Transferring sorcery traits was not a form of magecraft suitable for being performed in public, at least Illya would have found it somewhat embarrassing.
Su Mo naturally wouldn't disagree with his daughter's small request.
Thus, borrowing Rin Tohsaka's room, he delved deep into Illya... and all the knowledge she possessed.
The complete Third Magic, the externally equipped Fifth Magic, and a hidden power.
Is this... the Fourth Magic?
Of the five True Magics of the Nasuverse, she alone was involved with three.
Only one of the powers contained within Illya was slightly beyond Su Mo's expectations.
The Fifth Magic was Illya's most superficial power. She had only been granted limited usage rights and could only perform a limited number of operations, at most borrowing the power of her future self to fight. Su Mo had bestowed this divine protection upon her mainly for self-preservation. Techniques like manipulating the timeline, defining the era before her birth as a time when she did not exist—and was therefore "dead"—to perform an irregular summoning, were dangerous operations. For that alone, she would not escape a bit of punishment.
The Third Magic, Heaven's Feel, the Materialization of the Soul, was the strongest law Illya had mastered, and it was the source of her spiritual rank.
"It's less that you've mastered the Third Magic, and more that you were woven from the Third Magic itself!"
Upon exploring the deepest parts of her, Su Mo was slightly surprised. Illya's composition was strange and familiar, completely identical in concept to that of a Flügel.
If the essence of a Flügel was a living Heaven's Strike, then Illya's essence was a living Third Magic. It was less that she had mastered Heaven's Feel, and more that she herself was Heaven's Feel come to life.
Although he didn't know the reason, when his future self created this daughter, it seemed he had wanted to grant intelligence to the Third Magic, which led to Illya's birth. This also meant that when Su Mo met the Illya from the future and successfully explored her structure, he could obtain the complete Third Magic directly from her without needing to contact the Root.
By simulating the powers of the two Aeons, Nous and Fuli, through his Pantheon, it took Su Mo only a few minutes to successfully record all the conceptual models Illya represented in his mind and, with his own powerful formlessness, completely comprehend them.
Without a shred of modesty, one could say that the current Su Mo had completely mastered the Third Magic, becoming a Third Magician far superior to the Winter Saint of old.
"The conversion between information, energy, and matter... this isn't a law of salvation at all. Eternal life is just a sham... No wonder both the Winter Saint and Amakusa Shirou failed. Their goal was wrong from the very beginning."
After fully comprehending the essence of the Third Magic, Su Mo shook his head.
The infinite energy of the Third Magic could, at most, construct a second-class perpetual motion machine, and a limited-range one at that. A law of this level wasn't even enough to maintain a cycle, let alone save the world. No wonder the Counter Force itself didn't interfere much. The goal of the Holy Grail War was impossible to achieve from the start.
"Daddy's right! But I don't know why, when I told Grandpa Acht about this, he transferred the sovereignty of the Einzbern family to me and Mommy, and then killed himself!"
As the Third Magic come to life, Illya naturally understood the meaning of Su Mo's words. Recalling what had happened when she first descended as a Servant, a hint of confusion appeared in her eyes. Although she possessed extraordinary power, for an elementary schooler, these things were still too difficult to understand.
"Don't worry about it. He has fulfilled his mission," Su Mo shook his head, not intending to explain too much. "To be able to determine that the Third Magic is insufficient to save the world is a valuable conclusion for humanity."
"Oh!" Illya nodded, half-understanding.
After mastering the Third Magic, Su Mo continued to explore deeper. This time, he was focusing on the most mysterious law within Illya, the only one that had surprised him: the Fourth Magic.
Even for a transmigrator, the Fourth Magic remained a very mysterious existence with no official setting. It was only known that this was a law that had long been hidden. The only piece of information was that all five True Magics were related to creation, and even if hidden, traces could be found.
The reason Su Mo was able to discover the existence of the Fourth Magic, which even he had never seen before, was mainly because Illya's fundamental spiritual rank was related to it.
The complete Third Magic and the hidden Fourth Magic constituted the spiritual rank of Illya's birth state.
However, after carefully examining her multiple times, to the point where Illya herself was getting embarrassed and felt like she needed to use the restroom, Su Mo still hadn't found any obvious clues. Just as it was said, the Fourth Magic had hidden itself. Even with the projection of Nous, Su Mo couldn't find anything unusual.
"Strange..."
For Su Mo, this was a rather rare occurrence. With his level of comprehension, he rarely encountered a situation where he couldn't find the door.
"What's wrong, Daddy? Do you need to check again?" Illya's red eyes looked at Su Mo wetly. Although she was very embarrassed, if Su Mo asked, she probably wouldn't refuse to be carefully examined again.
"No need," Su Mo shook his head. "I have a general idea of the situation. I just need to verify it a little."
When research hits a dead end, you just need to turn around and question the common sense in your own mind, and you'll most likely crack the truth. The moment he realized he had hit a dead end, Su Mo had already perceived a certain possibility. If he wasn't mistaken, then the Fourth Magic was just as he thought: a law of wisdom.
The greatest hermit hides in the city. It wasn't that it had hidden itself, but that the miracles it created were so commonplace that they were subconsciously ignored.
"You still need to verify?" Hearing this, Illya showed a pitiful expression. Her legs felt like jelly.
"It has nothing to do with you. I was talking about the Holy Grail War," Su Mo shook his head, letting Illya lie down at ease. "You rest well. I'm going to the Root to get the Magic!"
