Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Xilin was cleaning a fish in the kitchen... well, yes, although that word is hard to associate with her, she really was using a cleaver to clean a fish. With one stroke, the fish was split in two, not horizontally but vertically, and Zhao Yingkong, standing to the side, looked on with disbelief. But when she tried to take the cleaver back, Xilin righteously refused.

“Just killing a fish! You think I can’t do that?!” Miss Sirin yelled, and Alice immediately looked away speechlessly. She then noticed that the tableware on the table and the various kitchen utensils were all made of fine materials bearing the Cain Hearst emblem. And as her gaze shifted slightly, the scene of Zhao Zhuikong skillfully slicing a whole cow into evenly sized pieces came into view.

She suddenly noticed that the two burly men, Ba Wang and Ling Dian, were positioned cleverly, blocking Zhao Zhui Kong and Xi Lin. It seemed her companions had gone to great lengths to save face for each other. She also noticed that while Xi Lin was struggling to prepare the pitiful, mangled dead fish, Zhan Lan, a little further away, had already caught more than ten fresh fish.

Alice shook her head, clearing her mind before struggling to stand up from her chair. She herself didn't know how long ago it had been since she last experienced such a deep sleep, without even a dream. And because of this, she was somewhat unbalanced when she stood up, barely managing to resist the urge to cast a spell and relying on her body's balance to steady herself.

"Margot Lloyd, it's rare to see someone so weak." A voice that sounded rather dim-witted came from the side—she turned her head and saw a lazy, good-for-nothing named Zheng sitting on a bench two meters away from her. This idiot not only did nothing, but he didn't even bother to help a girl who was about to fall!

"I feel like you probably don't need me to help you up, um... or am I wrong?" A lazy bum spread his hands, looking innocent.

Alice gave a soft hum.

"You don't look too good." Alice raised an eyebrow, ignoring the previous topic and shifting the focus to a certain fool. Perhaps to emphasize her discomfort, her words were a bit harsher than usual: "You look so pale, were you gored by a wild boar or caught a chill while hunting?"

Zheng Zha immediately put on a bitter face.

"No, it's food poisoning." The fool sighed. "I was hunting in the woods near Yharnam, and I easily killed a lynx... or rather, a lynx. But when I tried to handle my prey like a real hunter, I never expected that its blood would be poisonous!"

"I don't know which crazy alchemist concocted a roasted snake and then let that lynx eat it! If I find out, I'll definitely—"

'Thump—!'

Suddenly, a harsh note pierced the gentle melody of the organ, and the next moment, the wooden chair Zheng Zha was sitting on silently broke into several pieces amidst the vibration! His expression turned serious, and he actually assumed a horse stance on the spot, pretending that the chair was still intact. Then, the sentence he was about to utter abruptly changed—

"I must ask that beautiful lady for some advice on alchemy and cooking techniques."

Patchouli then continued playing her organ with satisfaction. Zheng Zha slunk away and went to the side to set the table with the sulking Ba Wang Cheng Xiao and the others. This little episode ended there, and then Alice, with a dark expression, went to wash her face and also joined in the dinner preparation.

However, it must be said that talent alone is not enough when it comes to cooking; ample experience is essential. Especially when preparing Chinese dishes with ambiguous quantifiers like "appropriate amount" and "a little," even if the reincarnators present could carve patterns on their hair with their mortal bodies, the food they produce might not necessarily be considered delicious.

For example, the vegetables stir-fried by Luo Gandao were cooked to a crisp on the outside and sizzling with oil, while the inside remained raw and cold. The wild boar choy steaks pan-fried at midnight were seven-tenths cooked on the outside and charred on the inside. And Miss Xilin's fish was even more interesting; each piece of fish, cut into more than ten pieces, had different degrees of doneness and even seasoning in each part, turning a perfectly good pan-fried fish into a strangely flavorful mille-feuille!

In short, it was chaos. But amidst the chaos, the reincarnators of the Central Continent Team found a rare moment of relaxation. Whether they did well or messed up, it was all a manifestation of joy. Whether the food was delicious or not, everything prepared at this gathering tasted sweeter to the reincarnators of the Central Continent Team than any delicacy they had obtained from the Supreme God.

As the moon rose high in the sky, the reincarnators, carrying the prepared food, took their seats at the circular tables on the plaza platform. The banquet began with a single, brief word.

Zheng Zha raised his wooden cup filled with Yarnam's specialty ale. The others also raised their cups, holding either wine, juice, or ale.

