The infinite sword system has been mastered, and you say this is the dragon clan?

Chapter 353 "The Hidden Ones: A Loving and Harmonious Family"

Emiya left the corridor, glanced at the location of Leonardo da Vinci's workshop, and prepared to enter.

However, as soon as the automatic sliding door opened, he saw the Demon God Pillar Flauros suffer a terrible fate—no, it was a scene of contributing to the development of Chaldea's biology.

"So, Leonardo da Vinci, you also conducted human experiments! I need to change my previous impression of you a bit."

"Hmm? This is clearly a Demon Pillar research project that you, Team Leader Emiya, requested. And isn't your definition of 'human body' a bit too broad?"

Da Vinci turned around, hands on his hips, eyebrows raised. "By the way, I also have a little bit of knowledge about real human body modification. Do you want to know the secret to maintaining my goddess-like figure and appearance (Mona Lisa)? I'm quite confident in my female transformation techniques!"

"No, no, no, let's skip that!"

Emiya quickly waved his hand. What Da Vinci had just said was as terrifying as undergoing surgery in Thailand.

"If any other girls are interested, they can also order a permanent beauty package from me, and the second one is half price! Emiya, please help spread the word! We're all part of the harmonious and loving Chaldea family, so we won't cheat our own people!"

Not betraying your own people? You must have been joking with me!
Emiya shook his head silently for a moment, but the conversation between the two continued for several seconds. Looking at Da Vinci's smug, business-like smile and her nonchalant, sales-oriented tone, he felt a chill run down his spine, thinking to himself, "Oh no, she's found another new business opportunity!"
"Hey Emiya-sama, could you do me a favor and help promote this? Hehe, if the girls aren't interested, guys are welcome too! I think that Lu Mingfei has a real talent for 'becoming beautiful'! Combined with his inherently weak and insecure personality, his popularity will definitely skyrocket after he's turned into a beautiful girl!"

Emiya said, "Next time for sure, next time for sure... No, this is something that would be hard for a normal man to accept, right?" After saying that, Emiya pressed his temples. If Lu Mingfei were mentally sound, how could he possibly go and get a sex change for no reason?

He changed the subject, which was becoming increasingly strange, "By the way, Leonardo da Vinci, how's your research on the (Demon Pillars) going?"

"Don't rush me, don't rush me, I'm working on it. In order to get some initial results as soon as possible, I, as the head of the Chaldea Technology Development Department, even specially invited an 'expert consultation'." Da Vinci led Emiya deeper into his workshop.

Emiya followed behind her, his fluffy, smooth hair wafting a natural and comfortable fragrance. Above him, a sign on the wall displayed the word "Magic" and flashed a warning that "No Trespassing Allowed." On the workbenches on both sides were some unused, unfinished, or experimental props and materials, such as the shell of the Imaginary Submarine Armor, Magical Fluid, and strange Prism Cubes. Some of these were even protected by magical barriers.

At the end of an incredibly long corridor—Emiya even suspected that Leonardo da Vinci might have intentionally led him through it to show off the enormous common area and abundant inventory in his workshop—the two finally arrived at their destination.

Meanwhile, the poor Demon Pillar Flauros was bound in the pool by some kind of special fluid solution and could not move. It was also isolated by a closed transparent water tank. To Emiya's slight surprise, Nuwa and BB were discussing something around this monster.

Were they experts hired by Leonardo da Vinci?
Da Vinci opportunely remarked, "Well, I made a deal, selling a non-sale item to get this goddess, Nuwa, who founded the Spiral Pavilion, to join the research work—as for your AI, Emiya, she... probably just showed up uninvited for some reason."

"Yo, Shirou!" Wa Zhu had been feeling a bit nauseous from the strange-looking Demon God Pillar, but her terrible expression finally calmed down when she saw Emiya arrive.

"Thank you for your hard work. I didn't expect you to agree to come and help."

Nuwa chuckled, “Who are we to each other? Why are you suddenly being so polite once we’re at Chaldea? Besides, this whole thing was originally my responsibility. To prevent this monster from escaping and to prevent external enemies from discovering Chaldea, I need to stay here permanently to seal off the spacetime here. This is a responsibility that only I can shoulder.”

“Yes, I know,” Emiya said as Nuwa leaned in for a brief moment of tenderness, but quickly pulled away under the watchful eyes of the other two people in the room…

"Ahem, I'd like to trouble you, Nuwa, to tell me about the Demon God Pillar project."

