16 Chapter 15: Tempering?

Night.

Stars shone in the cloudless sky. The wind rustled through the plains, swaying the grass. In the city of Shu Jing, the people had long since gone to sleep. Only the wind broke the silence, blowing dust along the streets and shaking the signs. In this peaceful time, when people preferred to dream and gather strength for the next day's work, a young woman at the estate of the great Master Piandao had no thoughts of rest. She was the Great Master's apprentice - Ty Lee. In her room, she breathed deeply, trying to immerse herself as deeply as possible in meditation, under the eerie glow of the blue flames of five candles.

"Nothing... no changes," a calm voice echoed in the girl's head.

She just took a deeper breath and exhaled the blue flames. The flames of the candles rose and fell in time with her breathing. Inhale-exhale-flames, inhale-exhale-flames, inhale-exhale-flames...

"No changes," the spirit said again.

Inhale - exhale - flames, inhale - exhale - flames, inhale - exhale - flames...

"You are standing still. It's useless. Do you even know how to meditate?" the spirit spoke again.

"I can't concentrate because someone keeps distracting me from meditating," the girl replied irritably to the voice in her head.

"This is the third night of your attempts to open the first chakra! You're just sitting there, breathing, practicing breathing techniques. It's nice, but it's not what you need. Another hour wasted in vain. Shall I remind you what the Master said about this?" the spirit spoke sternly, pressing the sore spot.

"There is no need, I remember his words perfectly. Don't interfere, I'm about to open the earth chakra," the girl replied irritably.

"Yes, you're opening it. Yes, you remember. Overcome your fear and the chakra will open - that's exactly what Piandao said after your first attempts. Overcome your fear... fear. You don't understand, do you?" the spirit continued in a calm, almost tired tone.

"I am not afraid of anything. I create fear, not experience it. There is no creature, situation, or anything else in the world that I fear. No, I don't know fear! I use fear, I manipulate fear, I am the embodiment of fear!" Azula declared with a flourish, and the flames of the candles shot up a meter before immediately returning to their normal state without igniting anything.

"Ahem... hee-hee-hee-hee. Careful, don't start a fire. Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee. Really? You're serious?" the spirit replied as Azula pursed her lips and knitted her brows.

"I'm not afraid of anything. You're wrong," the girl replied curtly, her eyebrows furrowing deeper.

"Have you forgotten already? Well, I'll tell you what you're afraid of. You're afraid of ending up like your brother. Of being left alone, of incurring your father's wrath, of losing your reputation, of being ordinary, not perfect. In short, you're a coward, and deep down you know I'm right," the ghost continued in his weary tone.

"You're wrong," Azula replied briefly, her eyebrows furrowing even further.

"Denial won't help you solve the problem, and you have to solve it. Sigh. You can be so difficult to deal with sometimes," the spirit returned to its tired tone.

The conversation ended of its own accord. The spirit fell silent, and Azula took a deep breath, exhaled a blue flame, and began to contemplate her problem. A problem she simply hadn't seen, felt, noticed, or even suspected. No, the girl flatly denied the possibility that this problem even existed, but she had to find a way out of this situation. The more she struggled with this problem, the worse it got, and it made her angry. But Azula had a solution in mind. Several days of futile attempts had undermined the princess's confidence, and she was ready to do anything to be perfect at everything.

"Spirit?"

"Yes?"

"You said that you could interact with my chakras."

"No."

"You said you could affect them."

"I did. Still no. Over time, I have come to realize that I cannot affect all of your chakras. As you may have guessed, the earth chakra is beyond my abilities. And if you don't open all your chakras, there will be no results. In other words, I can't fully influence the others until you open the earth chakra," the spirit explained in a tired tone. Such news disappointed Azula greatly; she had counted on his help, but in vain.

"So chakras are a waste of time? Is there no way out?" Azula replied disheartened, watching the dancing blue flames of the candles.

