Growth

Mark brisked down an alley at a leisurely pace; five Fire Nation soldiers and their attack dogs at his heels. He could go faster, much, much faster, but he kept them all close. After all, Fire Nation soldiers made for good practice.

They were the third batch of hunters that'd he'd come across since daybreak, and while he could deal with all of them with a flick of his wrist, he couldn't risk tipping Samir or the Phantoms off.

Both had been coming uncomfortably close to finding him more than once and despite how powerful he'd become, he liked to keep his distance and hunt at his own pace instead. He would face them all when he was ready, but he wouldn't complain if it never happened.

"Don't let him get away!" One soldier yelled.

"He's too fast for us," another declared.

"Somebody sound the alarm," someone in the back suggested.

'Can't let that happen.'

With a flick of Mark's wrist, a stone spear emerged from under him, piercing the man from groin to head.

Screams ripped out from the squads and their dogs, their rage palpable, and Mark nodded in satisfaction.

The anger would keep them chasing long after they should've stopped.

He led them far out into the forest at the same leisurely pace, until he came to a clearing where his trap laid in wait.

As soon as they crossed it, the floor crumbled underneath them, leaving them trapped in a pit too deep to jet out of with fire bending.

Mark circled the group like a Lion inspecting his prey and with a gesture, summoned up the burliest of the three.

"You're a dead man!" he roared, attacking with fire stream, which Mark easily dodged with his Feather fist footwork.

For a brief moment, he considered what to train before settling for his new bread and butter-- Metalbending.

With a flick of his wrist, he sent out a needle strapped to his new vambraces, spearing the man through the palm. He screamed like a stuck boar.

The design for the vambraces had been inspired by the wrist guns the Black Widow from the Avengers had. Admittedly, it took him days to nail the design, but it was great exercise for his new Metalbending skill.

Mark struck out in lightning-fast jabs, sending several more needles flying from his vambraces until the man was a living pin cushion. With great mental and physical effort, he lifted the man in the air and tore half using the needles alone.

Blood poured from the sky like rain, and Mark grimaced at his technique, shaking his head.

'A bit over the top, but I always wanted to do that.'

That said, metal bending was expensive as hell.

Was it a lack of experience, or maybe it was because he took it as his third rare skill instead of learning it after evolving his class?

The reason was anyone's guess, but he was confident that if he got to a high enough level and stepped into the fight with a metric fuckton of metal, he'd squash Samir in seconds. It was also his strategy for facing the Phantoms.

They were fast and dexterous, Yes, but how would they fair against a thousand floating blades?

'I'd like to see you parkour of that, Aaron,' he snickered to himself. Yet, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that Aaron could probably pull it off somehow.

The dude learned how to split his mind, Astral project, and master a new air-bending technique in a week or so.

Aaron loved to bitch and moan that Mark had all the advantages, but it was he who had that the Anime protagonist plot armor.

'I suppose this the part where he comes out of his training arc to tear me a new one,' Mark chuckled, only half-kidding.

The fear of Aaron's return weighed heavily on his mind. He'd waited for a death notification after their fight but it never came. He was barely able to sleep in the nights following.

There was no two way about it, he knew Aaron was probably recovering, getting ready to get his revenge.

Unlike most Anime protagonists though, he didn't doubt Aaron would slit his throat the first chance he got.

Mark didn't even let himself think about Ren.

Mark let out a steadying breath and reassured himself.

"But I am stronger now. Much stronger, and I'll be even stronger after this fight."

He wasn't about to die to an NPC, not after reaching level 44.

That was the difference between him and the people of this world though. He could get ridiculously powerful. All he needed was time.

He waved his hand, summoning another Fire Nation soldier. Only two now remained in the pit, along with some dogs.

The man unsheathed his blade as soon as he locked eyes with Mark, hinting that he was no ordinary bender.

Mark summoned two weapons of his own. One a floating Great spear, and the other, a Great sword, assigning a sub-mind to each weapon.

It'd taken him an entire week to make each weapon himself.

The man's face paled, his eye wide saucers. "You're bending—metal?"

"Amazing, isn't it?"

"What the hell are you?" he asked, surprised and appalled more than anything else.

"Are you going to keep asking me questions or are we going to fight?"

Mark flashed one of his signature smirks and crossed his arms behind his back, like some Zen master, ignoring the fact that he looked like some ridiculous overmuscled 10-year-old.

