Questions, questions and more questions (READ THE OP FOR ANSWERS)

[Bookworm Luke]

First sentence, completely agree but to a degree.

If all Magic Foundations intrinsically shared such deep similarities why can't Flat use the same magecraft twice, basic or advanced, when he's constantly making new magic foundations from nature?

It specifically says he is not using existing Foundation. It also explained natural Foundations change minute to minute, second to second because of planet alignment etc. He has to readjust every time.

I believe everyone can do Shirou's reinforcement because it's just plugging gaps and the idea of reinforcement as a magecraft attribute is universal.
But I don't believe everyone can do a egyptian form of reinforcement that involves mummification for instance.

Ya, because in the definition of Reinforcement it says there are many tiers. I don't disagree with anything here in terms of types of reinforcement.
However, I don't see anything saying Reinforcement at a low tier is not a spell.

[You]

After that part she immediately raised a barrier against the puppet's Gandr barrage, and later on fired the railgun cannon against Flat Snark.

Are you saying those are all without Circuit involvement and Foundation?

Yes when she raises the barrier she says "this is not magecraft, just pure magical energy."

There's also this

Spoiler:

Where she's talking about directly injecting magical energy into something engraved beforehand to activate it. The ignition spells would indeed be foundation based, but you can see she can just inject the magical energy as an action.

Spoiler:

Here she says she doesn't need to cast a spell, only disrupt it with magical energy.

Spoiler:

And its only after the puppet is damaged she's able to use Snap, a spell, again.
While the entire fight, she's been loading her fists and feet with magical energy.

[Byegod]

Honestly if you have to establish a foundation wouldnt some way to do magic have to exist even before that? just to establish the foundation at least

[Bookworm Luke]

Yes when she raises the barrier she says "this is not magecraft, just pure magical energy."

OK, this part you are right, I found the initial barrier erection.

There's also this

Spoiler:

Where she's talking about directly injecting magical energy into something engraved beforehand to activate it. The ignition spells would indeed be foundation based, but you can see she can just inject the magical energy as an action.

This one is unrelated. She said the formula of the spell is already engraved, she was just activating the spell.

Spoiler:

Here she says she doesn't need to cast a spell, only disrupt it with magical energy.

Spoiler:

And its only after the puppet is damaged she's able to use Snap, a spell, again.
While the entire fight, she's been loading her fists and feet with magical energy.

I am not so sure she is without spell. She cannot cast spell because of the puppet jamming. I am not convinced her limbs were just reinforced with mana. She was running her Crest throughout the fight, in fact it was running "full power" before the puppet fight.
The other thing is I am not certain if her named melee moves were not single action spells (e.g. snap/glider). She was using those before she acknowledged that the disruption ceased (and she started firing magic missiles).

[Comun]

What the hell does Ophelia's Mystic Eyes do? I don't get how observing possibilities and pinning translates into what we actually see it do in the story.
It is able to form a connection to Surtr, mess with Ortenaus Auto-Repair in a manner that's described like rewinding time (?), partially restore Sigurd's Spirit Core (?), reverse the effect of Brynhildr's Odinseal...

I think Reign and You already did a perfect job of explaining everything except the connection to Surtr, so I'll cover just that.

Ophelia was raised as the Phamrsolone family's experiment in attempting to implement the Sixth Imaginary Substance into their daughter's body, and her Mystic Eye of Postponement is the best product they could get out of that. It has this cool effect of denying a future, but it's still a tool for 6IS magecraft first and foremost. Here's the glossary definition:

Devils
The Sixth Imaginary Substance. Beings who cling to human wishes and try to fulfill them in a twisted manner¹.
The concept of devils is considered the greatest obstacle to humanity. If a god is an omniscient and omnipotent being, then a devil is unenlightened and incompetent². An abyss that can be reached but never understood.
[...]
Devils attempt to incarnate by using human bodies³, but the human mind used as their seedbed usually can't withstand the burden, severing all their connections to others and collapsing on itself⁴.
Being possessed by a devil causes abnormalities in other components, ultimately changing even the flesh, turning them into a hideous monster. The higher ranked the devil is, the less evident its symptoms are, making the condition harder to diagnose. It only gets easy to detect it after the great disaster is already arranged.

