Optimising your abilities meant learning to use them according to all the laws of physics: learning tricks that would allow you to lift more, throw further and hold your breath longer. I had already created tentacles with stones on the tips, which allowed me to accelerate objects without expending significant energy. The same could be learned with all abilities, literally every ability that the earth mages, or rather, the master architects, had honed over the years.
I didn't try to show off my skills and claim that I worked better than all the other hard workers. There were too many subtleties that could be learned from all of them — I realised this truth back in the desert, when Bael and Hamri were teaching me the basics of combat, sharpening and survival. The first few days, though, I was just forced to learn how to use the abrasive correctly. Due to incorrect technique, it wore down too quickly, and it turned out that the discs themselves could be reused. It wasn't that difficult a trick to give the grains of sand in the abrasive a sharp shape and use them until the disc disappeared... literally. The speed with which the workers assessed my incorrect, albeit quick, approach, as well as their attempts to put my hands back in place, was difficult to convey. But I did it, replenishing the library's supplies with a strange scroll containing the swear words of the working people of the earth.
Falling asleep in the room Koala had assigned me, not far from the smithy, I felt that Wang Shin Tong, reading my scrolls somewhere out there, was covering me with those very words. And in response, I read the well-deserved books brought by Afka from the library — with their help, I was able to deepen the practical knowledge I had gained throughout the day.
"I don't understand," I said, arriving at the smithy the next day, as usual before everyone else, and finding Koala drinking tea. "You come here like you're going to school. No, even I, being a brat, didn't come to study with a smile like that.
"Hi," said a coal next to him. He didn't greet me, but Afka, whom he loved to treat. The spirits could also enjoy themselves; all the trickster had to do was poke his head into the giant, causing him to feel tender and want to caress the fox.
"Watch out, don't show off too much! Otherwise, the factorio will come, and you'll agree to work for them, and then what will I do? Koal gave me a suspicious look. Considering that I was bringing him in more money, he started to express his incomprehension about my passionate desire to work harder than the others, but he made every effort to ensure that I could continue to increase the smithy's income.
"I've been meaning to ask you," I leaned against a column and tilted my head. "What is Factorio?"
"...A production workshop in the depths of Omash," the owner of the place replied, looking into my eyes and exhaling. "There is a large cluster of crystals under our city. There are gennomites, which are edible crystals, and there are other varieties that are processed in the factorio and used to make glass, mirrors, or other shiny things that are popular in Ba Sing Se. Oh, of course, that's not all, they also mine coal there," he nodded briefly in the direction of the coal miner, "And metals too. Working in the factory is like the daily life of a miner, but I wouldn't recommend going there.
"Why?
"It's dangerous," the coal finally spoke to me, raising his stern gaze. "Dust storms that occur during cave-ins poison and bury many newcomers. And if you lose your legs, you won't be able to use magic anymore."
"Yes, the guys there are skilled, but I've seen so many injured cripples that I can't count them," Koal exhaled and turned towards the men who had come to work. They quickly took off their outer clothes, revealing gigantic muscles, and put on aprons. Shaking hands with each other, making their muscles almost creak with tension, they all stared at me. "Now, let's get to work.
The repetitive daily routine continued to improve my skills. For effective striking work, when I had to hit something very hard — and this happened all the time in the work of a blacksmith — the guys taught me how to shape stone objects into different forms. That is, first extract a well-cut stone of the desired shape from the ground: a cylinder, a cube or a simple circle, depending on the task, and then apply the force correctly. It was even surprising how much more dangerous a projectile with the right shape became.
As Anubis said, it was a difficult training in strength and transformation.
"You can do it, Dagoth!
"Don't give up, tense your muscles like a man!
"Ra-a-a! - feeling strong hands holding me by the shoulders and the guys around me shouting words of encouragement, I clenched my teeth and lifted the heavy tray of compressed coal off the ground, which I had to throw into the red-hot furnace that powered the entire forge. Lifting huge weights was one of the requirements of a magician-blacksmith — lifting stones that weighed as much as you did wouldn't get you very far; you had to work with large volumes. And that was just the beginning...
"Now get to work!
"Hurry, while the fire is burning like a dragon.
The guys supporting me forced me to stop in front of the forge and start forging. With measured blows of stones on the red-hot metal, I had to shape it, giving it my all like never before. If you loosened your grip or struck weaker than the others, you would ruin the quality of the product. You had to become a machine, saving your energy for consistently high results. And all for the sake of creating high-quality armour for the soldiers of the people of the land.
