"One of nature's wonders?" I repeated Aang's comment as we stood in front of the so-called natural marvel.
"It must've changed ownership since I was here," Aang said with a sheepish laugh as we slowly stepped into the Misty Palms Oasis, the location Katara had kindly chosen for her little mini-vacation.
Walking past the ice spring that Aang told us about, we soon made our way to an inn shaped by sand bricks. Aang entered through the tarp first, followed by the rest of us—
"Ptooey!" A sand drifter spat at Sokka in an act of intimidation. Sokka quickly dodged aside, narrowly avoiding getting his clothes dirty. He glanced down at the stain on the ground, then looked back at the drifter with clear annoyance in his eyes.
The drifter responded with a low growl.
Katara pulled him back before Sokka did something... But I wasn't going to let that slide.
Moving swiftly, I appeared in front of the drifter and slammed his head into the wall of the building.
Releasing him, I watched his body slump to the ground, unconscious. His friends reacted immediately, raising their arms in alarm—I shot them a glare and flicked a gold coin into the air.
"Screw off."
The coin clattered down the street as I tossed it away. Almost instantly, their attention snapped to it, and they scrambled after it greedily instead of confronting me.
"Renji..."
"I'm doing them a favor," I said with a shrug toward Katara. "That coin probably costs more than their entire lifetime of scavenging."
Though I did fist-bump Toph, who shot a smirk at me.
"Well, I don't see anything wrong with consuming a nice, fruity beverage while we talk strategy..." Sokka said, stroking his chin as he stared at the fruit juice a man had ordered, drool already forming at the corner of his mouth. "One mango, please! For each of us!"
Walking toward the bar, the man who had just ordered suddenly spun around and accidentally bumped into Aang, spilling his drink from the ice bowl onto Aang's clothes.
"O-Oh, my apologies—"
The man tried to apologize, but Aang only gave him a smile. "No worries, I clean up easily."
"Aang, wait—" I started, but it was too late.
Aang Bent the air around him, instantly drying his clothes.
"... You shouldn't do such a thing out in the open."
The man gasped, staring at Aang's display of skill with sudden reverence. "... You're a living relic!"
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Paying for the drinks, everyone grabbed an ice bowl for themselves as we moved to a table where the man hailing from Ba Sing Se University, called Professor Zei, unrolled a map that he personally hand-drawn.
Scanning through the map, Sokka groaned. "What? No Fire Nation? Doesn't anybody have a good map of that place?"
I glanced over his shoulder. Looks like even the famed university in Ba Sing Se didn't have an exact map of the Fire Nation, with the map revealing only a rough, bird's-eye sketch of the land with little detail.
Still, that's better than whatever we had; a little information was better than having none.
Katara leaned over, tracing the trails through the nearby desert. "You've made a lot of trips to the desert."
"All in vain, I'm afraid," Professor Zei said, his tone wavering slightly.
"I've found lost civilizations all across the Earth Kingdom. Notable ones include Emperor Zhan's tomb from a few centuries back." I hummed at that—it was in the history textbooks.
"But I haven't managed to discover the crown jewel of the Earth Kingdom's legacy..."
"The Library of Wan Shi Tong."
"It's just a myth," Toph interjected, sipping her bowl of fruit juice with her legs on the table. I gently pushed them back onto the ground as I continued. "He who knows ten thousand things—everyone in the Earth Kingdom knows that it's just a fairy tale."
"You two, seriously..." Katara began, ready to apologize for her friends' words, but Professor Zei only chuckled.
"All myths must come from somewhere," he said. "As a wise historian once said, 'Myths are simply stories about truths we've forgotten.' And I truly believe the Library exists!"
... I felt a sense of déjà vu as he continued with feverish interest.
"It is said to contain a vast collection of knowledge. Some have even said that the entire history of the world, even the birth of our planet, is stored in the Library, waiting for us to discover!"
Toph just stared at him with a deadpanned expression. "Yeah... Sure."
"Wan Shi Tong and his knowledge seekers collected books from all over the world and put them on display for all of mankind to read, hoping that we might better ourselves through the knowledge of both the past and the present."
"If this place has books from all over the world," Sokka mused aloud. "Do you think they'd have information on the Fire Nation? A map or something?"
"I couldn't say." The professor shook his head. "But if such information exists, I have little doubt it can be found in Wan Shi Tong's Library."
Sokka fell silent for a moment before his eyes lit up.
Snapping his fingers, he moved behind Aang and began massaging his shoulders.
"Aang," he said smoothly, "I believe it's my turn to pick our next mini-vacation destination, and... I'd like to spend it at the LIBRARY!"
"Hey, what about me?" Toph raised a finger. "When do I get to pick?"
"Cough—me too—cough," I added helpfully.
"You've got to work a bit longer before you're qualified for vacation time."
"Of course," Professor Zei turned with a troubled expression. "There's the matter of finding it. I've made several trips into the Zi Huang desert, each attempt almost dying. I'm afraid to say this, but that desert is impossible to cross on foot."
Everyone gave each other a look.
"Professor, would you like to see our sky bison?"
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"Sand Benders, huh?"
I wondered, staring out at the endless sea of orange stretching to the horizon as Appa carried us west.
"Pretty ingenious, not gonna lie. Using sand as a substitute for wind to fuel their sand yacht."
I turned to Toph. She looked bored out of her mind, gripping my hand tightly as she sat beneath the blazing sun.
"And you said you can't Bend it?"
"I hate sand," she stated flatly. "It makes my Seismic Sense all fuzzy, and I can't get proper footing when I try to Earth Bend."
That was fair.
"Well, you're not the only one. It's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere."
I paused... Huh. Where did that come from?
Weird.
"Down there! What's that?"
Sokka's voice rang out from the front of the saddle. I looked up to see him peering through his telescope, pointing at something below.
Soon, Aang guided Appa down to investigate the strange brick tower peeking out from the sea of sand.
"Forget it. It's obviously not what we're looking for." Katara held up the illustration of the library. "The building in this drawing is enormous. This is just some random tower—"
"Katara."
I pointed toward the very top of the illustration.
"Look again."
She frowned and followed my finger.
Then her eyes widened.
"Oh."
"No," Sokka denied her earlier claim, pointing at the top of the tower and back to the illustration. "Look."
It was completely identical.
We all turned to stare at the tower protruding from the sand.
"It's completely buried."
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NEXT UPDATE: 10 July, Friday
A/N: Ahem. So...
I was busy completing the outstandings from my part-time jobs after finishing my last assignment for the semester. And since I'm working two part-time jobs at once... I didn't have enough time to post, let alone write.
Schedule should be back to normal now... unless something like a fire breaks out again on a nearby house (I won't get into details, but a large fire happened near my house a few days ago. That was a process.)
P.S. We hit the target of 5 new paid Patrons AGAIN, so that means another bonus chapter! I haven't made the poll to decide what fanfic this specific one will be updated yet, but stay tuned for the bonus chapters!
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