"I won't say anything more. We will survive to the end, and we will win to the end. But until then—"

"For our reunion."

"cheers!"

--"cheers!"

Section 7: Basic Stage Setup

For the reincarnators of the Central Continent Team, if they felt it necessary, this rare period of joy could easily be extended for hundreds or even thousands of years. However, those still here now are no longer the flawed individuals with serious psychological vulnerabilities, prone to turning evil under the slightest pressure—and as a message fell from the circular table, Chu Xuan raised his hand to adjust his glasses, the reincarnators knew it was time to get back to work.

But Chu Xuan waved his hand.

"No, there's no rush right now." His tone remained as calm as ever. "My intelligence analysis of the Moon World is only at a preliminary stage. At present, I have only roughly analyzed a few plot lines contained in this place of the battle for the Path of Saints. And they may not be useful in the battles to come."

“But we need to know, don’t we?” Zheng Zha gripped his wine glass. For him, the dinner was already complete the moment his companions raised their glasses. He could finally be certain that his companions hadn’t grown distant from each other during this long, solitary trial; on the contrary, the camaraderie between them had deepened like fine wine in a cellar—his fingers twitched slightly, and the wine glass he held spun a small circle. “Tell us, Chu Xuan, what information have you obtained?”

Chu Xuan did not answer immediately, but instead looked up at Zhao Zhuikong.

The latter immediately understood.

"It should be a world line related to the series of planes I was in during the Hunting Ceremony, right?" Zhao Zhuikong nodded with a smile. In a good mood, he looked like a gentleman, a far cry from the perverted demeanor of the East American serial killer he once was. "The stories there are quite interesting. I remember the Celestial Team was also sent there, and Alice wrote this script, right?"

“Hmm.” Alice nodded. “That’s right, this is the world I created. I referenced two game and anime scripts set in the ancient world of Star River and the modern world of Final Destination, and after polishing some of them, I incorporated them into the Hunting Saint Ritual. Hmm… here is a backup of the corresponding story settings.”

Two streams of information descended from the circular table, displaying script information related to "Fate/stay night" and "Fate/Zero," respectively. These were then organized, summarized, and disseminated to the consciousness of each of the reincarnators present. Novels, games, anime, and related setting materials were all clearly presented before everyone, quickly summarized, and their numerous details and difficulties were analyzed.

“There are some contradictions.” Xiao Honglu raised an eyebrow. “The definition of magic is a bit strange, and there are many unclear aspects to the concepts of magic, origin, and mystery. It’s not very suitable as a reference if we only consider the worldview.”

“After all, it’s a commercial setting written by a human, so some retconning is inevitable. Oh, right, and these too.” Alice shrugged, tilted her head slightly, and snapped her fingers. Some data related to these two settings but not used in the Hunting Saint Ritual was also retrieved and uploaded for sharing. She also provided a brief explanation.

"These are setting collections for works like 'Kara no Kyoukai' and 'Tsukihime,' as well as some short story sets like 'Steel Earth' and 'Tsuki no Sangoku.' They all belong to the same world view as the two works mentioned above, but I haven't used them. However, considering that all legends have their prototypes, perhaps this reconstructed arena of conflict is related to the settings of this series?"

“That’s possible.” Chu Xuan adjusted his glasses. “But we don’t need to worry too much about those settings. According to my analysis, the Battlegrounds are derived from the two scenarios you, Alice, were involved in. Even if the settings of Kara no Kyoukai and Tsukihime exist, they will only become parallel worlds subordinate to the Battlegrounds, not the mainstream stage. The focus right now is on these two Fate series.”

Alice's mind raced for a moment.

[Ignoring *Tsukihime*, which is more likely to be related to the concept of 'Chang'e', and instead emphasizing the content setting of the Fate series... What is Chu Xuan planning now? Hmm, whatever, I don't need to get involved in the big changes he's in charge of. For now, I just need to cooperate with him and explain some details.]

Simple thoughts flashed through Alice's mind, and she immediately shifted her focus to continue the topic led by Chu Xuan.

“Well then,” she said, taking a sip from the oak glass filled with wine to moisten her throat, “while everyone is working on the settings for these two scripts, I will explain the content of these two storylines.”

........................

The story begins with the fictional King Arthur, whose real name in the current world is Artoria Pendragon, a female knight-king who perished at Gladiolus Hill. In this world, ancient Britain, ruled by King Arthur, is the last vestige of the Age of Gods. It is destined for destruction, and Artoria knew her fate as the last king the moment she pulled the sword from the stone.