The man opened the fight with a sword slash that carried a wave of fire. Mark's blade shot forward, whirring in a sudden spiral that dismissed the flame. His spear lashed forward with a broad stroke to counterattack.

The man pivoted the side, blocking to disperse most of the force of the heavy cut. He gasped as the blow nearly threw him off his feet, opening him up to the cut from the hovering greatsword.

Mark heard his wrist nearly snap as he tried to deflect the second blow.

He laughed.

"Did I forget to mention they weigh over 20 pounds each?"

The man looked at him like he was a demon or something, and Mark realized it stemmed more from a lack of understanding than anything else.

Like a master puppeteer, he urged the spear to finish the job, but that was when the man pulled an impossible dodge, shifting out the blade's trajectory at the very last second as he launched a fireball at him.

Mark's eyes went a little bit wide as he summoned a stone wall that effortlessly tanked the blow.

With his One-with-the-world-- which he recently learned-- he saw the man make for the forest, thinking he'd successfully distracted Mark.

Mark scoffed as he sent his spear flying through his skull. It exploded in a gory mess before he even made it out of the clearing.

Mark's spear went through his skull, skewering him before he even made it out of the clearing.

"He wasn't half bad," Mark admitted as he came back to the pit.

Feeling a bit adventurous, Mark summoned the two remaining hunters, planning to take them both on.

At level 66, his Parallel Processing needed the extra workout to keep growing. The sun was about to set, so he needed to leave soon if he wanted to make it back to his underground hideout before dark.

Both men looked horrified when they came face to face with him. One of them looked at the scene of slaughter in disbelief, while the other was shaking.

"Come on," Mark clapped. "I haven't got all night. I've got places to be, things to do. Are we going to fight or what?"

They shared a collective look of disbelief and then attacked as one. With swift and deadly precision, they hauled a giant ball of flame at Mark. He narrowly dodged the attack with a technique he'd been developing-- Rock Step.

Stone burst from the floor, shooting him out of the direction of the blast, and another piece erupted from the ground to cushion his landing.

Several needles shot forward from Mark's Vambrace, turning the man on the left into a walking pin cushion. As he screamed, Mark's spear shot forward, aiming for his chest.

Luckily, the fire bender moved away just in time to take the hit in the shoulder instead.

While he was still reeling from the attack, Mark's spear whipped upward, severing the man's shoulder entirely. A final scream ripped from his throat before Mark ended him with a stab to the head.

Then, he faced the last Firebender and brought his sword to bear.

His sword rapidly spun to the side, deflecting a fireball aimed at his head, before it unleashed a dizzying number of slashes, cuts, and stabs. Noting his Chi rapidly ticks down, Mark considered if it was just easier to open a pit under him and make the walls close in, before shaking his head.

He wanted to level Metalbending that's what he'd do.

So, he took his Sub-mind off the task of controlling the Sword, concentrating on it himself. In a stroke of inspiration, he tried attacking from unconventional angles, forcing the man to twist and strain to protect himself.

It made it impossible for him to keep an eye out for flying needles that broke him down one wound at a time.

By the time Mark was done, the lone man was gasping and bloody all over, barely able to hold up his sword. He looked at Mark like he was the devil himself.

"What are you looking at, you've never seen a 10-year-old metal bender before?"

He opened his mouth to say something, but his blade moved simply too fast. In a flash, his head rolled off, falling into the pit of dogs who were whining in submission.

With a sigh, Mark approached the pits and looked at the dogs. On the one hand, they'd been baying for his blood only moments ago, and On the other, he loved dogs.

The owners must have gone to great lengths to keep them alive, especially with the drought sweeping through the world. People were starving and disease was rampant. Dogs would've been the first animals on the spit when chicken pigs and ducks ran out.

Now more than ever, he thanked the god that reincarnated him for Gamer's body. It guaranteed he was functionally immune from most diseases. With his high Body and Chi stats, he also didn't need as much food as other people did.

A big part of him chaffed at the suffering. He tried to help out where he could, leaving raw meat and extra fruit in every second town or so. After rescuing a town from a group of Fire Nation soldiers turned raiders, he'd even considered getting back the Ocean spirit himself...but it was too risky.

He needed to hit level 50 and max out all of his skills before he could even dream of trying something like that.

Besides, he was sure the Phantoms would figure it out...eventually.

To be honest, he was surprised that they hadn't killed Samir yet.

