"Uh, kid, I said 7:00, right? I haven't even decided how to train you yet…"
All Might's gaunt form sweat dropped in front of Izuku, who chuckled and blushed. "W-well, I was eager to get started… I mean, this is my dream come true, after all."
The current owner of One For All tapped his watch. "That doesn't mean you should show up an hour early though…" He sighed. "Well, since you're here, I suppose I can talk to you about your training.
"The Yuuei entrance exam is in ten months; in those months, I need to train you until you are strong enough to wield One For All." He paused. "Hmmm… your quirk allows you to quantify stats like Strength, don't they?" Izuku nodded. "Alright then. What is your current Strength stat, and what is mine?"
Izuku scanned All Might and checked his own stats. "I'm at 88 Strength, and you have a base Strength of 386… your injury cuts that in half, leaving you with 193 Strength, and when you activate your stronger form, your stats are multiplied by 8, which gives you…" he took a moment to do the math in his head, "...1544 Strength."
All Might nodded. "Alright. Because I do not have your quirk, I cannot tell the exact amount of Strength that is necessary to use One For All without injury. You require enough Strength to handle the increased power provided by One For All, and we know that 193 Strength is enough for me to handle that power without injury.
"However, each successive user of One For All receives additional power from the previous user, meaning that you will likely need more strength than that to handle One For All without injury, although around 200 will likely be enough that you do not permanently injure yourself. That is still more than double what you currently possess, so I will need to push you to the limit to grow your Strength enough to handle One For All by the time of the entrance exam."
Izuku nodded. "Alright. I can gain plenty of Strength from training, but the easiest way to boost my strength significantly in a short time would be for me to level up multiple times. I gain 10 skill points to allocate as I see fit every level, and leveling up is relatively easy at low levels because almost any kind of battle provides a sizeable amount of XP. I wouldn't want to neglect my other stats just to build Strength enough to use One For All, but I could allocate 4 or 5 points to strength per level and increase my strength fairly rapidly. There's only one problem…"
All Might nodded, catching the boy's train of thought. "Indeed. How would you get involved in these battles to gain XP? You were injured fighting the sludge villain, and he was a relatively tame villain compared to some that I have had to fight. I couldn't allow you to fight villains before you are ready in good conscience, and we both know you are not ready. Do you know of any other ways you can earn XP?"
Izuku frowned in thought. "Other than getting into fights and unlocking achievements, I don't get XP. Achievements provide a lot of XP, but they're usually related to life milestones or things like that, so I don't think we'll be able to use those to build up XP. That leaves fighting, but going out and attacking villains isn't exactly conducive to my health…"
A beat of silence passed, then All Might straightened up, grinned, and shifted into his stronger form. "You will spar with me to gain XP, then!"
Izuku's eyebrows raised at the idea. "I don't know if that'll work, but it can't hurt to try." Izuku settled into a fighting stance as All Might stood straight, ready to receive his trainee's attack. Izuku rushed forward, knowing that no matter how much he might strategize, he wouldn't be able to so much as scratch the hero in front of him. Better to fight hard right away than wasting time, this is meant for me to get stronger and sitting around won't do that.
The young Gamer lead with a straight right, aiming for All Might's solar plexus. The significantly stronger and faster hero knocked the fist aside, otherwise staying perfectly still. Izuku threw his body weight forward, using his momentum to thrust an elbow strike at All Might in place of his failed punch. The unorthodox maneuver tripped the hero up a bit, and the blow landed with a dull thunk. All Might bent forward slightly, more surprised than actually hurt, and shoved Izuku away. The boy was sent flying several feet back, tumbling across the ground before returning to his feet and charging again.
The spar continued in this manner for fifteen minutes; Izuku would attack, All Might would respond while staying firmly planted in one place, Izuku would occasionally land an ineffective hit that he'd thought up on the fly, and All Might would attempt to push, throw or knock Izuku away, succeeding for the most part. Soon enough, Izuku was panting heavily, and All Might put up his hand to call a stop to the fight.
Izuku perked up at the popup that appeared in front of him.
