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Reon's first thought was one possible explanation.
Maybe that flow of warmth had repaired his originally frail body and, in doing so, improved its baseline physical condition.
But he quickly dismissed the idea.
By yesterday, his body had already recovered for the most part, yet no such change had appeared then.
He fell into thought, his knuckles resting unconsciously against his chin. Then, all at once, an idea flashed through his mind so sharply that his heartbeat jumped.
Maybe the true nature of the warmth flowing from the Heroic Spirit card was not healing wounds or restoring stamina at all.
Maybe it was fundamentally reshaping this mortal body, bit by bit, drawing it closer to the body of a true Heroic Spirit. In that case, the healing was only a side effect of the process.
And the method by which it achieved that...
Reon's gaze fell on his arm, still trembling slightly from labor.
"Could it be like forging steel?"
A spark lit in his mind.
"Push the body past its limits through repeated exhaustion and strain, then let the warmth repair and nourish it until it transforms?"
That had to be it. It was the only real difference between today and yesterday. He had drained his stamina completely, and then Archer had responded.
"So this is basically grinding levels."
Reon shot to his feet, so energized he barely felt the ache in his muscles anymore.
He stuffed the black bread, which he had long since grown to hate, into his mouth in a few quick bites. Then, right there in full view of everyone, he dropped to the ground and started doing push-ups.
If he could raise those attribute ranks before his plan began, then his chances of success would shoot up dramatically.
Not far away, Erza saw what he was doing and nudged Millianna with her elbow, then tapped the side of her head with a worried look.
"Is there something wrong with him up here...?"
"Millianna doesn't know, nya."
And as a fitting reward for Reon's dedication to self-improvement, when afternoon work began, one of the thin, tall overseers thoughtfully assigned him to a pile of stones that was literally twice the size of the one from the morning.
Before leaving, the man even spat viciously near Reon's feet on purpose, kicking up a little puff of dust.
That made the corner of Reon's mouth twitch.
He silently memorized the man's build and features, took a deep breath, and bent down to start lifting stone again.
The soreness in his arms came immediately and clearly, but he did not slow down. If anything, he moved faster.
The difference this time was that he paid close attention to every tiny change inside his body.
Whenever his stamina was just about to run dry, a stronger stream of heat than usual would rise from somewhere deep in his mind and seep into his overworked muscles in fine threads, bringing a soft, soothing relief.
These were details he had never noticed before.
Reon's eyes lit up, and he threw himself into the work even harder.
He was so focused and hardworking that even one of the overseers watching nearby could not help looking pleased.
"You, send another pile over there."
What they lacked around here were obedient, hardworking workhorses just like this.
Reon, meanwhile, refused nothing. He made no complaints and accepted every extra load they gave him.
By dinnertime, he still had a small part of the added pile left unfinished, yet for once the overseers did not make trouble.
With a wave of a hand, they simply marked it down and told him to finish it tomorrow.
Dinner was the same as always: a piece of black bread and a bowl of soup whose contents remained a mystery.
Reon wolfed it down in a few bites and then flopped flat onto the floor.
Honestly, he could endure the physical exhaustion.
But as a soul from a land of great food, this endless parade of livestock feed was truly unbearable.
"No, wait, before I got dragged into this world, even pigs ate better than I do now."
"This can't wait. It seriously can't wait."
Grinding his teeth, Reon shut his eyes and lay still.
Beside him, Jellal had originally wanted to tell him not to push himself so hard, but seeing Reon drenched in sweat and so tired he could barely speak, he only sighed and left him alone.
Of course, Reon had no intention of going straight to sleep.
First, he opened the Book of Heroes to confirm the results of the afternoon.
Sure enough, the final attribute, Agility, which had remained unchanged before, had finally shifted.
Agility: E-
(Your coordination and reaction speed remain at the lowest level. You may recognize danger, but your body will still be too slow to respond.)
That only confirmed that his theory was correct.
The other attributes, however, had barely changed. Reon could feel that they were still just short of a real rank increase.
Even so, after an entire afternoon of labor and sweat, he could clearly feel that his limbs no longer seemed quite so insubstantial, and there was a little more strength in his chest than before.
