Reviews for A Storm of Swords
AvidReader2425 chapter 1 . 8/6/2021
Absolutely fantastic opening chapter, really looking forward to how the story progresses.
Junky chapter 32 . 8/1/2021
Regarding your note at the end about the efficacy of Shirou's Projection in another world: it depends. As you say, Shirou uses Od in his Magecraft, not ambient Mana, so a world full of mana would not directly improve his Magecraft. However, it would perhaps speed up his regeneration of Od, allowing him to use more of it.

More importantly, what most stories use to show the "improvement" in his Magecraft is Projection of Noble Phabtasms that last forever and projection of Divine Constructs. This is not too big a fanwank as you are thinking. In canon, Shirou can indeed project objects that last for years, perhaps indefinitely, despite not being swords that he specializes in, because of his talent in Structural Grasping and unique seven-step Projection that are derived from his Reality Marble. The reason for this is that normal objects aren't considered out of place by the world and thus aren't marked for deletion. In the same vein, Shirou could probably project weapons of heroes more easily in an Age of Heroes and divine weapons more easily in the Age of Gods... or in Worlds with similar weapons.
Giuseppe chapter 32 . 7/30/2021
Very interesting your mental experiment: I think, if Shirou goes to a place with high or very high mana he will just replenish his Od faster, it doesnt mean he automatically will improve his Reinforcement/Tracing, on the contrary, he can suffer in a mana saturated environment and nerd to burn the extra Od until his body gets conditioned. If he use Formalcraft or other magic discipline heavily dependent of external mana the spells can well explode since there is to much mana in the air.
Raj8 chapter 31 . 7/31/2021
Since I already reviewed Chapter 32 and had more thoughts.

Your probably already planning it in Chapter 33, but can you elaborate on why he's going to rescue Hayato afterwards?

If he was being kidnapped/hurt in front of him and if it was someone Shirou cared about I could completely understand his decision or if someone he cared about was planning on actively involving themselves.

But as it is Reborn and Bianchi the two primary people affected aren't people he cares a ton about, so it's a bit strange.

Shirou has decided not to become a Hero, and thus isn't going to care about the many horrible things happening outside of his sight. As it is this could easily cause a lot of problems in the future, so I'd love to explore his reasoning on why he's doing it.

Finally I just like to say I appreciate you understanding a lot more on how Mana works than the average fiction writer. I always appreciate someone avoiding some of the more common fannon.
Raj8 chapter 32 . 7/31/2021
I just finished reading this entire story, overall it was quite interesting and I enjoyed reading it.

I look forward to seeing where exactly you plan on taking this story in the future.
Anon564 chapter 32 . 7/29/2021
If I remember correctly, the "Will of Gaia" bit was used to describe the fact that "The World" "hates" phantasmal phenomena and that it has ever since the decline of "mysticism" at the end of The Age of Gods and the advent of The Age of Man, when Alaya split from Gaia.
"Gaia" moves to erode "phantasms" because they're basically "glitches" in the system of the World which is why Marble Phantasms, which are the application of a Natural Phenomena in a controlled manner, are thought to be so overpowered and Reality Marbles, which temporarily overwrite the system of the World in a given area and establish a new system with new rules and logic, are considered to be the pinnacle of Thaumaturgy and a forbbiden magecraft, because all magecraft is just hijacking the system for a moment to enact a mystery so magecraft would be, at the least, less useful inside a RM than outside it...but I digress.