1) Surtr is entirely dedicated to Ophelia's wish for a knight in shining armor who would save her from her shitty situation, but he twists the idea as he plans to eliminate her problems by simply eliminating the entire world.
Also 1) The Mystic Eye of Postponement itself already reeks of twisted wish granting. She wishes away the worst-case scenario but nothing is stopping the second worst-case scenario from coming for her.
2) Surtr's thoughts being pathetically limited is something acknowledged by his own inner monologue. He wants to do something for Ophelia's sake and chooses to destroy the world, knowing fully well how much of a shitty idea this is because that's literally the only idea he's physically capable of having.
3) Surtr could only be brought to being through a human body (Sigurd's) but had an incarnation condition he immediately tried to fulfill.
4) The body used may have been Sigurd's, but the wishes he's attached to are Ophelia's, so she's the one taking the mental burden. The state of a mind destroyed by a devil is shown in first person until Napoleon whispers some words of hope into her brain.

As evidenced here, the entire Surtr plot is just Sakurai's writing application for a decade-old glossary entry. The point I'm trying to make is that the Postponement effects are just a neat side-product and the connection to Lostbelt Surtr is actually the entire point of her having the Mystic Eye, as far as the Phamrsolone family is concerned.

[LeadDemon]

Honestly if you have to establish a foundation wouldnt some way to do magic have to exist even before that? just to establish the foundation at least

The foundation itself is more established through human culture, folklore, academia, etc.

This one is unrelated. She said the formula of the spell is already engraved, she was just activating the spell.

The implication's more that she could not access foundations in her state at the time of saying that. What she could do, however, is inject magical energy into the pre-engraved formulas. At the point where there's a dichotomy she's stating there, it indicates a difference between the two at some fundamental level.

I think it's reasonably important to call back to something You already posted.

"That's not true…! Magical energy is something that can only exist inside you, right!?
That's why we pass our magical energy into other things and use magical energy as a starter to affect nature!

You clearly see the dichotomy being placed here between 'passing magical energy into other things' and 'using magical energy as a starter to affect nature'. If all use of magical energy was rooted in using it as a starter, this statement doesn't make any sense. That's to say, magical energy is fundamentally 'gasoline' as the Tsuki dictionary calls it, but like gasoline, is something with its own inherent properties.

Of course, you can posit that "using magical energy as a starter to affect nature" doesn't necessarily mean you're using a foundation, but:

A magus sends a command to the magic formula and injects energy to activate the magical function already encoded in the formula.

That seems to be very strange to say, given this. You're not moving magical energy into a formula, you're moving it into a discrete and present existence. You're pouring 'gasoline' on the floor rather than putting it in your car, and gasoline acts as it naturally does.

I think one possible argument against You's line of thought would be this:

Spoiler:

That is to say, chucking unprocessed magical energy that was stored in an object counts as a "spell" insofar as Magic Resistance works against it, even though the magical energy isn't in itself processed.

I don't think that's really an argument that holds water in its own right, though, given that even if the magical energy held in the gem is unprocessed, it's something accomplished through the specific Conversion of the Tohsaka/Edelfelt, but I guess it's at least something worth bringing up.

[Leftovers]

Snap is a single action though, and she wasn't able to use that.

Spoiler:

Yes when she raises the barrier she says "this is not magecraft, just pure magical energy."

There's also this

Spoiler:

Where she's talking about directly injecting magical energy into something engraved beforehand to activate it. The ignition spells would indeed be foundation based, but you can see she can just inject the magical energy as an action.

Spoiler:

Here she says she doesn't need to cast a spell, only disrupt it with magical energy.

Spoiler:

And its only after the puppet is damaged she's able to use Snap, a spell, again.
While the entire fight, she's been loading her fists and feet with magical energy.

Man I hate looking things up on Youtube. Let's recap:

>hit by arm
>goes to use a single action spell
>says her circuits are shredded and can't run formulas
>throws out raw magical energy as barrier
>her sorcery is sealed off
>immediately after, activates circuits and says the magical energy flow is unstable and using magic is NEARLY impossible
>the most she could do is harden her arm with magical energy

……血液の流れ、魔力の供給がまったく安定しない。これでは魔術式を組むのは難しい。魔力で右手を加工し、大雑把に硬度を上げる事しかできない。青子の武器はトンカチ以上、バット未満の細腕鈍器だ。

"Casting a spell/Running a formula like that would be difficult. The most/the only thing she could do was harden her arm with magical energy..."

She runs her circuits, evaluates their state, notes that running formulas would be difficult, and that her only option is the arm hardening. This doesn't necessarily mean "any formula other than arm hardening is difficult" over "running formulas is hard, better use arm hardening which isn't a formula", but let's keep in mind for the time that her circuits are running and casting spells is a possibility, even remote.

