

Although he found it somewhat incomprehensible, Yanfeng Rizheng still informed Tōsaka Tokiomi of the news, causing the already anxious father to fall into deep anxiety.

However, this is not the end. The next day, Tokiomi learned from Aoi that Sakura was abused.

When he thought of his daughter being locked up in a dark insect warehouse, being tortured by the marking insects and the lustful insects, Tokiomi could not help but grit his teeth in anger.

"Damn Matou, how could he treat an important heir like this... I should have sent Sakura to the Edelfeldt family..."

The Edelfeldt family is a famous magic family in Finland, a country of lakes in Northern Europe. They are known as the "balances that measure ore". Many masters of "Gandr" magic have emerged from their family line.

Libra refers to the magical characteristic of "Edelfeldt", and the magical characteristic is "Sisters".

Originally, magicians would hate to have multiple heirs in their family, just like the current "Tōsaka", but "Edelfeldt" went the other way, and each generation had two heirs, which is the origin of the name "Libra".

Toosaka Tokiomi's mother was from the Edelfeldt family, so it can be said that Rin and Sakura now have a quarter of foreign blood, and can be regarded as distant relatives of the Edelfeldts.

However, due to some reasons, the current "Tosaka" and "Edelfeldt" have some grievances, which has led to the two families never having any contact with each other.

In fact, during the Third Holy Grail War, sixty years ago, the former head of "Edelfeldt", a pair of twin sisters, participated in the Third Holy Grail War in Fuyuki City.

During the war, the sisters turned against each other, the younger sister died in battle, and the older sister survived. Based on this, there was a rumor that the younger sister's death was the result of a fight between the sisters.

However, the real truth is that Edelfeldt's sister fell in love with Tohsaka Tokiomi's father, and after breaking up with her sister, she stayed in Japan and gave birth to an heir to the Tohsaka family, who is the current head of the Tohsaka family, Tohsaka Tokiomi.

Originally, Tokiomi's plan was to send his daughter to Edelfeld. If it weren't for Matou's interference, Sakura would have been sent to Edelfeld's house in the end, but doing so would have cost Tokiomi a large amount of assets.

Of course, in Tokiomi's opinion, even if Sakura was sent over, it was still unclear whether she would be taken seriously.

Although Sakura is very talented, the relationship between the two families is so bad, and it is still unknown how Sakura will be treated. We can only use money to pave the way, hoping that Sakura can be treated better.

However, at this moment, Matou actually came and intercepted Sakura in advance.

On one hand, he was being trained as an heir, and on the other hand, he had to pay for it himself. However, it was precisely because of this "careful consideration" that Tokiomi did something bad with good intentions.

He didn't know that Matou had fallen to this level. If he knew, he would never send Sakura to the devil's lair.

To Tokiomi thought that learning magic would involve suffering, which was natural, just like suffering if you wanted to be an athlete and participate in the Olympics. In order to show your talents in a certain industry, how could you make your future more colorful without suffering?

People always strive to move forward, and in order to allow Sakura's talents to be better utilized, Matou, who lacks an heir, is an excellent choice no matter how you look at it.

However, Tokiomi was wrong in that he knew nothing about the Matou family. In his nearly thirty years of life, he had never witnessed the true face of the Matou family's secret magic, and could only find scarce information from documents.

It was useless to say anything now. Although Aoi said that she had seen the heroic spirit, Tokiomi felt that it was better for him to be cautious.

Now that Matou has fallen, no one knows what the heroic spirit's plan is in finding Aoi?

Tokiomi didn't know whether the information Aoi had obtained was true, nor was he sure whether Matou was planning to use this meeting to trick Tōsaka.

In short, it is better to be careful.

Thinking of this, Tokiomi stared at the picture sent back by the familiar, then stood up and walked out of the magic workshop in the basement.

When he came into the room, Tokiomi immediately saw Aoi waiting quietly not far away.

Seeing Tokiomi coming out of the workshop, Aoi stood up and looked expectantly at her husband.

"Are you ready to set off? Tokiomi..."

Under Aoi's gaze, Tokiomi shook his head and said slowly: "No, I need to make a phone call first..."

After saying that, Tokiomi came to the corridor and stopped in front of the table placed in front of the door.

There is a landline phone on the table. This thing can be used for long-distance communication. It can be said to be the crystallization of human technology, different from magic.

Tokiomi picked up the receiver, pressed the number keys one by one in the order he remembered, and quickly dialed a phone number.

The busy tone continued to echo in his ears, and after a few seconds, Tokiomi heard the voice coming from the other end of the line.

"Hello, this is Matou..."

"Hello, I am the head of the 'Tousaka family', Tousaka Tokiomi... I'm calling to communicate with Matou..."

Tokiomi first chatted with the person on the other end of the phone and expressed his desire to speak to Sakura.

The other party was silent for a while, and soon Tokiomi heard Sakura's childish voice.

Tokiomi couldn't help but feel relieved, and he asked Sakura on the other end of the phone about her well-being, and this conversation lasted for nearly half an hour.

After talking for a while, Tokiomi finally brought up the main matter and said that he wanted to talk to Sakura's brother.

Sakura hesitated for a second, then immediately called Tokiomi "Onii-chan" affectionately in his ear, saying something like "Daddy is looking for you".

For some reason, Tokiomi felt a little jealous, as if someone had taken away his own cabbage.

However, Tokiomi reacted quickly and waited for the real master to arrive.

"Hello, I'm Tatsumi, what's up?"

Hearing the young male voice, Tokiomi took a deep breath and calmed himself down.

"I'm sorry to communicate with you over the phone... I have a question for you here, as Sakura's father..."