The Next Einzbern (Fate AU) Prologue

The awe of being reborn in Fate swiftly left me after I realised that I was far away from everything remotely fascinating and that I had no powers to speak of.


No unique abilities, no Servants, no legacy to tap into, nothing…


Just a regular household!


I wouldn’t complain if I were in the regular world, but this was different. We had magic… vampires, and world-ending stuff every Tuesday.


‘The last one is maybe too much…’


I corrected myself on the last one. The last one is if I live in the FGO timeline.


Regardless, the only reason I know I was in Fate is that my father, who was a first-generation mage—magus—gave me a book he got from some pompous dude in Germany.


Hearing that he was first generation made my body grow a little bit weak as if I recall Waver being third generation and having only nine magic circuits.


So me being a second-generation magus could make my life a living hell or something… interesting!


After all, I have no enemies to speak of, no tasks to care about, and all that stuff. Holy Grail is the only thing that is of notice in the otherwise plain timetable of my entire life.


Not that I would get into such a conflict with zero magecraft…


I am not Emiya Shirou, and even then, Emiya had his Reality Marble and very specific magecraft that he could only use.


‘Besides…’


I checked the calendar in my room. It was 1982, I was in the past way back…


Even before the 4th Grail War, I was already 10 years old, and by all accounts, I was detached from all of this.


That is why I can focus on my research and all that stuff.


The thing my father had worked on most of his life after learning that magecraft is a thing is the minerals and transmutation of them.


That is how he made his money and could sustain himself: by buying scraps, turning them into something of higher value, and selling them for a bigger penny.


Over the years, he made some discoveries that were not in the book, which should be obvious as Maguses only shares the barebone; the rest, one needs to discover on one's own.


One of the discoveries is that glass and crystals behave differently when they are exposed to mana.


Just thinking about Rin and her gems and obsession with money—she is broke—and her choice of such an expensive style of magecraft makes me grimace.


Yes, but that’s not all. One can use crystals for storing energy, and not all, but they can store information if a specific style of mana is being used.


‘Well, that’s about it…’


I sighed after checking the notes. My ‘cheats’ in this world are a beginners' guidebook and notes from my father, who is basically a peddler.


After reading all the stuff he left me before going to work, I sat on the couch in the living room and pondered where to start.


Well, I already had about 15 years of my dad’s research, but that is not much. I understand how to transfer and transform mana from one state to another.


That much accounts for something…right?


‘But information… hmm… if only there were… computers around…’


My eyes widened to a large degree before stopping in my tracks.


‘Of course, how stupid of me! Magecraft is based on math and science! ALL of that stuff could be done by computer!’


With an idea in mind, it was time for me to test my computer-building experience in earnest.


I swiftly found some paper and started noting down all that I would need while planning how I would do it.


What will correspond to which part? How will I create the motherboard, RAM, and storage unit, and what will I use for display purposes?


Before long, I had initial schematics ready, but then came the hardest part: accessing my magic circuits.


~~~~~~Four Years Later~~~~~~


I didn’t waste my time learning all that my father could teach me. As a basic magus who knew only what was in the guidebook, the only thing he could share were his experiences.


And that is to alter materials and remove impurities. Honestly, that is all I needed.


I refined an array and started my tests to figure out how to make mana flow through metals. Strangely enough, most of them behave similarly. That is likely because mana can saturate and eventually refine the metal to become mana-conductive. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the metal is not durable for conflict or something like that.


I won't use it for conflicts specifically; what I need is something durable enough to work on a computer.


The best part is that I don’t need chips and all that stuff; that is because I can use basic runes.


After finding out that something like aluminium could work, I swiftly began to design the motherboard, but then I recalled something fascinating…


Mercury!


Mercury can be used for mana conductivity.


‘What was it… ah yes! Amalgam!’


When Mercury is used with another alloy.


After remembering this, I started to experiment. This is where I realised that my stuff was becoming dangerous and that I could kill myself.


Mercury is lethal, after all.


Then…


It finally happened.


The light at the end of the tunnel.


~~~


After six years of continued studying and several close calls to death, I decided that it was time to take a breather. Since I was sixteen years old, I have wanted to see some of the world.


I went to the Alps with my family to get some fresh air and do some mountaineering.


Never did I imagined to get myself lost and discovering an abandoned manor in the middle of nowhere.


‘Okay…’


As I approached the manor, which looked locked in time, I realised that I had seen this place somewhere before.


‘...Wait… is this!?’


I swiftly approached the doors, but then, for a second, I calmed down as the place could be booby-trapped.


