Flooding the cave with power would overwhelm anyone normal but you are, you know, flooding the cave with power. Just needs one anomaly to be able to take advantage of the free boost. Glad he realised and cancelled it, keeping to his intelligant characterisation.
Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long for him to transform or have some super power awaken. Bro's been all skill this entire time, and it took a god for him to finally get an upgrade, even if it was temporary. I'm all for it; he's the only character so far that hasn't had any significant improvement until now. Everyone else had a burst of inspiration, or some kind of intense sexual training arc, but Kikoru has just been doing the same thing since chapter 1 because that's all he COULD do.
Normally, this "I'm losing, so I need plot armor" kind of powerup is bad, but I'm fine with this one. Kikoru deserved something, and this isn't too far fetched.
Also it's been stated several times over that he is an absolute monster without mana, and that they feared/were excited by the idea of what would happen if he were to have enough mana to repair his constitution. The specifics of how it worked, though, has not been foreshadowed, as far as I know... Other than the use of the Phoenix as the god behind humanity.
There have been constant hints that Kikuru and Hitamuki aren't Human (or are at least quite different from Normal people in origin) throughout the series.
I'm pretty sure both are created by the gods, that god connected to the world tree reminds me a bit of Kikuru from what I remember seeing in the following chapters.
Also Intelligent Named tend to shy away from/show respect for Hitamuki and that Zeus type god instantly decided it was a bad idea to flirt with Hitmauki when he sensed her mana (in my opinion because he knows who made Hitamuki).
I'm thinking Kikuru is a "Human Named" or maybe a "Human-shaped monster" experiment of the gods.
Although Hanabata's crazy strong family makes me think THEY are the bloodline of "Human Named".
Maybe "HadesMan" being the name of the villian of this arc is a hint that Kikuru is the "Anti-World Tree" god (or it's avatar).
No idea what Hitamuki is... an off-shoot of the World Tree? A certain god's avatar? Whatever.
Nah, I was not feeling that. What a cop out. And the worst part was of course very little visual eye candy. Naw....get that cliche shounen shit off my boy, he too good for that garbage.
I agree with you, I wish it was True or Hitamuki that got the power up as a result of being bathed in Pure Mana - pretty much ANYONE but Kikuru would have been better IMO.
The series should have been Kikuru as the specialist for Human or relatively human sized threats but for Land Gods/Named/Giant Monsters that he can't instagib or overwhelm with strength and speed - he'd have to rely on tactics, battle strategy, and wits while wrangling his stupidly overly specialized allies into accidentally winning as they bumble around and begrudgingly train to become more competent.
The above would also give room for the guest Aces/Allies that tend join up with them each arc during a major conflict to shine and it allows for world building as the MC wouldn't be the default "End-all, Be-all" for conflict resolution.
I do trust this author though, as he tends to understand that he doesn't need to write this for 14 year old self inserters and has put thought into the power system and character balance so far...
For what it is worth Kikuru's actual plan for this battle was well-written and didn't pander to the chuuni "OMG I NEED THE MC TO BE THE MOST POWERFUL BECAUSE I CAN'T FEEL BADASS WHEN I PRETEND I'M HIM OTHERWISE" audience - which did boost my faith in this writer even more:
Kikuru's real battle plan was to stall HadesMan in combat until Phoenix-zaku removed healing magic from the world at the announced time.
HadesMan was unaware of this as Phoenix-zaku intended this as a punishment for HUMANITY because of it's favorite avatar getting harmed during the Monkey King arc.
Remember, HadesMan can only use Healing Magic because he is "borrowing" it from the white mage he kidnapped earlier (I don't think that Kikuru would know this, Kikuru simply knew that healing magic would be removed from the world).
Then True would finally join the battle with as close to his full mana and strength as possible, with the intention of using his dragon race traits to blast HadesMan with his maximum output pretty much the exact moment Healing magic was removed from the world.
HadesMan would then be shocked by his sudden inability to use healing magic and be (hopefully) heavily injured and surrounded by enemies (and reinforcements would be coming even if Kikuru's group was defeated at this point).
This is why True was doing almost nothing the entire battle, he was saving energy/mana according to their plan!
In a normal manga, True standing around/being mostly useless is typical, because of course the MC has to do everything and look cool while everyone else is a chump/battle-commenter, but here the writer was using that cliché as misdirection so that he could surprise us by making True the main combatant...
In this case the writer also threw in this Super-Special-MC-Power-Up-That-Is-Obviously-Tied-To-The-Gods for future plot lines, but in the end True is actually the one that wins the battle according to plan (although he won't be the one to FINISH the battle - Kikuru isn't going to land the final blow either for what it's worth).
The ending of this Arc is well done IMO, so hopefully it can restore any lost faith you may have.
Despite everything. I wish it was a bit more foreshadowed. He's been essentially gojo despite the mangaka knowing not to go all in to kiriku having insane physical strength. This manga is good and while I do like the MUI Goku parallels, I just wish it didn't involve a fake death. As it ruins some general tension when x, known character is fine after a bit of dialogue.
For the twist in the chapter, that new form, it seems like they're implying he had mana at one point and then lost it. And he knew some things about that form while in it. Seems like there's some history here we've been left in the dark about.
Also it's been stated several times over that he is an absolute monster without mana, and that they feared/were excited by the idea of what would happen if he were to have enough mana to repair his constitution. The specifics of how it worked, though, has not been foreshadowed, as far as I know... Other than the use of the Phoenix as the god behind humanity.
I mean... hearing you say that, all I can think about is how monsters keep trying to siphon mana off females. What would happen if the protag stops being so hands off with those shapely mana batteries around him?
For the twist in the chapter, that new form, it seems like they're implying he had mana at one point and then lost it. And he knew some things about that form while in it. Seems like there's some history here we've been left in the dark about.
Izu-san directly said that this happened, he had mana when he was young but some event caused him to lose access to it, he talks with ninja master about how being surrounded by high density mana could be a cure
oh fun its like some sort of being was looking to inhabit kikuru's body the second he had his broken mana lines repaired, thats a fun reveal. I wonder how they will let him tap into that state again in the future, maybe through hitamuki or something. Gives us a chance for a lewd based power up lmao ala Seikon no Qwaser.
hitamuki's infinite mana, kikuru's ultimate form when given the quantity he needs, i can already see kikuru piggyback hitamuki intimately while he fights in a future chapter
