South Pole

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When I woke up after hitting the rock, the first thing I saw was some kind of ocular face.

- Shoo. - I shooed the animal away from me, which looked like a lemur... or so I thought, until it opened its bat-like wings and flew away from me,' 'Another local hybrid. - This world was full of hybrids of various animals I already knew, but after the monsters of the past world it was hard to surprise me.

I stood up and looked around, my body was sore, my legs were broken, my ribs were broken, my spine was intact, my arms were intact, as was my skull. I still got off easy enough.

I had food, so the only thing left was to lie on the rock and regenerate. As I lay there, I watched this flying lemur, and the obvious idea came to me - to make myself a wing suit. As this flight had shown, I lacked aerodynamics and manoeuvrability, and if even Airbenders had to use gliders to fly, I could use a crutch to start with. The more time I spent in the air, the faster I'd learn to fly without a wingsuit, and maybe next I could just create wings out of fire, or ice, or metal.

Before I left my relatives, in addition to the food, I packed some comfort items into my spatial pocket, among which was a cloth with sewing supplies. True this cloth was ill-suited for making the wings of this suit, but I can just get waxed cloth off of Air Mage gliders. When I was fully recovered, I went back to the air temple and sewed myself a suit of red Fire Nation cloth, and attached wings to it from the orange waxed cloth of the Air Nomads. I was going to test it over water, I wanted to avoid another collision with a rock, but it was already clear that the red-orange suit would be too conspicuous in the air, I should somehow repaint it in blue or blue. I've seen some berries, like blackberries, but larger, we can try to use their juice as a colouring agent. As it turned out, this berry was very acidic, and its juice did a really good job of recolouring the fabric, I ended up with a blue costume, with blue webbed wings, that had exposed feet and hands.

≪And here you are again, mastering something instead of doing magic. ≫

- It's for business, to make it easier to learn to fly.

I put on this suit on the edge of a cliff near the sea, and jumping off the cliff, began to emit a concentrated stream of fire with my feet, while spreading my arms to spread the wings of the suit. Now the flight was not only fast but also controlled, after a couple of attempts I also learnt to land properly in the suit, so now I could continue my journey south.

While I was at the Air Nomad Temple, I always had that flying lemur hanging around me, and even when I was testing my wingsuit, it flew next to me.

After I purposefully travelled south, I noticed that eyed winged beastie flying next to me.

- And you're pretty persistent. Do you want to be my pet? Then I'll call you Yakitori, or you can also call me Yakiniki, or just shorten it to Niki? - I said, looking at this flying piece of meat with a smile, the first two suggested names are the names of Japanese fried meat dishes, and the last name means simply 'Meat'. The beast realised that I was not going to be much of a host, and that I would not be afraid to eat him if I did, so he shouted something at me and flew back to the island.

- That's right, fly back home, you flying meat. - I shouted, before continuing to fly south, it's cold there, this animal, used to a rather warm climate, will not survive there.

I could fly at a speed of about eight hundred kilometres per hour, that is two and a half times faster than under water, but I didn't have enough strength to overcome the sound barrier, but even at that speed I could fly around the planet in a circle for a couple of days of continuous flight.

It would take me a little over four hours to get from there to the south pole, but after three and a half hours of flight, I could see five metal, steam-powered Fire Nation frigates floating below me, heading straight for the Water Tribe settlement. Since I lived in the palace of the Fire Nation's rulers, I knew about the Southern Invaders, a fleet unit that would periodically visit the Southern Water Tribe and bluntly exterminate those who hadn't escaped, primarily Waterbenders, to prevent riots. The flags of the Southern Invaders had a sea raven on them, so I was sure of the intentions of those ships, they were sailing towards that settlement to cause a massacre.

I've run an Empire myself, so I know what war is and I know that people die in war, but I've never liked the genocide of civilians, especially not here, the Fire Nation didn't give a shit about the Southern Water Tribe, it's genocide of a nation just because they don't belong to the Fire Nation. Now I could have just ignored the Southern Invader ships that were probably planning to massacre the Southern Water Tribe, but I decided to intervene.

I could, theoretically, kill the crews of the Fire Nation ships, but I have an easier way to stop them, which is to disable their ships. Each ship has a couple of boilers somewhere that produce steam for the two turbines that turn the propellers of the frigates, if you throw your modified fireballs into the boilers, it will damage the steam turbines and the ships will simply stop moving.

Right now, the soldiers on those frigates were preparing to disembark and fight the defenders of the Southern Tribe village, so the boiler rooms were not guarded in any way. I, on the other hand, went down to the water, stowed my wingsuit in my spatial pocket, and swam to the ships under the water. It wasn't hard to get inside the ships, and I knew where the boiler room was.

- Well, I hope it works. - I looked at the rotating fire sphere, which resembled a small sun.

