I woke up in a contradictory state. On one hand, I'd gained a brand-new bending art through a 1+1 deal, but it had happened so suddenly that it felt like it had been forced upon me.
My usual dive into the deeper layers of my chi yielded the expected result, but that didn't make it any less desirable. My neutral source now had three planets. Alongside the familiar bending arts, a new one appeared—a sphere of brown energy that looked oddly monumental. The source, born from killing a mid-level spirit, was quite powerful, just shy of reaching mid-rank. If I use it often enough, I'll be able to upgrade it soon.
The energy is tense right now, so I should give myself a couple of days to rest. It's all so strange. As a low-level spirit, I could have one bending art, but now as a mid-level spirit, I can have two more. This opens up several paths for development. For example, maybe each new rank grants me one additional bending art. If so, at the highest rank, I could gain three new bending arts. Or perhaps at each new level, the number of bending arts doubles. I had waterbending, and at the mid-level, I got two more, so at the highest level, I'd get six new ones—not counting the neutral source, of course. Maybe I can even gain another bending art right now. Well, speculating is pointless. I'll just have to be extra cautious after each new bending art at the highest level.
If I really do get that many bending arts, I could start looking for rarer ones—lifebending, deathbending, maybe even spiritbending. But for now, I should focus on the core four. They're easier to master, and there are already well-trodden paths for them.
All that can wait. Right now, I need to check in with my family, take a bath, and go relax for a couple of hours. The state I was in while absorbing the new source can't be called proper rest.
After a couple of days, I felt refreshed and ready to experiment with the new bending arts. It's a shame I'll have to master them without scrolls or books. In the library, I only found a couple of books describing stances and techniques for firebending, likely leftovers from the war, but it's still far from enough. Still, it'll be more fun this way. I still remember all the techniques from the animated series, so I'll try to recreate them. I might make mistakes here and there, but I can always relearn.
I'll start with firebending. What do I even know about it?
True firebenders in nature are dragons. They were the ones who taught the first firebenders, then called Warriors of the Sun. Apparently, their direct descendants still exist, honoring dragons and worshipping fire. They were the ones who taught Aang and Zuko firebending.
To train this bending art, I had to go far outside the city, ensuring no one would discover my gift. People here are impressionable and might come up with wild ideas, leaving me to deal with the consequences of their "correct" conclusions.
I don't know if I'm just gifted or if being a mid-level spirit in firebending shows, but the basic techniques I'd mentally outlined came naturally.
This included the most popular techniques used by all firebenders.
First up was the fire blast, and I experimented with it endlessly. I found two ways to use it: either make it explode on impact or burn the target. I even tried increasing the fire's temperature, but there seems to be a limit to what I can do right now. I can make it cooler, but raising it beyond a certain point is impossible. I'd been dreaming of blue fire like Azula's.
Next, I tried creating a simple stream of fire, but I couldn't stop at just releasing it from my hand. Eventually, I learned to shoot streams from each hand, foot, and even finger. I had the idea to try it from my backside, but I stopped myself in time.
Only after playing with fire streams and blasts did I remember the ancient Dancing Dragon form. Attempting to replicate it, I didn't expect much, but with each movement, firebending seemed to guide me on how to use it properly. Incorporating certain movements into different techniques, I felt a completely different effect. Before, the element felt distant, as if it didn't recognize me as its master. Now, it was fully in my embrace. In the dance, I was now the leader.
That day, I entered a state akin to enlightenment. It felt as if an experienced firebending master was controlling my body, showing me how to conquer this willful bending art.
The fire wave I produced in that state was no worse than what could be achieved during Sozin's Comet. Compressing the fire stream, I created a fire blade with even greater range. After mastering these techniques, I moved on to the fire wheel I'd seen, its advantage being its unpredictable flight path.
I created a fire whip, dagger, sword, and shield while in a normal state, and that was all I could manage that day. That enlightened state drained me completely. My entire body ached, both physically and spiritually. My chi channels throbbed from the intense flow of fire energy they weren't used to.
"Phew," I exhaled, releasing a small stream of fire. I realized I was several meters below the main snow layer. Even the air around me was above freezing.
This would definitely be noticed by someone else. I had to sit in the same spot for another couple of hours until my channels stopped throbbing, then use waterbending to fill the snow-covered gaps left by the firebending.
I didn't touch firebending for a whole week, overwhelmed and processing everything I'd done under the bending art's influence—that's what I decided to call that state.
But nature abhors a vacuum, and my thirst for bending drove me to explore new aspects of the bending arts available to me, more intensely than even the firebenders who lost the Sun Warriors' teachings.