After one day of work, I began to look at the local workers as heroes... they were unable to adapt to the conditions of battle and were unlikely to be able to cope with the soldiers of the people of the land one on one, but they learned to maintain high standards in their work.
"Don't they try to recruit such cool magicians into the army?" I asked during lunch break. The men were eating healthy, high-calorie food from small containers. Hearing my question, they all looked at each other.
"If we have to defend the city, we'll be the first to do it," said Ugolok seriously.
"Our skills are suited to building strong structures. But we don't have the speed of throwing projectiles that is important for soldiers. We are strong, but slow.
For a second, I remembered the tournaments held during the time of Avatar Korra. In difficult battles, they relied on skill and speed. That's definitely not these slow guys.
"Besides..." one began quietly while the others were showing off their muscles, "We all have families. I want to protect my loved ones. Although I sincerely want to end the war, protecting my family is more important to me," one of them said with a warm smile as he looked at the container of food.
"By the way, Dagoth. Do you have anyone? - For some reason, observant glances turned to me. In response to my silent, negative shake of the head, they all laughed and began to convince me that sooner or later someone would definitely appear. Nevertheless, I sat without a smile, indifferently looking at people whose luck allowed them to live peacefully. I had to continue developing...
I still hadn't discovered the most important secret: how to make abrasive. The discs were brought to the forge from the factory. There, too, lay the secret to mastering a new element, or rather a new industry: crystals. The guys may have become attached to me, and Koal didn't want me to leave, but I deliberately developed myself and increased the forge's revenue in order to wait for the right day.
The opening of the first chakra allowed me to develop my magic a little faster. This, in turn, bypassed all possible setbacks, rumours about the forge's earnings spread throughout the city, and soon someone from outside came to us.
"Recruitment for the factorio is underway. Anyone want to help the city with some real work?" A plain man with a pile of papers in his hands, resembling some kind of bureaucrat, entered the smithy and began to fan himself with his palm to cool off. All the men turned to the newcomer with some kind of anger. Ugolok stood up and loomed over the man, staring intently at him with his monstrous intensity. Now it seemed that his large back was aimed at protecting his friends. Although, more likely, he wanted to scare the passer-by, because the latter shuddered so much that he took a step back and was ready to run away.
"I understand. I'll tell them there are no volunteers..."
"I want to," I said, jumping up from my seat and stepping forward. My muscles became even more defined, they were hardened from lifting heavy weights. My knowledge from books had prepared me for mining work, I had read so much about mining methods and the mining industry that I probably knew more about it than everyone else here.
"Dagot..." Koal opened his mouth, looking at me with the same heaviness as the coal. "Why?"
"...You have learned to defend yourselves perfectly, and therefore you expect that the walls will become an impenetrable stronghold for your loved ones. I don't want to say how naive that is, because defence does not always depend on the height of the walls, but also on luck. And luck, in turn, can only be overcome by force.
Putting his cloth cap back on and donning his mask, he approached the bureaucrat.
"That outfit... you said you were from the desert? - Koal squinted as everyone else slowly opened their eyes.
"Isn't that... a sand mage's costume? From the side, it looks like the one drawn from hearsay," - hard work had made me grow, labour had made me seem even tougher.
"And the control is incredible...
"The very same Sand Mage," they said, looking at my retreating back. The bureaucrat tried to escape from the smithy as quickly as possible, and I followed him at a measured pace, not turning to face the complex glances of the blacksmiths. I did only one thing for them, out of gratitude. Afka, who was walking with me, took the scroll from my hands, returned to the coal, and gave them part of my work.
As soon as they slowly opened it, they saw a huge list of techniques I had optimised. It was a fusion of knowledge from the library and practice, which allowed them to understand how to strike harder, accelerate an object even faster, and most importantly, my magnum opus, the first chapter on how to open the Earth Chakra.
They didn't need my personal guidance. The guys were already as close as they could get to discovering it; they just needed a push, which I gave them. When I finally turned back, glancing for a second at the guys who had gathered together to read, stunned by these techniques, a smile appeared on my face.
"There's a way to get rid of this stubborn coal soot!" the guys shouted, looking at the coal.
The path to opening the second chakra had begun. Joy for what had been accomplished began to replace the feeling of guilt.
***
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