She knew she would die, knew her kingdom would die. But she hoped her kingdom would decline peacefully and quietly, like an old person passing away. She devoted much effort to this, and it was precisely for this reason that when her kingdom was plunged into civil war due to the rebellion among the Knights of the Round Table, and the ancient knightly kingdom met its demise in the most violent way, her regret prevented her inevitable death, giving her life and death an ambiguous state at that moment.

At the boundary between life and death, the collective consciousness of humanity, 'Alaya,' approached her and entered into a contract. She would be cast into a Holy Grail ritual in the distant future as a wanderer on the edge of life and death, battling against six other Heroic Spirits from different eras, presumably already dead. The victor would receive the Holy Grail as a reward—if she succeeded, she would become part of 'Alaya,' a guardian of humanity. If she failed, she would try again.

She yearned for the Holy Grail because she wanted to make a wish. Even if her beloved old Britain was destined to perish, she hoped to find a wise man who could allow the kingdom to slumber peacefully, replacing herself who had pulled the sword from the stone at that time. And for this reason, even if becoming the Guardian was a path destined for eternal damnation, she was willing to gamble her soul.

And so, time flowed on. And a thousand years later, through a series of coincidences, magicians... or rather spellcasters, who had acquired the ritual to summon Heroic Spirits, finally set up the stage for the ceremony in Fuyuki City, Japan. Accompanied by the radiant glow of the summoning, this young female knight king, along with six other ancient heroes, anti-heroes, and demigods, descended upon this land in the form of Servants. And what followed was two fierce battles for the Holy Grail.

The first war she descended upon was the Fourth Holy Grail War, after the three previous rituals had ended in failure. However, for various reasons, the Fourth Holy Grail War ended with her destroying the corrupted Holy Grail. Yet, ten years after the failed ritual, the descendants of the participants in the previous war dragged her back to the battlefield, having been returned to the boundary between life and death due to the defeat.

This time, she has a one-in-three chance of finding something more precious than her wish...

........................

“That’s about it.” Alice shrugged and replied, “As for how these seven ancient heroes and their assistants outwitted each other in the two rituals, what conspiracies and changes were hidden in the rituals, what sparks would fly between the heroine Artoria and the male protagonist Shirou Emiya, and the love triangle, these are all irrelevant details that you can find on search engines. I won’t go into detail here.”

"I feel like the parts you omitted are the important ones..." Cheng Xiao muttered under his breath, sitting in the 'corner' of the table. Luo Gandao, sitting next to him, nodded in complete agreement.

Then, when a 'casual' glance swept over them, they obediently chose to shut up.

However, Alice still spoke up and offered an explanation.

"It's not that I deliberately omitted it, but it's unnecessary. The Dao Conflict Ground is destined to be a completely new world line derived from the relevant settings. Even if those stories were told, they wouldn't happen. Moreover, for us now, for the Central Continent Team, the scope represented by this story is a bit too small."

Her gaze swept over Cheng Xiao, then pointed at Luo Gandao.

"Rogando, assuming you're fully prepared, how long do you think it would take you to destroy the surface civilization of this Fate world?"

"I..." Luo Gandao was taken aback at first, and was about to say 'How could I do that?' when the scene of him piloting a giant mech in the final Great Void battle of the Zero World, defeating the seemingly strong and indeed very strong Titan 'Qua' in a mysterious way, quietly surfaced in his mind. Immediately afterward, Chu Xuan's promise to make 'Qua's' remains into a divine mech exclusively for him, Luo Gandao, and the fact that he had already largely fulfilled that promise, also clearly appeared in his mind.

What would happen if I unlocked the third stage of my genetic lock and piloted this divine mech in battle? —Could a single stomp destroy a city, a single punch unleash a massive Tsar Bomba? And what if I could completely control this extraordinary, no, this divine mech of true godhood…

...So I could probably drill through the earth's crust and bombard its core within a week?

"...I think Alice, you make a lot of sense." Logan nodded seriously, completely ignoring Cheng Xiao's twitching face beside him, which looked at him as if he were a traitor to a weakling camp. "The scale of this story is indeed a bit too small for our Zhongzhou team. We should focus our attention on more important things."

"Wait, wait a minute! Isn't this a bit too rushed?" Cheng Xiao couldn't help but exclaim. "Maybe there are some hidden secrets in the plot? For example, maybe the Noble Phantasms of these Servants are weak because they are suppressed by the Counter Force or something..."

