CH 28 - ATLA 27 - Departure

Well, there it is. Volume 1 is done. Highschool of the Dead is next, and I will be focusing more on the kingdom building aspect of zombie survival, because lets face it, he's not going to struggle against mindless zombies. We can only watch him mow a horde of zombies down so many times before it gets boring.

Power wise, this arc was mainly about getting a variety of skills instead of levels. This next arc is about power-leveling.

(Word Count: 2,352)

I looked around, and realized that I was finished here. I was done with this world. I had learned all of the styles of martial arts, I've learned Earthbending and all of its sub-bending styles, I've even learned a lot more Chi skills than I thought possible. 

There was nothing else for me to learn, and nothing else to do.

I could stay to explore the spirit world, but there were too many powerful spirits there that I didn't want to piss off. I would save that for later, maybe. I could also go and slay the sea monster at the Serpent's Pass, but that wasn't really something I needed to do.

I sat down next to my pack and thought back on my journey so far.

I felt like Gandolf's words to Bilbo applied to me. How even if I return alive, I would not be the same. I definitely felt like a much different person than who I was when I started.

When I was pulled into the Library, I was a normal person. I didn't have too many skills in anything, though maybe some decent lab skills in chemistry. Outside of that, I was just a consumer of books and fanfics. No one would look twice at me, just another face in the crowd.

When I came to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender, I was suddenly one of the tallest men here, with unique blonde hair. People would turn to look at me, just for walking by. It was a strange change.

I was able to learn various different trade skills, learning how to work with metal in a forge, leather, and wood. The ability to work with my hands was something that gave a real sense of confidence in myself.

The biggest change was probably with Guru Pathik, and opening my chakras. It allowed me to face all of my fears, guilts, and negative feelings. It was like years of therapy at once. Meditation with him also allowed me to connect with my Chi, and set me on the path to become a martial artist.

There was the meeting with the Lion Turtle. Such a grand and magnificent creature. The ancient protectors of humanity in this world. It was like I was talking to the will of the earth itself. Luckily, it saw my earnest desire to protect those I care about and blessed me with earthbending.

I went to Piandao and became a swordsman. Then I joined the navy and became a soldier and participated in a war. I didn't kill anyone directly, but I couldn't be sure if any of the Water Tribe soldiers I had knocked out had been killed by a passing Fire Nation soldier. So I may have been complicit in some deaths there.

Then I nearly died when I had to take on an entire Fire Nation Ship by myself, and killed nearly 50 people.

That was definitely the next biggest change I'd gone through. It was the moment where I had completely committed to doing everything I needed to do in order to complete my task.

I entered as a common man, and I will leave as a warrior. I pulled up my status screen.

STATUS SCREEN

NAME: Callan Stone

TIER: 1

GLOBAL LEVEL: 15 35,404 => 35,411/43,409 Exp

CLASS: Swordsman 8 5,023 => 5,030/6,808 Exp

CLASS HISTORY: Street Rat 10/10, Brawler 10/10, Monk 10/10

STATS:

Str: 38

End: 63

Dex: 34

Int: 15

Wis: 51

Cha: 15

Free Stats: 5

SKILLS:

Skill Points: 0

[Deception LVL 100/100]

[Forestry LVL 100/100]

[Axe Handling LVL 100/100]

[Wood Chopping LVL 100/100]

[Persuasion LVL 100/100]

[Hammer Handling LVL 100/100]

[Blacksmithing LVL 100/100]

[Sword Handling LVL 100/100]

[Knife Handling LVL 60/100]

[Sewing LVL 42/100]

[Cooking LVL 100/100]

[Leatherworking LVL 23/100]

[Running LVL 100/100]

[Sprinting LVL 100/100]

[Jumping LVL 100/100]

[Leap LVL 61/100]

[Acrobatics LVL 100/100]

[Sneak LVL 100/100]

[Muted Steps LVL 100/100]

[Hide LVL 70/100]

[Meditation LVL 100/100]

[Archery LVL 51/100]

[Carpentry LVL 100/100]

[Sailing LVL 90/100]

[Baguazhang LVL 100/100]

[Chi Manipulation LVL 100/100]

[Chi Sensing LVL 100/100]