"Okay! Come back soon, Daddy!"
Unlike Rin Tohsaka, Illya, a natural-born Magician, wasn't sensitive to the dangers of the Root. She collapsed onto the bed without a care in the world.
When Su Mo emerged from the room, Karna and Gilgamesh had already tactfully taken their leave. The spiritual cores of two top-tier Servants were equivalent to the weight of three ordinary Servants, and the Lesser Grail was instantly filled.
Seeing Su Mo appear, the still-pure young lady Irisviel proactively came forward and presented the Lesser Grail, her eyes darting away from Su Mo as she mustered the courage to ask with concern, "Excuse me, Lord Su Mo, how is Illya now?"
To have summoned her own daughter in the Holy Grail War before even experiencing love, and to be told that she would become the wife or maid of the man before her, Irisviel had initially refused. But Su Mo's appearance was exactly to her taste, and she couldn't part with Illya's cuteness, so she "had no choice" but to compromise, tacitly agreeing to follow the young man before her.
"She's fine. She's just a little tired," Su Mo said casually. He certainly wouldn't do anything to a child. Although Illya had infinite magical energy, her mind was still in a growth stage and couldn't withstand an excessive amount of mental exchange. However, with her talent, she would fully recover after a short rest, so there was no need to worry.
"That's good."
After taking the Lesser Grail, Su Mo directly opened a spatial portal and arrived at the Ryuudou Temple, inside the Greater Grail.
Just as in the original Fourth Holy Grail War, after absorbing enough Servant souls, even though the war had not yet ended, the Grail ritual had already entered the next stage.
The souls of the three Servants confined in the Lesser Grail began to return to the Throne of Heroes on the Reverse Side of the World, the Boundary Record Prime, as was customary for the Heroic Spirit summoning ritual. This process directly caused a hole to be opened on the Reverse Side of the World. A hole leading to the Reverse Side of the World naturally also led to the Root, and the Greater Grail's magical energy took the opportunity to fix this hole in place. The mage who won the Holy Grail War would then have the right to slip through this small hole and directly enter the Root.
As a walking epic of mythology, Su Mo naturally didn't need to use such a shortcut to approach the Root. After glancing at the hole in the world's membrane, he directly activated his Authority, connecting to the Root through his divine power, and strode into the depths of the Root, ignoring the hole.
The Swirl of the Root, a domain known as "all and nothing." If the Holy Grail could only be used as a tool to control the sovereignty of the world, then the Swirl of the Root contained knowledge that was nearly infinite and equally capable of grasping the multiverse.
Su Mo had not forgotten the purpose of his trip. Even with the interruption from Illya, his primary goal this time was still not the mysterious Fourth Magic, but the Second Magic of parallel world interference, designed for creating Celestial Spirits.
There was no concept of time and space in the Root, but there was a basic logical order and conceptual partitions.
In this chaotic void, with the help of the myth-limited parallel world interference he had mastered from his God's Domain, Su Mo quickly entered the partition of the Second Magic.
"The Second Magician, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg?"
Upon arriving in this area, which was like an island in a chaotic, dark sea, the first thing Su Mo saw was the name of the current Second Magician.
In the Nasuverse, it was common knowledge that there could only be one master of a True Magic, and that Magicians were mutually exclusive. Whether it was the Fifth Magic or the Second Magic, as long as one Magician existed, the authority of that Magic was monopolized by them, and this possession could only be released upon their death. This was the reason Rin had thought Su Mo would attack Zelretch. To obtain the Second Magic, how could you not kill the original owner?
At the time, Su Mo's answer had been that he would use peaceful means. Rin had thought this "peaceful" had a special, hidden meaning, but she hadn't expected Su Mo to genuinely intend to solve the problem peacefully.
The reason he did so was not because he disliked conflict, nor was it due to moral factors. It was simply because, in his eyes, there was no room for this so-called common knowledge to exist.
"There can only be one Magician who has completely mastered a True Magic?"
Su Mo shook his head silently.
"To this day, there has never been a Magician in this world who has truly mastered any of the True Magics. What right do they have to reach such a conclusion?"
In his view, the Magicians of the Nasuverse, whether they were involved with the Second, Third, or Fifth Magic, were not qualified to be called masters of True Magic. For a law of creation of this level, even the most proficient, Zelretch, had only touched the surface.
As for the exclusivity of the mastery of a Magic, it might indeed exist, but it wasn't a big problem. One could see a lot just from Illya's state.
"My future self is the master of at least the Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Magics. Illya is not a Magician, but the Third Magic itself, so that doesn't count. But if Aoko is related to me, I most likely wouldn't strip her of the law she has mastered."
Mulling this over, Su Mo reached out and touched Zelretch's name.
"So, there must be a way to bypass the existing Magicians and obtain an absolute authority that surpasses theirs."
Thinking of this, a thought struck Su Mo.
What method could be used to gain absolute priority in a field where the first-comer had the advantage?
Of course, it was to inscribe one's own name in the Root before everyone else.
As for how to achieve this, there was no longer any need for doubt.
"Timeline interference..."
Su Mo mobilized his Mythic Thaumaturgy, the power of the three Fates of the Indo-European pantheon, to interfere with the past, present, and future.
"As for the specific time... let's use the Trimurti, the creator gods, as coordinates, and return to the dawn of creation!"
With a slight thought, the timeline immediately changed.