3 months later...

"Aren't you pushing the kid too much? He seems more exhausted than yesterday," Zhang Yu commented as he watched the young boy ahead of him jogging for his dear life. Sweating is like his second nature now. Besides, even before he started the training for the day, he was shaking quite a bit. 

Toshinori seems to know what he's doing, so that was why Zhang Yu didn't interfere up until today. But now that he thinks about it, he recalled the other party can be quite of a dense person sometimes. He had lived with him for a few weeks so he somehow understood his personality to a certain extent. After all, who would consider making a middle schooler pull a broken refrigerator while sitting on top of it with their weight—something like that as normal? 

Since in the manga the young boy somehow withstood the training and even seems fine for the entrance exam, so Zhang Yu also thought the kid would be fine. He even had a much harsher training than this back in the cultivation world, so to a certain extent, it was him that should be the one to consider it 'normal,' even though in reality, it isn't. 

"W-Well, I don't really have much experience with this. When I inherited the quirk, I'm already good enough as a vessel you see, so I thought why not refer to my old training so here we are," Toshinori responded with a bit of hesitant, he couldn't directly look at Zhang Yu's eyes while saying that, so clearly, he felt guilty. This is what he meant by saying that a number 1 Pro Hero can also be a bit dense.

"Then why didn't you ask for my help? Have you forgotten what am I? I'm a cultivator, I trained my body every single day,"

"What do you mean by training every day? Most of the time I saw you, you were closing your eyes in a lotus sitting position, how is that a training? That's more like meditate if anything,"

"Everyone trains differently, and yes, I was meditating, that's simply my—cultivator way of training. It might seem easy, but without a breathing technique, you wouldn't achieve anything."

"And the way you train the kid simply didn't suit him, as you can see. Let's do it my way instead," he stated before leaving Toshinori behind with a group of excited people. When they were together, he could hide their presence from being seen or sensed by others so they are essentially invisible. But when he walked away, it seems like Allmight just appeared out of nowhere in the park, so people quickly gathered around him stopping him from catching up.

"W—Wait!"

...

How long has it been since he was this tired? He could still feel his sore muscle from yesterday painfully scream for him to stop moving and rest, but as much as he wanted, he couldn't. He needs to follow the training routine—no, he needs to surpass it if he wanted to achieve a much better result. Although it is painful, it isn't so bad once he gets used to it, that's what he tells himself as he moves forward.

Yet no matter how hard he tried to ignore and numb his sense, he couldn't lie to himself that it is painful. However, it is more unbearable to him if he ends up disappointing Allmight who believes in him. He even tells him a secret that not many people know about, or at least it once was until Allmight met Zhang Yu, and was then healed by a miracle pill. 

The young boy had never heard of such a pill with wondrous effect before. He couldn't lie but he was honestly worried sometimes that Allmight might one day come up to him and say he found a much better candidate for his power than him, which he ended up waking up covered with sweats. He did experience such nightmares in the past few days after all.

"I can't...no matter how painful...and tired I am... I need to keep movi—" just as he was having an internal monologue fight with his body, a firm hand suddenly pressed on his right shoulder. Without any warning, he could feel a warm current flowing into his body and moving about. The pain that he thought wouldn't go away until he rests suddenly all disappeared in one go. He slowly looked up to his right, and there he saw a familiar face. It was none other than Zhang Yu.

"Hey kid, let's sit down for a bit."

After finding a bench to sit, Midoriya watch in awe as half of the hand suddenly disappear into the air before Zhang Yu brought out two ice-cold strawberry ice creams and gave one to the kid and the second one for himself.

"How does that work? Can it only be accessed by you or also by anyone else? Also, can you do it with your hand in your pocket, you know, as camouflage to trick others? I'm also curious if you can simply store just anything, is there a limit? Since it's a void, storing living being shouldn't be possible, unless? This quirk—no, Allmight said this isn't a quirk that one earned from birth, it's something like magic in a fictional book. Oh right, the ice cream came out still cold, so does that mean time is frozen while in there? That will be a whole another level, if one can take advantage of it, then—"

"...you're really something, kid."

"Ah! I'm sorry, I really can't quite get out of this bad habit of mine!"

"No, it's fine. I'm already used to it, so just eat that ice cream before it melts in your hand."

"Ah, right!"

While they were quietly licking ice cream and observing the people walking around the park, Midoriya couldn't help but recall the sensation he had experienced a moment ago that washed away both his pain and exhaustion at once. If he had something like that, he could continuously train and then heal himself only to train again, rinse and repeat. It won't take such a long time for him to become a vessel to inherit One for All.

Minx

Chapter 17 is out on Patreon!