"Do you think a planetary spirit can suppress a true god? Or that the collective consciousness of seven billion ordinary beings with no magic can rival a supernatural being?" Alice glanced at him and retorted. Then, after the guy fell silent, she changed the subject: "Of course, Cheng Xiao, your concerns are not without merit, because what I want to emphasize next is precisely this aspect."

"What will be used in the Chang'e Dao Contest is only the setting, not the story. In these two scenarios, I think the concepts of Root, Counter Force, Heroic Spirit, and Servant are the most important. They are very likely to be used in the new setting."

"Haven't you noticed?" Alice gestured. "The world-building of the Fate series is quite interesting. Magic, spells, the Counter Force, the Holy Grail Ritual—all these things are confined to a tiny planet. Yet the concept of the Root is far greater than a mere planet. If we measure it with the most divergent thinking, the Root, which supposedly 'records everything and stores infinite energy,' can even be seen as the core of the world, the Akasha Records, the library of the universe. And if we understand it this way, then these summoned Servants might possess a different kind of meaning."

"According to some existing settings, the prototype of a Servant, the Heroic Spirit, may just be a record, some knowledge, a natural phenomenon. It refers to the trace left behind by the message of a living being in this single universe. It has no birth, no death, no strength, no weakness, and should not even have self-awareness, because it represents information, a record, reflecting the dead individual but having nothing to do with that individual—and the so-called Servant is actually a container that is activated after this message, which is stored in the 'cosmic library' of the Root, is filled with energy."

Do you know what this means?

"This means that Gaia is essentially just a terminal interface of the Root. It retrieves the records of the native heroes from the Root, then fills them with energy to turn them into Servants. The guardians of Alaya are a poor imitation of the Heroic Spirit phenomenon, capturing qualified souls and filling them with energy to make them its henchmen. This also means that the latter has a limit to its potential."

"Of course, the second conclusion is not important; the first one is. If the former is true, then it means that whether Earth is destroyed or not is actually unrelated to the Heroic Spirits themselves. Because their essence is recording, is information, and their dwelling place is actually the Root Vortex, which can be equated with the 'Cosmic Library'. And this also means that if they obtain support from the Root Vortex, then they can increase the power they possess almost infinitely."

Alice sighed softly.

"A small temple cannot contain a great Buddha, and shallow waters cannot nurture a dragon. If Servants are merely henchmen created by the spirits of Gaia, then no matter how absurd their design, I will kill as many as they come. However, if Gaia only serves as an interface, their essence is a record engraved in the Root, and Servants are merely vessels for their activation—"

"Then they will possess the ability to compete with us, and even pose a deadly threat to our Reincarnation Squad, which has multiple true gods. Don't even mention the light and dark curry sticks evaporating the solar system; the battlefield could potentially engulf the entire galaxy."

“With this setting as the core, the theme of the Battleground should also unfold around this central axis.” She turned her head to look at the bespectacled man who had been silent all along.

"Am I right, Chu Xuan?"

Section 8: Holiday Fungus Still Alive!

Chu Xuan nodded slightly in agreement.

“Your guess is correct. This rule will likely be applied to the Dao Struggle Grounds, but there’s something wrong with that.” He made a gesture, and a vortex shape immediately appeared in the air. “This newly formed universe might be able to support the arrival of Servants with a size equivalent to a single universe. But in reality, we won’t encounter enemies of that scale, because we are not the protagonists in this Dao Struggle. We are just supporting characters who follow behind the protagonists and pick up the scraps.”

"Because the essence of the world is still the struggle between sages?" Xiao Honglu nodded in agreement. "Indeed, this world may be generated based on the settings of this Fate world, but ultimately it must serve the struggle between sages. Their main battlefield is likely this so-called Vortex of Origin—"

"A vortex requires at least two opposing forces to form. In this land of Dao contention, the vast majority of energy and concepts are channeled into these opposing forces, naturally preventing any excessively powerful enemies from emerging from the source and colliding with us, the reincarnators."

"But how can we profit from this?" Zhan Lan interjected. "The basic worldview has been established, but the main god should be hostile to the sages of the primordial world, right? Since whoever ultimately wins will become the sage Chang'e in the primordial heavens, will our position here be to oppose both sages simultaneously?"

“That kind of thing won’t happen.” Chu Xuan pushed up his glasses. “I can’t go into the specific details, but I can confirm that the main god will also remain neutral in this ritual due to another level of competition. What we need to do is to be selected into the winning camp in the battle for the Dao of the Sages, and when their opponents fail, we will be able to obtain the power and fragments of will of the losers when they achieve Dao liberation.”

