Surprise! Did you expect an update so soon?
Well, moving on, I was initially more inclined towards using Bound to Light as the true name and changing the flaw name. And it turns out almost everyone who voted on the poll agreed with that, plus I was done writing this chapter quite fast. So I was like, why wait?
So that choice is final.
Anyways, here is the next chapter.
I am really excited to see your reactions to what is at the end, lol.
___
Sore from the beating everyone had received thanks to Reinhard, all the male sleepers were now in the boy's locker room.
And to take revenge, most of them were circling around Reinhard. Or at least that's how it seemed to him.
'This is hell,' he groaned internally.
"Reinhard, that was incredible!"
"Your Aspect is overpowered, am I right?"
"That Nephis girl stood no chance at all!"
"Did you beat everyone without using your aspect at all?"
Reinhard was politely replying to their questions with a small smile on his face.
However, internally-
'Bunch of pussies.'
The reason they were only commenting about his victory against Nephis was because she also had a true name like him, and the second was because they couldn't do the same about Caster.
He was standing a few meters apart after all, and even if weaker than Reinhard, he was capable of beating all their asses in his own right. Plus, he was a legacy too.
___
After changing into his academy uniform, Reinhard made quick work of the few sleepers who were still following him by politely refusing their attempts at making him join their group.
Since he was mostly alone till now, they thought the locker room would be a good opportunity to start a conversation with him to then continue that connection later.
But Reinhard wasn't going to be stuck in their games; he knew his own worth. If he really had to group with sleepers for the dream realm, he would simply look for worthy members, and he was valuable enough for most to accept him into their party.
And in front of his charisma and natural aura of superiority, which was projected into the sleeper's mind even if he wasn't someone who acted overconfident, they had no choice but to accept and leave him alone.
'Finally, Some alone time.' He sighed while walking back to his room.
They were sticking to him like leeches till the point he politely told them to piss off.
Never minding that, this day was very fruitful for Reinhard.
He had also understood an important thing: if he had not fought so many sleepers before Caster, he would have had a much harder time beating him.
And that is where his innate ability helped.
He checked his runes, his eyes landing on the thing currently in his mind.
Innate ability: [Od Temper]
Innate ability description: [Your soul hardens through conflict, gradually adapting your body and mind to withstand the conditions you have survived.]
The more he fought, the more his natural fighting instincts, reflexes, fighting mastery, and physical capabilities increased by a miniscule amount.
Even though he had the [Battle Master] attribute, his own understanding of fighting was still low; however, having fought so many sleepers, his innate ability came into play, increasing that as well.
'It probably showed such a major increase due to me being a rookie,' he thought. 'The speed of improvement will probably decrease the better I get. And if i am wrong—well, I guess then my aspect ability wouldn't be the only overpowered weapon in my arsenal.'
___
Reinhard went back to his room and used the attribute he had used to examine every detail of his flaw to read the remainder of his status, primarily to make sure he didn't miss anything.
[New attribute acquired.]
[Attribute Name: Spell Perception.]
'Now then, let's see..' He observed his stats from the top.
Scanning downwards, his eyes first landed on his aspect ability, Oathborne.
'What's even there to know about Oathborne? I pretty much know everything about this already.'
Still, he decided to see a better description of his aspect ability since it wasn't like it was costing him anything.
The aspect ability description changed right in front of his eyes.
Aspect abilities: [Oathborne]
Aspect ability description: [You may manifest attributes bound to your own actions. Each soul core can anchor one such attribute.
This was like a slap to the face, a punch to the gut, and a side part of his self-awareness laughing at him at the same time.
Reinhard's eyes widened in surprise.
'Woah, woah, woah, wait a second! First of all, how did you convert a five-word description into two whole sentences? What kind of scam is this?'
Well, more like a scam for people who did not have an attribute similar to his, an attribute that could allow them to get more insight into their status.
After thinking that, he examined the description seriously.
'Manifest attributes bound to your own actions... Is that some kind of restriction?' That was the first thought that entered his mind. While someone else might see it as a better understanding of how they could create attributes, Reinhard immediately caught onto its wording.
'That would mean I cannot create attributes that aren't bound to my actions... What does that even mean?'
He stored that for later thinking and moved on to the other part. If not for [Calm Mind], Reinhard's jaw might have hung open from the implications of this sentence.
'Each soul core!'
That clearly implied there could be multiple!
'Holy shit.'
While nightmare creatures could easily have up to seven cores, as far as humans knew. That wasn't the case for awakened humans; Reinhard had never heard of a human having more than a single core.
'Is this something only I can have?'
His innate ability, or aspect ability, didn't indicate he could achieve something like this.
He looked at his aspect rank and one of the attributes.
'If most awakened can't get multiple cores, it means I can due to something unique to me.'
The obvious things in that criteria were his attribute [Favored of Spell] and his aspect rank, which was Divine.
He decided to use [Spell Perception] for a better description.
[Favored of Spell] Attribute Description: "Your standing with the Spell is elevated. Drop rates of memories and echoes are increased. Chance of gaining an attribute upon spell evaluation is improved."
'Yeah, so this is not the reason. Still cool though.'
Reinhard was not surprised by reading the description because the normal description already said, "The spell will reward you more," or something similar. So rewards in terms of memories and echoes made the most sense.
'I guess that means divine aspect rank is the reason for the multiple cores.'
Now that Reinhard was done with gaining more insight into his aspect ability and flaw, it was time to use [Spell Perception] on his innate ability.
He sighed.
'Finally, time to check out what's up with you.' He thought while looking at his innate ability description.
Innate ability: [Od Temper]
What he saw next truly left him speechless.
Innate ability description: [
Minor increase in physical durability proportional to endured conflict
Minuscule resistance to environmental extremes previously survived
Minor improvement in pain tolerance and minuscule resistance to shock
Slightly accelerated recovery from familiar injury types
Minor reduction in fatigue accumulation during prolonged strain
Minuscule reinforcement of bones, muscles, tendons, and skin
Minor improvement in stamina and oxygen efficiency
Minuscule increase in mental resilience against fear, despair, panic, and stress
Slight resistance to mental intrusion or psychological pressure
Minuscule resistance to mind control, soul damage or anomalous effects previously endured
Minor improvement in reflexive responses in familiar situations
Minuscule subconscious optimization of movement and posture to reduce harm
Diminishing returns when conflict is low-intensity
Slightly greater gains when survival involves genuine danger
No meaningful growth without real conflict or hardship
All adaptations are permanent and cumulative; repeated exposure to similar conflict stacks these effects incrementally over time
]
____
What do you think?
Wait a sec, I have a reason why this isn't too OP. I mean, in a way it is, but this is like a passive Mahoraga buff that won't really show major effects in fights in short time differences, so you can expect it to be like growing a tree for a decade before it gives you a fruit as a reward. More of a slow and steady thing, basically.
So I guarantee it won't make Reinhard overpowered any time soon.
And if you still consider this OP... well, isn't that the point of REINHARD?
Anyways, this was the longest chapter I have written yet.
When I used to write fanfictions, before, my shortest chapter would be around 2k words. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
If you have any suggestions, ideas, or theories about the fic, I would love to read them.
See you next time.