9 Chi

The thing that Boom could see within the boy was some kind of transparent energy that was constantly moving around. At first, he had to look intensely at one point and could see the energy only in that specific part of the body. But the longer he stared at the boy the more he could see at once. Soon, he could see the energy filling the boy's entire body.

After a while he got out of his trance and rubbed his eyes, then looked again. He could still see the energy flowing through the boy.

"Here's your order, sir." Boom heard the voice of the waitress.

"Ah, thank you." He turned around to thank her. And just before turning his gaze to his long awaited meal, he caught a glance of that same energy from the woman.

"Eh...?" He started glaring her to see if he could see the energy over her entire body at the same time like he could with the boy, and sure enough, he could. 'Interesting.'

"Tch." Feeling Boom's gaze while walking away, the waitress clicked her tongue, as she drew her own conclusion of the situation. 'Do I have to get looked at by perverts every single day? I hate this damn job.'

'Hm? Did I hear something?' Boom looked around confused.

'...Whatever, I don't care. I'm hungry!' Oblivious about her thoughts, he couldn't wait any longer and started to gobble the food down his throat at record speed.

When Boom was done eating, he payed the bill and left to the direction of city Z. It would probably take whole day to travel there, considering it was on the other side of the continent.

During his travel, he decided to observe all the pedestrians he came across and noticed that every one of them had that energy in them. All he had to do is concentrate a little and he could see it.

Even he himself wasn't an exception. And once he could see the energy in himself, he could also clearly feel it, flowing through him. 'Seems like everyone has it... Could this be 'chi', or is it something else?'

Life force, otherwise known as 'chi' or 'aura'. Boom knew that everyone had it as part of his martial arts training consisted of feeling this energy within himself and then trying to balance it. It would be impossible to truly master Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist without being able to do it.

Every respectable martial art utilized 'chi' in some way, some even leaving some sort of visual effects due to using it. It wasn't some unknown energy that only the chosen few knew about. Many schools of martial arts taught about it, but only the ones hailed as genius' were capable of really feeling it.

Boom himself never truly understood the teachings about it other than that it was energy which was connected to one's physical body. At some point he was just able to vaguely feel it in his own body. Still, it was never to the extent he was feeling it now.

And as this current energy within himself felt the exact same as the 'chi' he was familiar with, only much stronger, he decided to acknowledge it as that for now.

Boom didn't know wether feeling his own 'chi' better was just another ability he had gained, or if he could feel it stronger only thanks to being more aware of, and being able to see it, now.

He started pondering what could have been the catalyst for all of this.

'Nnng! Think Boom, think!' He wracked his brains for an answer until something finally popped into his mind. 'Could it be?'

Last night, while he was being wrung out like a wet rag from the inside, all the pain had disappeared for a split second, replaced by an invigorating feeling. He also remembered that simultaneously, his body had shone blue. He had assumed it had been caused by Otento's power doing its work on him, but it now seemed less likely upon realizing that the esper's power always had a green glow to it, and not blue.

The memories were still somewhat blurry from his last moments, so Boom had not previously realized it, but the invigorating feeling and the blue light from his body had no logical explanation that he knew of. So he found it plausible to assume that something awakened in him at that moment. At least for now, that was the only reason he could think of.

And the reason why he didn't notice the same energy from Tatsumaki from earlier today? It was probably because he never stared at her intensely enough to see it. Or because she was always surrounded by her psychic energies so he couldn't see through it. Did 'chi' and psychic energies have some kind of connection? Were they the same thing? He didn't know for now.

After enough time staring at the surrounding people's energies, he learned that he could actually decide wether he sees the them or not. And even further along the way, the time in which he could switch between seeing and not seeing the aura lessened until he could do it in an instant. This ability felt natural for him, as if he should've always had this ability. Hence the fast progress in controlling his vision over the energies.

By the time he got to the dojo, it was already late in the evening and he was really tired. It wasn't surprising, since he hadn't had that much sleep even with his condition before. It was actually a a great accomplishment that he even managed to travel back.

Once he got inside, he found Bang there and greeted him before going straight to sleep. He had only been gone for a little over a day. It wasn't anything unprecedented so he didn't really need to explain where he had been.

***

The next day after a good night's rest, while training, Boom noticed that he needed to work much harder than usual to get himself tired. He had had a significant leap in stamina, strength and speed once again. This time the difference was even greater than what he got from the fight against that ninja.

However, even though he had become significantly faster and stronger, he wasn't able to compete with Bang any better than usually when they were sparring. The reason being that he hadn't gotten used to his increased strength and speed so he found it more challenging to use his martial arts as efficiently as usual. That's why he decided to dedicate his next few weeks to regains his skill to how they were.

When he wasn't training, he dabbled with his 'chi' vision. Once he had posed himself the question of wether 'chi' and psychic energy was the same thing, he humored the idea that he might have actually become an esper himself. It made even more sense if he truly got this power from that psychic attack.