Spar Length: 15 minutes
Intensity: High (5 XP per minute)
Reward: 75 XP
XP: 3680 / 9800 → 3755 / 9800
"Cool, that spar was worth 75 XP for me…" he paused, panting. "It's not nearly as much as I got for fighting those villains... but I guess that makes sense, since it's not real combat experience. I'll still level up a lot before the entrance exam if we spar like that regularly. I'll level up after another…" he paused, doing the math, "...1209 minutes of sparring at that level… so around 20 hours of sparring total…"
All Might nodded. "We shall make sure to spar daily to help you level up before the entrance exam. If we spar for an hour or two a day, it may be possible to get you to Level 20 in those 10 months before the entrance exam."
Izuku grimaced. "I think different levels of sparring intensity are worth different amounts of experience per minute, so I would have to maintain the level I was just as to earn that amount of experience… I'm not sure I could maintain that for a full hour, let alone two…" He checked his stamina. "...Yea, that spar ate over ½ of my stamina reserves in those 15 minutes. I'd pass out before the half-hour mark."
Despite Izuku's pessimism, All Might's smile widened, and he gained a gleam in his eye. "Ah, that is a problem. I suppose we will have to improve your stamina then, yes?" Izuku, wary of the look his mentor was giving him, nodded hesitantly. "Well then, let's start now! You shall clean this beach by hand as your training to improve your strength and stamina. Now, get going! I don't want to see your stamina go above 50% for the rest of the day!"
For the rest of the day, Izuku was run ragged. He lifted, carted and dragged garbage of every size and shape, using everything as makeshift exercise equipment. By the end of the day, his stamina meter was hovering around 10%, and Izuku's eyes were droopy, but he'd increased his STR and VIT by a point and his STM by two. I guess working at your limit for a long time is good for your stamina… I hope I can keep this up though, I feel like I may drop dead any minute here.
All Might looked around at the area that Izuku's work had cleared. Impressive. He worked hard the entire time, and made more progress than I expected. I think I have his quirk to thank for that; he's able to lift more and work longer between breaks because of his abnormally high stats. Not to mention the fact that he was willing to continue working, despite working to exhaustion over and over. All Might's ever present grin widened. Truly, I have made the best choice possible for a successor. He will surpass me in every way, and much sooner than I could have hoped.
…
Thus began Izuku's preparations for the Yuuei entrance exam. Every day after school, Izuku would spar with All Might for as long as he could, before spending a couple of hours removing trash from the beach; on weekends, he'd spend a good portion of his free time at the beach, sparring with All Might multiple times and clearing even more trash. His XP climbed steadily; it only took him until the end of the first month to level up the first time, and by the 6 month mark he had reached level 16. The increased XP requirements at each new level were partially balanced out by the fact that Izuku's steadily rising STM was allowing him to spar for longer and gain more XP.
In addition to his level, Izuku's physical stats were increasing at an unprecedented rate. Izuku didn't know his stats could grow that fast before. The constant heavy lifting was increasing his STR considerably, and running to the truck while weighed down with garbage helped improve his DEX. What surprised him most was his STM and VIT, however; apparently, continually exerting yourself while below 25% STM caused those stats to grow ridiculously quickly. Izuku quickly decided that he didn't need to use the skill points he earned on those stats; they'd keep up with his other physical stats without even receiving that supplement.
Izuku was disappointed to see that his stats were gradually taking longer to increase as he improved them. He'd never improved them fast enough to notice before, but it seemed that even though his Gamer's Body allowed him to improve his stats indefinitely, he still had to suffer through the diminishing returns to a certain degree.
In addition to his great physical improvements, Izuku was also training himself mentally. Every day at school was spent at attention, as was necessary to ensure he would pass the written portion of the entrance exam. Most of his free time was taken up by either independent study and logic/reasoning puzzles, to improve his INT, or some of his old split-second quirk and battle analysis (now from the comfort of his own home, watching heroes and villains battle online) as well as fast paced strategy games to improve his WIS.
Between the school work, physical training and extracurricular brain training, Izuku had expected to be dead tired at school every day. Surprisingly, however, Izuku learned that his quirk had some subtle, impressive benefits. He knew he recovered fully from most injuries or maladies after a decent night's sleep, but he hadn't realized how beneficial it would be at first. Then, he'd gone to sleep with an ache that felt like it was centered in his very bones, and woken up the next day feeling like the pain had just been a dream. Unlike most people, who would be sore for days after a workout that ran them into the ground, Izuku was able to work at 100% day after day without consequence.