"There is, but you won't see it even if it's right in front of you. So it's better to postpone the chakras for better times. You lack wisdom, spiritual practices and meditation. Your meditations can hardly be called meditations. Concentrate on something else. Distract yourself, Azula; your mind needs a break. I suggest you spend some time controlling your chi in your body. At least you've made progress there, and I can still help you with that," the spirit continued to persuade the girl. His tone had even lost its weariness.

Another heavy sigh from the girl was accompanied by the extinction of the flames. She couldn't open her chakras and the spirit was useless.

"I have to distract myself. You've already figured out that I need to open all my chakras to improve my chi control, right?"

"I didn't mean to hurt you with my words, but yes. That is the only place where you have actually made some progress, unlike your chakras. Opening all your chakras will definitely improve your control, but even without them, you can still manage your chi to some extent."

"Fine, I'll postpone my chakra meditations for now," Azula replied, relaxing and getting out of the lotus position. The candle flames stopped burning blue and returned to their normal state.

"Great. Want to start with push-ups?" the spirit asked enthusiastically.

Instead of answering, Azula decided to do handstands and started doing push-ups. For someone with such a perfect body, handstand pushups were no problem. The Spirit silently monitored her condition, especially her internal energy. Azula lowered herself to the ground, then straightened her arms and jumped up a meter. Carefully landing on her hands, she began to do push-ups again.

"Not bad. Keep it up and you'll definitely make it," the Spirit praised, continuing to watch over the girl.

So, after an exhausting day of training with swords and other cold weapons, of which the master had an enormous variety, the student continued to train her internal chi control. Of course, without the special breathing technique created by the spirit watching her, she would have felt the exhaustion and pain of training. But as soon as she did the breathing exercises, the pain subsided and the fatigue disappeared. It was a pity that Azula didn't know this technique herself, so she had to ask the spirit for help.

After a while, as Azula was about to fall asleep, the starlight outside the window became unusually bright. She didn't pay much attention to it, but it piqued the Spirit's interest, and he wondered what was happening.

"Look out the window," he suggested.

"Why?"

"Just look. The stars are too bright, and it's far from dawn. We have to find out where the light is coming from," the ghost explained. Listening to him, she opened the window a crack and immediately noticed a beautiful meteor shower.

Bright lights streaked across the dark night sky, a natural phenomenon that had spawned many myths and captivated many with its beauty. Many, but not Azula.

"It's beautiful," the spirit remarked.

"Have you seen enough? I need some rest. You can watch it all night if you want," the girl replied, preparing to sleep.

"I would love to watch them with you, but if you insist..." the hint was clear, and Azula understood. She grinned ominously and reluctantly agreed.

"Okay, I'm willing to stand here for a little while, but just a little..."

(***)

Three weeks of training under the great master Piandao had passed.

During this time, Azula, posing as Ty Lee, had honed various skills and learned to counter opponents with all sorts of human weapons. This was undeniably useful and very enlightening. She had also become proficient in various weapons herself, primarily the sword, but the Master had taught her a variety of techniques with various cold weapons. In his earlier years, Piandao had traveled extensively and learned many different ways to use a variety of weapons.

Her firebending and lightning skills had also improved, though not as quickly as her mastery of cold weapons. Azula trained in everything she could get her hands on, experimenting and developing her own unique style, often aided by the Spirit's unconventional insights and vivid imagination. In particular, he shocked her with some firebending techniques she would never have thought of on her own. Combining the knowledge she gained with her existing skills, she created something entirely new. The spirit helped her along the way, no longer demanding poetic excuses, and often engaged her in regular conversation. Thanks to him, she was even able to refine her lightning generation to perfection.

However, what frustrated the brilliant princess was her inability to open the earth chakra or interact with any of the seven chakras. Her control of chi wasn't as good as she wanted it to be either. She tried to work on opening the chakras from time to time, but her progress was minimal.

Her apprenticeship was coming to an end and the master had nothing more to offer her. She had even learned to paint decently, play the violin, and understand the basics of blacksmithing. Piandao had nothing more to teach her. This feeling grew stronger with each passing day. Her progress allowed her to win more often in training fights against the master, relying on her own skills, her youthful body, and a few dirty tricks.

