Chapter 43

“Chi and Jing,” Michael repeated himself, “I just got a skill upgrade, identifying what I’m seeing as those two kinds of energy. I have never heard of them before, though. Do you know what they are?”

Judging by Stephan’s hard and focused gaze, Michael knew that he knew. Stephan sighed, wondering just how the young man in front of him had managed to gain knowledge of such things. Magic was strange, and dangerous, and now more than ever he wanted no part in it.

“I do. To be honest, I didn’t even think they were real,” he said with a conflicted tone that reflected his inner turmoil. “I spent years listening to master Taiko talk about them, but never had I thought these… energies were real. I thought they were just eastern bogus, or perhaps a metaphor for something else, something more scientific.”

“They are real,” Michael said. “I can see the aura on you. Perhaps it’s better to say it’s inside of you. It’s faint, but it’s definitely real. It was even stronger while we were training.”

Stephan’s eyes lit up. For a moment, the excitement threatened to make him lose his focus, but with a sip of his beer he bought himself enough time to center himself. Despite that, excitement was bubbling beneath the surface, reigniting years-old dreams and desires. He might not want to have anything to do with magic, but this? This was his passion.

“To think,” he exhaled, “that I thought Taiko was bullshitting everyone. I thought he knew he was spewing bullshit. I thought that there was no way someone got the 8th Dan and still thought those silly things like energy and inner power were real. Or perhaps that’s exactly why he got so far, completely detached from reality. I was a fool, wasn’t I?”

It was strange hearing his sensei talk like this. “You really thought it was all fake?”

Stephan nodded. “Is it so strange? It’s our western arrogance.”

“There was no way for you to know,” Michael never would have thought he would have to be the one to reassure his karate teacher, yet here he was. “I too would have thought it was just some random spiritual bogus a few weeks ago.”

“See? Western arrogance.” Stephan smiled then, taking a deep breath to once again center himself he leaned over, his eyes suddenly intense. “Michael, learning karate is my passion. I never made it my job because it couldn’t pay the bills, and so I run this shit dojo with a bunch of old friends who are slowly drifting apart and charge a pittance for it. But you have to understand, it is still my passion. I want to know more. Did you say the energies were stronger while I was training? What did you see?”

“Tell me what Chi and Jing are, then I can help you.” Michael said. A few days ago, he would have caved in to the torrent of questions, but he was a different man now. Perhaps leading the forces into battle in the dungeon was remaking his personality

“Sure,” Stephan said. “Think of them this way. Your body is a battery, and with each breath you store Chi within yourself. Don’t ask me where it comes from, because I don’t know, and I don’t think Taiko knows either. Anyway, the energy you gather doesn’t last long, and with each breath you need to store more Chi or you will run dry. There are certain techniques to increase this, which are hidden within the katas.”

Michael nodded along. He did wonder for a moment where this Chi came from, given that he saw nothing with his sight skill even though Stephan was clearly still converting something into Chi. His teacher’s aura was weaker now, his excitement breaking his breathing pattern somewhat, but the habit was so ingrained within his body and mind that even now he was still generating Chi.

“Jing is the kinetic energy,” Stephan continued, “you can transform Chi into Jing with certain techniques, which is what the katas truly teach if you look beyond the simple movements. Taiko said that a punch empowered with Jing can shatter stone. I never believed him but now…”

“I see.” Michael hummed. “Now that I think about it, I could see the Chi move within your body when you moved, and sometimes it became something else at the tips of your fists, or of your feet and in the parts of your body you used to parry or absorb hits.”

Stephan was nodding along, but by the time Michael was finished talking he was heaving for air. To think that Jing could also empower defense, and not only attack, was crazy. Not even his master ever taught that.

He asked Michael about it, to which the young man nodded.

“It was very weak, much weaker than when you attacked, but it was there.”

“Michael, I need to know more!”

There was fervor in Stephan’s eyes. Michael knew that if he asked the man to go train there and then, Stephan would have done it. Instead, he decided to bargain for it, learning from the lessons Old Dave was giving him.

“I can help you, but only if you teach me.” Michael could already imagine a skill forming within his spiritual body once he had trained enough. Once he could use to finally step up his combat. Perhaps even create a style of his own to use in the dungeon.

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“Of course. You’ll learn just by watching. I admit I am not the best at this, though. Never believing in these phantomatic energies, sometimes I just ignored master Taiko’s instructions when I thought the movements were useless. I hope I can recall them. If your eyes can see what you claim they can see, then you can help me refine the forms, and then I’ll teach them to you!”

Michael nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

“When can you come to the gym?” Stephan asked, impatient. “I can rent for a whole day, whenever, just tell me when. Don’t make me wait too long.”

Michael checked the calendar on his phone. It was synced to his secretary’s, so that he always knew what his week would look like. It had been her idea, and even though he had met the woman only once and only for a few moments, he had to admit that Old Dave had found a capable person to put in that position.

