As I had calculated, it took about two days to fully master the necessary skills. I finished memorizing the chakra books even earlier.
During this time, I managed to take a few walks around the Library itself — after all, from monotonous actions, my head sometimes started to swell. The periodic impulsive actions also interfered greatly, like making some origami from parchment. Being a lesser spirit with a healthy and developed mind is extremely difficult...
I was already seriously beginning to sympathize with those guys before me who also faced such problems. Good thing I managed to take control of my actions — I'm afraid if I had folded a figurine from precious parchments, the knowledge-fanatical spirit would have made some figurine out of me...
Walking through the Library, I had never once ended up in a place where I had already passed before. That is, having walked a fairly large distance, all this time I only encountered new sections of the Library. My hands were just itching to take more books, surround myself with them, brew some aromatic tea and immerse myself in millions of new worlds. After all, books for me, even from my past life, served as millions of unexplored universes. It happened that after some particularly good book, I simply couldn't start another, as some aftertaste from the book hadn't passed yet.
A huge desire was to take at least some books from the history section, because the cartoon practically doesn't show life over a fairly large period of time. We know there were many Avatars, but they showed us only a small number of them.
I had to make simply titanic efforts not to break down. I even had to run through this section just in case. But mentally I promised myself that as soon as free time and opportunity appeared, I would stay here and read voraciously.
Honestly, walks through the Library were almost as tense as practicing techniques. It's like being a child entering a shopping center with parents, walking and looking at shop windows with various toys — everything so desirable, and even that trinket that after buying you'd forget about in a few hours...
At the end of the first walk, I decided to go back to the room the same way. Nothing complicated, I thought — I had been walking straight the whole time. Passing through corridors and seeing completely different names on sections, I began to panic slightly. It seems Wan Shi Tong can control space. Such a distance definitely shouldn't exist, or this is just a usual feature of ancient spirits' dwellings, when your habitat is saturated with your energy for millennia... here you'd start controlling not only space, but also time flows.
Already panicking strongly, I switched to a light run and began randomly choosing directions, hoping to find my room. Having spent half my reserves on acceleration, I managed to notice a red fox tail flashing around the corner. My joy knew no bounds.
"Little fox, please help me find the way to the room with scrolls!" I said, trying to make my voice calmer — it's shameful to lose control over emotions just from getting lost.
Did it seem to me or did the fox really give me a contemptuous look? Well, the main thing is that waving her tail, she led me back. Having passed just a few sections, I immediately saw the right door to the room. Everything here is too confusing, looks more like some kind of labyrinth.
Before leaving, the fox spirit looked at me, sighed heavily and explained how to use the Library, supposedly I was distracting her from important matters. How important we all are.
But the information turned out useful — you just had to concentrate on thoughts about what you needed, and the Library itself would narrow space for you, quickly leading to the desired place. Now it became clear why I more often encountered sections of the past era — subconsciously I really wanted to read them. After thanking the spirit for help, I began practicing again.
"Stop tormenting yourself — do it or don't do it," suddenly sounded behind me, making me jump several meters, using energy. I wanted to shout: "Hey, couldn't you appear less suddenly?!" but the survival instinct, even being a spirit, was very strong in me.
Okay, I should really calm down. The last few hours I had just been walking around the room and tormenting myself with sad thoughts. Still: "Who wants to put their life to chance?" — there were none of those in this room. Having already mastered, in my humble opinion, those techniques at a good level, I just really started to chicken out: "I'm not a coward, but I'm afraid, right?"
Getting out of the comfort zone is always hard. But it becomes even harder when there's a whole bunch of problems, and you, sitting and changing nothing, think: "Come on, everything will resolve itself."
But it doesn't work that way. We know, we've been through it. Problems will accumulate, piling on top of each other, and in the end, when your brains get back in place — you'll be unpleasantly surprised, realizing that your head cleared... because there's simply nowhere lower to fall.
Okay, I think, enough self-pity, time to start my new life. Thanks to the lived experience, I'll try to be even better in the new life. Of course, if I survive. Humor is good...
"Yes, I'm ready," I said firmly to Wan Shi Tong.
"Good, send your consciousness to the source," after a minute I did as the spirit commanded. "Begin strengthening."
