Solving the True Name wasn't complicated—if anything, it was dead simple.
Arash Kamangir… in English, "Arash the Archer."
Across West Asian lore, say the word "Archer" and the first name that comes to mind is his.
So when Shane saw the card he'd summoned was "Archer," Arash—the savior-hero who brought peace to two nations—was naturally among the first candidates that flashed through his head.
Add in the wasteland and snowy peak from the vision, and the "Arash" hypothesis took shape.
What clinched it was the bow made manifest.
There are many tales about Arash's bow—some say it was hammered out by master smiths, others that it came by the guidance of the Zoroastrian Amesha Spentas.
But every version shares one trait—
the bow is a searing, blood-red crimson.
That signature detail let Shane decisively rule out most other options—Jebe, Ullr, Rama, and the like.
"Being able to manifest the other party's Noble Phantasm and then work backward to the true identity… it's basically solving a riddle while holding the answer,"
he sighed, drew a deep breath, and steadied himself.
He glanced around. Everyone else was still asleep; from their sprawled positions, quite some time must have passed. It felt like an instant in the dream, but here it was probably nearly dawn.
No more hesitation. Shane drew the Archer card from his sleeve and softly spoke the name:
"Arash."
No earth-shaking light. No howling gust.
Only an invisible shackle snapping—a chain quietly dropping to the floor.
He felt his link to the card suddenly widen and set, like a river pouring into the sea—smooth and deep.
The warmth flowing out swelled severalfold as well, which meant his body's metamorphosis toward a Heroic Spirit's vessel had sped up dramatically.
What shocked him more was that, with the limiter gone, he finally understood how to truly unleash the Noble Phantasm.
In principle, a Noble Phantasm is the crystallization of a Heroic Spirit's elevated legend—something only its owner can fully wield; a borrower can't truly master it.
But the Book of Heroic Spirits offered a simple answer: if you can't use it because you're not the owner—then become the owner.
Once the True Name was revealed, the card didn't just let Shane manifest the Noble Phantasm; it let him fully take on the Heroic Spirit's form.
All abilities, physical parameters, Noble Phantasms—everything could be his to use.
"A Heroic Spirit, huh…"
Just thinking about Arash climbing an eighteen-thousand-foot peak in little more than a shirt—and loosing a god-tier shot that split lands and spanned 2,500 kilometers—set Shane's blood racing.
"This is exactly the stat-monster I imagined—raw physical power, flawless technique…"
Almost without thinking, he triggered the card and overlaid Arash's spirit form onto himself.
The moment his eyes fell shut, a solid force surged through him.
Scarlet streamers fell into place, the familiar bow settled into his grip, and his coarse prison rags became mana-woven foreign garb.
His muscles tightened and filled; stamina gushed like a spring.
His five senses sharpened to a razor's edge. Even in the dark, he could make out the veins on a gnat's wing in a distant crack between bricks.
Confirmed…
He gave the longbow an easy sweep; the motion was fluid and natural, as if the weapon were an extension of his arm.
In this form, inside this tower, there's nothing I can't do. He nodded, utterly certain.
Power pounded through him; his bow hand itched to draw and fire. He forced down the urge and kept cataloging every change.
But when he moved to summon the Book and check his stats, a heavy weakness welled up from his bones.
It was uncanny—his muscles were still full and strong, but something inside was being drained at speed.
Not a flesh problem… he realized at once.
It felt more like the vessel called "Shane" couldn't contain the vastness called "Arash."
If the cup is small, how do you hold a pond's worth of water?
He figured he could last twenty seconds more, at most.
"Forty seconds is the safe window. Never over a minute." He frowned. Holding the brink like that felt awful, but there was no helping it.
"For now, I'll treat manifesting the Noble Phantasm as the default tool." He murmured as the power ebbed like a tide.
He didn't squeeze himself dry—he wanted nothing odd to show in daylight—and calmly dismissed the card.
He wasn't particularly disappointed; freeing the class card was upside any way he looked at it.
As for the short duration…
With a little time before the whistle, he shut his eyes and sorted through the intel in his head.
There were only two ways to extend the spirit-form uptime: expand the vessel, or get finer control.
For example, only overlay the arms when you need wrist strength; only reinforce the legs when you need to run. But the latter would require long practice—not happening overnight.
"So for now, the only viable route is the first," he thought. The "vessel" is your base body. Keep improving it with that warm current until it's closer to a Heroic Spirit's essence, and the overlay time will naturally stretch.
The plan clarified.
"Figures—I've got to grind levels on the worksite. Back to hauling and eating dust." He tugged a wry smile and clenched a light fist—funny how everything looped back to square one.
"In the meantime, verify the layout and the rest, then find a chance to bring Jellal and the others in… and after that, we raise hell." His eyes burned as he set his course.
…
Back on the site, the tension was obvious at once.
There were even more guards than yesterday—two full rings, inside and out. Worse, everyone's workload—his included—had been jacked up by thirty percent.
That pushed people to the brink.
The original quota had already flirted with human limits. Add thirty percent, and you're just burning through bodies.
"Looks like it really is almost finished." He tilted his head back at the soaring tower—the tip lost in cloud—and felt a pressure settle on his shoulders.
The tighter the moment, the cooler the head.
Haste makes waste. He drew a long breath, forced down the itch in his chest, and felt glad he hadn't put off the True Name any longer.
While hauling rock and mortar, he poured more attention into his surroundings. With the link to the card widened, the increased warmth gave him the bandwidth.
Testing and comparing, he found the increase wasn't twenty or thirty percent, wasn't a mere doubling—it was tenfold.
A trickle had become a river.
His stamina drain was now far below what the warmth gave back by improving his physique. He felt like a machine with bottomless fuel—able to keep moving at full power.
What had taken him all afternoon yesterday, he cleared in an hour.
If he were willing to squeeze his body without restraint, his speed of converting toward a "Heroic Spirit physique" would get so fast it'd scare even him.
"…That's insane." He looked down at his dust-caked hands and finally, truly felt the across-the-board benefits of revealing the True Name.