Paul felt bothered by Shirou's great talent, but Zenith was happy.
This was both because Zenith wasn't Swordsman and didn't understand Swordsman's specific powers, and also because she truly saw Shirou as her child and wanted him to have extraordinary gifts.
For parents, it's not something to worry about if their child might surpass them, but something to be happy about, like life continuing.
Shirou saw Zenith's attitude and couldn't help but think—
Ah, this is a woman who has truly become my mother.
In his previous life, Shirou was raised by Emiya Kiritsugu from a young age. Although Emiya Kiritsugu took good care of him and tried his best to show a parent's gentleness, Shirou never felt the warmth of a mother.
He didn't understand what a mother was like, nor had he ever imagined that a mother's gentleness could be so comforting.
The only similar gentle memory he had was from the memories of Servant Emiya, of a child named Illya.
Although she looked like a young girl, in Servant Emiya's memory, she always played the role of an older sister.
Servant Emiya also sincerely saw that girl as his family, and was willing to give up everything to save her...
From Zenith, Shirou felt the warmth and excitement that Servant Emiya had felt back then, which made him feel a long-lost urge to do something, and he immediately went to the kitchen to cook.
When Shirou felt a certain emotion, he couldn't help but want to make something.
In the past, he would habitually use magic to strengthen or create a weapon, but now his body was still young and he didn't have that much magic power to waste, so for him now, cooking was the only thing he could use to express his emotions.
"Wow, Shirou's cooking has become even tastier!!"
Zenith took a bite of the salmon and mushroom dish Shirou made, and her eyes widened.
Over the past year, Shirou's cooking had occasionally been brought to the Greyrat family's table. Although the food choices in the Middle Ages were limited and many dishes couldn't be recreated, Shirou relied on his talent and determination to recreate most of the dishes he had made in his previous life.
Especially fish, which was difficult to prepare in this era.
Although there were many fish in the river, the people of Buena Village hardly knew how to remove the fishy taste, so they wasted them. After Shirou discovered this, he took the initiative to bring fish to the Greyrat family's table, which greatly impressed Paul and Zenith.
Rudeus didn't seem particularly surprised by Shirou's cooking. Instead, after eating Shirou's cooking, he showed a more serious attitude, as if he felt some kind of pressure.
Now, Shirou had made salmon and mushroom again, and he had put his feelings into the dish to express his emotions.
Paul and Zenith praised it greatly. Paul even couldn't help but say that Shirou's cooking talent might be even more amazing than his Swordsman talent.
Lilia was completely impressed by Shirou's cooking.
At first, she had some pride and competitiveness as a maid, hoping to surpass Shirou in cooking, but now she only had admiration, and even occasionally asked Shirou how to make delicious dishes.
"What's wrong, Rudy? Aren't you eating?"
Shirou glanced at his younger brother beside him.
Since the end of sword training just now, he had been observing Rudeus, and found that this young brother had shown very mixed emotions after seeing him split a stone with one sword strike.
It wasn't so much jealousy of his talent as fear of something.
Shirou didn't understand why Rudeus was afraid of him, but he could see that this might create even more distance between them.
This was also the reason why he suddenly made the cooking, hoping to ease the pressure his brother was feeling and build a more harmonious brotherly relationship with him.
However, Rudeus didn't seem to understand his good intentions. He just silently lowered his head and replied, "I'm not very hungry."
After speaking, he climbed down from the stool and went straight to the attic on the second floor of the house.
Since Rudeus was only about two years old, Paul and Zenith didn't care about his attitude.
After all, it's hard for normal people to imagine that a baby would have any psychological problems, or that a baby shouldn't have too many thoughts at all.
But Shirou couldn't think that way. Looking at Rudeus's back, he vaguely saw a shadow that couldn't be described in words.
He wanted to ease Rudeus's inner pain, but he didn't know how to do it.
Or rather, he didn't even know what Rudeus was suffering from.
Helpless, Shirou could only clean up the untouched dish on the table and continue to practice swordsmanship in the yard.
…
The next day, Shirou began formal sword training at Paul's request.
Basically, it focused on swinging the sword and practicing standard movements.
Although Shirou had shown the ability to cut through rocks before, this didn't mean he could skip all the basic training and learn more advanced techniques.
In any career, the basics are the most important thing.
Shirou knew this better than anyone.
The sword training was simple, such as using the wooden dummy set up in the yard as an opponent to check the standard movements and attack conditions, or sparring with Paul to train footwork and balance movement, and so on. It was that kind of feeling.
At the same time, Shirou also found that the development of swordsmanship in this world was very deep, and most of the strong seemed to be sword masters.
The reason seemed to be a power called Fighting Spirit.
As long as you keep training swordsmanship, you can wrap Fighting Spirit around the sword, cut through rocks with one sword strike, or send out sword energy to attack distant opponents.
Although Shirou could create similar methods by relying on strengthening magic, he naturally couldn't ignore the existence of Fighting Spirit, and wanted to gain this power, so he worked hard without restraint.
After about a week, Shirou finally felt the so-called Fighting Spirit.
Similar to the concept of strengthening magic, the so-called Fighting Spirit is to gather the magic power and life force contained in the body on the sword, and further increase the weapon's attack power by wrapping Fighting Spirit around it.
Of course, Swordsman can also wrap Fighting Spirit around her body to enhance her physical fitness and combat ability in this way.
Shirou learned the Fighting Spirit of this world, and vaguely realized that if he used the power of Fighting Spirit and strengthening magic together, he might be able to further enhance the weapon's destructive power.
In this way, he would not only be able to reproduce the combat skills of Servant Emiya, but he might even completely surpass himself who had once merged with the Servant Emiya card!