22 Chapter 6. Training. Part 7.

The master understood my condition and even seemed to be prepared for it. I had drunk quite heavily that day, completely knocked out, and spent a long time discussing my thoughts on death with the master, trying to somewhat restrain myself from talking too much about my past life and bending. It seemed to work, but I still ended up saying quite a lot.

The master, like a good drinking companion, nodded importantly, offered words of support, and generally let me speak my mind, for which I am very grateful.

And that night, I spent in bed with a pretty maid. Maybe even two, I can't quite remember.

By morning, I at least felt alive and ready to do something other than drinking the master's supply of expensive sake and complaining about life.

Even the headache and nausea couldn't dampen my spirits. Despite the hangover, I took a pitcher of water and went to the mini garden where I usually practiced Air Bending.

There, I enjoyed nature, lightly playing with a candle. I couldn't, strictly speaking, maintain fire like true Fire Benders, only ignite the oxygen or whatever it is I release, which burns almost instantly. Maybe if I filled something enclosed with it, there could even be an explosion. Theoretically, I can direct this "oxygen" wherever I want, and it would keep burning.

Air doesn't necessarily have to come from the body, right? At least Earth and Water are used as they are, not created by bending, so air could presumably be made to appear wherever I want. But that's a secondary concern; I needed to learn to release more oxygen for the "fire bending" to work.

But despite my joy, my condition was very, very poor. My attention was more than dulled, at least that's what I thought. Because, playing with the candle, I failed to notice one small detail.

Master Piandao, who stood behind me, watching with an inscrutable expression on his face.

"Ahem," he coughed, causing me to literally jump and—in a hangover-induced panic, using airbending, I flew a couple of meters up—"I expect an explanation."

If we approach the matter politely and forget all the swear words that flashed through my mind in the few seconds I was staring at the master, then it can be said I remained silent.

"It's... I wasn't lying!" I hurried to clarify, "I don't possess Fire bending!"

"You just made the fire do what you wanted," he said with an expression that was still hard to read but definitely not positive, "then you jumped, clearly using air bending."

"It's not..."

"Are you the Avatar?" he interrupted me.

"No, of course not!" I exclaimed, "I ONLY possess Air bending. That's it. Nothing more!"

"How did you then control the fire?" Piandao frowned slightly.

"Fire feeds on oxygen, and I've learned to release specifically oxygen, to disguise my bending," I began to explain earnestly, it was too important for me that the master continued the training, and I had to clarify that I was not a jerk.

Why could I be considered a jerk? Oh, it's simple: I don't know the Master's stance on this, but imagine you're a person without bending, who became a very strong sword master. Then comes a student, learns and learns, and then goes on to defeat everyone with bending. Upsetting? Probably.

However, framing it this way, I'd be a jerk no matter what, wouldn't I? I can't just abandon bending, especially after discovering how effectively I can disguise it.

On the other hand, my priority is still sword fighting, at least because it's simpler and faster. Everyone charges at you like mad, you cut them down, and they'd hide from fire, try somehow to reach…

"In other words, you're saying you're an airbender, who were thought to have been extinct for 100 years?" Piandao raised an eyebrow.

"Apt choice of words - 'extinct'. It's more like we wiped them out rather than they 'died out'," I chuckled. It seemed he wasn't planning on kicking me out, and I was struck by a sense of indifference. Not the kind that's a light breeze in the head, but the natural kind. It's a fine line, you have to understand.

"I'm glad you consider yourself part of the Fire Nation..."

"I wasn't lying! I just said I'm an Airbender, that's all. In everything else, I spoke the truth, and I was born into the aristocracy of the Fire Nation."

"Now I see why you're so agile," the master chuckled amiably, sitting down next to me, losing his... aura of a fearsome Chinese sensei, "but that could be possible. Your bending hasn't been fully explored yet, nor has anyone tried to. Everyone's interested in the practical side, not where it comes from or how it's passed on. I've heard that back in the day, despite all orders, prisoners were taken. Even concubines. There were female monasteries. I think that's the most realistic scenario, actually. Someone fell in love with a concubine, moved her from the status of concubine to wife, and blood is thicker than water, it would have come out sooner or later."

"Uh-huh... so, you're not going to kick me out?" I decided to clarify the situation right away.

"Art belongs to any nation," the master said again in an "old wise man" manner, "and, in the grand scheme of things, nothing has changed. I'll have to comb through my connections, maybe I'll find something about the airbenders. I assume any information would be useful to you right now?"

"You have no idea how much!" I was delighted, "and I belong to the Fire Nation. I, you know, rather like industrialization and the high level of education among the populace. More than the tribal structure of the Water Tribe or the crude monarchy of the Earth Kingdom. Bringing civilization, one might say, is a dirty job, but necessary."

"Ha-ha-ha," the master laughed, "that's a very good description of what's happening - I must remember that. And you think the Fire Nation is doing the right thing?"

"Who knows," I shrugged, "but it's definitely not working the way the average peasant thinks, like the evil and wicked Fire Lord decided to start a war just because. There are many reasons, it's a pity they don't write about them, you have to read between the lines and think for yourself. Lack of space on the islands, a flawed worldview centralized around the Avatar, for a moment - just a person, who obviously tends to be slightly biased towards their nation, and so on and so forth. There are plenty of reasons. And now? Now the main thing is that the Avatar doesn't appear."

"What a pragmatic approach you have," Master chuckled.

"It's an airbender trait. Firebenders are emotional; we're indifferent," I explained, "sometimes even too much so. Without complete calm in the mind, bending, it's almost impossible to use bending. The complete opposite of fire bending. Though, you'd think it would be water, wouldn't you?"

"Many aspects of your behavior and even your fighting style make sense now," the master pondered aloud, "perhaps you should switch your rapier for some kind of staff? Airbenders are usually depicted with a staff."