On this particular day, things began almost as usual. The master decided to give her a special lesson, each of which was different from the others. He held these lessons quite often, but this one was special even compared to the others. Bandits had set up camp on the roads leading to Shu Jing. They had raided one of the merchant caravans carrying swords and weapons forged by the master himself.

The lesson was simple: bring the heads of these bandits back to Piandao.

Ty Lee listened to the master's demands in silence and remained calm. Before setting out to track down their targets, she asked him to point out on the map where the caravan that had been attacked had been found and when the attack had occurred. After studying the indicated point on the map for about half a minute, she set out to locate her targets, taking the map of the area with her.

Tracking the bandits was no problem for the brilliant young woman. Knowing the approximate time of the robbery, the amount of goods stolen, possible selling points for the loot, and having access to the most accurate map, she easily deduced the most likely location where the criminals might be hiding. That same evening, she located them and hired a Komodo Rhino in town to take her to their hideout.

The bandits had taken refuge in a small cave that had a creek flowing into a larger river. It was a few miles from the main road that connected the city to the port. Their hideout was well hidden, making it an ideal place to hide their loot before selling it off in smaller portions. Leaving the rhino down below, Azula climbed up the hill to determine the bandits' whereabouts and numbers. It seemed they hadn't even posted lookouts. After lying in wait for about ten minutes, she spotted four of them.

"Azula," the spirit spoke.

"Spirit? Now is not the time," she hissed, afraid of being overheard. However, the howling wind effectively masked any sounds, and the height of the hill helped her remain unnoticed.

"I know, but I want to have a quick conversation with you about these criminals."

"Can it wait until I take care of them?" she replied, her eyes narrowing in anticipation. She was afraid they might hear her.

"Let at least one of them live. Interrogate them. Ask them about their lives, about how they got here. When justice catches up with them. I believe it would be beneficial to you. It will broaden your perspective on the world," the spirit explained, his words carrying philosophical weight. But Azula had something else on her mind.

"Why? Are you going to interfere during the battle because of your 'compassion'?" She stressed the word "compassion" sarcastically.

"It's not just compassion, it's a calculated attempt to show you that the world is bigger than you think. Not everyone was lucky enough to be born into a ruling family of the most powerful nation, with access to all the luxuries of civilization and the best mentors," the Spirit reasoned.

"You were lucky enough to be born in the Fire Nation and not somewhere in the South Pole or the Earth Kingdom. And as you can see from my brother's example, being born isn't enough to rise above others. Now, don't interfere with me."

"Proceed as you see fit," the spirit replied, then fell silent.

For a while, Azula continued to study the enemies. There were five of them, all men, and they showed signs of military training and other details that indicated they were deserters from the army. Their clothing was old, as were their weapons. The equipment they were carrying seemed to have been scavenged, but not destroyed.

Having learned all she needed to know, she initiated the attack with a show of force. A flash of lightning killed the first bandit instantly. The others panicked, not understanding what was happening or what to do, and the thunderclap that followed further disoriented them. She managed to kill another in the same manner. The remaining bandits fled into the cave, realizing they had to take cover. Without a second thought, Azula jumped down the steep cliff.

After falling fifty meters in free fall, she slowed her descent by emitting fire from her feet and landed softly on a mossy clearing. Armed with the stolen sword, she made her way into the cave. Her pleas for mercy were ignored. The bandits tried to ambush the attacking girl, but Azula successfully dodged a crossbow bolt. A hand-to-hand fight ensued, and there was no chance of the army deserters surviving... Azula decided to leave no one alive.

"Do you remember your first kill?" the ghost asked, showing no emotion, as Azula cut off another bandit's head and placed it in a specially prepared sack. In the current era, people were quite indifferent to death and killing, especially in such a martial and aggressive society as the Fire Nation.

"Yes, I do," Azula replied calmly, ignoring the blood that had stained her hands, the sword, and even her clothes.

"Would you like to tell me about it? The journey back will be long, and I would like to hear the whole story in detail," the spirit inquired.

"Okay, it happened on my first Agni Kai....."

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