Chương 5: A Taste of Overwhelming Talent

The next morning waking up completely unaware last night he was teased so hard by death that Thanos would be purple with jealousy.

Thaumiel felt refreshed like never before.

"Yup~ The difference in efficiency between an adult's rest and a child's rest is no joke."

Taking a moment to stretch his sore limbs Thaumiel checked the clock and was pleasantly surprised.

It was still a few hours earlier from when Makima would take him to preschool, in other words he had about two hours of time alone where he could develop some of his talents while she was out walking the dogs.

"But what talent should I level? At this point I have already stacked quite a lot but which is the most urgent?"

Taking a brief moment for contemplation and considering the possibilities he soon arrived at the answer.

'Fitness'

As of now having not awakened his quirk and being in a situation that could possibly turn bad at any moment Thaumiel felt self protection was the first thing he should consider.

Through his research last night he also learned that with a majority of the quirks the reason why they take a long time to manifest is because the body is not perfectly grown to handle them.

And with how innately weak his current self was being nothing but skin and bones it's a question when would he be physically capable enough to handle his quirk.

Thus a simple plan of actions took shape in his mind.

'Train body-> Get stronger-> Awaken Quirk->Train Quirk-> Self Protection!'

In any case even if training couldn't outright help him, getting more physically fit was never a bad thing, not to mention he was extremely curious how fast would his 'progress' be with over 450 talent points.

'Is there a Mr Olympia competition in this world? Should I sign up?'

Dismissing some unnecessary thoughts he quickly changed in a more sport-appropriate get up.

Then laying a mattress he had under his bed he recalled some home exercises he used to do in his previous life.

[Talent: Fitness(459) LV1]

'Alright time to see how good this 'quirk' is!'

With no further delays he did another set of basic stretches and began doing jumping jacks, followed by burpees, squats, pushups.

Basically every exercise he could recall from his previous life was done.

And boy he felt sore.

Originally Thaumiel hadn't realized but as he began to move, not only did exercise cause immense pain akin to having some serious cramp, but he also felt like a type of perpetual machine stamina wise.

So much that even after reaching the point of doing enough pushups to the points his arms would have exploded in his previous life he could still keep going.

Sure the pain he felt in his muscles was excruciating to the point he might have started to hallucinate the music of Rocky: the fighter started to play in his head, but it still didn't prompt him to be unable to exercise anymore.

A weird masochist virtuous cycle was formed as the more he exercised the more painful and energetic he became which in turn allowed him to keep exercising.

It wasn't only with the push ups, no matter what set of exercises he did a similar feeling occurred.

'S-so this is how it works? Give you infinite stamina and ten times more muscle soreness so you work out till you die from mental fatigue?'

Although deeply unsatisfied considering his uncertain situation, Thaumiel could only grit his teeth and keep exercising regardless of the pain and anguish.

Of course the reason he managed to persist wasn't of pure will.

Instead that was a rather minor one.

The real thing that allowed him to keep persisting was the rapid progress of his proficiency in Fitness.

With a single exercise the numbers on the LV already started to jump from the initial value of 1.

It went to 2 in the blink of an eye and kept increasing without any signs of stopping.

Sure the intervals between the increases grew a bit, as most probably the amount of work required to upgrade grew exponentially.

But over 450 talent points were no joke.

In the span of an hour Thaumiel had already arrived at level 18, what exactly did that represent?

He couldn't say for sure, and knowing himself if he stopped to check he didn't know if he could gather enough willpower to exercise again in a short while.

So he kept going on and on, and on…

Till the alarm clock he had set up beforehand began to ring, reminding him, Makima would be arriving from her walk with the dogs to make breakfast and take him to preschool in about 15 minutes.

Finally stopping Thaumiel laid on the mattress taking breaths so deep he felt his lungs burn, his eyes shone brightly as he paid attention to a certain number from the floating screen in front of him.

'LV 21…'

Taking a moment so the soreness subsided just enough so he could move, he then proceeded to sit up and look down at his hands.

"Dang!"

A quick glance at his forearms revealed this brief 1 hour and half of exercise had actually made him fit enough his muscles were actually visible.

"I only got this much definition from working out before after doing it for more than 2 years plus some pretty consistent diet, is this what 450 points of talent can do?"

In his surprise Thaumiel eyes shone, not only because of the possible proprects of being able to advance with such absurd pace of progress in pretty much anything but also because he found it fun.

Having your talents and progress laid in such a game-like manner where everything could be controlled and observed was a strange yet almost addictive feeling.

"Ahhh this is bad, real bad~"

As his heart sped up, excitement flowed through his veins along with an almost uncontrollable desire to just start upgrading everything like crazy, Thaumiel was quick to suppress his feelings and try to calm down his nerves.

Getting up he shook his body a bit to clear some of the excessive sweat on his body before putting away the mattress, grabbing a clean pair of clothes and with trembling legs making his way to the bathroom for a quick shower.

Unlike the day before however he couldn't take his time to lay in the bathtub.

…

Drying off his body and putting on the preschool uniform he became a bit worried.

Although nit extremely visible he was now q bit more noticeable fit.

'As fit as a 4 years olf can get I guess...'

The problem though is not to mention Makima, a person he occasionally meets would notice such a difference, and he honestly wasn't all that confident in lying straight to his auntie's face without giving out any clues.

'Ahhh, let's just use a long sleeved shirt underneat-FUCK!'

Opening the bathroom door he could only freeze in place with a stiff expression.

Because the devi-Makima was right by the door right in front, gazing at him with her usual smile that gave the most courageous guy in the world deep chills.

"Good morning Thaumiel. It seems you woke up early today…"

She said letting her words trail at the end, as her sharp eyes seemed to find a certain detail that caught her attention.

"Morning…"

He answered, trying his best to not stutter.

"You seem more energetic than usual."

"Thats-"

"How intriguing."

She said as the boy felt her eyes glancing at his arms that showed a tad bit more of definition then they had ever done before.

"Thaumiel."

"Yes!?"

"Are you hiding something from me?"

At her question his heart thumped like it never did before, the previous excitement extinguished leaving him only with a chill so deep he swears he couldn't feel his fingers.

'Think, brain you gotta think! It's a battle for survival right now… Wait!'

[Talent: Survival(459)LV1]

'Will it work?'

Gathering his courage his lips slowly began to part as he considered millions of possible answers that could help him get through this situation.

And just then as if by instinct his eyes focused on a certain thing, a silver lining that could potentially get him out of the dire situation.

"Wait, you are hurt?"

The sudden question managed to surprise even makima, making her eyes briefly avert from him toward her hand or more precisely her finger where a small scratch with a faith blood mark could be seen.

"I just got scratched while walking with the dogs, it doesn't mat-"

"It does!"

He blurted out in a rather loud voice as to his own disbelief he took her hand into his and pulled her toward the living room.

"Wha-"

"When Family gets hurt the first thing you gotta do is make sure they are alright."

He said not giving any further response as his tiny self dragged Makima to the living room and had her sit down at the couch while he went to grab a first aid kit.

With the sudden turn of events even Makima who was always stable couldn't properly react and only stood stunned while he proceeded to carefully clean the wound then put a bandaid on top.

"For today you shouldn't make breakfast since you are injured. I'm gonna get my backpack so we can go."

And like that he ran to his room leaving Makima alone to stare and her bandaged thumb.

…

Back in his room Thaumiel was trying to calm down the thumping hard inside his chest while also feeling amazing.

"To think it actually works in times like that… the talent went up to LV6 in one go. Ah I should totally have put some points in Medicine when bandaging her, no wonder it was so damn hard to properly put the bandaid."

Saying he was surprised by the development of things was an understatement. Originally the survival talent was something he had randomly thought of trying to gather the most points he could.

He didn't originally think he would end up using it since he was never really a camping guy.

Yet in that situation just like putting a lot of talent in Fitness made him have a lot of stamina to train and become inhumanly resistant to muscle fatigue, putting a lot of points in survival exploded his survival instinct like crazy.

"Seems I need to also look for other types of miscellaneous talents… they might have very unexpected effects once put in practice."

But that was for the future, At the moment he was already glad he got past the trouble.

'To think she could also be surprised though…'

Remembering the stunned look replacing the usual frigid face Thaumiel had to admit that when looking 'human' his auntie was quite attractive.

'For now let's keep the points in survival when not training in anything specific, just in case.'

Going for his bag he took out a few books and replaced them with the ones that would be used for that day.

Then he picked it up, took a deep breath and returned downstairs.

…

To his surprise Makima didn't really pick up the question from before, nor did she say anything but simply picked him up and put him in her black sedan like the previous day before driving him to school.

Not a word was said on the way which was both a good thing and also a bad thing for a chatterbox like him.

Thaumiel was a bit confused though, was survival with 459 of talent that awesome? Directly dispelled her doubts and made him drop the questioning with a simple finger bandaging?

In any case her not pursuing things any further allowed him to have some breathing space.

'That's right, what normal person would suspect a 4 year old for getting a bit buff in this crazy world where people can literally turn into living slime?'

Thinking like that Thaumiel also inwardly thought that perhaps he might have painted his new auntie a bit too harshly in his mind… Although she was scary… and she did give some serious sociopath vibes… and there was the thing with the burglar…

'But well those are details~ Ah? Why did survival level up again?'

…

Going through classes in preschool for the second day he had to admit.

'I underestimated my capacity to sit through this whole thing for a couple hours every day listening to a teacher explaining the simplest stuff ever…'

Not once or thrice but a dozen times did Thaumiel have to police himself against falling asleep out of sheer boredness.

Yet there wasn't really much he could do so he settled for the next best thing.

Using class time to upgrade some of his skills.

Thus distributing his points evenly between scholar, reading and multitasking, Thaumiel began to brush up his proficiency to pretty impressive degrees.

Of course not at the same pace as it was with fitness but at a pace ordinary people simply couldn't compare or hope to keep up with.

That pace was kept till it was finally time for lunch which then was followed by playtime.

'Well I could get used to this.'