>another wall of magical energy, she specifically notes that it will dissipate in a few seconds as all magical energy outside the magus' body should
>puppet attacks with its eyes at close range
>aoko instantly and specifically uses a "primitive counter-spell" that increases the density of the blood in her body to survive it (mcjon says density of "magical energy", was there ruby here?)

人形の切札だろう一撃を、青子は体内を走る血液の濃度をあげる原始的な対魔術で、かろうじて致死手前で踏みとどまった。

Explicit use of 対魔術 even with her circuits jammed.

>she already engraved the ignition formulas on the pillars and they only need magical energy to be put in them to run - this agrees with how formulas are run with a trigger of magical energy
>the barrier would be easy to neutralise even in her current condition just by disrupting /the barrier's/ magical energy, for which she doesn't even need a spell - just chucking raw magical energy at it?
>punches sigil with fist full of magical energy, ignition sorcery that compresses and releases the energy engraved IN the pillars activates - magical energy aoko put was like an electric charge starting the sigil reaction
>gathers energy in leg and charges, then a fist full of energy, then the finishing kick

I should note here that this isn't stated anywhere to be reinforcement, the similarity of "hardening" the limb with Shirou hardening the poster besides. If anything, charging her limbs with magical energy and punching/kicking things is Aoko's fighting style from Melty Blood.



So yeah, she never rules out using formulas, and does explicitly use a spell while her circuits were jammed, unless you want to argue that the specific thing that she did was a

対

counter

to

魔術

magecraft

and not actually magecraft itself. And even then it's never stated that what she does in this scene is reinforcement.

[Bookworm Luke]

The foundation itself is more established through human culture, folklore, academia, etc.



The implication's more that she could not access foundations in her state at the time of saying that. What she could do, however, is inject magical energy into the pre-engraved formulas. At the point where there's a dichotomy she's stating there, it indicates a difference between the two at some fundamental level.

Here's the thing though, formulas are themselves part of the Foundation.

Magic formula
Something included in a magic foundation and in which the function of magic is recorded.
The magus sends a command to the magic formula, puts magic power into it, and thereby activates the function of magic incorporated into the formula in advance.

Formulas can be engraved into a circle like in this scene, they can also be engraved into the Crest. Even if Aoko is technically jammed, she still could activate existing formulas.

[Bookworm Luke]

>gathers energy in leg and charges, then a fist full of energy, the the finishing kick

The fist was charged with a Snap, which is apparently a single action spell....

I guess that would mean Crack and Glider are also single action spells.

[Leftovers]

kk, got a version of the script that doesn't suck

“[ruby text=スナップ char=3]弾いて……！”[l][r]

“[ruby text=クラック char=3]砕いて……！”[l][r]

“蹴[ruby char=3 text=グライダー]り上げる……！”[l][r]

well then

[You]

I think one possible argument against You's line of thought would be this:

Spoiler:

That is to say, chucking unprocessed magical energy that was stored in an object counts as a "spell" insofar as Magic Resistance works against it, even though the magical energy isn't in itself processed.

I don't think that's really an argument that holds water in its own right, though, given that even if the magical energy held in the gem is unprocessed, it's something accomplished through the specific Conversion of the Tohsaka/Edelfelt, but I guess it's at least something worth bringing up.

"Transferring magical energy… well, for example, you have excess strength left over if you do nothing for the whole day, right? I'm storing that excess power in the jewels.
You keep on doing this for days, months, and years, and that turns the jewels themselves into 'magic'."


"But then, the jewels have limited capacities and I cannot control magical energy outside me.
The magical energy inside the jewels is just an ignition to instantly activate a large-scale magic."

"…? Um, so you're putting your magical energy into the jewels as a backup?"


"Backup…? Hmm, close but not quite. I'm just filling up a single-use disposable backpack."

"So you mean you're temporarily expanding the hard disk… that's amazing. So you should be able to use as much magic as you want."

"Hard disk…? I don't know what you're talking about, but it's not that useful. The magical energy I put into the jewel is dyed in that jewel's attribute, so its uses become limited."

Even if you don't process the magical energy and chunk it as it, the magical energy's already been dyed because of the jewel's nature spirits. That is putting your magical energy into a jewel inherently transforms the magical energy and it becomes a magecraft.