Throwing it into the boiler, I quickly closed the metal door, and went to the second boiler room, where I repeated the procedure, and then quickly left the ship. At that time, my sphere began to absorb the flames inside the boiler, swirling and building up inside of it, and then it exploded, destroying one turbine and setting fire to the coal warehouse. A few seconds later, there was another explosion, destroying the ship's second turbine. I had already infiltrated the second ship at that time, and began to do the same procedure to it.

The Southern Invaders' frigate crew stopped to find out what had happened to the first ship, and while they were putting out the first frigate, I blew up the second one, which blew up one boiler, destroying the first turbine, and then the second boiler, destroying the second turbine. That's when they realised there was a reason for the explosions, someone was attacking their ships from the inside. I did not go inside the third frigate, and tried to destroy it in a slightly different way, to throw the fireball not directly into the boiler, but into the chimney, from there it should also go into the boiler and explode as before. My theory was confirmed, and another ship was put out of action.

Now three of the five ships were incapable of sailing on their own, the Southern Invaders now had to either sail away, using the last two ships to tow the other three, or continue their attack, but then there was a chance that the last two ships might be disabled as well. The commander of the Southern Invaders decided to retreat after all. Using ropes and chains, entire ships began towing the damaged frigates to the dock for repairs.

I'm sure they'll be back soon anyway, but I'm ready to clear their chimneys once more with my fire spiralling spheres.

≪Yeah, we're good at cleaning chimneys. ≫

All in all, this encounter proved that I was not so defenseless against five Fire Nation warships.

After making sure that the Southern Invader frigates were retreating, I flew to where I wanted to go. From the air, flying over the ice of the South Pole, I saw another Fire Nation ship, but older and frozen in the ice, most likely it was the Waterbenders who had managed to disable it like that.

If possible I could drag the ship to the south pole and live in it, or I could build myself an ice castle like an ice princess and live in it, sometimes singing songs about letting go and forgetting something, or I could create a huge fragile ice mirror that would shatter into thousands of pieces.

If on the edge of the southern continent, day and night were alternating, then right at the southernmost pole, it was now polar night, which usually lasts half a year, followed by polar day, which will also last half a year. However, even though it was night here, the darkness was dispelled by a greenish-blue polar glow. It was incredibly cold at the pole, but it was also incredibly beautiful, with bluish transparent ice everywhere, refracting the light of the aurora borealis.

≪There is also a very dense spiritual background, but go to the place where this polar light is coming from, maybe there is a gap to the Spirit World.≫

I went to the ice mountain from which a bluish-greenish light seemed to be emanating, and there was indeed such a dense spiritual background there that my energy was restored almost instantly.

≪This is where we will live, you can start building your princess ice castle, you will learn to control ice. ≫

It was cold at the South Pole, there were huge polar polar polar hybrids of polar bears and dogs running around, which attacked me a couple of times, but only replenished my meat supply. Despite all this, however, I was much more comfortable than I had been in the Fire Master's palace. Freedom is what I've been feeling these past few days since I left my family. Now, I don't owe anyone anything... except for learning magic, I can do whatever I want... mostly I have to want to learn magic, and as of late, I really want to learn it.

Ice Magic was the opposite of Fire Magic, the only thing they had in common was that they both had to do with temperature control. Fire was fickle, if it wasn't maintained it would fade rather quickly. Ice on the other hand was static, and could constantly maintain its shape once created, but it was also much harder to control than fire. Fire mages create flames from their own internal energy, while creating ice purely from energy takes too much Qi, but it is better controlled than ice created from surrounding water.

In order to control the surrounding ice, I had to imbue it with my internal energy, and then it would listen to me. As with Fire Magic, Ice Magic could be enhanced by special stances and movements... I didn't know which ones, but I knew quite a few of them, so I just started to pick them up by brute force. The best results were the techniques that involved only the hands, and the movements should be as smooth as possible. In fact, Ice Magic can be referred to as Water Magic, so the movements should be smooth, as if the flow of water.

It was not possible to build an ice castle in one go, and to be more precise, I only managed to change the shape of the ice floe on which I was testing the techniques and stances for controlling ice. I was pretty tired during the day, so I decided to go to sleep in the ice-frozen ship, as I didn't want to become a polar bear-dog's dinner at night.

I felt quite comfortable at the pole, it was about minus seventy degrees, but I could maintain my body temperature with magic. As I explored the ship, I found quite a few traps left by the Fire Nation soldiers for those who wanted to maraud in the ship. As I walked through one of the cabins, I noticed a mirror, and in the mirror I saw my smiling face... I was so happy to get out of the palace that I unconsciously walk around with a happy face all the time, even when I don't have much to be happy about.

On the ship, I'm quite comfortable in the captain's cabin, but I think it would be better for me to sleep right on the south pole, near the gap to the Spirit World. That way, I'll be able to get stronger faster, and develop a Domain where I can accumulate extra Qi. Right now, I feel like I'm low on energy, and if I have to fight several fire mages in the open, I'll probably lose... or rather, I'll have to fly away from them, but I won't be able to defeat them, unless it's at night while they're sleeping.