So it would be less about the abundance of Mana in the air and it would be more closely tied to how prevalent "mysticism" is in that World.
But you're right, Shirou uses Od, not Mana, to actualize his mysteries so an abudance of Mana is not as empowering to him as it would be to, say, Rin. Though I don't really remember if Shirou knows how to convert Mana to Od.
Steve chapter 32 . 7/28/2021
Gaia is not a mana, Gaia is a will of planet. Literally "Earth-Chan", just not remotely as nice. And strength of magecraft (mystery) comes from how many people know it. It's like a finite amount of energy shared between everyone who knows how to use it. The more people know it, the weaker it become. In this case, because only Shirou use it, it would be at it prime. And the "flaws of tracing" are literally Gaia breaking it because she doesn't consider it natural. Without her, without that will, Traced objects don't break on their own.
Primordial Inscriptor Z-09 chapter 32 . 7/29/2021
Shirou had Horribly underdeveloped circuits, not sure how much better they are in this life. I hope Natsumi can Confrint her trauma, and even if she is unable to defeat it, show her father his mistake.
amerdism chapter 32 . 7/29/2021
Gotta say was a bit apprehensive of this story, male main characters aren’t my thing I prefer female main characters, they’re less restrictive and more free in their interactions I find, but swallowed my doubts gave the story a shot and haven’t been disappointed, then again, I figured I’d like the story at least somewhat since you wrote it and I’ve read a good chunk of your works to know how good a writer, author and overall storyteller you are so I’m not so surprised. Still, props where they are due and all that, like I said, I dislike male lead stories and avoid them like the plague which I feel is statement enough on its own about how good you are.

Kinda expecting Shirley to find and help Xana considering she’s in weed in ice made of flames so I figure shirou will notice, maybe we’ll see another crush, wouldn’t surprise me, in fact I’m half expecting it. One thing I never understood in canon is why a aria never broke off from the Vongola to form their own familia. They’re lauded to have extremely strong members so strength isn’t the issue, and it’s not like Xanxus was particularly loyal after the whole cradle affair, I get he was loyal to the familia and not the head but given how he was betrayed by one family head and then later learns the next head is a child who knows absolutely nothing about the mafia and adding onto that the fact that he knows he himself can’t inherit as he isn’t of vongola blood, it all just seems far fetched. Xanxus isn’t stupid, he runs a what’s basically a crime syndicate inside a bigger crime syndicate and is loved by his underlings which says a lot about him, he knew the rings wouldn’t accept him but still went though the whole tournament thing and just accepts the next head despite knowing tsuna wasn’t fit for the role, it just seems out of character in my opinion.
Anon chapter 32 . 7/27/2021
I think it is a bit different rhe thing about gaia.
When there is more mana in the world, gaia's will and influence is weakened due to all the mysteries around. Duting the age of god gaia and alaya were reduce to powerless spectator in the face of gods and magic. True magic changing the laws if nature.

So Gaia and Alaya truly gained power after the end if abundance of mana (I think I read that in a type moon answer but I could be confused and it could be a fan theorie so take it with a punch of salt)

If we go by that. Then an abundance of mana means a weakened will if gaia. Which mean that the natural degradation of Shirou's projection may nit occur or will be lessened. It means the quality of his projection would steps up and can be on par with the real noble phantasm and may also be more powerful on overdrive (but I dont think Shirou can iverdrive the real deal). He doesnt have more projection or od abd he cannot adapt to surrounding od better. But without Gaia, or with a weakened gaia. He's weapon DO get stronger
uaeoaeoeoi chapter 32 . 7/28/2021
On Shirou being stronger in a world with more mana, that mostly depends on how he gets there, in this if he just drops in from canon/near canon timeline than no he wouldn't be, if he gets reincarnated or his age is reversed like in this story then at least in some ways at least due to his canon self having atrophied magic circuits due to never learning to activate them properly from Kiritsugu so he would likely have a lot more Od to work with than he would normally just by virtue of not being the magical equivalent of a paraplegic.
ID10T-Error chapter 32 . 7/27/2021
The idea with Gaia is that it is not as much or not at all a presence in other fictional universes. Take Highschool DxD as an example. In this world, the Age of Gods never ended an age brought to an end by two main things, waning belief and Gaia.

