Chapter 30: Testing New Strength

( Feeling like shit once again. My right ear throbs in pain occasionally, and I'm damn near deaf in it as well. I want to bash my fucking head into a wall until this shit stops)

Chikyu backtracked to the beginning of the trial cave where the entrance was, and the entrance was open once again. Leaving it and following the trail of Kindan back to him, he found himself in front of him shortly.

"So, how did the trial go? I assume you succeeded, since you're here.", Kindan inquired.

"I passed. At the end of the trial, there was some strange architecture. There, I saw a pedestal with a weird heart on it. There was a placque under it that called it a demon heart, and it told me to eat it to gain demonic strength. So I did, and now I'm much stronger. But I have some questions.", Chikyu responded.

"Ask away."

"Was it the heart of an actual demon? Or is it some kind of magical artifact made to look like one?"

"Depends. What did it look like?"

"Well, for starters, it was bleeding, and the blood was the darkest color I had ever seen. It also looked "sharp" for lack of a better word."

"Ah, that type. That heart belongs to a race of demons known as Zyitkan Demons. They are most well known for being exceptionally adept in anything physical as soon as they're born, and they also have an exceptional level of talent in magic and things similar to it. When they die, they leave behind their hearts, spirits, and experiences."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait! Back up a bit. Magic? Like, fireball type magic?"

"Correct. And yes, they are different from those "Quirks" that your people seem to use. Magic is something present in anyone. It just seems that the art has been lost to the more recent generations above ground in favor of "Quirks"."

"I'm going to have to ask more about that later. For now, I'll leave and come back tomorrow to do the Trial Of Mind.", Chikyu ended, getting up and walking his way back to the area he was dropped by the small neon creatures, who soon came and flew him back out.

Finally back in his room, he noticed what time it was. 4 in the morning. He had been doing that trial for a lot longer than he thought. That combined with the talks with Kindan definitely made sense for how late it was.

Instead of going to bed immediately, Chikyu decided that he was going to test his new strength for the rest of the night.

Before he made his way out of the lodge, he decided to check if there were any visible changes to his appearance apart from his small height increase. Going to the bathroom and looking in the mirror, he was surprised to see that he did indeed look a bit different.

(New appearance. I found this a while after I started the story, and I wanted to change his appearance to this since I think it fits the MHA style better, but at the same time, it still looked like him so it wouldn't be weird.)

-Chikyu POV-

Satisfied with my new look, I thought about how to explain it. I settled on explaining it as the result of a new type of workout I had been trying for a while.

Making my way out of the lodge, I went to the area Kota and I had been using to train. The first thing I was going to try and properly test was my new strength.

I already knew that my striking power was greatly improved, but I wanted to test my new lifting strength. Going up to one of the countless trees and wrapping my arms around it, I pulled up.

The tree I was holding got completely uprooted, roots and everything.

This was incredible. Trees could easily weigh-in in the tons range, but the feat of uprooting a proper one with nothing but raw physical strength without the use of a strength-enhancing quirk was basically unheard of.

There were tons of people who could do it, but only because of their quirks. What I just did would be considered a milestone in human accomplishments for several years to come.

(For those who are curious to know, the tree he uprooted weighted 20 tons. It was one of the larger ones there)

Satisfied with the results, I now wanted to test to see if my speed had increased. I got into sprinting position and took off.

Everything was a blur as I sped past trees and rocks. I had to have been going at least a bit faster than the speed of sound since as soon as I started running, I left behind a sonic boom, which only happens when something travels faster than the speed of sound.

Stopping once I went back to the training area, I estimated that I was probably moving at Mach 1.5 or something like that. I could probably go faster, but I fear that my traveling speed would quickly exceed my reaction speed, and I'd end up crashing into something.

Testing over for now, I went back to the lodge to get at least a bit of sleep.