“Oh, this monster called Demon Pillar—” Nuwa straightened her sleeves and straightened her face again, “It’s very peculiar, neither human nor dragon nor god, but it happens to be… a hybrid of characteristics from different species.”

"Oh dear! This is as good as saying nothing at all! Someone was so confident that he could control the Demon God Pillar, but in the end, he's just a half-baked expert!"

Through the water tank, BB stood with her hands on her hips, looking slightly dissatisfied. She had just witnessed the half-snake woman and Emiya being intimate. Even though she had restrained herself in front of others, BB keenly sensed that Nuwa was clearly "not quite done."

"I haven't finished speaking yet, and a magical artifact spirit (AI) has to interrupt. Shouldn't you at least show some human manners?" Nuwa raised an eyebrow. Although she looked young, she was quite experienced and wouldn't easily argue with BB.

"This monster called Demon Pillar has some dragon-like characteristics in its spirit and soul, such as committing crimes repeatedly and being cruel and bloodthirsty towards humans. However, its immortality and flexible and varied magic surpass those of dragons. Finally, I also discovered a large number of human biological characteristics in the Demon Pillar's physical tissues, like a Frankenstein's monster with various traits."

Nuwa spoke at length, concluding that, "However, in essence, these Demon God Pillars are a unified life form with a spiritual connection between them."

"Mental link?" Emiya thought it sounded increasingly familiar, somewhat like the spell they prepared for the Hidden Ones.

Nuwa seemed to have guessed Emiya's thoughts:

"It's not that kind of primitive spiritual interconnection, but rather a complex metaphysical spiritual thought interconnection platform. We physically captured this monster's account data by following the network cable and hijacked it, but we can't do anything about the server data stored on the platform itself."

"This guy said before that we couldn't change his stance, and it seems that's true. It seems that we can't shake his inner nature until the platform that connects the Demon God Pillars collapses, unless we launch a direct all-out attack on them."

A large platform? Emiya frowned and pondered for a long time.

The Demon Pillars' grand platform... refers to the "Overall Department (Goetia)"? He remembered that in FGO, Goetia, on some level, was the Overall Department that gathered the consciousness of all the Demon Pillars. This guy... is basically the Demon Pillars' backer, right?
While Chaldea did capture a demon god, this was merely the exposed terminal, a far cry from modifying the backend system.

In the original FGO storyline, there were successful attempts to modify the spirits of the Demon Pillars. For example, Sesshouin Kiara took the initiative and brainwashed the Demon God Jiepai who possessed her... But this happened after the Demon Pillars were separated from the group, and a Demon Pillar fighting alone was not a threat.

"So can't we get anything useful out of this? Can't we dig out the information we want?"

BB floated in mid-air on the other side, arms crossed, the heavy fruit on her chest pressing down on her arms. "It's possible, but the timeframe is a bit long. We also have to consider the risk of our base being exposed—"

"Of course, if we entrust this task to the all-powerful BB, we can super-speed up the project's progress without any drags on! In terms of data analysis, the superior AI is a million times better than the human brain~" Emiya heard BB's mental calculations, which were practically belittling everyone else as a burden, and thought to himself, what's the point of getting involved in this kind of thing?

“No, no, no, there’s something we can use quickly right now,” Nuwa said, not giving an inch. “Shirou, and everyone else, have you noticed that the existence mechanism of the Demon God Pillars is similar to something?... Ah, Shirou should be the one who knows it best here.”

Nuwa glanced at BB meaningfully, "After all, among everyone present, only Shirou truly understands me in this regard!"

"Huh?" Emiya thought to himself, what do I know best about you? I feel like I have so much to say, could it be the depth of your understanding?

Under the deliberate or unintentional leading words, the atmosphere at the scene fell into an eerie silence, with everyone staring at each other. However, Emiya quickly snapped out of his mental trance and began to recall the things that were closest to the mechanism of the Demon Pillars' existence...

Looking into Nuwa's bright eyes, he suddenly seemed to remember something, and lowered his head slightly, saying, "The Thought Compass?"

The latter smiled brightly, "That's right, the Thought Plate that I planned to build in Shenzhou is a place that gathers many consciousnesses and thoughts, and can be called the foundation of immortals. It can be seen that this close spiritual combination is enough to bring amazing power!"

Emiya nodded.

