Chapter 17

In Omashu, there was so much to see, especially the local market and shops. Despite the Fire Nation taking everything I had upon my capture, I had managed to save up some money on my way south. After all, I had to stop in villages and towns, and my skills as a burglar, pickpocket, and bear-baiter hadn't gone anywhere! Now, I had a small bag of coins, quite a substantial amount for someone who wasn't a business owner, a successful and experienced trader, or the son of some aristocrat. Inside the wallet, I kept a layer of water under my control that protected my money from theft.

At the market, which I reached after twenty to thirty minutes of searching and walking around the city, there were many goods, but mostly food and some other daily necessities.

I wandered around the market for about forty minutes, gradually filling a basket with groceries and spices. Herbs are great, but some spices can't be replaced by them. For example, ground and specially treated hot pepper! I don't know why, but I had developed a taste for spicy and hot food, so cooking with garlic sauce, pepper additive, or something of that sort had become routine for me. I thought about treating my companions to a steak with something very spicy.

Though Aang was immediately out of luck - he doesn't eat meat. Well, more for me then!

However, my thoughts about which spicy seasoning to add to the food and how to use bending in cooking were interrupted by... something!

This "something" turned out to be three teenagers a couple of years younger than me, each familiar to me, who just raced past me, smashing a couple of stalls in the process while sitting in a stone cart, or something very similar to it.

"I'm disappointed in you, Sokka..."

Chaos ensued around, and taking advantage of the situation, I quickly snatched a couple of wallets and disappeared into the crowd. If there's one thing I'd learned in my thieving career, it was how to vanish into a crowd very quickly! It was probably the first skill I had to master to avoid causing a slaughter of the city guards. I thought, after such an incident, the city would be flooded with those looking for me.

Moving to areas with fewer people, I waited for a moment when no one was watching and used an earthbending-boosted jump to land on a rooftop.

The trail of dust left by my companions made it easy to follow them, so I quickly headed towards the farthest dust cloud, able to cover the distances between buildings with a running start and jumps.

Using bloodbending to relieve fatigue and slightly enhance my body, it took about ten minutes of fast running and rooftop jumping to reach the destination. However, I found only the remains of a wooden cart and a heap of cabbage crushed by a wheel-less stone cart. Neither the cart's owner with the cabbage nor Aang, Katara, and Sokka were anywhere to be found.

After asking around, I learned that the city guard, consisting of earthbenders, had already arrested and taken away all four of them. My three companions and the cabbage cart owner.

"And what happens to the captured criminals afterward?" I asked the last person I spoke with.

"They are judged by the ruler of Omashu - King Bumi."

Hearing this, I turned and looked towards the palace at the city's summit, the largest and most majestic building in the city.

After watching it for a couple of minutes, I headed towards the palace, simultaneously mapping out the city in my head in case of a chase. Thus, it took me about three hours to reach the palace, and another forty minutes to scout it. The building was enormous and incomparable to any other residential houses or municipal buildings in the city.

Circling the building, I found several ways to get inside, even without using earthbending, in which I was no master but had more than enough skill for simple manipulations.

Waiting for nightfall, I took a small supply of water with me and set off on my mission. Controlling water allows you to give it special properties through bending and use it in a variety of ways. In this case, I used the water to pull myself up by extending it to cling to a window, then pulled myself towards the window, grabbed it with my hand, and with one step, jumped through the window frame.

Inside, crystals illuminated the corridors with a greenish light, and I found myself at a corner of the corridor, right on the turn.

Listening to the blood within me, I sensed that no one was close by and slowly started moving towards what I thought should lead me to the palace's center, although I could be wrong. I was completely unfamiliar with the palace's architecture and could end up wandering for a long time.

As I navigated through the palace, I had a few close calls. The first time was when I encountered the local doors, or rather the lack thereof. In the walls were places with relatively thin stone walls, and earth benders simply controlled the stone, removing and replacing the wall behind them. At one point, I felt someone's approach behind a wall and didn't think much of it until they started manipulating earthbending. In a panic, I jumped up, using water to attach myself to the ceiling and walls, freezing myself in place with the water I brought. I watched as an earthbender calmly emerged from the wall, which then sealed itself behind him.

After waiting a few minutes and sensing the guard moving away, I continued on my way.

Another time, I nearly got caught by an overly attentive earthbender who almost discovered me. I was ready to kill him, turning one of the water tendrils into something like a mantis claw made of ice, ready to strike, but he turned away and continued on his path. After waiting a bit, I exhaled and moved on through the corridors.

How long did I wander those corridors? Around four hours, until I arrived at a breakfast room.

Deciding to wait there, I climbed onto the ceiling and waited on the ice, keeping myself awake and motivated with bloodbending. It became clear I could wander for a very long time without finding my party, so I decided to wait there, hoping King Bumi would come to this luxurious hall.

