9. Lost

From the moment Yui learned to talk and walk tolerably well, she became a big why, and all her free time she followed me with her tail. We can say that I participated more in her upbringing than her parents, no, she also listened to them, but she listened to me with even more enthusiasm.

Often in the Library, she could be seen sitting with a serious face next to me, with such an expression on her face, she tried to understand what was written in the book, seeing only some familiar words. Even somehow managed to beg for a workout, although seeing her begging face is difficult to refuse, now we are doing a massage workout for her, stretching her body.

One of the goals was achieved at the time of my fifth birthday, I finished with a large part of the city library, the rest of the books are copies from the palace library. At the end of this period, frequent visitors to the monastery of knowledge began to look at me with a strange look. Here people read slower by themselves, the lack of systematic education affects. I don't know how it is in other nations, but here it is parents who teach their children to read and write, and this is enough for a comfortable life, and how you do it does not matter. In their opinion, I don't read, but just flip through the pages, and I didn't enlighten anyone, they don't kick me out, and that's fine.

The notebooks that my father gave me for birthdays I had to use to write my knowledge for Wang Shi Tong, I remembered a pancake about him on my head, now I have to actively wool my memory for knowledge, which of them may be generally suitable for the bendingal world and which of them have not yet been disclosed, I think if I write as there is a big owl will not be very offended, yet in the past world what I write worked.

My parents thought I was a genius, that is born once in a century, after the same incident with childbirth, they generally began to think that some kind spirit had blessed me, yes, I blessed myself, hehe. Because of this, their control is very weak, the main thing is to always come on time for meals and be safe and sound.

A few days before my fifth birthday, the spirit and body completely merged, it happened right during sleep, I still remember that moment to the smallest detail, at first I felt warmth at chest level, without giving it any importance, I wanted to continue my dream, as every part of the body was simply washed with some energy, and where it passed as if the cells of the body themselves experienced ecstasy, a blissful moan escaped from my lips by itself.

As soon as I came to myself from an overabundance of feelings, I immediately went down to look at my energy. My two sources pulsed in time with my heart, now there was nothing holding them back from throwing out just a lot of bending both into my body and out. After looking more closely, I never found my spirit, not a particle, and that's great. It means that he has completely merged with the body, no borders or seams are even visible.

As Wang Shi Tong wrote in his observations of Chin, who once came to his library in the world of people in order to pay his debt with books, he, like me, spirit and body merged so tightly that you can no longer see where the beginning is and where the end is. This, in his opinion, was very intriguing, for all people, even Avatars, if you looked closely, you could find points of contact between body and spirit, for Chin, all this was a single whole, which would allow him to travel through the spirit world in his physical incarnation with all his powers. He, already having the power, strength and wealth that he already has in the world of people, did not even think of somehow interacting with the Realm of Spirits. As we know, even an Avatar entering the spirit plane left his physical body in the human world, sending some kind of projection of his body to another plane. There is an idea that this is just the astral body of people. Airo later in the spirit world also didn't look very material.

Plus one bonus to the piggy bank of being a hybrid.

Unable to resist the sunrise, I quickly dressed and ran towards the nearest artificial pond to practice water bending.

Probably, some residents of the palace that night could hear my happy laughter, but then I simply didn't care about anything else. Moving water through the air, I really felt whole, as if something long lost had been returned to me. My level did not change in any way, I was still in the rank of a lower spirit, which is on the verge of average. The main thing is that I did not feel any obstacles in overcoming the middle rank, but having succumbed to my intuition, I decided to wait a little, especially since all my energy had just begun to flow into the body, we need to give it time to settle down.

The next day, I delighted my parents with my control over the water, which gave me official permission to practice bending at my father's personal training ground.

Having calmed down enough, and already with a sober head, he took up a thorough check of his skills. As I found out, it is a little harder to conquer bending in the world of people than in the Realm of Spirits, the lower density of the energy itself in the world affects. What follows is a deterioration in energy control. Being a spirit that itself consists of energy, I controlled bending with my whole body, but the physical body has channels through which bending flows, and this imposes some restrictions. It's not just that benders of all elements accompany their techniques with movements, it's like hand seals in Naruto, a kind of crutches.

The masters of bending are no longer much in need of them. Here my nature also distinguished itself, the channels that were filled with energy only yesterday were already bigger and stronger the next day than yesterday, in theory this process will only accelerate, and when the channels simply fill my body I will be more of an energy form of life, something between a spirit and a person. The same analogy with the Naruto anime comes to mind, biju is about what I should become.

In the meantime, you will have to study the racks and movements for better water control. The plus was the removal of the restriction that the lower spirits have – this is a water control range of 1-2 meters. Now I can take control of all the water that I feel, as long as I have enough strength. Finally, long- and medium-distance techniques will appear.