Having performed all the actions I had practiced for two days, I began waiting for some beautiful effect of my departure. Naive lesser spirit, I cried to myself — everyone keeps offending me. The thing is, he simply opened some rift in the air and unceremoniously kicked me through it.
"And don't come back without new books," I heard already in flight on the other side. "Otherwise I'll gut your spirit for knowledge myself," he promised me ominously.
I hope he was joking. So much for a peaceful spirit. Here I began to notice increasingly growing pain — after all, forced burning of your energy isn't the most pleasant process. Good thing the spirit himself searches for the vessel you need — my main task is only to strengthen my beloved self.
Less than twenty percent of energy remained when I was already just praying for people to make love more. Water benders, make me my vessel!
Subjectively less than ten percent of energy remained when the pain was so strong that you already start losing consciousness, but I held on as I could.
Energy remained at the bottom, and when I almost lost consciousness, the thought came to mind that in the Avatar world there supposedly existed the Swamp Water Tribe... I was already ready to end up with them too, just to survive.
***
I'm starting to get used to constant loss of consciousness. So, I'm thinking, which means I still exist. Having begun to feel my body, I tried to move my arms and legs. Yes, there's a body, I even feel it more vividly, which doesn't compare to the spirit body. And it seems I'm floating in some liquid.
This is success! Very much like an embryo — after all, how wonderful it is to feel human again. They really say: "We don't value what we have." Of course, maybe I've already died, and now a new life has begun where I ended up as a Jedi who was shot down on Geonosis, and I'm currently undergoing treatment in a bacta tank. Hmm, everything fits...
Thoughts went somewhere wrong, but it's worth checking. Let's move our little hands — yes, the response is too weak, soft walls press on the hands. It seems I touched the umbilical cord with my hand.
Over time, thoughts settled, and I began thinking more calmly. I'm not an expert on embryos and childbirth, but most likely, I don't have too long left — the body seems well-formed.
Very soon the harsh real world will meet me, but after the Spirit Realm, where there were chances of being breakfast for a randomly passing spirit, the human world looks like paradise itself.
I began to feel very sleepy. Not trying to resist this, I smoothly plunged into oblivion.
During the next waking session, I decided to do something useful. In my understanding, this meant reviewing remaining memories of the watched cartoon — after all, refreshing memory won't be superfluous. So far everything seen and heard indicates that the canon here, if not complete, shouldn't have big differences. I was engaged in this for a week, and got so carried away that I reviewed episodes about Avatar Korra too.
Only now I realized that I'm thinking while not even born yet. Here's the first bonus of being a spirit — an infant's brain definitely can't think so structurally. Speaking of them. In memory there are still unread books about chakras — I should start comprehending this important information, because the day when I'll have my own body isn't far off, and I'll cherish and nurture it with all my strength.
After another week, I successfully organized the information gleaned from chakra books. It immediately became clear why there were as many as three books on chakras. These are three different paths of opening them — then you choose which is closer or more needed for you.
The first path is the path of spirit. This is the path that Guru Pathik taught Avatar Aang. The path that opens spirit forces in you — however banal this may sound. By this is meant that being an ordinary person — you'll receive forces that spirits themselves have, being on their native plane. [ image ]

First, this is unimpeded connection with the Spirit Realm — you can calmly send your spirit wandering and interacting with another world, while being physically on the human plane. Second, this is increased energy conductivity, its qualitative improvement — understanding of your element will move to a completely new level. Being a mediocre bender — you'll achieve mastery in your element in a year. And most exciting — not being a bender, you have a considerable chance of becoming one!
The book clearly states that benders among people are actually the majority. It's just that the overwhelming number of them have a sleeping gift, and when opening chakras, each new one will try to break through the invisible boundaries of your gift.[ image ]

Someone will open the gift already when opening the first chakra, while another will do this only after activating the last, seventh chakra. All this depends on the thickness of the metaphorical wall that separates a person from awakening. For some it's a flimsy cardboard wall that with opening the first chakra will simply sweep it away without noticing. By the way, such people are even recorded in the book as late awakened — such people became benders by themselves already at a respectable age. Other cases are also indicated when on the verge of life and death, some people managed to awaken an element in themselves.
