9 9. A gentleman's agreement.

It was only after I had achieved teleportation by shelf, shelf-portation if you may, that I realized that my power had increased, and not by a small amount. I had just gained nearly a year's worth of progress in less than a month.

And that's when it dawned on me. In fact, I was at a loss as to how I hadn't noticed it till now. Perhaps it was because of my fear of the costs of actions that took more power than I could afford, thinking they would chip off my soul as payment or something.

Which is exactly why I hadn't tried increasing my perception using the Pen of Fate skill, until last month.

But now that I had done it, it was clear as day that it was what I should have done from the start.

After all, my energy pool coincides with the amount of books in the library that I can tally at a time.

Greater my perception, the greater my awareness and the pool of energy I could draw from at a time!

And to think I spent 7 years training in Shelf Jenga!

Fuck! I was an idiot!

I should have just started physically modifying myself from the get go!

Or at least last year, as I was training with Soga, when my energy capacity had reached a suitable level for body modding.

But, it wasn't too late now. I could still make it.

And as if a switch had been flipped, a whole new world of possibilities opened up before me.

Setting my teeth right was just the beginning.

First, I started with increasing the fast twitch muscles in my body.

The human body has three types of muscle fibers, slow twitch, fast twitch and moderate fast twitch.

Slow twitch fibers are red and give endurance to the body, allowing long durations of hard work, such as running a marathon.

Fast twitch fibers are white and give explosive power and strength, and are suitable for sprinting, punching and weightlifting.

But it is the third type of fiber that is the strongest.

The moderate fast twitch muscle. The pink muscle, the very same one that Akisame from History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi had acquired.

Of course, Akisame's 100% pink muscle physique was anime logic bullshit, but it wasn't completely impractical.

In general, most athletes do prefer to have a majority of their muscles to be moderate fast twitch.

Unfortunately for them, most only achieve about a 10% gain in their pink muscle mass during their life, barring miraculous circumstances.

And if there was one thing the library allowed me to do, it was miracles.

Every day, before and after I began my daily exercises, I wrote in my own book to maximize my gains in moderate fast twitch muscles, the most powerful of the muscles in the human body.

And over the course of the next three months, I had achieved a transformation in my body that most athletes in the real world could only dream of, 35% red, 55% pink and 10% white muscle, conjoined in the most optimal combinations, and most importantly, without the wear and tear that an ordinary Olympic athlete would have to endure in their later life, i.e., no more joint pain for me when I'm old.

Not that I would grow old, not if my plans succeeded.

To that, I had added in minor muscle hypertrophy, a condition that gives humans super strength, to a certain extent,and perfect balance and motor function, alongside nearly mastered hand eye coordination and ambidexterity.

I had also altered several of my organs and tissues, adding in small redudancies and regenerative capabilities, so much so that I doubted I'd get cancer even if I lived in radiology chamber the rest of my school life.

My body now looked like a human machine of awesomeness, with abs that put blenders to shame, lean muscles, with barely visible definition, but such control that I could perform surgery on a fly mid air.

I also had perfect control over every single muscle in my body, to the point that I could stop and restart my heart with ease, along with the strength that hypertrophy granted me.

I looked less like an athlete and more like a model for a perfect human being, with less than 2% body fat and enough power to match even some low power superhumans blow for blow, not that I'd ever need to do that.

When I was done with this world, I'd be the strongest being they had ever witnessed. Before I left, of course.

Now that my physical modifications were done, it was time to get back on track with my plans.

Checking the timeline, I was two months from Sludge day, when I had to stop Deku from getting One For All.

That meant I had some leeway in what I could do now.

And first in the order of business was to get a tab on the HPSC.

I suspected that they were in cahoots with the sponsors of I-island and their cabal of shadow rulers, if they weren't already part of them that is.

And for that, I needed to turn the chibi hacker herself to my side, Minami Aiba aka, La Brava.

Contrary to what you'd expect, finding her was a piece of cake.

I went to their channel and opened the latest video. 69 views.

Heh! I snorted.

Pulling down to the comments section, I ignored the two La Brava simps who had posted like 20 comments each badmouthing Gentle, and calling her a goddess, and proceeded to post my own comment.

"Minami Aiba. Danjuro Tobita. I know. Everything. Contact me within the day, or else....."

I pressed enter and waited.

Despite being a complete idiot, Gentle would never respond to such a comment. He was used to the threats and he'd been involved with the cops enough times now, that threats of doxxing meant nothing to him.

But La Brava? She cared far too much about Gentle to ever allow a threat like this to go unchecked.

Within minutes she'd gotten access to my computer.

I smiled triumphantly as the screen went blue, and white blocky letters in typeset 12 appeared on the screen.

A powerplay!

Maybe La Brava wasn't as naive as I expected!

"What do you want?" The screen asked.

Time for a lesson. You wanna go with a powerplay? Expect one back!

"Meet me, today, in an hour. At the small cafe that Gentle likes to visit before his 'special' endeavors. And bring your idiot hubby along." I typed in.

The screen remained unchanged for nearly a whole minute, as three dots bobbed in place.

"Alright. In an hour." She replied finally, before my computer returned to its usual UI.

Hehehehhahhahahah!

Hook, line and sinker, baby!

And I had gotten a very good catch today!

There was just one last concern.

She'd probably bugged the computer to keep tabs on me, in case I slipped up and gave away any info she could use against me.

Not gonna happen, because unlike Gentle, I'm not a complete idiot.

Immediately, I disconnected the computer, switched out the SSD and restarted the installation for a new operating system.

Meanwhile, I changed into a casual outfit, and pocketed a mask and sunglasses.

Why the cloak and dagger? After all, this power couple were generally good people and would never use untoward means against people, with their stupid code of honor and what not!