He paused, then added, "Not only us, but the other reincarnation teams will also participate in this war."

"A true six-team war..." Xiao Honglu frowned slightly, a stray hair falling silently from his forehead. "But how do we choose a side? Chang'e and Aiqidra... how do we join one of them and directly plunge into the main battlefield of the Vortex of Origin? No, that's too stupid. And if we don't take sides, can we just find a place to hide until the Dao War ends and still gain something?"

“No, we have to choose one of the two camps. Otherwise, we might be seen as an obstacle to both sides and be eliminated directly. As for how to choose a camp—” Chu Xuan pushed up his glasses. “If I’m not mistaken, the battle at the Vortex of Origin will be reflected in the material universe, and then construct a world representing the conflict between the two Saints’ powers. The scale of this world may not be very large, but it is a chessboard that we can participate in.”

“What we need to do is find the character in this world who represents the saint we are trying to support. Then join his side and follow him until the story comes to an end,” Alice added. “The difficulty lies in finding the character who represents the saint’s will in this world. If we can identify the representative, then the chances of returning with a full harvest are at least one in half.”

"...What would happen if we destroyed the chessboard directly?" Zhang Jie asked.

“Two possibilities,” Alice replied. “One is to directly generate another chessboard that reflects the battle situation. The other possibility is that we would be killed by the two saints together before we could even make a move. I don’t recommend doing that, and we might not even be able to do it at that time.”

Zhang Jie waved his hand, indicating that he understood.

“What if we don’t find the figure representing the saint, or what if we’ve chosen the wrong person?” Sirin asked slowly, cutting a piece of grilled steak as she continued eating, seemingly without a care in the world. “And Alice, the rule you’re describing reminds me of Troy—wars between mortals are merely a microcosm of battles between gods. If we consider the two saints as Zeus and Athena respectively, then which hero should we, as lesser gods, support in the seemingly invincible Greek coalition?”

"The commander Agamemnon? The demigod Agrippa? Or the only surviving Greek hero Odysseus?" She put a steak in her mouth, took a satisfied 'mmm' bite, and then added, "Or should we try a different approach and support Aeneas, the only surviving hero of Troy? After all, although his homeland was destroyed, his descendants founded the great Rome."

"The worst-case scenario is that we've chosen an Ajax who capsized on his way home." Xiao Honglu casually plucked another hair, a wry smile playing on his lips. Xilin's relaxed demeanor eased the tension in the discussion. Meanwhile, the little one continued gnawing on a fried spider leg after speaking.

The scenario they were referring to wasn't complicated, as Chu Xuan had stated. The battle between the two saints in the Vortex of Origin would project the conflict into an ordinary world. In this world, there would inevitably be two individuals, two forces, or two ideologies representing Chang'e and Aiqidra respectively. The reincarnators' task was to identify the two individuals or groups representing the two saints and join them. When their chosen side emerged victorious, they would reap the rewards.

Based on this, those who reincarnate in the struggle for the Dao will ultimately lose everything, whether they choose the losing side or the wrong side that does not represent one of the two saints. Therefore, finding the representative of one of the saints, and even further identifying which saint it is, will be the most important task in this operation.

But how do you do that?

“This is indeed a difficult problem,” Alice sighed. “We know very little about either Chang’e or Aichidra. We know nothing about their symbols, their beliefs, or the essence of their holy ways. We cannot be sure that the side we choose is the right one, let alone choose a specific side.”

“What’s even more troublesome is that even if we successfully find a representative for one of the two saints, after joining their camp, we’ll probably just be like fools, quietly waiting for the outcome of the battle between the saints.” Zhan Lan sighed, just like Alice, and said, “They’re on different levels. I don’t think we have the ability to influence the battle between the saints.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Chu Xuan said, denying it. “The image of the Vortex of Origin might not be unable to interfere with the outcome of the battle within the Vortex of Origin. But this also means that the competition between the Samsara Teams will become more intense—but let’s leave that aside for now. I have some… things on hand, and I suggest that everyone take a look before this holiday ends.”

Chu Xuan's words became unusually vague, and everyone present immediately realized that they should not delve into the origins or other details of these 'things'. As the group of reincarnators consciously shut their mouths, a dozen or so messages, resembling a mobile phone and completely out of place in Yharnam, appeared before the reincarnators of the Central Continent team.

Okay, it's a cell phone. It can't make calls, it can't take pictures, and the entire device only has one executable application. And as the members of the Central State team tapped the interface, a certain kind of background music that made one's liver ache subtly began to play.