For others it's a wall made of the strongest steel, which will have to be hammered until the seventh chakra. Rejection of many feelings when opening chakras is explained by the fact that the process of this action somewhat resembles the birth of a new spirit, and they in turn begin the path with a clean slate — that is, you don't lose your emotions, but simply start getting to know them anew throughout life. This path exactly suits carriers of Raava's light spirit, whose main power is entering the Avatar state.
The next book is the path of mind. As I comprehended this book, I kept thinking what a treasure I had come across, but jumping ahead I'll say the following: the book is very dangerous, or rather, the abilities it grants. Each new chakra gives you power over the mind — both your own and others'.
At first everything is quite ordinary: this is qualitative increase in thinking speed, protection of your mind from various external influences, intuition reaches a new level — you literally feel which actions benefit you and which don't.
Determining people's emotions? Easy! Further more: telepathy, free transmission of thought over distances of thousands of kilometers. The last chakra gives: "Power over another's mind" — a literal quote from the book. You can literally read thoughts, all hidden fears, ambitions and desires of another intelligent being. Still looks tasty, right? You can even rewrite a person's mind — create the perfect wife, friends, basically everything you want.
Honestly, the book's author after opening the seventh chakra no longer resembled a Guru at all. Here's also written a brief history of his life. No name is indicated. Being a student of one Guru who was mastering the path of spirit, he also wanted to open chakras in himself, but not being too satisfied with the granted abilities, decided on an experiment: what if you affect the chakra slightly differently?
The experiment succeeded. The first earth chakra opened, which gave him completely different abilities. Inspired by his success, he, not thinking about consequences, continued activating further chakras.
Opening each chakra is itself a huge risk, because you lose a certain feeling. And each guru is not just a person, but a personality with steel will — these are the wisest of people who didn't lose themselves on the path of knowledge.
The path of mind has features that negate the loss of feelings. Being himself without emotions, the author purposefully evoked them in people to feed off them — that is, he extracted no lesson from opening chakras.
Being the smartest and knowing all thoughts of his surroundings, he began to harden his heart. And not finding real feelings from people close to him, he simply made them as he would like to see them. In the end, the author committed suicide, before this destroying all his records. Only this book survived, which only describes the abilities themselves and the author's history... exactly how to open chakras by this path — not a word here.
The last, third book tells about the path of body. I privately called this path "superman on minimums." Each new chakra makes you like a cultivator who passed baptism by heavenly lightning, purified himself in a volcano and so on and so forth.
The first earth chakra grants incredible body durability, phenomenal flexibility, increases endurance, increases reaction speed — that is, comprehensively improves physical condition.
The second water chakra promotes increased immunity — diseases and poisons are no longer scary. The third fire chakra gives a qualitative leap to all sense organs: perfect vision, keen hearing, sharp smell.
The fourth air chakra opens super-intuition — this can even be called a small gift of foresight. The fifth sound chakra gives complete control over your body, down to the smallest particle: hormone production, blood circulation, bones, muscles and other. The sixth chakra cleanses the organism and genotype from all toxins that undoubtedly exist in every person. The opened chakra over some time searches for and activates only the best that's hidden in your body.
The last seventh chakra grants super-regeneration and physical immortality. Regeneration allows restoring any damage... if the brain still functions. I suppose even beheading isn't scary for me. After all, in ordinary people the brain is responsible for all actions, but I can think as a spirit — the brain has rather a secondary role, so if I manage to restore the body, even this isn't scary. Of course, we won't test this in practice. Physical immortality is stopping the organism's aging as a whole. Yes, Gurus can help depart to the other world, but he definitely won't die from old age.
This path appealed to me most. Here when opening chakras, emotions are lost only briefly and don't completely disappear. Great emphasis is placed on preparing your body, or more correctly said not preparation, but self-torture. Maybe the author of this work was a follower of Might Guy's Power of Youth?
I didn't even have to think about which path I'd choose. The path of spirit — these are powers I already have — it immediately falls away. The path of mind doesn't even have instructions, and I wouldn't have chosen it anyway — it's too risky, plus I want to live life more colorfully and unpredictably. The Path of Body remains — the book I read while practically choking on my own saliva. I just wanted to say, wrap up two immediately, please!
The following week I continued fantasizing about how I'd strike terror into enemies, how girls would hang on me and... how unexpectedly my mother's water broke?!
Well hello new world, be gentler — you're only my second.
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