With awe and expectation toward this legendary object, Shane focused all of his attention, deep within his consciousness, on the floating golden cup.
A faint but rich magical radiance flowed across its surface—so mellow it was almost intoxicating.
As his thoughts gradually synchronized with the cup's frequency, Shane quickly came to understand how this "limited wish" responded to expectation.
It was not the kind of wish-granting machine from fairy tales that could simply conjure up mountains of gold out of thin air.
Since it was a product born from the Book of Heroes, its core naturally could not be separated from the concept of Heroic Spirits. That meant the way the cup granted wishes also had to use Heroic Spirits as its medium.
Put simply, it was a causality-level targeted summoning device.
"I see…"
A flicker of understanding rose in Shane's heart.
"If I were faced with someone mortally wounded and dying, and wished to the cup because I lacked the means to heal them, the cup wouldn't directly create medicine out of nowhere."
"Instead, it would search the Book of Heroes and identify a Heroic Spirit with a healing legend—someone like Asclepius or Nightingale."
"Then it would 'release their Saint Graph,' allowing that Heroic Spirit's full living form and power to reappear, and use that to fulfill the 'wish' of healing."
By the same logic, if he wished to slay the Black Dragon—
then the cup would most likely identify Heroic Spirits with dragon-slaying legends, such as Siegfried, Saint George, or even Nezha, and have them descend to assist.
"Reproducing the reality that belongs to 'Heroic Spirits'… so that means releasing their Saint Graph?"
Shane rolled the term around in his mind, but a trace of confusion arose.
Why was it specifically emphasizing the release of the Saint Graph?
Based on the basic information the Book of Heroes had given him, Shane understood that a Saint Graph was the container that held the concept of an individual Heroic Spirit—the basis by which they manifested.
But in ordinary mystical understanding, Heroic Spirits were the sublimation of legends after death.
Once elevated into Heroic Spirits, they often possessed power far beyond what they had in life, thanks to the accumulation of all kinds of legends.
Shane frowned slightly.
"If 'releasing the Saint Graph' means returning them to the state they had while alive… then for most Heroic Spirits, wouldn't that actually be a downgrade?"
After all, many heroes had been flesh-and-blood mortals while alive. They might not have been nearly as powerful as the spiritual beings they became after death.
"Or does this 'release' mean breaking some kind of limitation, allowing them to descend in a transcendent 'complete form' beyond common sense?"
"Tch. Not enough information. There are too many details I still can't see clearly."
Shane shook his head and forcibly cut off the wandering train of thought.
Unfortunately, the wish could only be used once. This thing was far too precious to waste except at the most critical moment.
Otherwise, he'd be sorely tempted to make some random wish right now just to see what kind of "reality" the cup would reproduce.
"Whatever. There'll be chances to test it later."
Suppressing the turbulence in his heart, Shane shifted his attention back to himself.
With the completion of the long chain trial, he finally pulled up his status panel again after quite some time.
Name: Shane
Attribute: Neutral · Good · Human
Strength: D+
[You have surpassed the biological limits of humanity and reached the baseline of a low-ranking Heroic Spirit. You are capable of tearing steel apart barehanded and shattering rock. Your body itself is a weapon.]
Endurance: D+
[Not simply physical toughness, but a composite evaluation that includes survivability and pain tolerance. Your skin and bones have been conceptually reinforced, granting you basic resistance checks against poisons, curses, and other negative conditions. Even after withstanding the aftershock of an E-rank Noble Phantasm, you can still maintain a combat posture.]
Agility: D+
[The manifestation of reaction speed and explosive mobility. You possess sprinting speed beyond what the retina can fully capture, and move with feline agility in close combat. Against ultra-high-speed projectiles, your spinal reflexes alone are enough to evade without conscious thought.]
Mana: D+
[For a human, this is an abnormal level of magical energy. It not only supports prolonged high-intensity combat, but even without using magecraft, allows simple mental interference with others through pure magical output alone.]
Luck: EX
[As the holder of the Book of Heroes, you cannot be measured by conventional standards. Your resistance to "fixed destiny" has reached the highest level.]
Owned Skills: Requip
Held Classes: Archer, Saber, Lancer, Assassin
Current Permissions: Depth Authority (Permanent +1), Depth Authority ×3, Selection Authority ×4
Held Item: Limited Wish ×1
"Not bad…"
Looking over the neatly aligned stats, Shane nodded in satisfaction.
Although Mira and Erza had both grown explosively stronger lately, the one who had probably undergone the greatest transformation of all… was him.
Just as he had predicted, after uncovering Lancer's true name, his base attributes had entered an explosive growth phase.
Every single stat had reached an unprecedented D+!
Especially Mana.
Perhaps nourished by Lancer Lancelot's exceptional A+ Mana, what had once been Shane's greatest weakness had now completely surged ahead.
In fact, it even showed signs of being the first stat to break through the bottleneck and step into the C- range.
That alone was another major milestone.
But that was not the most astonishing part. The truly unreasonable thing was the container bearing this power.
At his core, Shane was still human. A human who had undergone no conceptual sublimation whatsoever!
To possess physical abilities comparable to—or even exceeding—those of a low-ranking Heroic Spirit while still in a mortal body was already absurd beyond belief.
And the most direct effect of this explosion in "base stats" was how it strengthened Heroic Spirits with lopsided stat spreads.
Take Senji Muramasa, for example. Though his skill was godlike, he was ultimately a smith, not a warrior, so his actual parameters were pretty terrible.
His Agility was only D, and his Mana was the pitiful E.
But now things were different.
From here on, whenever Shane released Muramasa's form, he could use his own stats to feed back into the Heroic Spirit, making up for Muramasa's shortcomings in Agility and Mana.
This was already beginning to resemble the outline of the monster Shane had imagined—one with broken stats across the board.
As long as he kept growing through each class card and raising his own white values—
one day, his flesh alone would become a living Heroic Spirit walking the earth, a being without weaknesses.
But even that was not the most terrifying part.
The truly chilling thing was this—
this "living Heroic Spirit" of his was not bound to any one specific legend.
"To have a body that surpasses Heroic Spirits, while also being able to freely switch between and wield the Noble Phantasms of countless Heroic Spirits depending on the situation…"
Shane clenched an imaginary fist in his mind, barely able to picture what that would look like.
"Whew…"
Taking a deep breath and feeling the surging power within him, Shane found himself yearning even more for the next trial.
"Long Chain Trial II is already finished, so why hasn't Long Chain Trial III appeared yet?"
"And these past few months, aside from all the dark guild unrest around the country, there hasn't even been news of any demons showing up…"
No demons meant no new ordinary trials being triggered.
And that, indirectly, meant his acquisition of Depth Authority had come to a halt as well.
Feeling a vague sense of disappointment, Shane unconsciously tightened the arms wrapped around the waists of the two girls.
"Mm…"
Erza blinked and let out a quiet sound.
She felt the sudden tightening around her waist, and the fleeting confidence pouring off Shane's body—so strong it almost seemed tangible.
The red-haired girl lifted her head and let her gaze rest on Shane's profile, now more sharply defined in the wind with age.
~~~
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