[Low Cosmic Connection LVL 33/100]

[Horse Riding LVL 52/100]

[Fishing LVL 100/100]

[Wood Carving LVL 100/100]

[Swimming LVL 73/100]

[Drawing LVL 100/100]

[Haggling LVL 42/100]

[Chi Enhancement LVL 100/100]

[Parry LVL 100/100]

[Dodge LVL 100/100]

[Counter LVL 100/100]

[First Aid LVL 100/100]

[Intimidation LVL 44/100]

[Earthbending LVL 100/100]

[Seismic Sense LVL 100/100]

[Earth Softened Steps LVL 100/100]

[Chi Enhanced Senses LVL 100/100]

[Northern Shaolin LVL 100/100]

[Language(Hanzi) LVL 100/100]

[Calligraphy LVL 100/100]

[Situational Awareness LVL 100/100]

[Painting LVL 32/100]

[Sunder LVL 56/100]

[Pickpocket LVL 1/100]

[Discombobulate LVL 9/100]

[Tai Chi LVL 100/100]

[Singular Attention LVL 100/100]

[Divided Attention LVL 100/100]

[Teaching LVL 100/100]

[Chi Healing LVL 55/100]

[Pain Tolerance LVL 59/100]

[Precise Striking LVL 35/100]

[Sandbending LVL 65/100]

[Hung Gar LVL 47/100]

[Metalbending LVL 38/100]

[Chi Blocking LVL 56/100]

[Chow Gar LVL 36/100]

[Lavabending LVL 5/100]

[Crystalbending LVL 1 => 8/100]

WP: 4,400 => 4,600

That last bit of World Points could either be from helping the Gaang confront the Dai Li directly, or getting all of the sub-bending styles of earthbending. Or both. Those were the only things I'd done the last hour or so.

For the most part, this world seemed to be more focused on gaining new skills. I had gained so many, and I had managed to cap many of them. As opposed to that, I hadn't gained very many levels at all.

The next world I go to definitely needed to be one where I could focus on gaining as much experience as possible. That meant some world full of monsters… or maybe a zombie apocalypse world? I thought back to the very start, and that was the plan I had coming in. Come to a "simpler" world to get the WP for the Immune System module that would protect me in case I got bit in the zombie world.

Did I still want to do that? Only zombie worlds I could think of were the Walking Dead and Highschool of The Dead. I didn't really know either of those worlds, but that wasn't really much of an issue, since the goal wasn't with the plot, it was killing zombies to raise my level.

Before I left, I used Chi Sense to check in on everyone. The Gaang were already done tearing through the guards of the Earth King and were in the middle of trying to convince the Earth King to get on Appa to show him the drill.

Iroh and Zuko were on the ferry making their way into Ba Sing Se. I don't know how that would play out. Zuko learned the Gaang were there because of the "Missing Appa" poster. Should I go and talk to them? No. Zuko was a very active person. Sooner or later, he'll get tired of the tea shop life and do something about it. I'll just have to trust things will turn out for the best for them. Who knows, maybe Iroh's tea will become so popular, they'll be invited into the palace for real this time and meet the Gaang that way.

Piandao was in the countryside near his castle, painting. He'll be fine.

I even checked in on Judy. She was an interesting encounter in this world. She was busy dragging a bound man behind Nala, presumably a bounty she's turning in.

Guru Pathik was still at the Eastern Air Temple. He actually noticed something was watching him, and looked around curiously, but didn't attribute it to me. For the first time I realized how much I wanted some sort of messenger skill, so I could send a message through these connections.

I wished I could send the guru a goodbye and a thank you.

I sighed. Enough putting this off. I needed to look at the positives. I may be able to find my twin again.

I pressed the exit button and a notification popped up.

[Notice! Native items found on your person. Would you like to extract them?

Telluris - 10 WP

Firebending Scrolls - 6 WP

Fire Nation Armor - 4 WP

Backpack of Traveling Gear - 4 WP

Medkit - 2 WP

Sword - 2 WP

Sketchbook - 1 WP

Total - 29 WP

Do you accept?]

It was interesting that Telluris cost so much more than the rest of my gear. Was it because it had gained so much fame in the world? That was the only reason I could think of.

