Bab 198: Stagnating Strength
__________ POV Narration__________
Yori looked at the result sheets in front of him with a concerned look.
Beru's physical examination gave him a lot of data to think about, but something was obvious.
The Ant King was now slightly weaker than when they had done the last test. Maybe because he had yet to get accustomed to the loss of motion in his hand and leg.
But that wasn't quite right. The tests were done with his working arm still produced somewhat weaker results than before.
Which meant that, without a shadow of a doubt, Beru had become weaker.
It was by a small percentage, so unnoticeable that no one would actually ever be able to tell the difference without having his previous test results.
Beru's exact words were 'I feel slightly off balance~'. It was true that the first tests on the punching machine showed the worst score.
But that was just because Beru lost his footing slightly when doing the test, leading to weaker results.
Beru did recover after he used his wings to support himself, but that didn't make Yori feel much better about the results he was getting.
Thankfully, after doing a few more of the same tests repeatedly, Beru's power was not declining.
But there was something else wrong with it. In the past, Beru had been able to constantly become stronger, every day he seemed to be just a tad bit stronger than the last.
It was to the point where Yori had to constantly come up with new apparatus to test his limits. Now, after testing for a week straight, Beru's power didn't change one bit.
The conclusion Yori eventually reached was quite simple 'His power is stagnating...'
Beru was, as of now, likely not going to grow any stronger with the quirks he had. Maybe only if he raised his proficiency with some of the more complicated quirks, but he wasn't going to grow stronger physically anymore.
Beru also looked at the results in front of him. It had been a very busy week.
He only visited Nemuri at night, mostly because she still didn't quite like him being away for long. She decided that the best course of action was to set a schedule for Beru to always return home by midnight.
Beru decided to respect said schedule since he didn't quite feel like seeing Nemuri all stressed out whenever he dropped by the home.
Nemuri seeing Beru's injured form was a grim reminder for her, one that Beru was not immortal. That, one day, he could also die. Regardless of age, regardless of strength.
The people at the hospital and even Recovery Lady couldn't quite make an accurate assessment of his stagnating strength. That was because they lacked the knowledge that Yori had, they didn't have previous test results that Yori had.
To them, Beru was the same perversely powerful figure, maybe with a missing arm and leg. But that was it.
"So...~ I guess I'm pretty much spent huh?~" Beru didn't feel particularly tired as of now, he could still use his powers casually now. But straining them to their limits was a lot more tiring than before.
"Apparently... It's hard to say what caused this. Either you came into contact with that rock, or you simply have never broken your body to this point in the past."
During the week that he had spent with Beru, Yori had still managed to carry a few tests out on the mystery rock that was laying on one of his laboratory tables.
The rock was still just as mysterious, as it seemed to have different reactions to many different quirks.
Most of them were erased permanently, some others were simply weakened exponentially.
Yori did those tests on quirked animals, he didn't want to experiment on humans directly again.
Doing so always left a bad taste in his mouth. He didn't want his feats to start being compared to those of the criminally insane Kyudai Garaki.
In Beru's case, the stone completely stagnated his strength. Beru and Yori did the best they could in order to find out more about the stone's effect on Beru, but apparently, it no longer reacted to him at all.
That further confirmed the fact that Beru had come in contact with the rock before.
"Coming in contact with the rock might've affected my quirks, it maybe got in the way of my regeneration, which was also being overused. A combination of all previous theories is what most likely happened~"
Beru was able to reach a conclusion after staring at all of the data for a while. Thankfully, High Spec still worked relatively well. He wasn't going to fall too far behind in the brains department.
"Most likely, there is still a lot to test with this stone, so I wouldn't call anything conclusive. What we've got till now is good enough though."
"Yeah well~ It's just a rock that interferes with and tries to erase the latent quirk factor from the DNA of whoever comes into contact with it.~ Pretty straightforward on its effects~"
Beru summarized their data on the space rock with just a few sentences, that was all they had for now.
Mostly obvious observations that only helped them understand how the stone worked, they didn't quite understand 'Why' it worked.
"It's a good thing I'm not growing any weaker though~," Beru said as he eventually got up from his chair and stretched a bit.
"I think we ought to do tests more often from now on. Just to make sure nothing else happens to your body."
Beru just nodded at Yori's suggestion. It was a good idea to constantly check up on his condition from now on.
Not long after that Beru left the lab and continued on with his day.
__________ POV Beru__________
What to do with the rest of my day...
I don't have anything urgent to do, I also don't have anything special planned.
There are little to no villains around and I really don't feel like walking on the streets since that has become very tiring since I became the new Symbol...
I guess I can also go home and watch the television. Or maybe pay Nagant a visit, it's been a while since I've heard from her after all...
I think I'd rather see what Nagant is up to. Nemuri is at work right now anyway, so I have nothing to do at home besides waste my time.
Thankfully Lady Nagant's home isn't all that hard to reach. Well, what places are hard to reach with teleportation?
I know the place well enough since I helped build it...
Now that I think about it, why didn't I build myself a cabin when I was younger? Sure it would've been a bit harder, but sleeping in trees didn't always provide good cover from the rain.
I guess the thought just didn't come to mind. The fact that I can't get a cold must've also played a role in that.
Oh well, let's see what Nagant is up to!
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Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone