Chương 16: Wasting&Friend

After having his quirk registered, routine returned in an all familiar yet unfamiliar way.

Things were in essence not too different from before, spending his time between the various skills and upgrading things in the order of priority he had originally settled for.

Of course the pace and methods were very different due to Makima's presence.

With Auntie and Nephew now being on the 'same page', Thaumiel was given enough space and liberty to explore his own talents to his heart's content.

Originally he thought he would feel the same boredom and frustration as he kept upgrading skills that he did before the hostage incentive, yet although bored by it he wasn't affected too much and managed to persist it in the routine.

Perhaps because the experience and ups and downs had caused him to grow?

Perhaps because now he knew the talents didn't really have a ceiling but even had a next stage?

Whatever the reason it was, Thaumiel himself didn't know but he kept doing in good spirits.

Of course just because he had newfound enthusiasm and perseverance the results were still quite far from coming.

Even when focusing all his points on a single talent the time it took to upgrade things beyond level 40 was no joke, not to mention when things reach 48 or 49.

When upgrading meditation he had focused on the talent in a singular manner for a period of months, it's conceivable how long it would take to upgrade when he was dividing his time among various talents.

Still he did somewhat decide on a few focus points.

First and foremost was his Chimera Quirk Development talent.

It was potentially the talent that would give him the most noticeable 'feedback' once upgraded above human limit, since the talent itself is related to a quirk/superhuman power.

The problem though is the talent was also at least leveled among his focused talents.

The second level of priority were talents that were already near the LV 50 mark and he found them rather useful and essential for his better survival in this world.

Mainly: Fighting, Martial Arts, Survival, Multitasking.

The third level of priority were the talents he discussed with Makima and should have great potential even if they weren't to reach level 50, not to mention if they reached. In short were talents with lots of potential but which there was no hurry to level.

Respectively: Socialization, Programming, Academic.

The fourth level of priority were the rest, talents that initially do not seem to have much need for upgrading or which will naturally upgrade though his daily activities such as Calligraphy, reading and linguistics.

Makima was also rather in agreement with this order of priority, though before the discussion on the division of priority Thaumiel was given a bit of a lesson by her.

As she had once said after he mentioned having a double quirk and explained its mechanics.

She believed he was wasting a great deal of the quirks potential.

…

With both in the living room Makima took Pochita in her lap and carefully combed the dog's hair as she spoke to Thaumiel.

"The reason why I'm saying you were 'wasting' your talents, is because first the way you are utilizing the points doesn't seem to be the most effective one."

"How so?"

Asked Thaumiel looking a bit confused while he similarly combed Polka's fur, making the dog snore in a pleasant manner ever so often.

"Usually when teaching children how to better use their quirks most adults take the approach of letting the children slowly figure out on their own, unless it is the inherited type of quirk where people can 'pass down' their experience."

She started in a monotonous tone, fixing her red hair behind her ears while her yellow reddish eyes were maintained on Phochita yellow vibrant fur.

The akita at the moment seemed to be having the time of his life, laying soo lazily on her lap one would doubt if the dog was even breathing.

"The reason why I'll remind you is because your All Talents is the time that builds up progress over time. So a small loss here in the future would equate to a huge loss, and in turn the more you can build up now the more you profit in the future. Tell me, till this point how have you usually been utilizing and distributing your points?"

Hearing the question Thaumiel paused for a few seconds seriously considering the issue.

How had he been using the points? In the most obvious manner.

"Well when going to exercise or practice something I move the points to take the most out of it."

"Okay and outside of those?"

"Outside… I usually leave everything on survival around the house."

"..."

Receiving a silent side eye from Makima, Thaumiel briefly froze as he picked a slightly irked mood in the air.

Thankfully though Makima didn't bother too deeply on the issue and turned her eyes back to pochita before proceeding to talk.

"From what you told me when putting points in a talent, beside the simple boost in learning progress you also receive other sorts of benefits."

"Yeah… they vary a bit with every talent, some are more noticeable and others I can't quite figure out."

"I see then lets do a simple study here, move the points to one specific talent and tell me what differences you feel."

"Move then, sure but… to what talent?

"Any talent is fine."

She said in a matter of fact tone while slowly sliding the sleeping Pochita off her lap and turning back her eyes to him while she patiently sat on the sofa waiting for Thaumiel.

Hearing her, Thaumiel did a brief scan in his panel and at the end decided on moving the full amount of points to the martial arts talent.

[Talent: Martial Arts(1054) Lv43]

Immediately he felt the usual sixth sense bought by having his points in survival fade away and another sensation took over.

"Seems you moved then… your posture changed a bit, so what talent did you 'buff'?"

Although a bit surprised Makima actually noticed Thaumiel at this point wasn't all that surprised with the woman's almost supernatural observation ability… perhaps it's because she worked in a very similar manner to a detective thus she was very skilled in this regard.

Or maybe she was just made different?

"I moved to martial arts."

"The talent of martial arts… is it the one you usually upgrade in the dojo? What type of increment do you feel when the points are centered in this talent?"

Makima asked curiously as she got up from the sofa and walked over to him observing him from top to bottom as if trying to spot any kind of visible differences.

Thaumiel on the other hand was doing some introspective, although he had moved the points a lot of times to martial arts he usually never moves the full amount as he divides it between fighting, martial arts and survival.

But now that he moved everything into this talent?

"I feel… in control? It's a bit weird to describe… it's like how usually a person can't really flex some muscles in specific but after a lot of working out they can flex a specific group of muscles. It's the same but to the whole body."

His description caught makima a bit off guard not expecting him to be the type to throw such analogies… but she got the gist of what he wanted to express.

"So moving everything into martial arts gives you great 'body control', makes sense, one would indeed need great ability of controlling their muscles to perform martial arts. What more?"

"Well… I can also more or less 'see' the way people move, like what parts of their body they put strength in and can copy those sets of movements and immediately perform in a very familiar way. I guess that's about it?"

"Are you asking or are you answering?"

"I don't know, that's all I can really 'feel' different but I can't say for sure there aren't some other changes… like I guess I become a bit more determined as well?"

"I see.. so the changes go from minor to major ones, in that case the benefits 'talent points' bring are much bigger than simple enhancing."

Nodding to herself Makima spoke out loud in the same teacher-like manner before returning to her seat and having Thaumiel take a seat as well.

"Then now why don't you make use of these 'benefits' brought by the distribution of talent more? You usually only keep the points of survival as a result you are depriving yourself of various other passive benefits you could be making use of… Let's say the current you with all points in survival vs your points distributed among, Fitness, fighting, Martial arts, and survival. Who would win?"

Hearing the question Thaumiel didn't even need to consider much deeply to know the answer.

The version of him with his talents split would most likely win.

Even if their level in all talents were the same having the points divided would give the other self massive advantage.

"Now you noticed. Till now you thought it wouldn't matter much to take the points out of a talent and leave it into survival since the 'Levels' in it would not decrease and thus your skill in the department would not decrease. But you do lose a lot of other 'increments' you could be making use of in those talents making them much less useful and overall limiting yourself. Of course the fault is not exactly yours, every person isn't born knowing all the nuances of their quirks. Much exploring is needed. It's just your quirk is designed in such a clear cut manner you also end up being led to use it in the most intuitive way."

Hearing her, Thaumiel was somewhat obliged to agree, indeed there was such a difference. looking carefully at it he also once had an opportunity to take notice when under Übermensch his hyper focused self split the various talent points among the ones he considered useful for the plan.

"What about the other way I'm wasting my talents?"

Hearing his question Makima didn't answer right away but instead took her phone and spent a few minutes typing at something until a small police report appeared and then proceeded to hand it to him.

Looking at the syringe containing a green liquid in the report Thaumiel was a bit confused but didn't ask anything instead he kept reading.

The report didn't have much information and within a few seconds thus it was a fairly quick read.

'Trigger, quirk enhancing drug, villain factory… Hell, did something like this actually exist here?'

Stunned he looked up to meet Makima's calm gaze with his own surprised eyes.

"Is this for real?"

"Yes… the drug mentioned there, Trigger, does indeed exist, it's quite the big problem lately for the police force, especially since lots of fighters in underground arenas have started to use it after getting contrabands from somewhere…"

"Okay but why show me that?"

"... This is the second reason I said you are wasting your talents."

Makima said once again getting up from her seat and walking up to him sitting by his side as her hand took the cellphone and moved onto another police report.

"Originally trigger was a project made by various countries, a study with the purpose of massively boosting weaker quirks with the intention of increasing overall national prowess. The problem however is Trigger always had quite serious side effects, not to mention it being somewhat addictive.. It's however undeniable that Trigger is the crystallization of the knowledge of numerous scientists and their life's researches. Some of these talents must have had huge talent in the related areas to come up with something like this but… Could they compare to the amount you can casually move around?"

And with her finishing words Thaumiel faintly understood at what kind of thing she was hitting.

"With various top-tier scientists this half baked version of a quirk enhancing drug was the best they could come up with after years of studying… but what about you? With some points properly allocated could you create a trigger without side-effects? An improved version? Since you said talents had no 'ceiling' then there is theoretically no limit to what you could create. yet you aren't focused on further expanding what your talents absorb."

Her words dug into his heart.

Indeed while he'd occasionally have the thought of 'I could do this' or 'Could I do that?', till this point he had never really put his mind into improving upon what he had learned.

A drug like trigger… Could he create one? A perfect one?

…

The conversation with Makima was thought provoking.

To some extent she seemed as curious as he was to whenever he could create such a things and if his talents could reach that level.

He had the potential for it sure, but, potential was just that, potential.

It couldn't amount to much when not developed.

At the moment however he unfortunately had to focus on a different type of problem…

"How long are you planning on following me?"

"Ehhh~? I'll follow you wherever you go, till you accept me Aniki!"

Said an over the top excited and familiar looking yellow haired kid.

Which was precisely Denki Kaminari who he had briefly made use of during the villain hostage scene.

It seems however that after their little cooperation and because the plan he had come up with worked so perfectly allowing Denki and him to become the 'little heroes' of preschool.

Kaminari was then convinced he was some type of super genius and would one day become the number one hero, which prompted him to decide on becoming his 'little brother'…

'While he is scarily right, how the hell did he reach that conclusion?'

Even when putting all his points into socialization Thaumiel simply couldn't figure out this kid's strange brain circuits that allowed for him to reach that conclusion.

'Seems to understand kids socialization will need to reach level 50… or more…'

Thankfully ever since his talk with Makima, Thau had begun to leave his points more distributed giving him various passive benefits and advantages.

One which was great self control and emotions control because of meditation.

"Hm… Denki-kun it's cool and all you want to follow me around but, don't you think calling me 'Aniki' is a bit too much? I mean it kinda makes it sound like we are yankees…"

"Eh? What are yankees?"

"..."

"?"

"...You know what? Forget I mentioned."

"Oh Sure thing Aniki I already forgot anyway!"

The worst thing is this kid was worse than glue, be it in preschool he changed seats to sit beside him, be it out of school he also enrolled into the Dojo where Thaumiel now received a more focused training from Dynamo.

'Ahhhh at the end I forgot didn't I? this is a world of anime, people got some loose screws'

Thus, like that Thaumiel was forced to accept this sworn 'little brother'

'At least could be worse… I mean the kid got a great quirk, if you don't mention he short-circuited his brain and became an idiot… Should I try the effects or teaching on him? I was curious what kind of effects these talents would have once put to use.'

"Alright, Denki, I'll accept you as my little brother…"

"OHHHH!"

"BUT! you'll be giving me your share of Manjuu! How about it, still willing?"

"The whole share…"

Taking a moment to seriously think, the young Denki showed a pensive look…

In his mind on one side of a scale there was the small share of delicious snacks the school would give out once per week in lunch.

On the other end of the scale he would be accepted by the big brother he admired…

Choices, choices Thaumiel could almost see the kids brain in a violent struggle.

"Alright Aniki!"

And like that Thaumiel officially reached his 5 years old a few days later with a new little brother, an extra portion of manju every week and a supporting auntie.