The monotonous training, forcing me to repeat the same actions over and over again, certainly did not drive me mad. I am ready to repeat these words ten thousand times.
Because of all these repetitive exercises, I freed my mind and left room for reflection. Even during my two-year run through the caves, I had to learn to distract myself so I wouldn't go completely insane without human contact. Living like a hunted and beaten homeless person, I usually pondered the magicians of this world.
Even after the sandstorm in which I nearly died, I became interested in the amplifying factors of this world. The sandstorm can be attributed to a factor that objectively improves sand mages, due to the volume of sand grains and the acceleration they are given, making it easy to control much larger volumes of matter. Most likely, this will also improve wind mages, simply due to the wind currents.
But what about the rest? What kind of miraculous power does the comet Sozin possess that makes fire mages so much more powerful? Or even the solar eclipse, the date of which I picked up from the library of Van Shin Tong — in fact, the sun is just covered by the moon. At night, it disappears altogether, going to illuminate another part of the planet. So what happens next? Do fire mages steadily lose their powers for such a long period of time every day? Of course not. Maybe they feed on the light reflected from the moon? Then their powers would rapidly decline throughout the day and disappear almost completely during the new moon.
But what about the full moon, which gives water mages their greatest power, yet has no effect on fire mages? In fact, the moon is always full at night, and its brightness depends on the sun. There are no tricks or divine interventions here — the Earth's satellite reflects light, that's all. But for some reason, this has a dramatic effect on water mages. I wouldn't be surprised if, when the planet Nibiru appears, the locals awaken a fifth type of magic: friendship and dementia.
I would continue to joke if I didn't have two guesses: The magicians' powers come from their mentality and blind faith; the people of the water tribe are subconsciously unable to reveal their abilities without such an INCREDIBLE event as a full moon. It's as if they are subconsciously connected to something that gives them inner confidence during various events and weakens the blockages in their chakras. And here, smoothly moving on to the second guess, all attention falls on the spirits. Are they the ones who make people so imbued with faith that it partially cleanses their blocked chakras? Spirits come into full contact with people, freeing their inner potential. It turns out that there is also some kind of spirit in the comet Sozin.
But do so-called chakras even exist?
"Phew," I took a sip of water to keep myself from going crazy with my thoughts, sat down in front of the fire and thought seriously:
What are chakras? Most likely, they are mental barriers that every person has, namely their own or natural limitations, complexes, or a very poor education, which prevent magicians from fully revealing themselves. Spirits may simply help to cope with this, like a priest who forgives a person's sins and makes them believe that they have now become better and somehow changed. In reality, however, a person must change themselves.
Perhaps magicians are much more closely tied to the personality, but I don't think I could have just taken my fear and turned it off before; it works a little differently. But now I had some ideas about the second chakra, or guilt, to be more direct. I need to take actions that gradually override my limitations, as with fear. And in the end, just push myself a little to get rid of the framework.
"It will be difficult. It's normal to blame yourself, your conscience wakes up if you've done something wrong. But most likely, it's about not continuing to beat yourself up forever if you've done something wrong. The question arises: how do you face your guilt?
"R-r-r..." Before I could fall into the abyss of my thoughts, Afka's sharp teeth grabbed the hem of my shirt, as if she wanted to get my attention again.
"How I wish I could understand you better. Otherwise, all my clothes will soon be full of holes from your teeth," I said, getting up and following the fox, who led me to the edge of the mountain plateau. And I realised once again that Afka had never pulled me for no reason: people with the emblems of the Fire People were marching across the mountain ridges. It was a whole procession, dragging ballistae behind them to besiege fortified structures. Behind the army, in the distance, black smoke was rising from a camp that was now being abandoned.
Khrr* Boom*
Picking up a piece of rock from the ground, I covered the fire with it so as not to reveal my location. I put a hooded mask over my face. I had to press myself to the ground and surround myself with sand so as not to stand out, and so I followed where the army was marching.
"Hmm, are they really going to Omasha?