Well, that's the thing. I wasn't afraid of them, it was their stupidity in handling information that worried me.

I had no pictures of me online and my

UTube channel was text to speech, just in case there were some thinker type quirks that were able to recreate someone's face using only their voice.

My bank accounts were also linked to my overseas shell corporation, so my identity was uncompromised, at least to people with access to your usual channels of information.

And if this conversation went sour, I hoped to keep it that way, hence the cloak and dagger approach.

Within the hour, I was at the cafe, in sunglasses and a medical mask, sitting in a corner as the two idiots entered.

Aiba scanned the room, sporting an uncharacteristic scowl, before her gaze settled on me.

With cute, forced strides, she marched up and plopped herself in the seat opposite to me.

"What do you want?" She asked, fuming.

I pulled out my phone and typed into the notepad app.

"Turn off your recorders first."

Her eyes went wide as saucers.

"You knew?" She asked.

"I'm not stupid. I just look like it." I replied, on the notes app.

She sighed and reached into her pants, as I heard a clicking sound.

"Good." I said, putting away my phone.

"Let's talk. As I-"

"What did we ever do to you?" La Brava interrupted, screaming in my face.

"Jesus fuck. Calm your tits lady. I'm not threatening you!" I assured.

She pulled out her phone and showed me my comment.

"Contact me within the day or else...." She quoted, "That's not a threat?!"

"Yeah. Where's the threat? It ends with a dotted line. Nothing. That's what I meant. That if you don't contact me, I won't do anything!" I smirked.

"You're an asshole!" She shouted, raising a hand to slap me only to have it caught.

"Let go!" She cried, struggling to get free, as Gentle moved to interfere.

"Let her g-" he said, and I abruptly did, as she tumbled back into her seat, nearly rocking herself over backwards.

"Awawawawaw!" She exclaimed, as she grabbed onto the table ledge, stabilising her self.

Behind her, I saw the floor become elastic, as her phone fell from her hand and bounced into Gentle's.

He caught it and casually placed it back onto the table at her side, as glared at me.

"Now, I get that we haven't gotten on, on our best footing, but trust me on this, I meant you two no harm. It's just that this was the easiest way to contact you two. Do forgive me, if you can." I said, bowing till my head touched the table.

La Brava's frown loosened and Gentle stared at me awkwardly.

They shifted in a more comfortable posture as she repeated.

"What do you want from us?"

"It's not what I want from you, Aiba-san, it's what we can do for each other..." I said, placing my hand on hers, looking her in the eyes with a gentle expression.

She shook off my hand and pulled hers back as she cried out awkwardly.

"Sorry, but no thanks. I have someone I like already."

I snickered in amusement as they stared at me incredulously.

"Just a joke! To lighten the mood. You two are way too serious about this. Guys, chill.

I'm not here to threaten you, really!

I actually came here with a business proposition." I assured.

"And what is this business proposition of yours?" Gentle asked.

"I have many propositions for you, but first as a test, I want you two to do something for me. I run a news channel, on UTube. But due to some extenuating circumstances, I'm unable to operate it much longer. So I want you two to operate it for me. It makes decent money and has over 3 million subscribers.

Here's the test. Run the channel exactly according to my instructions, and I'll let you guys keep a portion of the profits as salary. How does 800k yen sound?" I proposed.

"Too little! We make that much in a couple of months!" La Brava protested.

"I think you misunderstand me, miss Aiba. I meant 800k yen a month." I said, dropping the bombshell on their metaphorical Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I swear that for a moment their eyes turned into yen symbols!

"Yes yeyseysysyes! Please!" Gentle stuttered.

"We'll take it!" Aiba cried too.

"Good. I'll mail the necessary details to you by tonight. Now there are a few more conditions, par the course." I said, waving my hand.

"What conditions?" She asked, suspiciously.

"Just some cursory ones. No need to worry.

Firstly, you cant be biased in the news you put on the channel. Follow my guide for selecting the news to the T.

No deviations from the formula!

Secondly, no voiceovers, commentaries or videos of you guys should ever appear on the channel. No promotions either. Remember rule number 1, stick to the formula.

Finally, if you pass this test, then, next month, I'll offer you a chance to become famous, wildly so. But that'll depend on your performance this month.

It's quite simple. You don't have to increase the revenues of the channel. Just make sure it doesn't decrease either. Maintain the status quo and I'll consider you to have passed the test."

I explained.

"What is this opportunity you mentioned?" Gentle asked.

"Tututut! Not so fast! Pass the test, then we can talk about it!" I answered playfully, wagging my finger at him.

"But as a teaser, I'll tell you this. If you succeed, your name will be in every newspaper and on every news show across the world. Is that enough motivation for you?"

"Absolutely, my good sir!" Gentle replied, "We'll do our very best at it!" He said jumping out of his seat, before landing with a flip, and bowing.

I clapped at his peformance as I got up.

"Nice!" I commented as I slipped him a pendrive.

"All the info you need is in here. For the login details, mail me at the address in the drive, and I'll give it to you." I said, and gave a two fingered salute as I left, hopping and skipping out before I teleported away, out of sight, just to keep the mystery going.

Gentle walked out and looked around in surprise, finding me to have disappeared.

"Impossible!" He muttered.

"What?" La Brava asked as she followed him out.

"He was just seconds ahead of us! And now he's gone!" He exclaimed.

"Maybe he has superspeed quirk or something. Would it really surprise you to learn that?" She asked.

"Well, no..." he muttered, as they left for home.

"Hey!" The shopkeep called out, "You guys didn't pay the bill!"

"But we didn't order anything?" Gentle asked, confused.

"Your friend there said you'd pay for him. And I don't see him anywhere, so...."

"That rat bastard!" Aiba cursed, stomping her foot on the ground.