According to the calendar, he had some healing scheduled for the next morning, taking advantage of the fact that he could refill his mana by going to the dungeon afterwards. Both Travis and Old Dave were much more worried about the mana coins that Michael was, always urging him to use as few of them as possible.

To be fair, Michael was starting to adopt their ‘waste nothing’ pattern of thought, and he had to admit that they had a point.

“5 AM tomorrow. We can train for a couple of hours then I have to go.”

“We won’t have the gym, then,” Stephan scratched his chin, “it’s not flashy, is it?”

“Shouldn’t be.”

“The park it is, then. Bring your gi.”

Seeing Michael leave the restaurant, a strange sense of excitement washed over the middle-aged man. It had been a while since he had felt his passion for martial arts ignite like this, but now he felt like he was back to the first years all over again, looking at the strange world of forms and choreographed fights with wonder in his eyes.

In a sense, he guessed it was exactly like he was back to his first steps on the martial path. Many of his assumptions had been wrong, and he had spent a lot of time stagnating without improvement due to his own ignorance. But his foundation was solid, and now thanks to Michael he had a chance to grow again.

It wasn’t power he sought. It was the height of the martial peak that he was after.

The next day saw Michael up bright and early. Thanks to his healing skill, mornings were only painful for a few seconds before the magic refreshed his body and mind, washing away the stiffness and clearing the cobwebs from his brain. He did not skip his calisthenics routine, even though he was barely improving, noticing that after his healing skill got upgraded, he was much less hungry when he was done repairing his muscles.

He wondered if it would impact muscle mass, and once again asked himself where all that mass was coming from. He was eating more, and he was still consuming copious amounts of protein powder, but with the now reduced hunger effects, it meant he was eating less than before for the same amount of gain.

Magic.

Another side effect of magic had been that his mind felt clearer than ever. Never in his two decades of self-aware life Michael would have been caught wondering about mass and muscle tone, yet here he was. Was this magic’s doing? Bringing out his full mental potential by repairing and optimizing his brain?

The sky was bright enough to know that the dark shape at the center of the park, wearing a white gi, was Stephan. Interestingly enough, the teacher was wearing a white belt today instead of his usual black belt.

He was waiting for Michael by doing stretches and warm-up exercises, but Michael offered to use his healing to bring the man to top condition before they began experimenting.

“I hope you thought about this last night. There is no going back once we start. Are you sure you want to proceed?”

Stephan’s only answer was to bow deeply at Michael. For the first time he was recognizing the man he had called chosen one on a whim one day as his master, even if just for a day.

Michael stammered for a moment, nearly losing his composure, but then channeled his inner dungeon diver, pretending to be king.

“I shall watch, for now,” he said. His whole demeanor had changed. “Begin.”

Stephan began with the simplest of katas, Sanchin, and already Michael could see Chi gathering and Jing being expended. Stephan’s movements were much better than his own, but with his sight it was clear that there were many moments were a wrong breath, a wrong step out of tempo, or an imprecise movement destroyed the gathering and expending of energy.

The next kata, kanshiwa, almost produced no energy. Michael wondered why that was.

The third was better.

By the time they were done, Stephan was sweating and his performance had gone down considerably. Michael refreshed him, asking him to perform the most difficult forms again, piece by piece.

“I admit I still struggle with some parts,” Stephan said.

“I can see that,” was all that Michael said, staring intently.

In front of him, standing at attention, Stephan bowed and wiped his brow of sweat. Already he had improved much, just by seeing the minute frowns that had appeared on Michael’s face whenever he did something wrong. The young man had not even noticed, chalking the improvement to Stephan growing more comfortable with the exercises and with being under scrutiny, but he knew better.

He had no problems performing in front of a crowd. He had done so multiple times. And with Michael’s healing, his muscles were loose and the fatigue was always taken care of before it could impact his movements.

No, he could tell that whenever his forms were even slightly wrong, Michael would wince. As if the energy itself told him that something was wrong. As he practiced, more and more teachings from master Taiko came to his mind, and he corrected the most glaring faults.

Even though he had grown by leaps and bounds in just one morning, Stephan knew that this was just the beginning. He could feel a faint sensation of power, faint enough that he wondered whether he was making it up in his mind. But he knew now that it was real.

He would have to practice, consolidating what he had learned, before the next session. He also knew that soon he would run out of glaring issues to solve, things he already knew were problematic in his forms but that had been neglected because of laziness or ignorance. Once that happened, then Michael would truly become his master.

The young man was a long way from being on his level, but his eyes were enough to make up for his lack of practice. As long as nobody found out, though. Stephan doubted he would take Phillip’s mocking comments with the same amount of calm Michael had. And yes, even taking into account what had happened in the locker room.

After a few more tries, Michael finally called an end to the session. It was almost 7 AM, and he had stuff to do.

“That’s enough. Your movements are wasteful at times, too conservative in other places. Your breath needs to be improved. And a few katas are missing pieces. I need to think about what to do about it carefully or I will give you wrong instructions.”