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The process of solving a True Name was not complicated at all.
If anything, it was absurdly simple.
Arash Kamangir... in English, his name was often rendered as Arash the Archer.
In the legends of West Asia, if someone spoke the word archer, he was the first figure that came to mind.
So when Reon first saw that the summoned card in his hand was Archer, Arash had naturally been one of the first possibilities to flash through his mind. A savior-hero who had brought peace and stability to two nations like that was impossible to ignore.
Then came the wasteland and the snow-covered mountain from the visions, and the guess that it was Arash began to take shape.
But the final piece that convinced Reon beyond any doubt was the bow itself.
Legends varied when it came to the bow Arash used. Some said it had been forged by master craftsmen at immense cost, Others claimed it had been granted under the guidance of the holy spirit of the Zoroastrian faith.
But no matter which version you followed, every description shared one unmistakable trait.
The bow was a blazing crimson red, vivid as fresh blood.
That one iconic detail was what let Reon confidently rule out most of the other possibilities, figures like Jebe, Ullr, Rama, and the rest.
As for Hou Yi, although the Classic of Mountains and Seas recorded that Emperor Jun bestowed upon him a red bow and white arrows to relieve the suffering of the world below, Reon had seen neither the legendary special arrow nor any sign of the sun-shooting bow.
"So I can manifest a Noble Phantasm, then work backward from that to identify its owner. This is basically solving a mystery while holding the answer sheet."
Reon sighed softly in admiration, then took a deep breath and steadied himself.
He looked around.
Everyone else was still asleep. Judging from the loose, sprawled way they were lying there, quite a lot of time had probably passed.
In the dream, it had felt like only an instant, but in reality, dawn might already be close.
He stopped hesitating.
Drawing out the Archer card from his sleeve, Reon softly spoke the name.
"Arash."
There was no world-shaking burst of light.
No gale roaring through the cell.
Only the sensation of something invisible snapping apart, as though a chain had silently fallen to the ground.
He felt his connection with the card suddenly widen and solidify, like a river opening into the sea, deep and unhindered.
The warmth flowing from it swelled several times over as well, which meant the speed of his body's transformation toward a Heroic Spirit's form had increased dramatically.
What shook him even more was that, with the restriction gone, he finally understood how to truly release the Noble Phantasm.
In theory, a Noble Phantasm was the crystallized elevation of a Heroic Spirit's personal legend.
Even if someone borrowed it, fully mastering it should have been impossible.
But the Book of Heroes offered an answer so simple it was almost unreasonable.
If you could not use it because you were not the original owner, then become the original owner.
Once the True Name had been revealed, the card no longer merely let Reon manifest the Noble Phantasm.
It allowed him to truly, completely assume the post-ascension form of that Heroic Spirit.
All of it. His abilities, his physical parameters, his Noble Phantasm. Every part of it could now be wielded by Reon.
"A Heroic Spirit..."
Just imagining Arash climbing an eighteen-thousand-foot snow peak in nothing but thin clothes, or loosing an arrow that split the world and crossed twenty-five hundred kilometers, was enough to make Reon's pulse surge.
"So this is what I always imagined as a true stat monster. Pure physical power. Perfect technique."
Almost without thinking, he called on the card and overlaid Arash's Heroic Spirit form onto himself.
The moment his eyes closed, a solid, immovable strength flooded through his entire body.
Red ribbons fell soundlessly at his sides.
The familiar bow settled into his hand.
His coarse prison rags were replaced by foreign spiritual garments woven from mana.
His muscles became firm and full, and stamina surged through him like an endless spring.
Even his five senses sharpened to an astonishing degree. In the darkness, he could make out the patterns on the wings of insects crawling in the cracks between distant bricks.
Confirmed.
Reon casually moved the bow in his hand, and every motion came naturally, fluidly, as if the weapon were simply an extension of his own arm.
In this state, he thought, there is nothing in this tower I can't do.
He nodded to himself with absolute certainty.