[You]

I should note here that this isn't stated anywhere to be reinforcement, the similarity of "hardening" the limb with Shirou hardening the poster besides. If anything, charging her limbs with magical energy and punching/kicking things is Aoko's fighting style from Melty Blood.

So yeah, she never rules out using formulas, and does explicitly use a spell while her circuits were jammed, unless you want to argue that the specific thing that she did was a

対

counter

to

魔術

magecraft

and not actually magecraft itself. And even then it's never stated that what she does in this scene is reinforcement.

I think it was a counter to magecraft, like how K&B's weapon entry says it increases anti-magecraft, rather than actual magecraft because it's simply increasing the amount of magical energy in the body.
The idea behind that exchange IMO is Aoko who can't use proper magecraft vs puppet and she gets by using basic magical energy manipulation techniques wow Aoko is amaze.
But as you say while she does never rule out using formulas, we see her throw out the magical energy wall that she says isn't magecraft i.e. without a foundation or doesn't need a spell to break the hall of mirror's bounded field, just magical energy. This reinforces the conclusion magical energy can be accessed, loaded, and utilized outside the body without the need to connect to a foundation.
It can also be transmitted into objects to give them a spiritual rank.

“Guh—!”

“Kuh…!!”

Rocks tore through their skin and even damaged part of Ruler’s armor. An attack without prana accompanying it could never harm a Servant. But prana had been loaded to the point of bursting into the sword he swung, and it had even contaminated the broken pieces of stone.

It was the same as a Servant throwing dirks with prana loaded into them… Though, it was the first time Ruler had witnessed of the phenomenon of prana clinging even to fragments smashed apart with a sword.

“Hmm. It seems I ended up dragging you into this. Forgive me, Ruler.”

[Leftovers]

I think it was a counter to magecraft, like how K&B's weapon entry says it increases anti-magecraft, rather than actual magecraft because it's simply increasing the amount of magical energy in the body.
The idea behind that exchange IMO is Aoko who can't use proper magecraft vs puppet and she gets by using basic magical energy manipulation techniques wow Aoko is amaze.
But as you say while she does never rule out using formulas, we see her throw out the magical energy wall that she says isn't magecraft i.e. without a foundation or doesn't need a spell to break the hall of mirror's bounded field, just magical energy. This reinforces the conclusion magical energy can be accessed, loaded, and utilized outside the body without the need to connect to a foundation.
It can also be transmitted into objects to give them a spiritual rank.

All the scene shows is that you can use raw magical energy to attack or defend without using it to activate a spell, however much of a waste it is. Rather than suggest that what Shirou does with reinforcement is in any way similar, the more likely conclusion is that Aoko's limb hardening is simply her gathering raw magical energy in her limbs to mitigate blows like the wall of magical energy did while also dealing damage in some way of her own. But since there is actually rubytext after all accompanying her beatdown of the doll which includes Snap, a known single-action spell, the question now arises whether she was actually using spells all along when she wasn't throwing up raw magical energy in a hurry.

For sake of the argument, /someone/ noted the text's mention of how Aoko's crest has been running at full tilt during the encounter, and related it to this:

"Oh, that's wrong. The record of the family is naturally left on paper. Only magic is in the Magic Crest.
It can cast spells automatically and allow you to use magics that you have not acquired yet.
To put it simply, it's like carving a magic circle onto your body."

A Magic Crest is like an attached engine, separate from the Magic Circuit in a magus.
There's no difficult incantation or procedure to follow.
It is an ultimate hastening mechanism that runs the car called magic just by turning it on.
But the Magic Crest will not show up unless it is in use.
The Magic Crest is like a separate Magic Circuit that is formed using the magical energy of the magus.

It is possible that even after her circuits were jammed and she had trouble running magic formulas, she could simply run magical energy in the preset formulas recorded in her magic crest and activate those. Meaning that the spells or what may be spells in this encounters could've been cast from her crest just like the sigils only needed a spark of magical energy to activate their effect.

It would explain some things, although a fair question is why she would then panic about not being able to run formulas. I suppose that would be where the /almost/ impossible and /only able/ to do this much would come into play.

- - - Updated - - -

I'd check the meteor kicks she lands on Touko's runestones since they seem like a similar thing if it wasn't this late in the morning.

[You]

It is possible that even after her circuits were jammed and she had trouble running magic formulas, she could simply run magical energy in the preset formulas recorded in her magic crest and activate those. Meaning that the spells or what may be spells in this encounters could've been cast from her crest just like the sigils only needed a spark of magical energy to activate their effect.

