87 Earth Kingdom

Managing to leave the library, Genji and the rest were surprised by what they were seeing.

Sensing that Genji and the rest had finally come back, Toph turned her body to them.

"Hey guys, just taking out the trash here," Toph greeted them with a wide smile as she sat down on top of a large pile of unconscious sandbenders.

"Toph what happened?!"

Jumping forward, Aang was beginning to worry about the well-being of all the sandbenders. Just as Aang was going to go and worry about the sandbenders, he felt a hand on his shoulder stopping him from going forward.

"Why are you stopping me?" asked Aang as he turned to look at Genji.

Genji didn't answer and just gestured to the side where there were sandbender ships and various ropes and nets.

Aang looked at the items and approached it, not knowing what these things were for until he saw a certain item that made his blood run cold.

Turning around to look at the sandbenders, Aang looked at them with a fearful look on his face before it turned into mild anger.

"They wanted to take Appa! How could they?!"

"Calm down kid," said Genji, clamping his hands down on Aang's shoulder. "The worst never happened, so take this time to thank Toph and check if Appa is alright. You have to keep yourself calm."

Aang stopped and thought about it before subtly nodding and listening to Genji. Although Aang is an airbender and is more mature than most kids his age, he is still a kid in the end and can't keep his head cool.

"Toph! Thank you for stopping them from taking Appa!"

Expressing his gratitude to Toph, Aang quickly went over to Appa and checked him, hoping to not see him hurt or the like.

Toph jumped down from the pile of sandbenders and walked over to Genji before patting his shoulder.

"I feel much relieved now. I hope you are as well," said Toph with a smirk.

Rolling his eyes at Toph's words, Genji wasn't even thinking about it anymore. Instead, his mind was focusing on the books he had just gotten from the library.

Lao Ge's Insights into Immortality, Guru Laghima's insights into flying, and finally the theories, philosophies, and concepts.

"Oh yeah, much better," answered Genji as he walked over to Appa and took out a book from Lao Ge's personal written books.

"What?"

Toph turned to face Genji with narrowed eyes, suspicious of what he said and what he meant by it.

"Genji! Can you help me with these scrolls?"

Toph's ears suddenly perked up after hearing Katara call out to Genji and suddenly felt very jealous. Her eyebrows were furrowed as she thought about the possibility of what Genji and Katara could have done within the library.

'He didn't! Did he?'

Biting the nail of her thumb agitated, Toph walked over to Genji as well, joining him and Katara.

"Genji~! Could I join you in reading those books of yours?" Toph asked as she joined Genji's side and held his arm, hoping to draw his attention and have him agree.

'Fuck, I'm just trying to read…' thought Genji as he felt Toph's breasts pressing up against his arm and Katara's earnest gaze.

Sighing, Genji nodded to both girls, "Katara, I'll help you with those scrolls later tonight when the connection to water is stronger in case it's required for those moves you grabbed."

"I'll see you later tonight then," said Katara with a smile as she walked away.

After a couple of steps, Katara turned around and looked at Genji and Toph talking with each other, smiles on their faces. With a pout on her face, Katara walked away once more whilst she was thinking to herself.

'Hmph! I'll get closer to him at night!'

"Toph, you're being silly," Genji said as he turned to look at Toph with a smirk.

"Hm?" Toph stopped sensing Katara and turned to look at Genji. "Silly? I'm not being silly, I'm trying to learn some things. You're the silly one for not inviting me, 'babe'."

"Heh…"

Genji chuckled and shook his head with a smile.

"Okay, Temptress, let me go read this book while you listen."

Slap!

"Good! That's what I like to hear," Toph smirked and slapped Genji's back.

"..."

"What? Begin reading!" said Toph after hearing nothing for a while.

Opening one of Lao Ge's personally written books, Genji began to read it out loud with Toph sitting next to him and listening attentively. Since she suggested this, she decided to at least attempt to listen and remember what Genji is reading.

…

Whilst Genji was reading and Toph was listening to him, Aang was taking care of Appa.

Jin had joined him and they eventually began talking and cheering up Appa with Momo flying around them.

Whilst everyone else was doing something, Katara was also reading some papers about the past of the Southern Water Tribe.

With everyone doing their thing, an hour passed and they were already flying in the air, heading to their next place.

"Immortality… is it really possible?" Toph asked, remembering everything that Genji was talking about.

"Rather than Immortality, it's more like slowed aging," said Genji as he stopped his reading and turned his attention to Toph.

Furrowing her eyebrows, Toph turned to Genji and asked, "Why slow aging?"

"If it was immortality, Aang wouldn't be here," explained Genji as he flipped to a certain page within Lao Ge's personal journal. "Lao Ge mentioned having taught the Avatar the method to achieve immortality and only ended up living for 200+ years. Although the biggest reason might be that she wasn't that spiritually awakened or no longer wished to live such a long time whilst everyone around her was dying."

