Elemental training

I woke up in a contradictory state. On one hand, I'd gotten a whole new element as a buy-one-get-one-free deal, but it happened so suddenly that I felt like it had been forced on me.

The familiar dive into the deeper level of my spiritual body brought the expected result, but that didn't make it any less unwelcome. My sun — the neutral source — now had three satellite planets. Besides the already known elements, a new one had appeared: a sphere of brown energies that even visually had a certain monumentality. From killing a middle spirit, the source turned out quite strong, just barely short of middle rank. If I use it frequently enough, I'll be able to upgrade it in the near future.

My energy system is under great strain right now, so I should give myself a couple days' rest. This is all strange... When I was still a lesser spirit, I could have one element, but now being at middle rank, I can have two more. Several development paths for the future situation emerge here. For instance, each new rank might give me one additional element, which means at the higher level, I could take three new elements.

Or perhaps at a new level, the number of elements is multiplied by two — I had water, at middle rank they gave me two new ones, so at higher rank there would be six new ones... Not counting the neutral source, of course. Maybe I can even get another element right now. Well, I could speculate endlessly — it's enough to simply be extremely careful after each new element at the higher level.

If they really do give me such a huge number of elements, I could think about seeking rarer ones. Life magic, death magic, maybe even soul magic. But for now I should focus on the main four — they're easier to level up, there are already well-worn paths for them.

Anyway, all that later. Right now I need to check in with my family, take a bath, and go nap for a couple hours, since the state I was in while digesting the new source can hardly be called proper rest.

…

After a couple days with renewed strength, I started playing around with my newly acquired abilities. Too bad I'll have to master them without training scrolls and books. In the library I only found a couple books describing stances and techniques for firebending, which apparently remained from skirmishes with the Fire Nation. But that's still very little. On the other hand, it'll be even more fun this way. I still remember all the techniques from the cartoon itself, so I should try to repeat them. I'll probably make mistakes somewhere, but you can always relearn.

I'll probably start with firebending — what do I even know about it?

The true firebenders in nature are dragons. They taught the first fire masters, who at that time were called the Sun Warriors. Their direct descendants apparently still remain, who still honor dragons and worship fire. They're the ones who taught Aang and Zuko firebending.

For training this element, I had to go far outside the city so not a single soul would learn about my gift. After all, people here are impressionable — they might imagine all sorts of things, and then I'd have to deal with the results of their undoubtedly "correct" conclusions.

I don't know if I'm just that gifted or if the middle spirit rank in firebending is making itself known, but the basic techniques I'd worked out in my mind came to me easily.

This list included the most popular techniques used by all fire-wielding characters.

First up was the classic fireball... And how I didn't experiment with it! I found two whole ways to use it. You can make it explode on impact or, conversely, specifically burn the target. I even tried making the fire temperature even higher, but apparently there's a certain limit I can output right now. I can make it less hot, but I can't raise it above a certain value. I was already dreaming of blue fire like Princess Azula's. [ image ]



The next technique I tried to create was a simple fire stream, but here too I couldn't stop at simply releasing a flame flow from my hands. In the end, I learned to release such streams from each hand, foot, finger. I even had the idea to launch one from my rear end, but managed to stop my childishness in time. [ image ]



Only after playing around with fire streams and balls did I remember the ancient form of the Dancing Dragon. Trying to repeat it, I didn't expect much, but with each new movement, firebending seemed to try to show me how to use it properly. Including some movements when applying different techniques, I could feel a completely different effect. If before the element was still something distant for me, as if it didn't recognize me as its master, now it completely fell into my embrace — you could say I'm now leading in the dance. [ image ]



That day I fell into something like enlightenment. It felt like my body was being controlled by an experienced fire master who was showing me the paths to conquering such a willful element.

The fire wave in that state came out no worse than what would only be possible during Sozin's Comet. Compressing the fire stream, I managed to create a fire blade that had even greater range. After finishing practicing these techniques, I moved on to the fire wheel I'd seen, whose advantage is unpredictable flight movement.

Fire whip, dagger, sword and shield I managed to create while already in normal state. And that's all I had strength for that day. That enlightenment state drained all my juices — my whole body ached, both physical and spiritual. And my channels ached from the unfamiliar intense flow of aggressive fire energy through them.

"Phew," — exhaling a small stream of fire at the end, I realized I was several meters below the main layer of snow and ice, and even the air around me was closer to positive temperature...

This would definitely be noticed by someone else. I had to sit in the same place for another couple hours until my channels stopped aching, then use waterbending to fill the fire-made holes with snow.

I didn't touch firebending for a whole week — I was oversaturated and digesting in my mind everything I'd done while under the "element effect." That's what I decided to call that enlightening state of body and mind.

But nature abhors a vacuum — my thirst for bending drives me to study new facets of available elements, worse than blood elves who lost their Sunwell.

It seems that enlightenment state also consumed a considerable part of my mental strength. The next morning, thinking about earthbending practice, I stood for a couple minutes moving my hand through the snow looking for this very earth...