He tried to control the energies within himself, but with no success no matter how much he tried. If he couldn't control his own energies, then it should've been impossible to control the 'chi' of other people either. This was because he could only feel his own energies, and not the energies of others. If he could not even feel them, then how could he control them? He tried it, nonetheless, but the results were as expected.

Seeing that he might not have any psychic powers, he started thinking other ways to use his new vision to his advantage and he knew where to start.

The more he dabbled with the energies, the more sure he became that the those energies where the same thing as the 'chi' that he had learned about. During his 'psychic training' where he had to have a closer look at the energies so he could attempt to control them, he noticed the similarities with the 'chi' that he was familiar with. As such he decided to observe how the energies flowed in different parts of the body. And sure enough, all people had the same pattern of flow at the same places.

That being said, when he watched the energies within Bang, something was off. His energies flowed the same way as with everyone else he had observed so far. However, there was still something different, he just couldn't put his finger on it.

Only after a few days of observing and comparing them, could he finally realize what the difference was. The answer lied in 'Instability'.

Even though the energies in all people moved in a fixed pattern, there was always some instability in the flow. But compared to normal other people, Bang's flow of 'chi' was much more stable.

The difference was even greater when he observed him demonstrating his Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist. While performing it, his 'chi' was almost completely stable. It was now clear as day to him, once he knew what to look for.

Boom feared that instability might have been the wrong conclusion, and that he came to it only because he wanted to quickly find a way to improve himself. As such he continued observing for the next week, to make sure that it wasn't just wishful thinking.

Fortunately, he seemed to have been right. During that time he also found out that the less waste one's movements had, the less instability could be found in the flow of energy. It was no wonder that Bang's 'chi' was so stable. His movements were extremely refined while he was using his martial arts. Some of that refinement also affected his everyday movements it seemed.

Once he knew the answer, he could now also tell how wasteful his movements still were. And now that he could see it, and somewhat even feel it if he tried to, it would bother him forever if he never perfected them.

His next step to become stronger had been decided. Even though he admired pure power that some people could display, he still considered himself a martial artist and wouldn't be happy until all waste was gone.

Boom knew that his talent in martial arts was never quite as good as his grandpa's. He felt like he could never develop a martial art as good as Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist from scratch. The only thing he may have beat the old man in was his strong and tough body. That too wasn't certain since he didn't know how tough he had been during his prime.

Bang had most likely gotten his wasteless movements thanks to that unbelievable talent of his, and the refinement of his martial arts for decades without ever stopping. And even though normally Boom might never get as good as his grandpa would, things were different now.

With his new special vision and sensitivity to his own 'chi' as his guide, he had discovered the secret to refining his martial arts to perfection. His old man, on the other hand, never had any indication of what was the perfect movement and had to go in blind to better his movements.

He decided to start his training by attempting the simple possible thing, standing. Yes, even while standing, people use some of the muscles wastefully, resulting in instability of flow in some places of the body.

However, it turned out to be surprisingly hard to achieve the perfect standing position. The adjustments that needed to be done were extremely minute, and one needed to have a grasp of every nook and cranny of their body for it to even be possible.

***

Boom had now been training for 2 weeks to get rid of his wastefulness. He had achieved to stand perfectly a couple of times already, but he still couldn't do it at a moment's notice. It still required an extreme amount of concentration from him. His goal was for it to come naturally, for it to become a new normal. But he had nevertheless succeeded, which only motivated him to continue.

He had also practiced wasteless walking whenever he needed to move from place to place in his everyday life, but it was still very far from perfect. He had also tried the same with his runs, but that was still way too hard for him to improve on. He still had a long way to go until he would become, what he liked to call, 'Master of Wastlessness'.

Today had been a little more eventful day than usual. When went for a run in the city, he had encountered 4 monsters that called themselves the Bowling Brothers. They were humanoids that all had a bowling ball in their hands. They had surrounded Boom and thrown their balls at him while the brother standing opposite would catch it, and so on. Their throwing strength had been surprisingly strong, enough for the balls to easily go through concrete, but their moves had been extremely predictable so the fight had been over quickly.

Just as he had been about to continue his run, another monster had appeared. It was a psychic monster in the form of a floating ball of flesh that was covered with eyes all over. Boom seemed to have encountered lot of espers recently, and he had wondered what it was with him and espers.

It had been quite strong, but still lacked compared to Otento, the strongest esper he had fought so far. This fight had also been an eye-opener for him. He could actually see psychic energy in the same way as the 'chi' in normal people. What would have been previously invisible attacks, Boom could now predict beforehand as he saw the invisible energies which caused them.

When he had managed to pierce him with a thrust, the monster somehow managed to survive and decided to flee. Boom had decided to chase after it to prevent it from just starting trouble in some other place.

And now, he was standing on an empty street with no people in sight, facing a 5 meters tall purple monstrosity, which was looking down on him, while the injured ball of eyes had flown higher to observe their encounter. It had clearly lead him here on purpose.