20 Chapter 6. Training. Part 5.

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Wind, mighty wind, you drive the clouds away.

But how to transform you into oxygen? Perhaps... perhaps it was time to use my brain and realize that there's likely no literal wind inside me. Rather, it's how I perceive bending, interpreting it in my own way. Honestly, it took embarrassingly long for me to reach this conclusion, but at least it finally dawned on me. It would have been shameful not to understand such a logical and fundamental thing on my own.

Yet, what comes out of me is wind. What does that mean? Correct - I need to make my bending release oxygen. Or at least thinner air.

Thus, I spent about twenty minutes straining to recreate the air that exists high up in the mountains. The good news is that something definitely happens, the bad news is that it's not what I need. Now, I blow cold air, as in the mountains. But in terms of concentration, it's still just regular air.

Nothing was working, but I decided to approach it from another angle. Cold air now, then I'll try warm, then dry, and so on. Sooner or later, I'll be able to control it. And then, maybe, I can separate oxygen. For now, I can't even vaguely say how it will work.

But it will work.

All week until my first foray, codenamed "the fledgling's flight from the cliff," the master ran me ragged.

I also remembered where I'd seen something similar to what I jump on. It's a pure torture device from The Witcher! I never thought such a thing actually helped anyone in training. Anyone other than fictional characters in a computer game or book, that is (author's note: Ba-dum-tss).

Anyway, after thinking it over and seeing how quickly and nimbly I jumped on the stumps, the master decided to activate that mechanism. Now, not only did I jump, but I also dodged.

What's the point if, as it turned out, I already dodge well? That's exactly the point: in addition to the pendulum itself, you have to watch your feet to avoid falling. If separately I managed it well, together problems arose.

And then they'll surely blindfold me, bet on it, they will, mmm-hmm.

But this time the master was more pleased with my results - who knows what he saw, but I genuinely felt it was easier. But I bet it's more due to habit - at this rate, I'll memorize the pendulum's trajectory and where each stake is. Then what's the point, really?

We also sparred with the master all week. Even considering that he sometimes quite obviously let me win, I never managed to beat him. He knew my moves in advance, where I would go next, how I'd dodge, and I didn't know his. That's enough to win every time. Besides, as obvious as it might be, he was a much better warrior than me. For now.

After several such fights and realizing my problem, that I react rather than lead the fight, I voiced this issue to the Master. As usual, he chuckled, stroked his beard, and led me inside.

To play Pai Sho.

Seriously, part of our daily routine now is an hour, sometimes more, playing this board game. But I have a feeling it will indeed help. The game greatly develops strategic skills.

In my previous life, Pai Sho was often compared to chess. Fundamentally, there are similarities, but... the difference is huge. Despite claims that in chess, at any given moment, there are thousands of moves, only a dozen of them don't lead to losing advantage in the next move. Experienced chess players can predict each other's first dozen moves based on the first few. Openings, gambits, over the years of the game's existence, all successful initial moves and subsequent advantageous ones have been worked out and named.

In Pai Sho, there's no such thing as an absolutely dumb move. In this game, there might be poor strategy or lack of it, but there are no completely foolish moves. You can't even tell at the beginning of the game whether you're playing against a master or a novice. What seems like crazy and illogical steps at first glance could lead to some cunning trap... or just be simple, insane, and illogical steps.

In terms of strategy, I found Pai Sho more appealing than chess.

Of course, in the few days before the operation began, I only just learned the basics of the game and some basic strategies, but my interest was immense.

But the Master, ignoring my speech on, "Let's play Pai Sho, why the heck do you care about these bandits," kicked me out of the gate, throwing a rapier, a map, and a bag of money after me.

Alright, alright. I'll remember this. When hunger comes, as they say, you'll ask for bread.

In all of this, there's just one little snag. The Master gave me a week because it normally takes several days just to get to the place, and the same amount of time to get back. He couldn't have known that with my running, it would literally take just a few hours to get there.

Initially, I wanted to solve the problem and rest for a week. But then I got lazy and decided to rest first, then solve the problem.

That is, to first spend a week practicing my bending, trying to develop it, spending time only on this, and then quickly deal with the bandits in one day and head home at full wind speed.

Well, that's what I did. I bought provisions in advance in the nearest village, went somewhere near the mountain, and set up camp there. I even bought a sleeping bag. Everything was thought through.

Sitting on a grassy meadow at the top of the mountain, where the surroundings were very visible, and placing the sword in front of me, I began to manipulate my air. Cold, then warm. And so until I tire.

Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with anything smarter for the time being. I struggled with this nonsense for a good two days, after which I sat down on that damned meadow again, nearly puked from the sights that annoyed me, and let a breeze into my head to think.