"Six more months, and this will be all over," he muttered to himself as he leveled his vambraces at the dogs.

"Sorry guys, this isn't personal."

Needles penetrated the dogs' heads, bringing a swift and painless end.

It was the best he could offer.

Before he departed, Mark unleashed the full size of his one-with-the-world technique, spanning several dozen meters. It didn't quite reach the size of Aaron's but it assured him there was no audience to his performance.

Mark buried the bodies with earth bending, collected their weapons in his inventory, and quietly made his way out of the forest like he'd done hundreds of times before.

He was deep within the earth in a tunnel he'd made, about a quarter of a mile away from his cave hideout when he sensed movement through seismic sense. A small group was going through his things, and a slow panic began to grip him.

'Shit, shit, shit. How did they even find me?'

If they were ghosts or Phantoms, they had no easy way of reaching him. Fire Nation soldiers would have an even harder time, but Earthbenders would him in seconds flat.

His worse nightmare would be facing a team of Earthbenders, ghosts, and a Phantom. All his training would be moot if he were to face a team like that.

Luckily, when he inched close enough to scan them with One-with-the-World, he found out that they were ordinary ghosts, one with a bone to pick with him for obvious reasons.

"We should leave before he comes back." a voice said.

"One more minute," another said. "The trap is almost done."

"I still think it's a waste of your time. A tripwire is a bit too obvious for someone trained by Master Ren," the first voice protested.

"A tripwire was good enough to fool Master Wang."

"Yeah, but he can't see through his feet like Mark can."

"It's still worth a try. The Masters might say they want us to message them as soon as we find something but we both know we need them more at the front."

"If only the young master hadn't been stabbed," the first voice sighed.

"The ungrateful little snake deserves everything that's coming to him. What kind of monster stabs his teacher in the back? Young Master Aaron has done nothing but help the boy since he laid eyes on him. He fought the Earth King for him, and this is how he repays him?"

"From what I've heard, handing him over to that lunatic is worse than any punishment."

"Well, I say it's not enough, not nearly, but at least we'd have rain again."

There was a brief silence as the man with the trap worked.

"Okay, it's done," the trapper said. "the rest of the team is waiting on us."

Mark slipped out of the wall as soon as the ghosts left, rubbing his forehead and cursing under his breath. At first, he wondered how they found him, but figured the location of his hideout would be easy to spot with an Earthbender on their team.

'That's just perfect.'

Mark by his lips, pondering whether or not to face them.

He looked at his status for the first time that day.

Player: Mark

Level: 44/50

Class: Earthbender (150% increase in learning speed and effectiveness of all Earth bending skills and sub-skills)

Subclass: Locked (Available in the next world.)

Stats:

Body: 45 (20) (0.9)

Mind: 68 (11)

Health: 450 ((Body x 10)

Chi: 700/1130 ((Body x 10) + (Mind x 10 ))

Undistributed Stat points (20)

Stat points earned via training: (1/2)

Skills

Feather fist 66

Chi Breathing 30

One-with-the-world lv 30

Earth bending 70

One with the Earth 56

Baton Mastery 55

Crossbow mastery (23)

Precision(40)

Greatsword Mastery (15)

Great Spear Mastery (15)

Metal bending (50)

Parallel processing (66)

...

Reincarnation boon (Unlocked at Lv 50)

'I do have the Chi for it and taking down a few ghosts would be doable if challenging.'

But they could have some cranked Earth or Waterbender on their team. His trip to the north pole had proven that the Phantoms could coordinate with other types of benders when the situation demanded it.

And nothing brought people together like the end of the world.

'They never saw me,' Mark reminded himself, and while he could tunnel closer to the team to assess their makeup....he could also just keep running. He could stay well ahead of them for as long as he needed to.

They could report him, but they'd never find him. And more importantly, he could delay his confrontation with a Phantom for just a little longer.

'Well, there goes my fucking head start.'

Honestly, it was a miracle they hadn't found him for this long.

Mark ran through his hideout, casually avoiding all traps laid out for him on his way to the only thing that mattered. His container of freshly treated water.

Since the world started going to hell, Mark had spent at least an hour every day treating water and roasting meat to store in his inventory.

The world might be going to shit around him, but at least he wasn't going to starve. Mark placed his hand on the container and vanished it.

Pleased with himself, he gathered all his belongings and vanished through the walls.