It seems that enlightened state also drained a good portion of my mental energy. The next morning, thinking about practicing earthbending, I stood for a couple of minutes, running my hand through the snow in search of earth…
Only when I started digging through the snow with that same hand did a light bulb go off in my head. "Heh-heh-heh, did I really think I could dig through several thousand meters of ice with my hand?! Okay, I'll go back to sleep. I guess I still haven't fully recovered from the strain."
The next day, I was mentally refreshed. To test my readiness, I started recalling logarithm properties, then remembered I'd never learned them. Shaking off the unnecessary thoughts, I pondered how to access the earth. Well, aside from digging through thousands of meters of ice to reach it, it's complicated.
"Again, I'm thinking like an ordinary person," I said after five minutes of considering how to build kilometer-long tunnels underground. "There's waterbending, ice is water, and I'm a waterbender—it all adds up. Also, I should stop speaking my thoughts aloud. I thought I'd gotten rid of that habit in my past life."
For the sake of earthbending, I spent a whole week creating a passage to where the ice I'd come to hate ended and the earth began. Most of the time was spent building the training ground itself. Earthbending is just as destructive as firebending, if not more so, so the platform needed to be sturdy enough for me to practice without risking collapse. I had to compress the ice as tightly as possible, creating support columns. Luckily, I didn't have to worry about lighting. I found glowing crystals there, similar to the ones in the Cave of Two Lovers, Omashu, and Shu Jing. They provided enough light. Before finding them, I thought it would motivate me to learn seismicsense, a skill all molebadgers have and taught to Toph.
Near the constructed training ground, I extended all my spiritual senses and felt the water source. Clearing the ice from my path and moving in the direction my senses guided me, I grew increasingly curious about the end of the journey. After all, ice surrounds me everywhere here, essentially water, but my senses "highlighted" that specific spot differently.
It was more or less what I expected, but the sight was still breathtaking. An entire lake, in liquid form. I don't know why—maybe geothermal springs heat it, or the water doesn't change its state due to the colossal pressure above—but that's not the most important part. When I tried manipulating the water, I met resistance. This water seemed oversaturated with water energy, similar to its state in the Northern Water Tribe's Spirit Oasis. That means practicing waterbending with this water from the lake will yield greater training results. Great, now I know all that effort on the training ground wasn't in vain.
Mastering the new bending art was in full swing. That enlightened state didn't help here, but at least I wasn't exhausted by the end of the day. Earthbending progressed steadily and methodically, fitting the bending art itself. When manipulating it, I felt like an unshakable rock myself. The right mindset when using different types of bending is crucial. If firebending is a positive jing—constant aggression—then earthbending is a neutral jing: holding, waiting. An earthbender must know precisely when to attack and when to defend.
After several days of active practice, I mastered the initial earthbending techniques. The first step was levitating earth and stones. I solidified one technique before moving on to the next—no need to rush. Next came a list of techniques from a style I named "Earth Destruction"—banal, but grandiose! It included splitting, crushing, and grinding stones and rocks, as well as parting the earth to create tunnels—a multifunctional tool.
The last technique I learned was compression. Despite its simple name, it dealt colossal damage, like compressing water, but with penetrating damage. Here's how it works: take a boulder—the bigger, the better—compress it into a smaller form, like a bullet, and hurl it at the enemy. The catch is that the bullet's mass remains the same as the boulder's, but for some reason, an earthbender can accelerate smaller stones more easily. So, this gift will have lightning speed, capable of piercing even a Fire Nation tank.
After that, I wanted to practice firebending again, so mastering earth golems, stone spikes, and shields will have to wait. I won't leave any technique unlearned; I just needed a change of pace.
Sitting at the table with my family for dinner, I thought about the edible seaweed floating in my soup. As far as I know, they aren't grown anywhere, but they appear in our diet at certain times of the year.
When I asked Mom about it, she explained that they're too difficult to harvest from the ocean, so we only eat them after particularly strong tides when the ocean naturally washes them ashore. Naturally, I asked why we don't farm them. We have plenty of water, and samples exist—what else is needed? Well, I'm not the only smart one. They've tried before but couldn't find the right conditions for mass cultivation.
"Try adding healing energy at first. We have healers sitting around with nothing to do, so let them experiment," I said, losing interest in the topic. I could handle it myself, but I have enough on my plate. This way, they'll create a foundation, make mistakes, and I can come in when it's ready.
In theory, the chances of success are high. Plants have life energy too, but it's different from ours and animals'. Still, healers spend their lives finding keys to new patients, so I think they can adjust their chi here.
"Right! I didn't even think of that. You're so smart," Mom said, pinching my cheeks as usual, even though I already look 11.