26 Knowledge

Underground, inside a huge dark space, rows, and rows of bookshelves could be seen. There was seemingly endless knowledge inside this place; the library was so deep underground that even the ceiling wasn't really visible. Looking up, one could only see pure darkness.

Following the green lanterns that illuminated each bookshelf, Madara and Wan Shi Tong walked shoulder to shoulder towards specific locations of the library.

"So….. tell me…. Young human…. What other… Knowledge... might you…Seek…. Inside this place?"

Thinking for a second, Madara replied, "Many important details about bending techniques were either forgotten or locked away, hidden, and I want to uncover them.. at least the ones related to firebending and energybending."

The Owl chuckled. "So much…. Knowledge in here… and you come for…. Bending techniques.."

Shrugging, Madara replied, "That's what I am, a bender. If I were a scientist or something else, I would've aimed for different things."

"But here …. You… have the … opportunity … to expand your… knowledge to other… areas." Said the Owl while turning a corner while guiding Madara.

Madara followed, "Well, that's true, but I'm a human; we have limits on how much we can actually learn and absorb. I would rather be really good at one thing than mediocre in many things."

"Hmmmm… wise… considering how… pitifully limited… humans are.." Said Wan Shi Tong as they arrived at a specific massive bookshelf. "This is… everything … about firebending…. I hope you… find what you need…"

Staring at the sheer size of the bookshelf, Madara gulped. "Damn, this is a lot… I don't think I can read all of this… I can't even imagine standing here and doing nothing but sleeping, eating, and reading for who the hell knows how long…"

((AN: Damn, even I felt targeted while writing this…))

The Owl chuckled, "That's…not… my… problem…" then, flapping its wings, Wan Shi Tong flew away, leaving Madara alone.

'Even the spirits of this world are pricks!' sigh. "This will take way longer than I thought. I will go crazy before reading 1/5 of these books!" He put down his big backpack and spread a sleeping bag on a clean corner before putting down an oil lamp. He sat on the floor and started eating some snacks.

'This won't do… I can't read all of this. I'm no machine… I will give it a few months and then call Wan Shi Tong to lead me to Kaliya, I can't live here for a long period of time, or I will go crazy.'

After his snack, he created the courage to start his new… adventure… and looked at the many books and scrolls. There were many half-assed firebending techniques in this place, and he learned very few things from these techniques.

'What a waste…'

Spending days reading and making notes in his own empty books that he brought with him; he came in contact with a very old scroll.

"Xu Ping An's record of Lightning Generation."

The scroll was rather big, much of it was about some events that happened to the man called Xu Ping An, who was nothing more than a criminal in Madara's eyes, but then he came to a specific sentence that made him re-read the whole scroll from the beginning.

"… And using his unique lightning generation technique, Xu Ping An nearly killed Avatar Kyoshi. He would've won if it wasn't for the Avatar State…"

The value of this scroll suddenly became unique for Madara. He even activated his Sharingan to memorize every detail of it, he could take it with him, yes, but he wanted to imprint everything related to this bending technique deep inside his brain.

"Generating lightning instantly without the need of the circular movements to separate Yin and Yang… if I learn how he did it and somehow master it… I may be able to recreate some lightning-based jutsus from the Naruto world… " Madara grinned, and his eyes glowed ".. Generating lightning just by inhaling deeply before striking… I want this technique!"

Madara went full tunnel vision after this; for over a month, he went through 1/3 of the books searching for something related to Xu Ping An's lightning. He found a couple of combustion bending scrolls, but he didn't read them yet; he simply separated them from the rest and kept searching.

After exactly 35 days of searching, Madara finally found something useful; it seems that what helped Xu Ping An wasn't exactly just lightning generation, but a breathing technique similar to his chi breathing technique. 'This is starting to sound more and more like Demon Slayer…'

Madara kept reading the book he found, with his sharingan always on, "this breathing technique replaces the need of the finger movements for lightning, it was inspired by waterbending techniques that follow the pull and push, but using yin and yang, splitting your chi as you breathe… sounds… absurdly complicated! Who the fuck came up with this?! How many sad bastards died because they tried to create this?!" he couldn't help but chuckle 'what a noble sacrifice… I shall put it to good use.' He grinned and started copying the whole book.