With the return of bending, the feeling of the spirit also came, a kind of analogue of human intuition that helped me in the Realm of Spirits to determine the approximate strength of the enemy, and its most important function is to help avoid the higher ones.

After running around the city and scanning people, I was able to make for myself a rough gradation of the forces of people based on the forces of spirits. Untrained teenage benders and students who have just begun to comprehend bending have the powers of a lower spirit, namely a weak lower one. Students who have completed their studies and simple benders, who are not even close to masters, have strength from a strong lower to a weak middle spirit. The masters of water already have strength from a strong average up to a strong higher spirit.

Unexpectedly, but the head of the halls of healing, this granny who conducted my examination as a child, turned out to be the strongest in terms of energy density and its quantity. At the age of one hundred and forty, she looks very cheerful, it seems that she has already survived four leaders. There were also two grandfathers at the level of a weak higher spirit, just one of those who fought off the people of fire.

But it should be borne in mind that I only checked the reserves and energy density, but the power of human bending is not in this. The power of a bender is the quintessence of his experience, skill, flexibility of mind and only then his quality and amount of energy. Then I would not have met masters who have reserves of strength at the level of a weak average spirit.

The next month, I increased the control of water bending to its previous level, I also managed to return all my crown techniques.

It took me another three months to take full control of my water within a radius of ten meters, now in this ring a simple manipulation of water is given without a single movement of the body.

It took four months to comprehend other aggregate states of water. Ice and steam obey now just as well. A lot of techniques have been added, but only some I have brought to automatism when creating.

This is a water needle coming out of the mouth at high speed, to create it, it is worth holding saliva or drinking water beforehand, also created its analogue - an ice needle, the effect of the hit is the same.

Octopus style, bundles of water are created around the perimeter of the body, with which the bender can both defend himself and whip enemies with them.

Ice spears, arrows, swords, daggers, whatever your imagination desires, feel free to send to the enemy.

Ice boots / skates - allow you to quickly move around the battlefield.

The water/ice drill is just heavy artillery in the bending of water, after which I spent another week repairing the hole at the landfill.

There are also non-combat techniques that I have added to my arsenal - water filtration, an air bubble for breathing underwater and walking on water, just because it looks cool.

The remaining 4 months before my sixth birthday, I spent fighting with my mother, which I was still able to force to fight without indulgences. It's one thing when you just perfectly perform techniques, another is to perfectly perform them during a fast-paced battle.

Yes, there were few events this year, I plunged headlong into bending, and all because immediately after my sixth birthday, a battle with a student is scheduled, that the masters of water will choose, but to spite the oldies, I want to call one of the masters to fight after an easy victory, let's see how they will sing after that.

Do you remember how happy I was to activate bending? At the same time, I ran to the training ground of the water benders so that they would start teaching me personally, yes, I was a little impudent then, but the choice was to ask this way or go to a group with other students, where my progress would be much slower, usually teachers adjust the pace of learning to the average value of the whole group. Knowing that water would be given to me much easier, I wanted to effectively spend my time comprehending the experience of water combat bending and leaving time for healing bending.

I don't know how it happened, but even after showing at that moment my huge capabilities in bending, these stubborn and bad people, pushing on traditions in training, and my immaturity, were told to go enroll in a group like normal people.

The body, having decided to prove that hormones in the children's body are not just words, rebelled and showed how they know how to "handle" situations.

As a result, we had a bet, in a year I will have a battle with their chosen student, if I win, I will be able to approach any master on the site for training, if I lose and still want to study with them, then it will be only as they say. I hurt their pride a lot then, they here means almost half a century they teach decent husbands the right bending and then I drew such a wrong one. Well, that's about how they said it.

I, too, emotionally decided to leave the last words behind me, to the whole square, shouted that I would kick even the master's ass. The rumors spread quickly and now neither side wants to give in. My words about the victory over the master, of course, were not believed, but I will not give up my words. Unfulfilled promises, even those made on emotions, are still postponed in the subconscious of people, your words will have less weight, such is human psychology.

I'm also used to keeping my words, if it's not about life and death, of course.

There is a week left before my fight, which is known to the whole city. As soon as it came to Yui, she, burning with righteous anger, tried to beat these scoundrels herself, who offend her brother. The father and mother took it more calmly, equally thinking about stuffing their own bumps with an early-matured son.

That's what it means to hurry up and make people laugh. I am glad that in about a year, by the age of seven, the body will already be ready to accept the full power of raising the rank to the average spirit. As soon as I switch to it, I need to go to the spirits of the Moon and the Ocean, I don't know what will change from my transition to the middle level in comparison with the ancient spirits, but let's be honest, I'm just trying to postpone my trip to them. Ancient spirits have the same ancient cockroaches in their heads, and this is dangerous.