========= 68 - The Power of Change ==========
The village of McCapu, one day after the victory over Kioshi.
"Dagoth, may I come in? I need to talk to you privately..." The knock on the old, dilapidated oak door distracted me from a fleeting inspiration that was allowing me to pour my thoughts onto the pages of my latest scientific work. There was no peace in my life, and if someone forced me to sit down and write another manual on the magic system of this world, someone else would inevitably appear to distract me.
I immediately heard a rustling behind me. Tai Li, who was lying on my bed, reading a book with enthusiasm and kicking her legs in the air, raised her innocent eyes at the sound of Airo's voice and looked at me questioningly.
"Should I leave?
"You can stay. Come in, Uncle Airo," the girl shrugged calmly, returning to the fascinating story of some novel. Strangely, when she was reading, she usually came to my room, took my bed, and immersed herself in completely different stories. As she herself said, my room was always quiet and peaceful, and the sound of a pen writing made reading much more interesting.
The door to the room opened quickly, and a plump old man with a peaceful look appeared in the doorway. Seeing that I was not alone in the room, he cleared his throat and approached the table with my writing implements.
"I apologise for disturbing you, I'll try to finish quickly," he nodded in greeting to Tai Li and took on a serious expression. "Dagoth, you have repeatedly said that you want to learn how to block lightning, which will undoubtedly come in handy if you ever want to fight Oza, but... the thing is, I already have a similar skill. While studying water mages, I improved my control over the qi in my body and also mastered the ability to redirect the deadly flash of this yin-yang energy. The problem is that this is only a fire magic technique, and I have no idea how to transfer it to the earth element.
My uncle was the first to bring up the subject, although I wanted to postpone it until our magma training was over. Well, it wasn't a bad idea. Airo's abilities had been clearly etched in my memory ever since I told Zuko that I would defeat his father. I was probably even convinced that without his experience, I would never be able to master this vital technique. And it would be funny if Yangchen taught me the very same ability that I would later have to spend even longer adapting to.
Yangchen's abilities and fighting style remained a mystery to me. How she handled the elements and which one was her favourite was also a complete mystery, so perhaps that's why, when I got the chance to learn the basics, I suddenly became more serious and asked Airo to tell me more about it. As it turned out, the basic techniques were literally the same positive and negative jing that he had taught me.
Water mages are quite economical, trying to either suppress or redirect any enemy attack. Every time Katara and Aang play in the water, I witness them pulling the same sphere of water towards themselves, and it's similar with lightning. When you intercept foreign chi, you must subdue it within your body, break it down into its different components so as not to kill yourself, and send it back to the enemy in an excellent manner.
If there were several people in the world who possessed such a technique, they could play a kind of badminton, only instead of a shuttlecock, there would be a deadly discharge, but the essence, of course, is in the details. As the technique was explained, it became clear that any mage could do the same with their own element. I could redirect stones, and a nomad could easily change the direction of the wind, but it didn't work with other elements.Even if I controlled mud, that didn't mean I could intercept water. If I created magma, that didn't mean I could intercept fire. Block it, yes, but not pull off the same trick as with lightning, and that's the whole point: to create an energy-intensive move without unnecessary effort or movement.
What kind of magic was needed to accomplish the impossible... and then it dawned on me - grounding! However, you can't just connect lightning to the ground with a pin to avert danger. There was a separate topic for that, called a lightning rod, and I had already fulfilled its role once by attaching metal trinkets. It was time-consuming, impractical, and dangerous, and there was no guarantee that the magical lightning would necessarily jump to such a thing. One question remained unclear... how to do it?
"Change the ground... Airo, do you have any coal?
***
"Unbelievable... I was right," - probably my entire team was in shock, watching this absolute magical invulnerability. Avatar Yangchen, as a model representative of pacifism, stood in front of the stream of lightning bolts striking from Airo's hands and deflected them to the side without even reaching for her belt.
It looked as if there was a barrier in front of the girl, and when the lightning reached it, it was drawn into the ground and dispersed — there was no flying earth, pieces of sand or even metal around her. Why did I assume that she was using earth magic to defend herself, rather than more advanced lightning magic? Earth magic was now the most active, as if its energy surrounded the space and protected Yangchen.
"Phew, that was exhausting," Airo said, exhausted, and stopped releasing the stream of lightning. The Avatar just nodded at him and raised her finger like a teacher.
"Magic can be found in amazing things. Personally, I call it 'slope'. The earth's qi circulating under your feet causes a kind of reverse levitation. The main thing is to repeat the movements of water mages; their style is perfect for such things.
"Turning the earth into a lightning rod with simple magic... so that's the secret! It's not reverse levitation, damn it!
