Chapter 52: Conquering the Sky
Like the Wind, Saint rushed out of the basement, and then left the restaurant through the back door. Following the fire ladder of the building next to his, he climbed his way to the roof.
After getting in the center of the roof, he began to slowly rise, floating as if he was a balloon filled with hot air: It was Bukujutsu!
To be accurate, this was the primitive form of Bukujutsu, which relied on consuming the body's Ki to propel one's body upward, countering the force of gravity and going beyond that ever so slightly in order to slowly move within the air. It was less like true flight, and more like a state of "relative weightlessness".
In fact, Saint, who was very excited about flight, had already tried this level of Bukujutsu before. However, with his weak Ki, he couldn't maintain the weightlessness state for any useful amount of time, let alone fly.
With this step out of the way, the next logical step was to increase Ki output to fly. The problem was that Saint felt a little uneasy about the whole deal; not only was this something that he had never tried before, the knowledge that he had inherited from Goku was also somewhat unreliable here…
Goku had been flying for so long, and with the talent and experience he had, no theory or actual knowledge about flight was left for his 'ultimate comprehension' of Bukujutsu. It was more of a feeling, and all that Saint had gained from his knowledge was: get up and float, thinking about flying, and then fly.
As for Goku's actual experience and knowledge of flying tactics and maneuvers, that was a wealth of knowledge that Saint had gained. The problem was that Saint couldn't just grasp how to go from floating to flying….
"You only live once! Death is just that!" Saint kept repeating to himself.
It only got him more freaked out, but he went on and tried to float again anyway. As his feet left the ground, he got his body straight from calves to shoulders. Being careful, he used as little strength as possible. From his toes, Ki began to shoot below.
"Oh, oh, OH YEAH…"
The next second, along with Saint's cries of fear and excitement, his whole body rose into the sky in a zig-zag pattern, like a balloon that was deflated. He was fast, as fast as a bird, and in the blink of an eye, he was hundreds of meters high into the air. His trajectory remained wobbly, and he went all over the sky…
As time went by, Saint instinctively managed to get himself flying in a straight line. Through trying flight firsthand, he could gradually benefit from Goku's experience, and learned how to use his arms to adjust his balance. First, he drew a beautiful arc in the night sky, and then he slowly began to increase the Ki output and go through the air faster and faster. In the end, he had to wrap his body in Ki to resist the massive wind pressure on his face.
In this state, his whole body started looking like a massive blue light bulb going through the sky. Obviously he became too obvious in the dark, but more importantly, his Ki consumption skyrocketed, so he had to stop. He didn't want to test his full limits for now, so by propelling Ki in the opposite direction, he greatly lowered his speed, and dispersed the Ki surrounding his body, remaining suspended in high altitude after an abrupt stop. From there, he watching the dazzling New York from above, hearing only his own intense heartbeat. After gasping for a while, he suddenly started laughing like a neurotic "HAHAHAHA! I can fly!"
After enjoying the moment, Saint estimated that he didn't use Ki to protect himself from the wind pressure, he could probably withstand going at 100 miles per hours, around the speed of a car on the highway. He was sure he could manage to at least double that when protecting himself, with the upper limit of his speed being unknown.
Another thing he noticed was that the higher his total Ki stores were, the higher his Ki recovery rate was.
Previously, when he tried to use Bukujutsu before his second wish, he couldn't maintain it for any good amount of time. But now, when merely floating in the air, he was actually recovering Ki at a rate that's faster than its consumption.
After remaining in this state for a while, he fully regained all his Ki, and he began going around the city, and then went to land on the ground. Before landing, he made sure to use Ki Sense to verify that the two SHIELD agents that "followed" him were still unconscious.
As early as the night before his Raid on Stark Industries, Saint knocked down the two innocent agents. If he didn't, SHIELD would definitely start make a connection between his rise in strength and his raid.
Yes, this was definitely going to get him in trouble, but nothing he would have to say would come close in difficulty to explaining the matter of the Dragon Balls; he could only choose to worry about that.
As Saint Landed on the roof he took off from, it was already past 2 am. He had just conquered the sky, and was too excited to care about his drowsiness. He simply stayed on the roof, waving his fist to adapt to his new massive strength gain. Every now and then, he would go up to fight in midair.
It wasn't until the day was bright that Saint, who didn't want to draw any unnecessary attention, returned to his quiet room to sit cross-legged on the floor. He wanted to see how fast he evolved by simply Image Training.
"Strange…" Saint opened his eyes and frowned: "Not only am I not evolving faster, it's actually slower!"
After some thought, he suddenly began to understand: "Is it because I've suddenly become much stronger, my Ki control is much weaker than before?"
After making this speculation, Saint muttered to himself: "It seems like it will take me time to adapt to these new genes; it's a quick upgrade after all."
While Saint was inevitably a bit disappointed, he still did ascend to new heights at an incredible speed, and there was no reason for him to be dissatisfied. After some time, he went out of the quiet room and planned to go to the bedroom to have some sleep. The doors of the Restaurant had been closed for over twenty days, and starting he had to start preparing for work later today.
A Unique Saiyan still had to make money to eat, and Saint did not forget that Saiyans are notorious for their appetite. He even had some doubts that the few grand he made would last him for half a month.
Before his tour around the world, he had around 29.000 US Dollars in savings. After giving over 3 grand to Lorna and Peter, he still had a bit over 25.000 Dollars. With over 20.000 dollars spent during his journey, he had only 5,000 dollars left.
Although he had one less Dragon Ball to worry about next time, Saint knew that he had to make around the same amount of savings before going against for another quest like this.