After completing the task he called for Wan Shi Tong.

"Could you please lead me to Kaliya? and then I will have to go to the combat techniques unrelated to element bending."

The Owl wasn't amused "I'm… not your servant… human… follow the green lanterns and find her… yourself…. As for the fighting techniques…. That's your problem.. I won't be… helping.." the Owl disappeared after saying that.

'Tsk… what an awful host….' Following the bright green lanterns, he went through many shelves, turning left, right, right, left, right, right, left and he finally reached Kaliya, and when he saw her… Saitama's poker face had to make another comeback.

She was sprawled on the ground, snoring while surrounded by quite a few soju bottles… sleeping without a care in the world over a pile of books.

"You gotta be kidding me…" he said, massaging his forehead. He walked close to her, grabbed one of the half-empty bottles, and poured it over her sleepy face without thinking twice.

"WAGAAAAAAAAAAAA" She shouted and started looking around her. "W-who?!....B-boss?!

W-what are ye doing here… I thought ye would be busy reading about firebending, lightning and stuff…" She spoke softly, behaving like a young girl that was caught doing something that she shouldn't.

Madara's eyebrows twitched. "You spent a whole month… drinking… didn't you?"

Kaliya shook her head repeatedly, "No No, No No No! I did read a lot!"

"How many books?"

"Err… a couple?"

BANG

Madara grabbed a book and hit her head with full strength.

"ARGHHHHHH that fucking hurts!" said the pirate girl with a tearful expression.

"Did you at least find the right books and scrolls?"

Rubbing the back of her head she nodded softly "Y-yes, I found all three styles of waterbending like ye asked, I also found a book about bloodbending, it was actually the first book that I found, to think that they have such good stuff so easy to find…"

The corners of Madara's mouth twitched along with his eyebrow now 'EASY?! I spent over a month to find my lightning bending and this fucking bitch got bloodbending on the first try?! IS THIS WORLD SIDING WITH IDIOTS WHILE PUNISHING THE SMART?!'

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Kaliya could only stare at him nervously.

"Grab the books you found and let's head out." Said Madara with the best neutral voice he could muster right now.

"R-right away Boss!" she grabbed the books and scrolls, stood up, and followed him without saying a word, she noticed how short his fuse was right now…

They first searched for the combat technique's scrolls, it didn't take them long just.. half a day… then they spent over two weeks trying to find good combat scrolls for Lei. Kaliya managed to find a primitive form of Chi Blocking easily… of course she did…

After collecting the books Madara and Kaliya walked back to the entrance tunnel.

When they walked towards the exit the Owl appeared again "Leaving… so… early?"

Sigh "It's not like I have a choice, we are not alone and I need to tell our driver…. I want to stay longer but my companion here started to become annoying as soon as her alcohol was gone."

Kaliya crossed her arms and pouted "Ye don't have to complain Boss, it's not fair! I already got everything I needed… what else was I supposed to do here? It would be better if ye stood behind to read ye things while Jackie and I went ahead with ye plans."

Madara raised his eyebrows, the first part of what she said annoyed the shit out of him 'this fucking brat!' but the second part of what she said made him consider things…

"You know what Kaliya, you are right… it's actually a very smart idea, I can't even believe I didn't think of it."

She placed her hands on her hips and puffed her chest, raising her chin with a victorious expression. "Of course it's a smart idea, I'm intelligence incarnate, it's just that people don't believe me!"

'I really want to beat the crap out of this woman… '

Even the Owl was staring at Kaliya with the biggest poker face ever. 'Humans….are…. really…. Weird…'

Regaining his bearings Madara turned to Kaliya "we will go outside, I will light a fire and ask Jackie to pick you up and leave this place, go back to Gao Ling and practice the scrolls you got, also give these to Jackie." He said as he gave her the scrolls of the combat techniques.

"Aye boss, how long should we stay there?" Asked Kaliya.

Madara started to consider for a bit "Hmmm… come back once a month to see if I'm out if I'm not then go back and wait for the next month… that will give us plenty of time to get our things done, also... keep bringing me food and water."

Then he turned to Wan Shi Tong "I can count on our friendly Library Spirit to remind me once every month, right?"

The Owl stared at the depths of Madara's eyes "… No…"

An awkward silence remained.

"I will figure something out."