His Gamer's Body ability wasn't the only ability that was benefiting him in his extreme training regime. Izuku hadn't realized, but his Gamer's Mind ability was helpful against more psychological maladies than just fear and pain - namely, exhaustion. Izuku fell into his bed each night at almost midnight, his afternoon and evening being consumed by physical training, mental exercises, dinner, nightly ablutions and homework, but by 6:00 the next day he was up and ready to take on the world.
He learned from trial and error that he'd start to suffer from a sleep deprivation status effect if he didn't get a solid 6 hours each night, but even then it wasn't nearly as severe as he would've expected. These abilities allowed Izuku to push himself far past any limits that a normal person might suffer, helping him as he worked harder than he'd ever worked in his life to reach his goal.
Izuku stared out at the perfectly clean beach in front of him, his body glistening with sweat from the last push he'd put in to clear out the rest of the garbage. After just 6 of the 10 months before the entrance exam, the young gamer had already finished the task set forth by his mentor. He felt good- great, even, like he could go out and take on the world. He sat down, grinning to himself as he opened his stat menu to gauge his progress.
Name: Izuku Midoriya
Level: 16
Title: The Gamer
HP: 3950 / 3950
SP: 1179 / 4175
STR: 170
STM: 167
DEX: 145
VIT: 158
INT: 154
WIS: 165
Quirk: The Gamer (Provides the Gamer's Mind and Gamer's Body Abilities)
Izuku was immensely proud of the progress he was making. His inhuman training, combined with the benefits of his quirk, had put his stats on par with professional heroes twice his age and level (and his level was almost on par with the levels of entry level pro heroes).
Without a quirk, Izuku would still be a fair distance from achieving his goal, requiring stats far exceeding others' to put up a meaningful fight. However, the gift that All Might was planning on giving him would be enough to catapult the young Gamer to the level of a pro hero, and the training he'd receive at Yuuei would cement his place as All Might's successor.
Izuku was drawn from his thoughts as he felt a hand ruffle his hair. He looked up and smiled at the newcomer, whose own characteristic smile was wider than usual at the sight of the clean beach.
"Very well done, Izuku." All Might turned his attention back to the pristine beach before the two of them. "You've far exceeded my most optimistic hopes for a successor, in strength of body, strength of will, and strength of character. I couldn't have chosen a better student."
The two were quiet for a moment, taking in the view.
"Tell me, Izuku, what is your Strength stat now?"
"I'm at 170, All Might sensei."
The hero nodded. "I am able to use One For All at full power without injury at under 200 Strength. I do not know how high your Strength will have to be for you to use One For All to its full potential, but I believe 170 Strength is more than enough for you to begin learning to use part of its power. If you accidentally activate it fully, it shouldn't cause any permanent damage, and you should be able to use it at half power or quarter power without sustaining any injuries."
Izuku's eyes widened, realizing what All Might was proposing. "You're saying… you want to give me One For All now?" All Might nodded, widening his ever-present smile. Izuku was speechless. This was it… today was the day that Izuku had been waiting for, hoping for, since he could remember. When All Might agreed to train him, his dream of becoming a hero had become a goal, an aspiration, but Izuku had always doubted, always feared that All Might would change his mind or that something would happen to prevent his dream from coming true. Today, however, would truly bridge the gap between his hopes and reality.
"Now…" All Might held up a single strand of his hair. "Eat this."
A/N: Bit of a shorter chapter, but I felt like this was a good stopping point. As I expected, my schedule was chock full these last couple of weeks have been pretty busy for me, and I haven't had time to work on this much. My schedule has opened up a bit, however, so I'll be able to write a bit more often now (unfortunately, it still won't be as fast as those first three chapters were, but that was the product of a really unusual amount of free time).
Anyway, I just have to thank everyone for the stupendous amount of support. I'm just flabbergasted at the number of favorites and follows, and it makes me feel good to know that you guys are enjoying my work.
I've still not gotten any flames, though. Remember guys, I enjoy flames, so feel free to send some my way.