The idea that Nasuverse Magecraft gets stronger in other universes comes from two main things confirmed for the Nasuverse. The first is that the strength of a mystery scales inversely with the number of people who know the mystery. This is because the mystery is doing something that is achievable through mundane means, but the method to how is the “mystery” per se. The strength of a mystery is much like a secret in this way, the more people know it, the less it’s a secret. This is one of the reasons Magi families are so secretive in the Nasuverse, and one of the reasons why the Tohsakas and Edefelts hate one another (jewel magecraft). Shirou is the only person who knows Tracing, but the base mystery is Gradiation Air, so his Tracing is somewhat weakened by proxy (though not a massive amount as only he still knows Tracing). Therefore, it stands the reason that Tracing would get strengthened in a universe where knows one knows Gradiation Air. The second aspect is tied to what I mentioned earlier with Gaia. Other universes will have a different and/or no Gaia present within them, and the presence that Gaia has doesn’t necessarily correlate with the amount of mana present. Gaia is not actually the personification of mana as you state. It is the consciousness of the planet. The important thing to note is that Gaia knows that magecraft is an impossibility hence why magecraft has weakened over time and various ages (ex: Age of Gods) have been brought to a close over the course of history. In other universes, Gaia might be weaker or even in a dormant state which would effect the strength of magecraft immensely. The less of a presence Gaia has then the less magecraft costs for more effect because Gaia isn’t trying to correct the impossibility it detects as much. This is why in crossover fanfics where Shirou is in a place where Gaia has less of an influence his projections are less fragile, closer to the original, and have longer time limits before they dissipate. Another thing to mention is that more mana being present in the environment along with the lack of people knowing certain mysteries would allow Shirou to actually draw mana from the environment despite his flaws as a Third Rate Magus.

TL;DR: Nasuverse characters tend to scale up in crossovers due to how restrictive their universe is to magecraft in general. Gaia is not mana made into a personality, but more of the planet made into a personality. Gaia sees magecraft as impossible and tries to correct it, so depending on the state Gaia is in (which does not correlate with amount of mana present), magecraft will become easier or harder to preform.
Guest chapter 32 . 7/25/2021
For the thought experiment about Gaia and mana, perhaps. I think the idea is that the more supernatural a setting is the less he has to recreate his traced NPs from the ground up. Noble Phantasms are essentially crystallised legends after all and fame/belief is an influence in their strength, why wouldn't they be just a little big stronger and easier to use in settings where the supernatural is still going strong compared to the essentially dead modern age? Especially in settings where the cultures he traces his NPs from are still going strong (Greek gods and grecian NPs for example). UBW presumably does the heavy lifting and it's a part about recreating an objects experienced history, so I could see an argument about it being easier in certain settings.

Sure one still probably needs to consider things on a case by case basis per setting (especially for non Earth adjacent settings with no Earth mythological influences), which most people don't think of that deeply, but I could see it having some truth generally speaking.

As a second consideration, even if Shirou himself uses Od instead of mana that's not true of all his NPs. Take Gae Bolg for example, a reason it's so cheap for Lancer to use it because it gathers mana from the surroundings to fuel its attack. Or Balmung that stores energy in the jewel in its hilt. There's an argument for them being easier to use when the fuel they run on is more available, even if Shirou himself doesn't directly use mana.

Lastly would depend on Shirou himself and whether he gets a new body in these settings or if it's equivalent to his old one. Shirou has ridiculous efficiency when it comes to swords, but that's pretty much all he has going for him. Otherwise his circuits are absolute crap and he's only redeemed by having an above average number though he honestly doesn't have enough to offset how crappy his actual circuits are. Like, most people really seem to ignore or be ignorant of this fact (which I suppose isn't really relevant if he sticks to swords). If he gets a new body or is put in a setting where humanity has a higher baseline/potential as well as a different method for using magic then Shirou could become significantly better simply due to his ridiculous efficiency being combined with even just average magical prowess in a world where average is higher than his old definition.
Guest chapter 32 . 7/25/2021
If I remember right(and it has been a while)the original argument for Shirou being stronger in an environment with higher mana than the ‘vanilla’ Fate-verse is because his body/circuits would have a much easier time processing mana into Od, similar to how a car engine would get more power/run more smoothly using higher grade fuel. Sorry if that was too wordy.
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