Some nonsense. To produce cold air, I think of a snowy mountain peak, to produce warm air - of a desert. Theoretically, I could be messing around.

Maybe I'm actually the Avatar and just need to think about fire? After spending about an hour on such attempts, I realized the idea was absolute nonsense. No matter how hard I tried, thinking about fire, my breeze just didn't understand what to do.

It almost literally responded to the request with a blue screen - I don't know how else to describe it, but by the feel of it, if I tried that, the breeze might as well have been twirling its finger around my head.

Hmm, then maybe I could try a different approach.

Taking a candle out of my bag, I lit it and placed it in front of me. What if I directly ask the wind to spread the fire?

Very clearly formulating the desire, imagining for some reason a gas station and its explosion in a movie, I began to try to release the breeze beyond my body. From my experience with cold and warm, if I, with such a mindset, release the wind beyond my body's limits, then it should be exactly as I need it.

Well, to my surprise, it didn't take that long. Just a few hours, and I felt a light breeze coming from my finger.

Bringing my finger to the candle, I got... well, some result. There was a stream, weak though it was, but it was there! I kind of started blowing from the side of the candle flame and a light flame was blown, oddly enough, blue.

I suspect that this color comes from the combustion of that "oxygen" or whatever it is. It could be. At least the color is blue, not some other. Blue seems to be common among the local benders, so it's not scary, they won't put me on a stake, and they probably won't mistake me for the Avatar.

However, when trying to create a larger volume of "oxygen," there was a snag - nothing worked. It was a very clear feeling, as if I was trying to lift a weight more than my muscles could allow. And what do we do in such a case?

Right. Train the muscles, namely, to pass such air as often as possible and each time trying a bit more. I still have a few days until the end of the week, during this time we will properly stretch my oxygen muscle, cut down the bandits, and head home.

Good plan? Excellent. And what happens when I plan something? Right, everything goes not as it should.

It all started with the fact that for all these days, if I managed to increase the volume of "oxygen" I was releasing, it was not by much. Very slightly. I have a suspicion that here I would have been helped by the hand and foot waving of air benders. Wasn't there a reason even monks engaged in this?

So, having spat on this, I went to the destination. A small village, around which bandits had settled and whom I need to... well, take out, what else. To be the local cleaner.

True, I have nothing more concrete on them, so the plan is simple: I go to the village and find out everything on-site - somehow the rumors reached the Master, who, by the way, is several days' journey from here. And there's no internet or even radio here yet.

Anyway, no one mugged me on the approach to the city, which would have been, of course, very convenient. If someone had attacked me now, I would have cleaned them all out, and that would have been the end of it.

But no, I had to trudge to the city, go to the local bar, as is customary, and sit down to listen attentively to who is talking about what. I was dressed quite simply, no fancy clothes, but the rapier kind of showed my status. A sword - although not a very expensive pleasure, but a noticeable one.

Roughly like buying a traumatic pistol for a regular person from the old world. Not that it was a strong financial burden, but not everyone rushes to line up and pick a trauma gun. Those money could indeed be better spent on something else, right?

So here too. And given that my sword is not simple, it immediately catches the eye, so attention to me was guaranteed. And the main thing is you can't hide it anywhere, the rapier is a long thing. But okay, I sat in the bar sipping juice - not going to drink alcohol before a fight, and listened to the surroundings for about an hour.

I learned who here is the local so-called slut, who sleeps with whom, how the local owner of something there cheats, and a huge amount of rumors I don't care about.

But what I needed to know, I didn't find out. And what to do with this? The bandits are definitely tied to the city, if they don't protect it, then they must have a hideout here. After all, despite calling this area a village, it would be called so by the standards of my old world. Here it's quite a decent town.

And several thousand residents, maybe even tens of thousands, so there's plenty of places for the bandit element to hide, no matter how you look at it.

Why am I sure they have connections in the city? Because they need to eat something, as well as sell the goods they've stolen. Hmm, by the way, where would I sell stolen goods?

Probably, that's where we'll start, why not. So, I stood up, approached the bartender, and just blatantly asked:

"I'd like to offload this sword, know a place?"

The bartender chuckled, looked intently into my honest innocent eyes, and deigned to say:

"Leave the bar and go right to the clothing store, there's an alley behind it where you'll find a fence," he said, stretching his lips into an unnatural smile and extending his hand, expecting something in return for the information.

"Thank you very much!" I shook his extended hand, smiling sincerely, which made the bartender grimace and move on to another customer.

No worries, I'll clean the area of bandits, I'm sure that will boost his profits.

And indeed, the fence was there. A small shed, from inside which came very unpleasant exclamations. Well then, shall we play the local hero?