Avatar - chapter 49

After twenty or thirty violent crashes and a fair amount of concussions, I had finally arrived where I wanted to be Wan Shin Tong’s library.

“Well, this is it,” I smiled as I walked to the entrance, seeing how the library building, though large in size, was mostly buried under the desert sands, with only its tallest spire visible from the surface, “Well, it’s best it stays this way, people usually don’t appreciate knowledge of any kind,” I sighed, as I wave the idea of trying to dig the library out.

Wasting no time, I dived inside the library, using the water I had collected to slowly levitate, to avoid a violent crash that would piss off the local librarian; as soon as I landed, the floor squeaked underneath me, showing it was outstandingly clean, this sound announced my presence, and in the blink of an eye, a giant owl was standing in front of me.

“Humans are not welcome here; leave,” The owl stated with a frown.

Lovely, “I know, but would you turn down someone seeking knowledge to improve himself,” I smiled.

“Yes, now leave,” The owl said without missing a beat.

Alright, Akira…. What do you know about this overgrown chicken nugget? He loves knowledge; he hates intruders… and, he hates people using the knowledge of his library for war and violence, time to kinda lie! “Alright, I’ll be honest, I merged with Vaatu,” I sighed, and as soon as the words Vaatu left my mouth, the spirit took a few steps back in caution, “I want to show him there are other ways other than chaos,” Not really, “But I can’t… his emotions affect me,”

“An empath,” The Owl said as a matter of fact.

I nodded, “I was told this library would provide me the knowledge to control not only my emotions but the elements I gained a connection thanks to Vaatu…. At first, I tried to learn the elements with other benders, but,” Time to bag the deal! “But every person I meet wants me to join the war, and… I don’t want to join any sides,” I’ll have one on my own, thank you very much.

“War…. it is always the same with humans, fighting each other for nothing,” The Owl shook his head sadly, “Very well, I can see you have quite a journey ahead of you, and if my library can help you… I can’t in good conscious say no… but, like every human before you… you must pay the price, knowledge for knowledge,”

“Well, pick your poison,” I chuckled, “I have water bending scrolls and unrecorded future knowledge,”

The Owl blinked in curiosity, like a child seeing candy…. “Future knowledge?” the spirit asked with a bit of hesitation.

“Yes, I don’t have scrolls of that, but I can assure you…. It’s the real deal,” I smiled, ready to explain to him what a radio was and how it would in the future work, the one thing I knew by memory, thanks to my science fair, in my original world.

“Very well, I will take a scroll and… a something about the future to satiate my curiosity,” The Owl sighed, taking my scroll and flying away, not without saying, “You are free to roam and stay in the library for as long as you want,”

“I have one final request,” I said, flying towards him, a few dozen floors down, “If anyone enters… don’t tell them about me, you know Vaatu and his rivalry with Raava, so keep my existence a secret between us,”

“I don’t see why not,” The Owl nodded, going back to file the scroll I had given him.

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[TWO WEEKS LATER]

The amount of knowledge in the library was…. Well, I had no words to describe it; it had from culture to bending styles… and more, so each day was a unique experience for me. Right now, I was focusing on learning earth bending.

And apparently, I had a knack for it; Wan Shi Tong said that much, he was a nice spirit, I kind of felt bad for lying to him… but I had no choice.

For my earth bending training, I had decided to deprive myself of my vision completely, trying to accomplish what Toph had done, seeing the world through the earth, gotta admit; it’s quite the struggle to do so if I forget even for a moment… that I have to use seismic sense to walk and see, I end up crashing with something.

For my air bending training…. Well, I had yet to accomplish anything with it… it seems I had found my opposite element, and no matter how much research I do, I don’t get any results.

Wan Shi Tong theorizes that my personality and bending style are aggressive and that aggressive nature clashes with the usually calm and peaceful state of the air.

Perhaps he was right, but in the end, it didn’t matter; the Air was going to submit one way or another.

Now, for my fire training… well, I was banned from doing so… I can’t blame the big guy for banning me from doing that, ninety percent of this library is paper…. One wrong move and thousands of years of knowledge would go down the drain.

“What an intriguing way to master earth bending,” Wan Shin Tong commented.

“Well… I have to forget about my other senses… to become one with the earth…. And that sounded remarkably hippy…” I chuckled.

“Well, times like this, I am glad I still have a few rooms empty… I dare not think what would happen if you practiced close to the books… it would take me decades to clean them all,” The Owl shuddered in fear, just imagining it.

“Well, good thing is not gonna happen,” I chuckled.

“It is,” The Owl nodded, or at least I felt he nodded; sometimes the image I get from my seismic sense is like a drawing from a four-year-old, “I can’t wait to see the radio in person… it will be the first time knowledge is here, before out…” he added with giddy excitement.

“Hahaha, and wait until they invent the TV,” I chuckled.

“T...V? What is that I wish to know…” Sorry buddy, all I know about it is that it basically raised me as a child.