It would explain some things, although a fair question is why she would then panic about not being able to run formulas. I suppose that would be where the /almost/ impossible and /only able/ to do this much would come into play.

城の四方の柱、地盤に刻まれた魔力を圧縮、解放させるだけの単純な発火魔術。

仕掛けは電荷をスイッチにして、ほぼ同時に発動し

緩やかに、速やかに。

二年もの歳月、かたくなに滅びを拒んだ夢の城に、臨終の槌が下ろされる。

それは、喜びに似た音だった。

とうに命を失い、訪れる者のいなくなった鏡の城が迎えた、最後にして最大のショウタイム。

青子の魔力は電荷となって支柱に刻まれた魔術式を起動させ、連鎖的に、建物の息の根を止めてい く。

「……ごくろうさま。

でも、思ってたよりくたびれてたのね。これじゃ一分保つかどうか」

地下一階の中央広場。

呼吸を整えながら、青子は魔術刻印をフル回転させる。

魔術式を組めないのを承知の上で、その両手に青い光をまとわせる。

……乱れた呼吸は簡単には治まらない。

How?
Aoko says she's running the crest at max. But the next sentence is that the crest isn't able to assemble any formulas.
I think she's just using it for magical energy backup.

"The ability to store magical energy in something outside yourself is unique.
Even your strengthening is putting magical energy into something, right? Normally, whatever you put magical energy into changes in some way and uses up that magical energy. The effect of magic is instantaneous and not permanent, right?"

"So my family does it in a way that isn't instantaneous, and we cleverly put magical energy into the jewel so that it's permanent, but… other magi can do the same thing with their bodies.
That's the Magic Crest--the magic backup that all magi have."

"Magic Crest… oh, you mean the secret that a parent hands down to their child. I don't understand too well since I don't have one."

as Kayneth did here

Of course, the prana needed to expand the mercury into a mountain of swords isn’t even comparable to that used to form a membrane. Every single spike, twirled as thin as a steel wire, had to be equipped with all the strength and malleability to deflect bullets. The automatic defense this time was completed using all the prana Kayneth had in his possession. The inherited Magic Crest of the Archibald family on his shoulders circulated to its ultimate limit, creating extraordinary pain to the practitioner.

　無論、こうして水銀塊を剣山状に展開するのに要する魔力は、単純な膜状形態の比ではない。鋼線のように細 く絞り込んだ逆棘の一本一本に、銃弾を｜弾《はじ》くだけの硬度と｜強靱《きょうじん》さを付加しなければ ならないのだ。今回の自律防御は、ケイネスの持てる魔力の総動員によって成し遂げられたものだった。彼の両 肩に刻み込まれたアーチボルト家伝来の魔術刻印は極限まで｜経路《パス》を循環させ、持ち主の肉体を激痛で 責め｜苛《さいな》む。

[TwilightsCall]

I'm still stuck like two pages ago.

We are very specifically told that Shirou performs reinforcement by filling an object with Magical Energy - there's no formula involved. So what is even accessing the foundation?

At one point, Shirou cycles Magical Energy through his body to purge Illya's curse on him. Does that require a foundation? If so, there's very clearly no spell involved, so how is he accessing it?

In Case Files:

Though saying that, the magecraft I had used was nothing to be spoken of. It was nothing more than a bundle of magical energy given shape, enough to create a physical impact.

Does Reines require a foundation to bundle up the magical energy that's already in her body, that's already running through her circuits, and expel it?

It seems to me the other side of this argument requires you to argue that magical energy has no intrinsic properties on its own and no effect on the world without the existence of a foundation to operate through. This is an "argument" (not that I'm sure anyone is explicitly making that argument) that just seems obviously false to me.

We know you can bundle up magical energy and cause a physical impact by shooting it at someone.

We know you can cycle magical energy through your body, which has the effect of improving your physical attributes without the use of spells.

So what happens if you just pour magical energy into an object? Well, we know if you do it poorly (as with Rin's lamps), it destroys the object. And if you do it properly (as with, say, Shirou's shinai) then it improves the function of the object. There just doesn't seem to be any need to posit any sort of interaction with a foundation - from the description we are given, that just appears to be an inherent property of magical energy itself - one that, what I would argue is not a coincidence, coincides perfectly with the example of the physical attributes of magi improving just by cycling magical energy through their bodies.

Of course there is Reinforcement magecraft that uses a foundation, but that's a completely separate issue.