As I thought about the Southern Invaders returning, I came to the conclusion that they would be back with a larger force next time, at least they would double their numbers, and ten ships would be very difficult for me to deal with... unless I dealt with the ships on my own terms. I'll need to fog all the ships, it won't be too hard to create a dense fog curtain with Ice and Fire Magic, fire mages rarely know how to navigate without sight, I can sense the world with thermal imaging, and then under the cover of the fog I can throw fire spheres down the ships' chimneys and blow their boilers. Well, it's a rough plan, so maybe when they come next time I can freeze entire flotillas in ice with a snap of my fingers.

When I returned to the South Pole the next day and continued training in Ice Magic, I realised that my previous statement was too optimistic, I would not be able to freeze ships with a snap of my fingers for a very long time. Now, the not particularly interesting part of magic began - monotonous training with constant attempts to control the ice. I was getting better at it, but it was much more boring than fire magic, but much safer.

To break up the routine, I did some fire magic, but it was less effective here because of the cold. It dissipated pretty quickly if I didn't concentrate it into a spinning sphere or jet jets. Here I continued trying to strengthen my sphere, and also started trying to create a similar sphere from Ice Magic. The first successful ice sphere, when flying, created a small ice storm that with small ice crystals, damaged an ice iceberg, which is where I threw this technique. It would be fun to mix ice and fire spinning spheres, it would probably be a combined technique to quickly create a veil of fog, but to test this theory, I need to create these spheres at the same time, and now my skill is only enough for one thing. But there was enough spiritual energy at the south pole for me to use ice magic and fire magic... I liked fire magic better, but I've seen what ice can do in Esdeath's hands, and I know it can be very useful, both in attack and defence.

After a couple of weeks on the pole, in one of the training sessions, I noticed an ice phoenix sitting not far away, it looked like a bird made of ice.

- What is this horrible Ice Magic? - Suddenly I heard a woman's voice ringing, and it was coming from this ice bird.

- Are you talking? Are you some kind of intelligent spirit? I was going to eat you after practice. - I said disappointedly, spirits are usually quite strong, unlike ordinary animals.

- What a coincidence, I wanted to eat you too, but seeing your horrible ice magic ruined my appetite. You're a terrible ice mage, it pains me to see your ridiculous attempts to conquer the ice. - said that ice chicken.

- Well, I'm sorry, I'm more of a Fire Mage, I'm learning ice magic the best I can. - I lit a fireball with my left hand and then this bird went crazy and attacked me with ice icicles. I guess it doesn't like fire very much.

- Oh, man! - I started to create fire waves to protect myself from the sharp icicles of the ice phoenix, but this chicken kept attacking me until I thought of extinguishing the fire and switching to a defence of only ice. Just in case, in my spatial pocket I had a reserve of magic ice, created by me directly from magic, I had only five litres of it, it was quite small, but it listened to me dozens of times better than ordinary natural ice. I used my magic ice to protect myself, creating an ice shield that the phoenix ice icicles would stab into.

- Hey, ice chicken, catch! - I threw her a round lychee fruit, she seemed to be hungry.

- What's this? - The bird caught the fruit, and threw it in its beak, - Tasty, give me more, or I'll kill you! - demanded the chicken.

- All right, just leave me alone. - I threw on the ice a pile of round orange fruits that I had collected on the island of the Air Nomads. Underneath the skin was a soft, jelly-like flesh that tasted like grapes, and the riper fruit tasted like wine.

- How delicious. - The bird took these fruits, and one by one put them in his open beak, - Now you will feed me with them every day, or else I will kill you. - the ice phoenix threatened to kill me.

- I'm threatened to be killed by an evil ice creature again, is your name not Esdeath?

- No, I am Bing Xi Feng - a spirit that embodies the murderous cold, and I just hate fire! - The bird, who was only a metre tall, replied angrily, though if she was a spirit, she could probably change her size.

- You're a phoenix, they're usually fiery.

- You're gonna teach me more about what phoenixes are supposed to be. I wonder why your magic is so disgusting, I've seen a lot of water and ice mages, but it's the first time I've seen such disgusting ones, and you're an Avatar who studies Ice Magic after Fire Magic. You don't have a guardian spirit yet, do you? Then I'll be the guardian spirit of the new Avatar. I'll teach you Ice Magic, and in return, you'll feed me fruit. I won't take no for an answer. - the ice bird perched on my right shoulder.

- I am not the Avatar. - I objected, looking at Bing Xi Feng.

- I don't care who you think you are, but I'll teach you Ice Magic properly, and for that I want forty of these fruits every day.

- At least ten a day, I don't have that much. - I offered.

- Okay, I'm kind today, so I'll help the Avatar almost for free. - said the ice spirit that decided to teach me ice magic, but I'll be honest, I'd rather learn magic without him, I'd be much more relaxed.