Choose:
1 - Watch the army from a distance and follow them secretly (Your training will be temporarily interrupted. You can help repel the siege on Omasha. You will gain access to the city as a loyal mage of the earth)
2 - Attack right now (Your training will transform and become more difficult. You will not feel guilty for allowing the fire army to attack the city. No one will know about your exploits)
3 - Sabotage the Fire People's base (You will deal a significant blow to the Fire People's positions. The enemy will not be able to attack Omasha as frequently. Your training will become extremely difficult. You will not feel guilty for killing several hundred people).
"Guilt? Omasha was never captured before the canonical events. Although... - looking at the number of ballistas, I frowned. A single volley of so many projectiles against the walls would likely crush some mages, and what if something hits the city itself? The second option involved the genocide of the fire people — they deserved it, but I have no doubt that it would be a direct violation of Wang Shin Tong's oath, and as a result, Afka would stop following me. I must maintain a position of relative peacefulness.
In the end, it turned out to be a difficult choice, where the option that suited me best was also the most difficult.
"Well, I'll have to find another way to get to Omasha. With my luck, it's sure to be a headache," I got to my feet and, taking a few steps back, jumped off the cliff into the army's blind spot. The sand that spilled out of the pumpkin immediately began to swirl around me, forming a tornado that allowed me to descend safely. Like a real air mage.
Afka, who was chasing me, was curious about what I was up to, but the intrigue remained until the very end. Before her eyes, I bypassed the entire army, blending into the general yellow background and picking up speed, and found myself very close to the real camp of the fire people... An ordinary person would probably have imagined some kind of tents stretching to the horizon, or, given the sophistication of the fire people, one might expect a huge clean-cut and endless surveillance, a bunch of tanks and dinosaurs with machine guns in the form of fire mages on their backs.
But everything was much grander. The entire camp was wrapped in metal — giant metal plates were attached to the walls; instead of simple earth, they walked on the same metal field, nailed down with giant rivets. The madness began when you realised that even the houses were made of iron, and observation towers had been built from it as well. The nation of fire must not have suffered from a shortage of materials and spent it freely when it was necessary to fight the earth mages. Especially if they had been here for a long time and it was a matter of life and death.
A premium-class outpost.
Expensive, but no group of two earth mages could completely disable the entire camp. I even wanted to turn around and go genocide the army... but things weren't as bad as they seemed.
"Afka, can you give me a tip? I need to know if the captain is here or if he left with the army," the fox, crouching low to the ground, nodded quietly. She vanished into a mirage and dutifully went to carry out her mission. She was clearly pleased that we had decided to take out one base to prevent a whole bunch of people from dying.
I clenched my fists and prepared myself. If I hadn't unlocked my first chakra, I would be trembling like a Chihuahua right now, with all my thoughts revolving around ways to survive. Training in dilation and contraction with a star. It's a good thing I didn't have to defeat the Captain — I don't know if I could have done it, since I'd only been training for two years, and most of the army had fled, leaving only the defenders behind.
As soon as Afka appeared next to me, I learned through tip-offs that the captain had indeed remained in the camp, and she showed me his approximate location.
Getting to my feet, I tore several large rocks from the cliff.
Shush-shush-shush*
I replaced the catapult and began throwing boulders as large as I could lift toward the camp. It wasn't a very impressive result, because in order to reach the target, I had to use rocks as big as myself. Seven of them formed a ring, concentrated around the captain's presumed home.
And then it was a matter of skill. I tensed my arms and lifted the rock under my feet, launching myself forward. Becoming a projectile is not the safest idea, as you can imagine, but by covering myself with sand and jumping and twisting in the air before landing, I demonstrated the most spectacular landing the local soldiers had ever seen. Supporting myself with a sandstorm, I looked around at the frightened mages who had not expected the attack.
"What's going on here? Have the earth mages attacked? But the main boss has just appeared. The door to the metal bunker opened, revealing a stern-looking man with a couple of sinister companions behind him, who were conferring and devising plans of attack. But when he saw the storm in front of his house, he slowly raised his head and focused on me." "Sand?
***
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