"No-no-no!" I hastened to assure him, shaking my head and even clutching my precious weapon, "This weapon is too cool, why would I want a staff! Carrying it around all the time would be exhausting. And given my current scatterbrained state, I'd probably forget it somewhere."

"No, you'd never forget your weapon, believe me," Master chuckled, "Alright, let's go. Show me what you've mastered as an airbender, maybe we can come up with something. And you'll tell me how you've been training in this direction - we'll fit it into the schedule."

"Okay. Thank you."

So, I'm somewhat glad that I no longer have to hide my training and it's now legitimized, but also a bit dismayed... because now they're going to pester me with it.

***

As promised, the master unearthed a treasure for me! A scroll belonging to airbenders. Time had severely worn the paper or whatever it was they wrote on. But it was still possible to make out the contents. By some miracle, there's only one language in this world, and it hasn't changed much over hundreds of years, so I could easily read it.

Some wild philosophy with a hint of Buddhism or something similar, but I managed to grasp some kernels of truth. And what I couldn't understand, the master helped explain.

Essentially, everything I had figured out on my own existed during the time of the airbenders, only the terms were slightly different and a bit more philosophical. Nothing particularly new was revealed to me in that respect - during meditations, I need to form as much wind in my mind as possible, let as much wind into my body as possible, and release as much beyond my body as possible.

I hadn't thought to specifically increase the amount of air inside myself. But I should have remembered how, during a fall, more wind clearly surged into my head.

There were also some basic movements that resonated with me from my past life. The movements, katas, and stances were very similar to those I somehow managed to dredge up from memory.

Master, of course, was spitting and swearing; he's here to teach me swordsmanship, his stances, katas, and so on, and now I'm being asked to relearn the entire basis. But upon closer inspection and some thought, we came to a very amusing realization: the rapier fits very nicely into this basis.

It took a significant amount of time, during which, instead of advancing whatever I had ready with the rapier, we started doing things, you could say, more intelligently.

What was in the scroll was enough for us to grasp the essence of the fighting style, and my memories fit very well into it. It wasn't the first time for the master to rework a hand-to-hand combat style, skillfully incorporating a sword, in this case, a rapier. Especially when it sometimes seemed to ask for it. Of course, a forward thrust with the hand, which looks exactly like a piercing attack, is actually channeling air bending, but somehow it still didn't quite fit.

And how my agility matched this style - indescribable. It was as if these techniques were what I had been missing, after all, everything I had learned up to that point was one way or another around fire bending - a style not quite fitting for me. Even though I managed to incorporate my agility, it still looked somewhat... incomplete from the outside. Even the master noted this but couldn't come up with anything.

But now we succeeded. Smoother movements, more acrobatic techniques, fewer abrupt lunges. However, in all this, there was very little attack. I could circle around very well, not even allowing the master to get close - now, when I use air bending, it really became easier, but for attacking... it felt like significant chunks of the attacking part were missing. Understandably, I personally don't really want to attack, after all, if I had found this scroll before coming to the Master... or even before my first encounter with bandits, I would have given in. And presumably, at the time this scroll was written, airbenders no longer had to defend themselves, living peacefully, moving from place to place. Who were they to defend against? At worst, some birds might reach them. Therefore, everything described in the scrolls boils down to pushes of air.

Yet, I'm sure: an air wave can be sent sharp as a razor. Air can simply be drawn from an area, saturated with oxygen, made slightly different, forcing people to die in terrible agony from suffocation. Many very frightening attacks come to mind.

In reality, of course, everything is not so easy. Let's go back to my method of controlling flames. It turned out that such a small result was due to trivial plus-minus things, as for a bender. Extremely low efficiency and the overall small volume... of bending?

I remember from my past life different concepts, mana cores, bending from the surrounding nature, but as I said, benders here get tired only physically. I'm not smart enough to engage in some kind of study and rather just closely watch myself, but for now, everything boils down to a rather silly problem.

I imagine the breeze in my head too literally. Such a light breeze in a human skull. I learned to increase it to a tornado, and this allowed me to get already very decent results on the output. In Air bending, I could proudly call myself a little bender because I could already fight using bending. With waves of air and my speed.

But with "fire" bending, an interesting situation emerges. The master dug up somewhere two cauldrons... darn, just cauldrons, where you can put logs and light a fire. I have no idea what they are used for, but we use them for training. And yes, I named them Cauldron one and Cauldron two, in honor of my classmate, so what?

I would stand and "pick up" fire from the cauldrons, with the help of burning I could really keep blue fire in any place or make it "burn out" quickly to the needed spot.

Which is even slightly scary if you think about it because I can expand the air space very quickly. Well, more precisely I can't yet, but in perspective, from a small flame, even a spark - I can blow up such a flame... mom, don't worry.

Only here's the question, how do I always have a source of flame with me? Hmm, have a fire bender with me? Well, that sounds smart - in combination with a fire bender I can really put on a decent show, when to the simple jet of flame from a bender, I add my "oxygen".

But there are also downsides: unlike fire benders, I don't have immunity to my own fire. It's just physical fire, and as has been proven more than once, the fire that benders emit and just physical fire - are different things. Not much, the differences in fact haven't been found on how to use, but different.

So almost another year of my training with Master Piandao passed. Overall, I've been here for two and a half years and I have a strong feeling that it's time to set off on my own. Though I'm not rushing, just like the Master. Most likely, for half a year now, by design, I should have been independently roaming the world, kicked out of the nest, but here very fortunately or not, the scrolls of Air bending came along, and a lot had to be restructured.

In any case, it's time to start the ritualistic things for my departure, both I and the Master understood.

Hi, now for every 200 power stones there will be a chapter.

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