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His childhood friend had become his senior trainee overnight.
Midoriya still found the title strange.
Ren had also felt strange ever since his Quirk was revealed.
Thinking that, Midoriya strained through another push-up and glanced with envy at Ren, who was training with All Might not far away.
Then he thought about himself.
Midoriya was working himself half to death to prepare his body to inherit a Quirk.
His so-called senior had already started training to develop a second one.
Comparing people really could crush a person’s spirit.
“Uncle,” Ren said, glancing at the freckled boy in the distance, “are we really practicing a Quirk right in front of my junior?”
Inside, Ren was delighted.
He really was a genius.
Not only had he learned One For All, he had turned the hero chosen by this world into his junior trainee.
If All Might were not standing beside him, and if Ren were not trying to maintain his cool, aloof persona, he would have thrown his head back and laughed.
“Do not underestimate Young Midoriya’s determination,” All Might said earnestly, completely missing Ren’s urge to show off.
“Aside from you, he has the greatest potential of anyone I have met.”
Ren stared at him.
Some people really could not recognize a cue.
“In any case, you have already copied…”
Ren’s eyes narrowed.
All Might immediately corrected himself.
“Learned.
You have learned my Quirk, One For All.
Try using it now.
I believe this should let you bypass the drawback of your original Quirk.”
Clearly, All Might still did not understand Ren’s insistence.
Copying was copying.
Why did he have to call it learning?
In both of their expectations, after Insight learned One For All’s function, Ren should be able to draw out his own body’s strength.
It would not be the terrifying core power of Insight itself, but All Might-level physical amplification was still something no one in this world could look down on.
Even All For One, wherever he was hiding in the dark, would not dare dismiss that power.
After all, the skeleton-like All Might before Ren had once nearly killed him.
Ren was nervous too.
This would decide whether his future combat style relied entirely on borrowed techniques, or whether he could become an all-rounder with both skill and raw physical power. Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping dot com.
He took a deep breath.
His narrowed pale eyes snapped open.
Inside the unknown space within his body, a flame born from One For All released a thread of power.
In less than a heartbeat, it poured into his arm.
Bang.
Air compressed violently and burst with a muffled crack.
The mountain of trash in front of him flew backward.
The farthest pieces splashed into the sea, sending a white column of water into the air before it finally fell.
Silence stretched.
Ren remained frozen in a straight punching stance.
All Might looked at him curiously.
“Young Mikage, how do you feel?”
Even Midoriya, who had already started running in the distance after hearing the noise, looked over in curiosity.
Had Ren’s acting habit struck again?
“Uncle,” Ren said, his pale face giving no warning at all, “please come help me.”
Only then did All Might realize something was wrong.
He hurried over and helped the completely stiff Ren sit down to rest.
Half an hour later, Ren finally recovered enough to suck in several harsh breaths.
He had almost suffocated.
Literally.
His body had locked up so hard he had nearly failed to breathe.
“What happened, young man?” All Might asked at once.
He had been guarding him the entire time.
“It succeeded,” Ren said, “and it failed.”
All Might blinked.
Was that a success or a failure?
If someone knew Ren, they might call him an actor.
If they did not, they might mistake him for a street fortune-teller making things sound mysterious on purpose.
Ren sighed.
“The success is that using the power I learned from One For All does not consume my life force.”
All Might relaxed.
If his Quirk had not shortened the boy’s life, that was already good.
He wanted to become a teacher.
He had not planned on becoming a death mentor.
Then another question occurred to him, and he crouched down.
“Your Quirk multiplies strength based on the strength of the body, right?”
All Might nodded.
One For All had the transferable trait, but its essence was still power enhancement.
In simple terms, it amplified physical strength.
The drawback was the burden it placed on the body.
“What I used just now was a basic straight punch from martial arts,” Ren said.
“Even though I controlled the output as carefully as I could, the burden still exceeded my limit and made my whole body give out.”
All Might thought back to the power behind that punch.
Ren had over a decade of martial training as a foundation, but the result still far exceeded what All Might had imagined.
He nodded, then noticed the problem.
“You said your whole body overloaded?”
“Yes.
I think it is because I have trained martial arts since I was small.
When I generate force, the whole body moves together.
That means the whole body carries the burden.”
Even a simple straight punch involved the arm, waist, core, legs, and many smaller muscle groups.
Applied to One For All, that meant each use did not overload only the striking limb.
The strain spread through Ren’s entire body.
Compared with Midoriya in Ren’s memories, the difference was huge.
If Midoriya used a full-power One For All punch, his arm would shatter because it could not bear the load.
If Ren and Midoriya had the same physique, Ren would at most suffer brief full-body exhaustion.
After hearing Ren’s explanation, All Might’s eyes lit up.
“Young man, that is a good thing!”
Ren’s mouth flattened.
For now, maybe it was good.
But the essence of the ability should have been Insight’s observation and reproduction.
Learning Bakugo’s Explosion had not mutated.
Yet with the power tied to the story’s chosen hero, something had changed.
Was it interference from fate?
Or was it because of this?
Ren quieted his mind and focused on the flame burning inside that unknown inner space.
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