Immense power rushed through him. Even the fingers holding the bow started to itch with the urge to draw and fire.
Reon forcibly resisted the temptation and continued examining every change in his body.
But the instant he tried to summon the Book of Heroes and inspect his abilities, a heavy wave of weakness surged up from every part of him.
It was an extremely strange sensation.
His muscles were still full and strong, yet something inside him was being drained at terrifying speed.
Not the flesh.
He understood immediately.
This weakness felt more like the container called Reon being too small to hold the vast content called Arash.
A shallow vessel could not possibly contain the water of a whole pool.
He estimated he had no more than twenty seconds left.
"Forty seconds is the safe limit. I absolutely cannot go over a minute."
Reon frowned. The forced cutoff felt awful, but there was nothing he could do about it.
"For now, I'll have to treat direct Noble Phantasm manifestation as my normal combat state."
He murmured the words softly as the power in his body receded like the tide.
Because he did not want to appear strange during the day, he chose not to squeeze himself dry and calmly recalled the card.
He was not particularly disappointed.
From any angle, the card's true release was nothing but an enormous gain.
As for the problem of the short duration...
There was still some time before the whistle.
Reon closed his eyes and pretended to rest while organizing all the information he had gathered.
His conclusion was cold and simple.
There were only two ways to increase the amount of time he could maintain a Heroic Spirit form.
The first was to enlarge the container.
The second was to improve control with far greater precision.
For example, if he only needed arm strength, then only reinforce the arms. If he needed to run, then only strengthen his legs. But that second method would require long practice and could never be mastered overnight.
"That leaves only the first option for now."
He thought it through quietly.
The container was simply his body's base capability. If he kept improving his physique through that flowing warmth and pushed it closer to the essence of a Heroic Spirit, the duration of the transformation would naturally increase as well.
The path ahead became clear.
"So in the end, it really is back to leveling at the worksite. Time to get back to hauling stone."
Reon tugged helplessly at the corner of his mouth. After going in circles, he had somehow ended up right back where he started.
"While I'm at it, I'll keep confirming the environment and everything else around me, then find a chance to bring Jellal and the others in... and after that, we'll turn this whole place upside down."
His eyes shone in the darkness as he settled on the course ahead.
...
...
The moment he stepped back onto the worksite, he immediately sensed that something was different.
There were even more guards than yesterday. Two full layers of them stood around the area, inside and out.
Worse still, it was not just his workload that had increased. Everyone else's had also been raised by a full thirty percent.
This was no longer just harsh.
It was pushing people toward death.
The original labor had already been close to the human body's natural limit. Adding another thirty percent meant they were no longer concerned about losses among the slaves at all.
"So it really is close to completion."
Reon looked up at the towering structure. The top of the tower had already disappeared into the clouds, and a faint sense of urgency settled onto his shoulders.
But the more critical the moment, the more important it was to stay calm.
Haste ruins everything.
Reon took a deep breath and pressed down the impatience rising in his chest. More than ever, he was glad he had not delayed the True Name any longer.
As he hauled stone and moved materials, he devoted even more of his attention to the space around him. Now that the channel connecting him to the card had widened, the increased warmth flowing through him gave him enough surplus energy to do so.
After observing and comparing carefully, he discovered that the increase in the warm flow was not twenty or thirty percent.
Not double.
It was ten times greater.
A trickling stream had become a river.
That meant the rate at which he expended stamina was now far lower than the speed at which the warmth restored him and improved his body.
At this point, he was like a machine with an endless fuel source, able to keep operating in a state of full stamina almost indefinitely.
The stone pile that had taken him an entire afternoon and still remained unfinished yesterday was now completely cleared in just one hour.
If he were willing to push his body without any restraint at all, the speed at which he transformed toward a Heroic Spirit physique would probably become so fast that even he would find it shocking.
"...This is insane."
Reon lowered his head and looked at his dust-covered hands.
Only now did he truly, viscerally understand the full scope of the advantages that came with releasing the True Name.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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