So, I used the basic magecraft I knew to inspect the surroundings.


‘I can sense traces of barrier… long gone…’


My eyes widened for a second.


‘Did…’


I opened the doors and started to explore.


The interior was cold, and there was some snow in the building. The windows were shattered, and the snow could enter through them.


Based on the decor, the place looked like it was from the 17th or 18th century.


After walking around and realising that the place had been abandoned for some reason, I stumbled upon my first clue.


A person on the ground. I slowly walked over snd got on one of my knees. I turned the person around, and it was a dead white-haired girl with ruby eyes.


After a basic scan, I realised that this was a Homunculus.


“...Einzbern… but what the fuck happened here?”


I frowned as I did another scan. I realised that her veins and magic circuits were fried. Someone or something overloaded them, and they died.


After inspecting the girl who looked like a maid, I continued exploring. The more I checked, the more I found maids and guards in a similar state.


With more and more such discoveries, I realised that there was some sort of mana blast that haywire everyone and caused their deaths a while ago.


That made me very excited as I needed more clues in alchemy!


Once I realised that I had swiftly begun to look for the workshop, I found it in the basement, where I found an old homunculus in white robes.


That was the Jubstacheist von Einzbern, the ‘Old Man Archt’, the head Homunculus who had all the information about Homunculi creation.


For a second, I wondered if there would be a magic crest.


But for now, I explored the place and found a huge hole full of ‘dolls’—these were failed homunculi. Then, I found some of the creation chambers.


These chambers were tubes. After looking around, I realised that they create these homunculi via artificial womb-like containers, but… they should have fetuses.


‘But how do they know how they should grow?’


After exploring for a bit, I realised that there are ritual chambers.


My eyes scanned the runes on the ground. After studying the baseline runes, I do know some of the letters.


‘These are… coding?’


With that realisation, I began to inspect the area in more detail.


What I found was layers of rituals that program grow. This was the the idea.


My gaze went to the room next door. It had the same concrete stone walls, candles, and mercury circles meant for programming.


‘Most likely connected to the homunculi designing…’


I wasn’t certain, but what else could it be?


After checking the rituals, I went to look for a library, but I didn’t find a thing.


They don’t store things in books. The only way I could see data like this is in the main homunculi, in the main workshop.


With that realisation, I walked to the main workshop and started to inspect the old homunculi.


What I found was a glowing set of tattoos.


Well, with nothing else to do, I channelled my mana into the tattoos. Since the guy was dead, and as far as I remember, he was created as an information unit, then all of the stored magic circuits should be full of information. 


Sure enough, I saw images… that looked like memories, and there were a lot of them.


Close to 250 years of information, experiments upon experiments to create another Justeaze-type of Homunculi.


‘Well, for one, she does look hot.’


I commented on the memories of seeing her.


With so many examples and creations and failures, I do have an idea of how the whole thing works, oh, and the old man’s stash.


‘It appears they do have a library.’


I pulled the corpse of the old homunculi to the core of the workshop and channelled some mana through his circuits to open a section of the workshop that was sealed.


It had a pile of old books in pristine condition and the core of the boundary field which was knocked out.


‘I should be able to kickstart it and take over.’


I walked over there after dropping the homunculi corpse on the ground.


After some inspections, I realised that the core had been knocked out, and the knockout effect had blasted everyone inside the barrier to their deaths.


‘Well… if I lower the intensity and it more flowy, it should not cause it again. Honestly, the whole thing is quite fishy.’


As far as I know, Einzberns never killed themselves before.


Once I found the barrier master control and took it over, I restarted the barrier.


‘Now then~’


My hands twitched at the idea of reading all this and spinning my own wheel of creating homunculi!


~~~


The first point of business is to get that magical crest for myself.


One method of doing it is simply removing and adding to myself, but that would be suicidal…


IF it was from one regular Magus family to another, but Einzberns are different. They are artificial humans with no particular ‘flavour’ towards bloodlines. As long as my magecraft doesn’t clash with theirs, I should technically be able to get it.


‘But first, I need some help.’


I went through the library and found a book on types of homunculi.


‘Maids, bodyguards, attendants… damn, some of this stuff is old as hell.’


I realised that Einzbern’s haven’t improved on this for years.


‘Well, no wonder Old Man Archt was obsessed with Justeaze.’


After finding the one I wanted, which looked quite beautiful and was overall a well-developed girl’s design, I went to the creation chambers.


However, It was not simple…


As the books are pure designs, the author expects me to know the foundations.


‘...Just fucking great…’


With a sign, I walked back to the library and started to look for more references because it could take me weeks to find anything.