Rin, who had been observing the actions of Gudako and the others, didn't actually need Da Vinci's reminder. As soon as adam showed signs of abnormality, Rin had already rushed to the ninth floor of the Holy Grail Ritual Grounds.
When the golden speck representing Rin appeared on the ninth floor, Touko calmly pushed up her glasses, as if she had long anticipated Rin's arrival.
As the golden speck entered the sky of the ninth floor, Touko silently raised her left hand. Countless Runes began to emerge from the edges of the ninth-floor platform, forming bands of light made of Runic script that enveloped the entire ninth floor.
Rin's expression changed as she was enveloped. Her entire form began to flicker like a television with a bad signal, only recovering after a while. When it was over, Rin actually felt that her system permissions had been temporarily locked.
With a look of seventy percent doubt and thirty percent indignation, Rin floated before Touko and questioned her.
"Touko! Why?"
"No reason. Perhaps I've just been in this Spiritron World for too long and wanted to find you to stretch my limbs a bit!"
"Liar! There's no way you could have developed a method to lock my system permissions while inside this world! You must have tampered with the spiritron computer while it was being built! Forget it, now is not the time for this. Touko, stop your 'adam' immediately! This thing will destroy this world!"
"Alright, I admit I tampered with it while I was building the spiritron computer. But Rin, don't you understand why I'm doing this?"
"I... I understand!"
"Then come! This is my only chance. I never thought that I, Touko Aozaki, would one day feel the emotion of envy. You've grown too fast—so fast that I can't even see your limits. Let me prove for the last time that I, Touko Aozaki, am also a genius!"
Hearing Touko's words, Rin's face showed an expression of anger, and she kicked out without mercy.
"Come on, Touko! And don't use those kinds of words to brush me off..."
Ever since Touko met Rin, she had witnessed Rin's growth every step of the way. Rin's rapid development put a lot of pressure on Touko Aozaki, who was also a genius. Normally, the wind-like Touko wouldn't have cared, but with the establishment of Chaldea, Da Vinci had also surpassed Touko in the field of research thanks to ample resource support.
Surpassed by Rin in magecraft and by Da Vinci in research, Touko's mindset began to shift. As the Spiritron World project unfolded, and knowing that Rin would become significantly stronger once the plan was completed, Touko could no longer suppress her inner imbalance and began to feel somewhat envious of Rin. Of course, as a longtime friend, Touko wouldn't intentionally sabotage Rin's plan.
She had simply made her own modifications to Rin's plan. Rin intended to use the creation of the Spiritron World as an opportunity to evolve the brand-new Sixth Magic. Touko's plan was to use Rin's Spiritron World to complete her own version of the Sixth Magic. Once she mastered it, she would hand it over to Rin, allowing both of them to achieve their goals simultaneously.
However, with the appearance of Gudako, Touko discovered that Rin's purpose in creating the Spiritron World wasn't as simple as merely creating the Sixth Magic. Yet, Touko, already caught in a dilemma, was like an arrow on a bowstring that had to be released.
Rather than waiting for adam to self-evolve into the Genesis Giant later, it was better to take the initiative and expose everything now. If Rin could solve it, Touko would continue to help her grow as an assistant, to see just what Rin could become and where her limits truly lay.
If Rin failed, then from that point forward, Touko would take a more active leading role and guide the growth of Rin and the others herself.
Of course, this competition between Touko and Rin was conducted on the absolute premise of not harming each other. Unbeknownst to them, Rin and those around her had already begun to form a collective interest group, and Touko, being part of it, would certainly not choose to destroy it.
Rather than saying Touko's competition stemmed from her own jealousy, it was more of a trial for Touko—a test of whether Rin could become the leader of this collective.
That was why Rin, having seen through Touko's thoughts from the very beginning, angrily threw a kick at her.
Facing Rin in her Ishtar Form, Touko simply raised her hand calmly and easily blocked the kick, which was powerful enough to shatter stone monuments.
Having developed puppet-making technology to the absolute limit of what modern society could achieve, Touko's current body, if described with Servant attributes, would have A+ rank in every major stat except for Luck.
However, Rin's subsequent actions began to strike Touko as strange. With the same posture and the same kicking technique, Rin began to repeatedly use this one move.
Touko blocked another of Rin's kicks in confusion. 'What is Rin doing? Could it be...'
Just as Touko reached out to block Rin's next attack, a terrifying, massive force exploded from Rin's pale, tender leg, instantly kicking Touko into the nearby mountainside like a cannonball.
'Source of Power'—this was precisely the spell Rin had just used. By performing the same spell with the same movements, she could obtain an exceptional Source of Power.
The inconspicuous Reinforcement Magic Rin had just applied to her leg suddenly increased in effectiveness by dozens of times as the Source of Power took effect. Even Touko, with a body comparable to a top-tier Servant, could not resist it.
However, looking at Touko buried under the rubble in the mountainside, Rin did not let down her guard in the slightest. Knowing how strong Touko was, Rin didn't believe she would be defeated so easily.
Sure enough, after a short while, as the rubble tumbled away, Touko appeared unharmed in Rin's field of vision, protected by several eerie shadow monsters.
"Rin! I really don't know where you learned these strange magecrafts! Go! shadow monsters."
Flat black cats made only of shadows hissed and charged toward Rin.
"Since your shadow monsters are shaped like black cats, I'll use black cats too!"
Having completely read the grimoires contained within the system, Rin had naturally read Moina Mathers's'Secret Records of Black Cat Worship.' As the wife and understanding companion of Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, one of the founders of the Golden Dawn, Moina Mathers—also known as the 'Black Cat Witch'—was a top-tier 'magician' who used black cats.
A large number of black cat phantoms surged out from Rin's shadow, nimbly intercepting the incoming shadow monsters while many others pounced toward Touko.
Touko casually snapped her fingers, and a Fire Rune appeared at her fingertips. The rune then transformed into a sea of fire, incinerating the black cats pouncing at her.
"This is a spell you created based on the medieval period when black cats were hunted as demons, isn't it? It seems they're still afraid of being burned at the stake."
Then, Touko leaped down from the pile of rubble, ignored the black cats and shadow monsters fighting nearby, and stopped about ten meters away from Rin.
"Rin, let's have a magecraft battle! But make it quick; it looks like things over there won't hold out much longer!"
Rin looked in the direction Touko pointed and saw that countless cracks had begun to appear on the crystal shell of the giant adam. Meanwhile, Martha and the others were already covered in wounds. Perhaps when the crystal shell on adam shattered, the Genesis Giant would be hatched.
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