"Then what about Lao Ge, Immortal Tieguai, did he die?" Toph asked, curious as to whether such an amazing spiritually awakened individual, who had lived for close to more than 4,000+ years, had died or not.

Pa!

Closing the book, Genji smiled, "It's unknown whether he's alive or not. He disappeared from the world when Avatar Kyoshi died. He might have died, he might be walking amongst us, or he may even be in the Spirit World already as nothing but a soul/spirit."

Like Iroh who had died but was spiritually reborn in the spirit world, where he continued to live his calm and serene life.

"But then why did he write these books?"

"Maybe to spread knowledge he didn't want to go missing from the world he will no longer participate in," speculated Genji.

"..."

Once Genji was done speaking, Toph went quiet and pondered over Lao Ge and wondered whether he was still alive. If such an amazing person was still alive, why would the Fire Nation have attacked the world.

Shaking her head, Toph decided to believe that Lao Ge must have perished before Aang had disappeared from the world 100 years ago. If he hadn't then Lao Ge would have killed the Fire Lord, preventing the Fire Nation from attacking the world..

Genji looked at Toph for a second, letting her ponder over what Genji had talked about and what was in the book.

Turning his attention back to the book, Genji also began to ponder over what he had read. He placed the book in his shirt before leaning back and looking up into the sky that was slowly darkening.

Immortality…

It was something akin to a technique.

A technique that required one to be spiritually enlightened, have a strong and resilient will and mind, and have a strong grasp over the human body and Chi.

With all these four things put together, Lao Ge had touched upon Immortality.

What he viewed as aging was the body falling apart as one grows older. The more pieces in the body fall out of order and cease to function, the older one becomes.

Using what he knew about the human body, Lao Ge used his strong mind and will to piece halt the process of his body falling apart and into disorder by taking a 'mental picture' of the state of his body. Whenever something fell out of place, he would piece it back to how it looked like in the 'mental picture' of his body.

This was something Lao Ge had spiritually touched upon right when he was already at an older age.

However, Lao Ge's thoughts were much more complicated when he was first enlightened to Immortality. As years passed, living longer, Lao Ge had simplified his enlightenment to Immortality into a technique.

'This will take a long time to properly begin practicing,' thought Genji as he closed his eyes. 'Entering enlightenment is not too difficult for me anymore… is it perhaps related to the continuously growing spirit stat?'

[Spirit: 61]

'With a spirit stat this high, when will I be able to continue leveling up my skills…? Is the system THAT broken that I could no longer level up my skills?'

Hah!

With a smirk on his face, Genji shook his head.

If the system is useless, then I will 'level up' the skills myself!

Just like he had been doing with Waterbending, Firebending, and Martial Arts, Genji believed he could continue to refine his skills and make them more formidable.

'Either way… it must mean that I am already spiritually awakened if I had reached such a high point in my spirit stat. If I remember correctly, the average spirit stat for this world is 0, having a 20 is most likely a spiritually awakened level…

All I need is to develop my own thinking and philosophy. Although adopting one may also work…'

With that thought, Genji focused his thoughts on all the books he took from Wan Shi Tong's library.

Lao Ge… Guru Laghima… Yin and Yang…

Three different ideologies and forms of thinking that he could embed into himself.

***

A week of traveling passed by in the blink of an eye.

Genji had finished reading all of Lao Ge's books and was already beginning to read Guru Laghima's books. He had also been working a lot on his Airbending skill, finally noticing a problem that his system was giving him regarding the leveling of his skills.

Whenever he worked on his Airbending, Genji had noticed that in an entire day of practicing airbending, the amount of Exp he gained would only amount up to 10-20 points.

The way he saw it, Genji had more or less reached the point where he was close to becoming an Expert Airbender.

The same went for his Earthbending skill.

It was like the system was glitching out, or even worse, it had somehow gained a virus.

'That's a scary thought,' believed Genji as he frowned. 'This system… if it was bestowed by a god, then they must be some sort of shitty god. To give me such a defective thing…'

"Help me down, Babe."

A teasing voice reached Genji's ears, attracting his attention.

Turning his head to the side, Genji looked at Toph and clicked his tongue.

"Tsk, you can get off Appa Express just fine the other days," said Genji as he picked up Toph nonetheless in a princess carry.

Toph smiled happily as she felt Genji's hands on her, lifting her into the air, "You're such a good servant."

Putting a weird expression on his face, Genji pinched Toph's peachy butt and teased her back, "A servant you say? Does that mean that you will be rewarding me later for serving my dear Temptress so well?"

"Hm~, maybe I will reward my servant with a kiss," said Toph as she pressed her hand on Genji's chest, feeling his heartbeat.

"A kiss? I'll take it," said Genji as he shook his head with a smile before finally jumping down to where everyone was waiting for them.

Landing on the ground, Genji lifted his head and with his golden eyes, he looked at all the Dai Li surrounding them with one particular smiling man in the middle.

Long Feng.