"At this rate, maybe one day I'll get to enjoy the beauty of crushing opponents with raw stats too."
A short while later, Reon's mood gradually settled, sharpening into quiet focus.
He decided he would first try to fall asleep normally. If the dream still did not come...
Then he would speak the True Name.
...
Reon's consciousness kept sinking, as if he were falling into an endless white abyss.
When sensation finally became clear again, he found himself attached to the body of a tall man, sharing every breath he drew and every beat of his heart.
They were climbing a cliff so steep it was nearly vertical. The freezing wind cut across his face like knives, and the thin air made his lungs burn with every breath.
Every upward step wrung a cry of pain from the man's muscles.
And yet the climber never hesitated. His hands and feet had long since turned dark with frostbite, but still he kept going.
Sharing his senses, Reon could feel it clearly.
Beneath that silence, a blazing fire burned within the man.
At last, after a long, brutal struggle, they reached the summit.
The view opened up in an instant.
Vast mountains and plains spread beneath them, while in the far distance military camps stretched in dense clusters like swarms of ants all the way to the horizon.
The man did not stop to catch his breath. He did not even pause.
He planted his feet firmly, took up his bow, and nocked an arrow in one smooth, flowing motion, as if he had repeated the act a thousand times before.
The bowstring trembled.
The instant the arrow left his hand, Reon's consciousness was violently pulled free and fused with it.
The arrow traced a dazzling path of seven colors through the sky, a rainbow slicing open the gray heavens.
Time seemed to stretch endlessly in that moment.
Reon's awareness raced forward with the arrow, passing over countless upturned faces below.
Soldiers caked in dust, hope rekindling in their eyes.
Elderly survivors of long years of war, their hands trembling as they looked up.
Children, wide-eyed and innocent, stare in wonder.
Every face was illuminated by that sacred rainbow light, bright and reverent, as if witnessing a miracle descend from heaven.
The arrow continued eastward.
Below it, mountains and rivers reeled backward at impossible speed.
Vast plains, winding rivers, endless ranges of peaks, all of it blurred into streaks of color beneath the arrow's flight.
A distance of two thousand five hundred kilometers vanished in an instant, until finally, at the far edge of sight, a great muddy river came into view.
Only then did the arrow, after its impossible journey, gently fall.
Behind it, in a place the arrow itself could not see, the earth slowly split apart. A deep scar opened along its path, cleanly separating two hostile nations.
And then, peace came.
Reon's consciousness was pulled back into that scarred and exhausted body.
The man looked toward the gentle glow of dawn on the horizon and spoke to himself in a voice so calm it was almost tender.
"I am Arash..."
"Arash Kamangir."
"I know."
Reon answered with solemn certainty inside his mind, though he had no idea whether the man could hear him.
Just as he had suspected, the Heroic Spirit called Archer was none other than the great hero who ended the sixty-year war between Persia and Turan with a single bow and arrow. Arash.
And the snowbound mountain beneath their feet was the conquered peak itself, Mount Damavand, the highest mountain in Iran, known as the roof of the Middle East.
But Reon felt no joy at all.
There was not even the slightest thrill of having solved the mystery.
Because he knew what was about to happen next.
Arash gazed quietly at the rising sun, and there seemed to be the faintest trace of satisfaction in his smile.
Then fine cracks began to spread across his body.
Like weathered stone, he slowly broke apart, split, and crumbled away, dissolving into a storm of frost and light that vanished into the fierce winds atop Mount Damavand.
A mortal body could not withstand an arrow that touched the realm of the gods.
...
...
When Reon jerked awake from the dream, he found himself gasping hard, cold sweat covering his forehead.
The rushing images from the dream, fragments of history and legend, the emotions carried through time, were still burning in his mind.
He pressed a hand to his chest. Even now, he could still feel the vibration of the arrow leaving the bowstring.
"What a dream..."
He murmured softly, his voice still trembling.
"So brief, and yet so impossibly long."
He had become the arrow itself, flown over countless faces lifted in hope, raced all the way to the Oxus, and stayed with it until the very last moment, when everything finally came to rest.
The impact of living through that with his own senses was stronger than everything he had ever experienced put together.
The mixture of awe and sorrow still clogged his chest, too heavy for words.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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