Only when I started digging through the snow with that same hand did the light bulb go on over my head. Heh-heh-heh, I wanted to dig through several thousand meters of ice by hand?! Fine, I'll go sleep instead — seems I haven't fully recovered from the strain yet.

…

The next day I was full of mental strength. To test my readiness, I started remembering all the properties of logarithms, then remembered I'd never studied them. Driving away unnecessary thoughts, I pondered how to get access to this very earth. Well, other than digging this very path to earth through thousands of meters of ice. Difficult.

"Again I'm thinking like an ordinary person," I said after five minutes of considering how to make kilometer-long tunnels underground. "There's waterbending — ice is water, and I'm a waterbender, it all adds up. I should also stop saying my thoughts out loud — I thought I'd gotten rid of this habit in my past life."

For earthbending, I spent a whole week making a passage to where the already-hateful ice ends and earth begins. I spent more time creating the training ground itself. Earthbending doesn't yield to firebending in destructiveness, and somewhere even surpasses it, so I needed to make the platform strong enough to practice conquering the element later without risk of being buried. I had to make the ice as hard as possible, create supporting columns.

Good thing I didn't have to worry about lighting. I found some glowing crystals here, something similar to what I'd seen in the Cave of Two Lovers, Oma and Shu. They provided enough light. Before I found them, I thought I'd have motivation to learn to sense my surroundings through seismic sense, which all badgermoles have, and they taught it to Toph. [ image ]



Near the built training ground, expanding all my spirit senses, I could feel a water source. Removing ice from my path and going in the direction my sensing indicated, I waited with growing curiosity for the end of the journey. After all, I'm surrounded by ice everywhere here — you could say water in one state or another — but that particular place my sensing "highlights" differently.

I roughly expected this, but the sight is still awesome! A whole lake in liquid state. I don't know why — maybe it's heated by geothermal sources or the water doesn't change its aggregate state due to colossal pressure from above — but that's not the main thing. Trying to manipulate the water, I met quite serious resistance.

This water is as if oversaturated with water energy — sorry for the tautology. It's in roughly the same state as in the Spirit Oasis. That is, practicing element mastery with this water from this same lake, I can achieve much greater training effect. Good, now I definitely didn't waste time on the training ground for nothing.

Mastering the new element was in full swing. And here that state didn't come to help me, but I didn't get exhausted by day's end either. Earthbending went just as steadily and measuredly, befitting the element itself. When manipulating it, I seemed to become an unshakeable rock myself. The right mindset when using different bending is very important. If firebending is positive jing — constant attack — then earthbending is neutral jing: holding, waiting. An earthbender must know exactly when to attack and when to defend.

After several days of active practice, I managed to master the initial earthbending techniques. The very first step on my path was levitating earth and stones. Only after mastering one technique did I move to another — no need to rush here. Next followed a list of techniques that form one style. I called it Earth Destruction — banal, pompous, but effective! It includes splitting, crushing, grinding stones and rocks, as well as parting earth to create tunnels — basically, a multifunctional thing.

The last technique I mastered was compression, and despite such a simple name, the technique had simply colossal penetrating damage. Only physics clearly stepped aside here... It's done like this: take a boulder, the bigger the better. Compress it to a smaller form, like a bullet, and simply hurl it at the enemy. The catch is that this bullet's mass still equals the boulder's mass, but somehow it's easier for an earthbender to accelerate smaller stones — meaning such a gift will have lightning speed. You could pierce a Fire Nation tank right through with such a projectile. [ image ] 



This technique had a downside too... As I understood, it's precisely through my energy that I can break familiar physics laws, so as soon as I stop controlling the technique, it immediately tries to return to its original state. More precisely, it tries to return, but since this doesn't work out, a big explosion happens, just like from a fragmentation grenade. Yeah, I had to heal myself...

Next I again felt like practicing firebending, so various stone golems, stone spikes and shields will be mastered a bit later. I won't leave a single technique unstudied — I just needed a change of activity.

…

Sitting at the table with the whole family eating soup, I thought about those edible seaweed currently floating in my bowl. As far as I know, they're not specially grown anywhere. They just appear in our diet at certain times of year. A completely seasonal product.

Asking mom this question, I learned they're too difficult to get from the ocean, so we only eat them after particularly strong tides, when the ocean naturally tosses them to our shore. Naturally I asked about why we don't cultivate them here. We have plenty of water, we have samples — what else do we need? But no, I'm not the only smart one — there have been attempts before, but they couldn't find the right conditions for mass cultivation.

"Try adding life energy at first. We have healers sitting around not knowing what to do — let them try, experiment," I said, already losing interest in the topic.

Maybe I would've taken this on, but I have enough of my own business. This way they'll create some foundation themselves, make mistakes, and I can come to something ready-made.

In theory, the chances of success exist and are quite considerable. After all, life energy exists in plants too, but here it simply differs from ours and animals', but healers spend their whole lives finding keys to new patients — I think they can adjust their chi here too.

"Exactly! I never even thought of that! How smart you are!" — I may not look like a child anymore, but mom pinches my cheeks with enviable consistency.

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