I selected yes and found myself back in the Akashic Library. The best I could tell, I was in the same sitting area that I had left in the first place. I couldn't be sure though, they all looked the same.

What was immediately apparent was the feeling I was getting from my Low Cosmic Connection. It wasn't connecting to anything. It didn't feel like it was closed off, like it would when one of my chakras closed off again, but there was nothing feeding into it.

I looked around the area, but I didn't see anyone. So, I turned to the little podium that contained the AI Index and tapped on the screen to wake it up. "Index?"

A holographic little man 6 inches tall appeared on the podium. "Hello, Callan Stone. It's nice to see you've returned safe and sound. It seems you've had a rather productive adventure in your first world."

"Hello, Index. Do you know if my twin, Hadrian Stone, has returned from his world already?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, I cannot answer questions about other guests of the Library. If you want to stay in contact with another guest, you must buy the Friends List module and add them to your list."

Right… Well, at least that protected me from others a bit. I thought about it. Hadrian went to the Pokemon world, and if I remember it right, the "season" of pokemon training, including going around challenging the gyms, then the end of season tournament should take him about a year, right? So that would be roughly twice as long as I took. I took about 179 days in the Avatar world, meaning only 7-point-something days have passed here in Library-time. So I had another week here if I wanted to wait for Hadrian, assuming he took a year to complete the pokemon circuit.

As much as I wanted to wait for him, that time could be used to complete another world's quests.

"Can I add someone without them being present?"

"Yes. When you attempt to add someone to your Friends List, it will send them a notice asking permission, and they must accept. Their physical presence is not required."

"Thanks."

"Is it possible to see what World Quests I completed while in the world? I managed to get far more WP than I thought I would."

"Without the System Logs module, no. However, you can look at the same world you visited and view the available World Quests. You can then reason out which quests you've done."

"Can you pull up the ATLA world I was just in?"

"Certainly." The podium's screen changed to the world page, with all of the quests.

I looked through them and tallied out the quests I've done, and those I think I've done, not necessarily in order:

Meditation with guru pathik.

Open the 7 chakras. 

Have tea with Iroh.

Get a white lotus token from Iroh.

Help Katara and Sokka as they were bedridden and sick.

Teach Aang earthbending.

Get Aang to give Katara and Sokka the map to their father.

Find the last remaining Lion Turtle.

Become an earthbender.

Train under Piandao.

Sabotage the Siege of the North.

Save the Moon Spirit and Yue.

Be blessed by the Moon Spirit.

Join the Fire Nation Navy.

Become a Martyr/Hero to the Fire Nation.

Teach Sokka chi manipulation.

Be accepted as a member of the water tribe.

Be accepted into the Order of the White Lotus.

Gain access to Wan Shi Tong's library. 

Stop Appa from being stolen.

Teach Toph metalbending.

Learn earthbending from Toph. 

Learn all 5 martial arts in ATLA.

Learn Chi Blocking.

Help the couple at the Full Moon Bay get to Ba Sing Se safely.

Help the Avatar against the Dai Li.

Learn all the sub-bending styles of Earthbending.

There may be others, but these seemed to be the only ones that could apply to me. In total, I had gained 4,600 WP, with 29 spent on extracting my gear.

"Index, there were about 100,000 other people that gained access to the library, right? How many are still alive?" I asked.

"There are only 72,869 remaining guests. 27,131 have died in their first world." Index said.

I grimaced. That was a lot more than I was thinking. "How'd they die?"

"I'm sorry, I can't say. I can only observe things here in the Library, not down in the worlds the guests visit. I would guess they'd tried something too dangerous for their capabilities. Half of them went to very dangerous worlds like the DC or Marvel multiverses, or Game of Thrones, or Dragonball, or similar worlds. One of the guests was even crazy enough to go to the Warhammer 40K universe. He died very quickly."

"Warhammer? Why?" I couldn't even guess what they thought was valuable enough to try going there. I wasn't too familiar with the Warhammer lore, but even I knew it was a hellscape.

"I don't know. I tried to talk him out of it, that world is dangerous even for Tier 5 beings, nevermind a Tier 0. He was very insistent." Index said, shrugging.

Right. Well, forget about them. I needed to get to spending these World Points.