[Leftovers]

How?
Aoko says she's running the crest at max. But the next sentence is that the crest isn't able to assemble any formulas.
I think she's just using it for magical energy backup.

By distinguishing assembling formulas and running presets to explain why she shouts out her combos later, I suppose. In any case this is a side theory, I'm personally on the side of her crudely wrapping her limbs in raw magical energy and pummeling things.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm still stuck like two pages ago.

We are very specifically told that Shirou performs reinforcement by filling an object with Magical Energy - there's no formula involved. So what is even accessing the foundation?

At one point, Shirou cycles Magical Energy through his body to purge Illya's curse on him. Does that require a foundation? If so, there's very clearly no spell involved, so how is he accessing it?

In Case Files:



Does Reines require a foundation to bundle up the magical energy that's already in her body, that's already running through her circuits, and expel it?

It seems to me the other side of this argument requires you to argue that magical energy has no intrinsic properties on its own and no effect on the world without the existence of a foundation to operate through. This is an "argument" (not that I'm sure anyone is explicitly making that argument) that just seems obviously false to me.

We know you can bundle up magical energy and cause a physical impact by shooting it at someone.

We know you can cycle magical energy through your body, which has the effect of improving your physical attributes without the use of spells.

So what happens if you just pour magical energy into an object? Well, we know if you do it poorly (as with Rin's lamps), it destroys the object. And if you do it properly (as with, say, Shirou's shinai) then it improves the function of the object. There just doesn't seem to be any need to posit any sort of interaction with a foundation - from the description we are given, that just appears to be an inherent property of magical energy itself - one that, what I would argue is not a coincidence, coincides perfectly with the example of the physical attributes of magi improving just by cycling magical energy through their bodies.

Of course there is Reinforcement magecraft that uses a foundation, but that's a completely separate issue.

Circulating magical energy to flush your circuits isn't a spell, and no one contested that throwing out raw magical energy doesn't require a foundation. But if something is reinforced, and reinforcement is a spell, then how do you reinforce without calling it reinforcement? How are you directing the magicke forcesse to do your specific bidding?

[TwilightsCall]

Then why does Shirou pouring magical energy into objects require a foundation?

[Leftovers]

Because reinforcement is a spell, and spells require formulas, and formulas are in foundations. Unless reinforcement is an attribute, which still requires a spell which to give purpose to. Illya's perception shift isn't a spell of shifting perception, it's the attribute of "shift" applied to an unidentified spell.

- - - Updated - - -

now, one could say that what is /called/ a spell of reinforcement isn't actually a spell but the effect of pouring magical energy into a vessel at just the right amount so that its ~gaps are filled~ and it becomes ~perfect~, but then pouring magical energy into anything would have that effect: say, filling in a gem's microscopic cracks instead of actually storing the magical energy inside, which would then require an intent to specifically reinforce the object by putting magical energy into it, which loops back to attributes

[You]

Rather than suggest that what Shirou does with reinforcement is in any way similar, the more likely conclusion is that Aoko's limb hardening is simply her gathering raw magical energy in her limbs to mitigate blows like the wall of magical energy did while also dealing damage in some way of her own.

The wall doesn't mitigate blows only things without true physical form like curses.

展開された霧は魔術によるものではなく、魔力をぶちまけただけの障壁だ。

飛来する一本の矢の威力をそぐために、バケツ三杯分のガソリンを燃やして壁を作るようなもので ある。

これが人形の腕であったのなら魔力の壁はたやすく突破されただろうが、実像のない“呪い”だからこそ、魔力 の壁に弾かれる。

But yes I agree what aoko is doing isn't exactly what Shirou is doing. Shirou is doing what Aoko's doing but with a different object.
Here, I believe Shirou is doing what Aoko is doing.

Why is she there?
What would she be doing there?
With her long hair fluttering and doing nothing, she looks down at the town.

"……"
It doesn't seem like she notices me down here.
No, there's no way she could see me.
She's so high up that I, with better eyesight than most, can barely see her by improving my vision with magical energy.
I can recognize her since she's standing there alone, but there's no way she would notice me down here among all these people.

[Leftovers]

"but why can't it just be a spell that may have its trace on incantation and magical energy input but not have to activate a mystery engraved onto the world to actualise the effect of Make Thing Better"

because effecting magic changes on the outside world without needing to bother with foundations of magecraft is slightly outside the purview of modern magi, imo

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Her limbs don't become better at being limbs, they become blunt instruments, cmon.