This is even evident in the alchemical matrix that Caesar brought from the Secret Society. It can communicate with the consciousness of everyone and strengthen a specific word of power. The best example is right in front of us - Lu Mingfei healed all the staff with just one "Don't die"!
Similarly, the Thought Disc connects all the mystical beings, including hybrid magicians, across the entire land, and even the Nuwa, who holds the most core authority, is superior to the immortals. The Demon King also used this power to integrate the Demon Pillars, which were originally scattered, and their abilities and immortality underwent incredible changes.

The great paths are indeed all interconnected.

Nuwa continued, “When it comes to specifics, there are differences. The ‘great power’ of the Demon God Pillars probably belongs to the ‘King’ behind them, and they are at most employees of different departments and institutions under this King; but the Divine Continent Thought Disk is different. It has specific promotion levels, and the user’s permission level can be raised step by step with cultivation.”

"But the Demon Pillars, as a form of mental interconnection, also have advantages. This metaphysical connection is more closed than the Thought Disk and easier to build. In this respect, it fits very well with Chaldea's Hidden Ones Project. I think we can imitate the mental data of the Demon Pillars to create a similar platform—"

Emiya listened with a somewhat strange expression, "So, we can upgrade the current rather rudimentary mental communication among the Hidden Ones into a cross-dimensional chat group?"

A loving and harmonious family of hidden members?

Nuwa stroked her smooth chin with her finger, "Far more than that, it should be considered... a transdimensional spiritual virtual cloud sharing platform?"

Oh right, Emiya almost forgot that Nuwa's thought process was inspired by some concepts from cloud computing.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

[Ding! Welcome to the 'Hidden Ones' united and friendly family']

[Group Announcement: New members, please remember to change your group nickname~ Also, please share your recent activities after joining the group!]

"Holy crap! Am I hallucinating from eating mushrooms?!"

Fingal, disheveled and dressed like a jungle savage, looked up from the dense rainforest with a mixture of surprise and uncertainty. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found no dinosaurs or terrifying upright creatures approaching.

Oh my god, that scared me to death!

Fingel recalled that after entering the Spirit Transfer Container, his consciousness was pulled away by the alien god's light, and then he appeared in this South American rainforest and was forced to survive in the wilderness for a whole month. During this time, he also encountered talking, highly intelligent dinosaurs!

He vaguely remembered being taught at school that ancient dragons had the ability to change their skeletal structure to disguise themselves, so sometimes dinosaurs might be disguised ancient dragons. Startled, Fingel immediately fled into the depths of the dense forest.

Tsk, they're living more and more like savages.

And he was the only savage from the Mesozoic Era, the age of dinosaurs. In an era before humans even appeared, it's likely impossible to find even a single human of his kind. You damned alien god, I curse you, you immortal!
Fortunately, the organization did not abandon him.

Following the instructions on the rudimentary platform, Fingel quickly mastered the art of speaking, and he uttered words swiftly through his inner thoughts:
"Family members, please help me! I'm currently in the Mesozoic rainforest of the Americas, where dinosaurs and ferocious beasts roam freely. I haven't had a fresh meal in almost a month. Please, everyone, do me a favor and help me out. These days, providing intelligence to the organization is already doing my best, but a person can't live without food!"

Soon someone replied—in a calm tone, like Abbas: "But even so, we can't help, can we? This group chat can't transmit physical items."

"Ah! How could this be?" Fingel almost wanted to ask if he could receive a red envelope. If he could, he would love to pack himself up and send himself to a place where he could eat and drink well.

Finally, Emiya broke the deadlock by speaking up, "Fingal, right? Don't be so hasty. The dinosaurs over there don't eat people, do they?"

"Isn't that right? I certainly don't think so. I even speak very politely, saying that I'm different from other Oserotl, but what if... they're just pretending to lie to me?" Fingel's eyes widened.

Emiya added, "You could try to find out if, besides the talking, good-natured dinosaurs, there are any rude and ferocious humans there... As for Oserotl, I think it's too early to conclude that it's from the Mesozoic era. After all, it's a Lostbelt..."

Lostbelts, well, they develop like another world.

Perhaps the dinosaurs that evolved in this place were all as easy-going and rational as normal humans, while the humans that evolved from them were just as ferocious as the original dinosaurs.

Fingel's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened even more. Good heavens, the dragons in the Lostbelt have human hearts, but humans have dragon hearts. Is this a reversal of the natural order?
(End of this chapter)