"Huh? No? - Yangchen was embarrassed, as if she had been slapped in the face. Of course, that wasn't the point. The question is: what will happen to an object, say, a stone, if you pour a lot of magical power into it? With fire magic, it's clear, it just becomes stronger and hotter, some people even cast explosions because of it, with wind it's a similar principle, but water mages don't usually bother with that because they're used to conserving energy, but I suppose the answer lies in plant or blood magic. So, would the stone hit harder or fly further? The latter is still possible, but there's more of a correlation with magical technique than with the amount of energy, and the rest doesn't work at all.
And there was no answer! At least no logical one — well, you can infuse this stone with energy, but it won't turn into gold or lead, and it won't become more "earthy," but the energy was spent, so what for? The answer is — to change its properties. I was still being disingenuous when I said that it couldn't be changed — it can be compressed. Turn coal into a diamond, for example.
I had been practising this periodically since I started travelling with Airo, taking a piece of something and pouring enough energy into it to change its properties. Yes, I admit, I haven't managed to turn coal into a diamond yet, because it was no different from the power technique that still needed to be honed, but that's a whole separate field.
Yangchen performed a similar trick, infusing the ground with qi and creating a negative jing, while lightning is positive. Or, in human terms: bodies with the same charge repel each other, while those with different charges attract each other. She simply removed the charge from the ground, causing the lightning to choose her as its target, proving that properties can change at completely different levels. All of these are methods of using earth magic, that is, gross interference with the laws of nature. But damn, how beautiful this interference is!
Turning away from the embarrassed Yangchen, who couldn't explain how this technique worked, I tried to check everything myself. The magic flowed into the soil and began to forcibly change its properties. If it weren't for the water mages' technique, it really wouldn't have worked. But then, the charge seemed to dissipate, and I concentrated on Airo, letting him know with a glance.
And so, my exhausted grandfather finally exhaled and, finding the strength for one last burst, gathered the tips of his fingers into lightning bolts and directed them at me in an instant.
"What are you doing?!" Katara cried out in fear, while Yangchen blinked in amazement. A flash that I could barely see shot through the air and veered sharply to the side. Each "branch" of lightning was pulled down to the ground and dispersed, ultimately failing to reach me. After that, Airo's knees buckled, and only Zuko's help prevented him from falling — he had expended so much energy. Tai Li quickly caught me, as my legs were also giving way. This trick was somewhat reminiscent of trying to squeeze coal; the magic was simply draining away," "This is madness..." "My secret technique was copied in just a couple of seconds... Yangchen, in turn, stood in disbelief, almost in tears. "What is this secret, earth mage Dagoth? How did you manage to uncover the secret of reverse levitation so quickly?
"The wisdom of a fire mage who explained how lightning works. And a bunch of books I've read," I turned to Airo and smiled at him, because this was definitely our joint achievement.
"I see...
Even though she was genuinely shocked and lamented that the modern generation somehow devalues the achievements of past eras, I sincerely thanked Yangchen for opening my eyes to how to continue developing standard earth magic.
"...It's nothing," she blushed and turned away.
She didn't stay long. Having shown us everything she wanted to, she gave Aang access again and watched us through his eyes as we continued to train. After meeting Yangchen, everyone was out of sorts, even Zuko had changed. This had to be taken advantage of.
I returned to the coal and with a single glance squeezed it with tremendous force, rubbing the layers of earth together with equal force to study the workings of earthquakes in more detail and, more importantly, finally gained an understanding of the "cooling" technique. Having created a thin coal plate, I asked the prince for a favour.
"This must be some kind of joke," said the prince, digging his feet into the stone. "By expending my own qi, I completely protected the material from the heat." "The charcoal, which would have burned up just from the heat of my flame, isn't even melting!
"You really don't need to be upset, this property will be maintained as long as I have strength. On the other hand, you'll need the power of a dragon to use up all my magic," I smiled slyly at him, but there was a catch in that expression. I was letting him know that according to the agreement, he had to apologise and finally admit that his family couldn't win.
Practising the movements, reproducing Yangchen's perfect control, and now these techniques would not even take a lot of strength, and my absolute defence would become even stronger. In fact, I even understood Yangchen — by suppressing any attack, it was possible to negotiate.
So when I started moving towards Zuko, I forced him to increase the number of strikes per second, and he helplessly tried to burn my shield or at least get around it to hit my body. It even worked, but I took a short step to the side, and the flames flew past without even touching my clothes. Then I approached the exhausted Zuko, whose muscles were tired.
"Between heaven and earth, only my magic can be called worthy. Admit it and say that your father will not win.
Gritting his teeth, he began to fight with himself until he finally let go of his principles.
"...I can't guarantee it, but... you really do have a chance of defeating him," and just like that, from "we will take over the world," he began to say, "don't destroy our nation." It was a completely healthy outlook on the world, after which he began to think that my terms weren't so bad after all.
And it's already obvious that he'll come over to my side.
"All right," I tapped him on the forehead and finally smiled. "Let's practise some more, and then we'll finally head north."
On that day, I defeated the principles of Avatar Yangchen and Prince Zuko.