Hanging from the ceiling and doing practically nothing, I pondered various things, particularly about bending. I wondered how it is that an earth bender can control earth, stone, and even crystals, as I learned at the market, yet not lava. Why is that? Perhaps it's the same phenomenon as with steam being much harder for me to control than water or ice initially. It's a different state, requiring entirely different control.

Indeed, I hadn't met any bender who could control an element through sheer will alone; movements were always involved.

Perhaps due to the difference in the element's state, earthbending movements are not suitable for controlling it. Maybe waterbending movements, but with earth energy, would be more appropriate unless you proceed as I do.

Now, with plenty of time to think, I revisited the questions Katara and Sokka asked me. Why don't other benders master other elements if it's possible? Several thoughts come to mind. First is the belief in the impossibility of mastering other elements. From birth, training, to old age, they only know that only the Avatar can master all elements, while others are restricted to one. This belief is an absolute truth for them, not easily disproven on their own. Second is the process's speed. I didn't have a teacher or someone to guide me as others did, so I had to forge my own path. Perhaps if I had a teacher, I might have mastered waterbending faster. It took my brother and me over a year to control a mere droplet of water using my methods. But now, dare anyone call me a weak waterbender to my face! Then prove it by surviving after that! My path to mastering bending doesn't rely on gestures. Perhaps these gestures and movements prompt the bending within us to act according to certain algorithms, requiring almost no willpower and making mastery almost instantaneous. I focus on the element and... I don't know how to explain it... if I were to use analogies... though they are also awkward... in short, during meditations, I somehow make something inside me, possibly the source of bending or the Chi itself, adjust to the desired element. Not just adjust, but become like it. The first time was the hardest. It took over half a year before I even understood what I was trying to achieve with those meditations, and only then did the process begin. Slowly, gradually, but with each session, I became more and more synchronized with the element. The first time was the most difficult! After that, achieving the necessary "vibration" of energy becomes easy, and it's just a matter of training the element itself. If we disregard the wasted time, I meditated on water for just nine months, five to six hours a day. In the cage, I meditated on earth for the same period, almost around the clock, even replacing sleep with trance. When mastering bending through movements, you develop synchronization and then the element itself. This doesn't work with foreign elements! For foreign elements, you first need to achieve synchronization, then develop it. Benders initially have high synchronization with their element, and a few sessions bring it to the necessary level. Or emotional peaks, like what happened to me on Kyoshi Island. I hadn't achieved synchronization with fire, but the peak of emotions allowed me to reach the necessary level for the first time, and I managed to neutralize Zuko's fire, though it took a lot of energy. Probably because I was unaccustomed to it. But just emotions won't do anything! You need great synchronization for emotions to help make a leap in development. Third is dispersion. Regular benders aren't Avatars, and bending doesn't come to them with great ease, so it's easier and more practical for them to become stronger in their element than to spend a vast amount of time and energy mastering another element at any level.

Thus, a bender initially needs to realize or at least accept the possibility of mastering another element. After that, a significant amount of free time is required, ideally in conditions where there's no alternative, as was my case in my personal prison. Following that, mastering a new element becomes easier. Perhaps the experience and realization after mastering the second element make it seem more achievable.

That's how I ended up under these conditions, becoming the first non-Avatar to master more than one element!

I had to interrupt my numerous reflections as an elderly man entered the room, his face marked with age spots, his hair, eyebrows, and partially covered left eye all thick and gray.

As the city of Omashu's king was right beneath me, I melted the ice and descended.

Here I was, ten centimeters above the floor, my water already extending forward, transforming the ends of the tendrils into mantis-like ice blades stretching towards the old man's neck.

In a flash, I covered the short distance, landing softly on the floor, stopping the blade millimeters from the old skin.

"And now..." I began to whisper to the old man, but was cut off.

Without a word, the old man swiftly and speedily raised his hand, knocking mine away, and stomped his heel on the floor.

My eyes widened as I realized a simple truth - King Bumi is an earthbender! And apparently a very experienced one!

A huge chasm opened right under my feet, into which I started to fall, but I spread my legs forward and back, touching the ground, and immediately a stone slab rose beneath me, supporting me. Then, I received a blow to the chest from the old man's elbow.

I was thrown not too far, about three meters, but breathing became difficult, and it felt like a weight had been dropped on my chest from a couple of meters up.

Struggling to breathe, holding back tears of pain, and assuming a stance, my arms transformed into tendrils of water.

"Oh, and who do we have here!?" the old man asked, straightening up, visually growing taller by a head, and broadening his shoulders, he shed his robe to reveal not a frail old man... but a seriously well-built body with impressively powerful muscles... "You've come for me, have you?"

After these words, the king stomped on the floor, and a boulder about one and a half times the size of my head tore out of the floor and hovered beside him.

"And how lucky am I?" I asked in a whisper, hoarsely, through the pain in my chest that had slightly subsided.