NOVEL NEXT 30 – Samuel 2:26 part 2
James was proud to say he managed to complete all the education he had scheduled for himself before needing to attend U.A. freeing him up to focus on building his relationships, power and hero persona there without too many other distractions during his time there. With a little influence from his parents he managed to "attend" some regular universities and complete a couple of degrees by simply testing out of the classes for credits he needed. Being a genius, rich and influential definitely had its perks. Some might frown on such behaviours, but James would take any advantage he could.
His training was progressing just as smoothly. He was sure he had long surpassed Midoriya at least from the U.A. entrance exam and though he couldn't say for certain he suspected he could at least hold his own against the current weakened All Might. His goal was to surpass All Might at his peak though and go even beyond that. Plus Ultra. He wanted to achieve a level no other in this world had ever achieved and would ever achieve again so he didn't slack on training even after his power had already reached the level of a high ranking pro hero before even completing any hero education.
His body had effectively become a weapon as regular steel weapons would break if used on him even his feathers were sturdy enough to be used like weapons and could cut if he intended them to. Worse yet for his enemies if they somehow actually managed to injure him he actually healed fast enough for the regeneration to qualify as a powerful quirk by itself.
As far as he could tell from his years of experimenting beyond his wings his quirk granted him superhuman speed, strength, dexterity, durability, stamina, endurance, senses and reflexes. His mind also constantly improved making his memory better. Gave him some type of thought acceleration. Gave him the ability to multi-thread thoughts mentally performing multiple tasks at the same time. They all equally grew through his ageing, training and the energy souls granted him.
It had also long become clear to him that it gave him a superhuman level of charm. His appearance, voice, bearing, everything about him seemed to be made to charm people. To manipulate. To use. He could probably talk a man into letting him sleep with his wife right in front of him and both would probably happily agree if he used the full extent of his charm.
He had also noticed he was very good at seeing through lies and deception reading people and their desires like it came naturally to him. On top of this it gave him some kind of sense for what he could only judge as people's sins. He couldn't read their memories, but he had a definite sense if they had partaken in sins as if it stained their very souls and the more they partook the tastier their souls seemed to be to him.
He had expanded on his devilish contract powers by starting a pay-day loan agency. The interest rates as far as the money went were very generous. The interest rate in other aspects was more extortionary than any other pay-day loan business though. All it cost them was their souls after all. He was "magnanimous" of course though and made sure to change the 10 year default term and simply slowly absorb it over the natural duration of their life. It meant he would get the power far slower, but he went with quantity over quality. There were a lot of people struggling financially and most didn't read their contracts too closely. Even those that did would have a hard time understanding them as he crafted them to make the financial side as clear as possible, but the supernatural elements as obtuse as possible. His legal courses were really paying off. This was giving him constant growth on top of the steady growth simply ageing was giving him from his countless contracts all over the world.
Finally he had discovered another aspect of his power over the past year though it still needed further exploration. So far he judged it to be some kind of telekinesis. He could impose his will on the world to make move things as he desired. It was still rather weak at this time making it little more than a parlour trick at the moment. He had discovered it while reaching for a pen and it ended up coming to his hand in response to his desire to hold it despite being out of reach. So far he could only move relatively light objects though and the amount of concentration and energy consumed by it made it a waste in combat situations where his fist was much faster and more effective.
His organisation hadn't seen the same levels of growth since it had been only a year and there was only so much he could grow an organisation he was keeping in the dark, but he was still putting most of the money he made from his jobs and investments towards it's growth and reinvesting any returns it did get him. Information was indispensable after all even hero agencies had many more support staff than they had heroes employed and his organisation had much greater ambitions than a simple hero agency did. They had continued to expand both the abilities of the members they already had and hiring further talents they were able to locate.
He had made sure not to get involved with Midoriya Izuku the protagonist of this world despite getting involved with other canon timelines with Momo, Himiko and Eri because he wanted to maintain at least some semblance of canon at least the start of it. Also unlike the flaming Todoroki patriarch forever frustrated by being the rank 2 pro hero he had no ambition to be the number 1 pro hero. He would much rather be the number 2 most powerful hero in the ranking on the surface getting most of the benefits that being number 1 would receive while letting the actual number 1 catch most of the trouble.
Every villain wanted to take on All Might after all because he was the widely known number 1 pro hero currently. Some for their pride, some for the achievement and some to bring despair. James had no interest in all this troublesome stuff. He didn't care about the reputation of being the strongest hero, he only cared about becoming the actual strongest being in this world and avoiding the trouble that came with being the public number one would just make his goals easier.
Just because he made sure to not get involved with Midoriya and All Might yet didn't mean he wasn't keeping an eye on them as he had his organisation spy on them. He had already confirmed that the canon events were occurring as they had met with All Might giving Midoriya his quirk. They met in a similar way and All Might had even trained Midorya in the stupid way he had in canon. All Might might be a great hero, but he wasn't a great teacher.
He wasn't sure if his actions hadn't done enough to change this or if there was some universal force acting like a magnet pulling the events back closer to the original timeline. He already knew even if there was it wasn't absolute as he had managed to make severe changes to the lives of Momo, Himiko and Eri with his direct intervention.
With his parents influence it would have been easy to enter U.A. through the back door like Momo had, but that would not be the best for his image so he had instead applied for the entrance exam which happened to be today.
